{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76595/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76595","id":"gutenberg_76595","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76595","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Category: Politics","United States -- Civilization"],"text":"PLATO\u2019S AMERICAN\n                                REPUBLIC\n\n\n\n\n                            PLATO\u2019S AMERICAN\n                                REPUBLIC\n\n                        Done out of the original\n                                   by\n                            DOUGLAS WOODRUFF\n\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\n                      \u201c_fidelia vulnera amantis_\u201d\n\n\n                                New York\n                         E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n                            681 Fifth Avenue\n\n\n\n\n                            COPYRIGHT, 1926\n                       BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n\n                         _All Rights Reserved_\n\n                   First Printing        August, 1926\n                   Second Printing      October, 1926\n                   Third Printing       January, 1927\n                   Fourth Printing        March, 1927\n\n\n                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n                                  _TO\n                              M. C. HOLLIS\n                                  AND\n                            M. J. MACDONALD_\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                    BOOK                        PAGE\n                      I. WOMEN, CARS, AND MEN      1\n                     II. GOVERNMENT               18\n                    III. PUBLIC OPINION           36\n                     IV. PROHIBITION              53\n                      V. EDUCATION                71\n                     VI. AMERICA AND ENGLAND      93\n\n\n\n\n                            PLATO\u2019S AMERICAN\n                                REPUBLIC\n\n\n\n\n                                 BOOK I\n\n                         _Scene: Athens, 1925_\n\n                   SOCRATES (THE NARRATOR); AGATHON;\n                             LYSIS; PHAELON\n\n\nWe were sitting on the pavement in our usual way, considering all\nthings, and examining into them one at a time. There were with me Lysis\nand his younger brother Phaelon, two youths whom I loved for their\ninquiring dispositions and habit of always asking why. As we were\nsitting there we suddenly saw Agathon approaching, and called to him\nto join us. When we had made room for him he turned to me and said:\n\u2018Listen, Socrates, to a strange thing which happened to me to-day as\nI was going down to the Pir\u00e6us. For I now work, as you know, in the\nGovernment, and to-day a stranger came up to me outside my office,\nproposing to buy the Parthenon and all the buildings on the Acropolis\nand remove them to his own land, and re-erect them there.\u2019\n\n\u2018Truly a strange way of honouring the Athenians,\u2019 I said.\n\n\u2018I think,\u2019 answered Agathon, \u2018that it was less his idea to honour the\nAthenians than to make his own countrymen pay him many _denarii_ to\nbehold the sight.\u2019 \u2018And did he wish to buy the hill as well as the\nbuildings on it?\u2019 \u2018Why no,\u2019 answered Agathon, \u2018for he spoke as one\nmost ignorant, but he guessed that there were as good hills in his own\ncountry, which he explained was also the particular residence of the\nGods.\u2019 \u2018Without doubt he was an American,\u2019 I exclaimed.\n\nAt this word \u2018American\u2019 the two young men leaned forward eagerly, and\nPhaelon said:\u2015\u2015\n\n\u2018Tell us, Socrates, have you ever lectured in America?\u2019\n\n\u2018How not?\u2019 said I.\n\n\u2018And did you like the Americans?\u2019 asked Lysis. \u2018Tell us what manner\nof people they are. For we have heard many stories of them. For\nThrasymachus tells us that he has nowhere been so well received. And\nhe, you know, has lectured in all the lands he could. But, he says\nthat where in other countries he received nothing but kindness, in\nAmerica he received a great many dollars as well. And he says that he\nis convinced that the Gods have emigrated and made it their country,\nand that, when it has improved a little more, he also will follow the\nexample of the Gods. But Glaucon says just the opposite, maintaining\nthat as the Americans are the farthest away of all the barbarians\nfrom Athens and civilization, so are they without any doubt the most\ncompletely barbarian. Tell us, therefore, what is true about the\nAmericans, for at your lectures you must have seen and questioned them\nall.\u2019\n\nAt this Agathon, who had been trying to repress his laughter since\nfirst Lysis had spoken of my lecture-tour, became redder than ever\nin the face, and finally burst out saying: \u2018Yes, indeed, Socrates is\nthe best person to give you a faithful picture, if he is sufficiently\nmaster of himself and a true lover of wisdom.\u2019\n\n\u2018Go on,\u2019 I said, \u2018and make your meaning clearer and cease to bewilder\nthe young.\u2019 For I knew what Agathon had in his mind to tell them.\n\n\u2018Why, then, Lysis and Phaelon,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018you must forgive\nSocrates if he looks like a sheep while I am speaking shamefully of\nhim, as I intend to do. But the truth is that his lectures were much\nless successful than were those of his wife Xantippe. There were, it is\ntrue, many Americans who had heard of Socrates, whose name is painted\nup on the walls of many of their libraries, and these came to look at\nhim. But he is not a great spectacle to behold, and when he spoke they\nfound he was not interested in any of the things which they desired to\nknow, such as the art of succeeding in the world and the other things\nwhich the sophists profess to teach. Whereas Xantippe spoke to the\nwomen, praising women and declaring them to be the moral leaders of\nthe community, and demanding for them the chief voice in ordering the\naffairs of the city.\u2019\n\n\u2018Go on to the end, my good Agathon,\u2019 said I, \u2018for I know you will not\nbe able to sleep unless you also tell them how I came to see the Middle\nWest.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 he said, \u2018it was in my mind to tell them that also. Xantippe\u2019s\nbest lecture, which she gave more than two hundred times, was on the\nmanagement of the home and the husband, and in this lecture poor\nSocrates was made to assist. For in no other way could he hope to\nsee the most powerful and strange region of America, which in their\ndialect they term the Middle West. It was also the only way he could\never pay his passage back to Athens. Many of the women who had read\nthe teachings of a local sage, Emerson, spoke kindly to Socrates and\ninquired his angle on the beautiful, as though he had been Euclid.\nBut Xantippe showed him to them as an example of the mismanaged home,\nblaming the spirit of Athens which did not give her authority enough,\nand warning the women of America to take care lest their menfolk should\nbecome too much like Socrates. But this danger they did not seem to\nthink imminent.\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed,\u2019 said Phaelon, \u2018you endured much, Socrates.\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed he did, for Xantippe praised the women of America and the\nwomen of America praised Xantippe, and with each exchange of flattery\nthey became more boastful and reckless. At all such gatherings the\nAmericans, especially the women, expect to hear themselves praised.\nIndeed, that people is like a Persian monarch, for all who approach\nand speak to them desire gifts from them and endeavour to recommend\nthemselves by flattery. Before half her tour was over Xantippe was\nopenly saying that there were no truer lovers of the good than her\naudience in the whole world, and that they did quite right to be well\nsatisfied with themselves and to have nothing to do with humility and\nnot to believe it possible they were mistaken in what they thought\nto be the proper objects of the soul\u2019s desire. And in particular she\npraised them for their refusal to believe there was anything requiring\ndeep thought in philosophy or in public life, saying that people\nso wise and good did right to trust to their first impressions of\neverything. Then she told them that the idea that there was anything\ndifficult and mysterious in life was only fit for people like\nSocrates, who were unfit for anything but philosophy. And she explained\nthat the reason that more thinking was done in Europe, and that there\nwas more philosophical discussion there, was that people had so much\ntime on their hands while waiting for their passports to the United\nStates. For these passports, she said, are as long in coming as a\nconclusion is in the chatterings of Socrates and his friends, and the\nEuropeans spend the time in philosophy hoping to learn resignation\nand the acceptance of one\u2019s destiny. Because more and more often the\npassport is in the end refused, and nowhere more often than among the\nGreeks. She is already full with engagements for such addresses for the\nnext two years.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 I replied, \u2018I am glad I went there. For as the silent butt of\nXantippe\u2019s scorn I was free to turn my attention wholly to the strange\nplaces we visited. And in particular I satisfied to the full my desire\nto see and study a Woman\u2019s Club, than which I had not been able to\nimagine anything more unnatural.\u2019\n\n\u2018Tell us,\u2019 said they both, \u2018about a Woman\u2019s Club.\u2019\n\n\u2018If I did,\u2019 said I with a smile, \u2018I do not think you would believe me.\nBut you would say that in America I had indulged myself too freely in\npotent distillations of the tail of the cock, and spoke the thing\nwhich was not.\u2019\n\n\u2018Oh no, Socrates,\u2019 exclaimed Phaelon, \u2018for I have often heard the\nAmericans spoken of before, and I know about the women who rule the men\nin the valley of the great river. The river is the Amazon, the greatest\nof all American rivers, and the inhabitants are called Amazons. Do I\nnot understand rightly?\u2019\n\n\u2018Not quite rightly,\u2019 put in Agathon, \u2018for the Amazon River is in\nanother America altogether, and the chief rivers where Socrates was\nare the Mississippi and the Missouri, named, I believe, after the two\nfirst women who tamed their menfolk, the one her husband, the other her\nfather.\u2019\n\n\u2018You should also tell them, Agathon, should you not, that the method\nof domination is different, and that, whereas the Amazons triumphed by\nskill in arms and valour, the American women triumph by something more\nlasting and stronger than physical force. They have managed to make the\nmen believe that they are superior and ought to be obeyed.\u2019\n\n\u2018How so?\u2019 said Lysis. \u2018Is it in fact true that they are superior?\u2019\n\n\u2018My answer will surprise you perhaps,\u2019 I replied, \u2018but I will answer\nboldly and say, Yes, if it is a better thing to be alive than dead,\nwhich, as I have said elsewhere, is not a thing we can decide. But it\nis certain that in America the women are more alive than the men. For\nthe men work so hard that they kill themselves, and are so busy while\nliving that they have no time for the proper business of life.\u2019\n\n\u2018They must work, must they not,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018in order to obtain the\nleisure for philosophy and public life, for I have heard that they have\nno slaves, and no class beneath the men, and if they did not work they\nwould starve.\u2019\n\n\u2018Listen,\u2019 I said, \u2018and learn how little you yet understand about\nthe character of this extraordinary people, the most extraordinary,\nas I believe, that has yet appeared upon the face of the earth. For\nif you see men engaging of their own will in the most heavy and\ndegrading employments of commerce, long after they have accumulated for\nthemselves and their families not a sufficiency only but an extreme\nabundance both of those things that may be called necessities and those\nthat are plainly luxuries, can anything be said of such men except that\nthey are either ignoble in their own souls and ignorant of the true\nnature of what is good, or else that they are acting in obedience to\nthe orders of some tyrant, and are, in fact, not freemen at all, but\nslaves?\u2019\n\n\u2018Assuredly,\u2019 they said, \u2018they must be one or the other.\u2019\n\n\u2018Or both,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I agreed, \u2018that was well added by Agathon, for we must not\nforget the influence of religion which even tyrants can modify only\nthrough slow degrees. But as religion is the manifestation of the\nsoul\u2019s nature, if we find the religion of these people compelling them\nto lead the life they do, shall we not justly decide that there is\nin their souls an ignorance of what is truly good? Now I say that in\nreligion they are followers of Pythagoras without rightly understanding\nhis doctrine, and that they are to be numbered among the worshippers of\nthe Sacred Number.\u2019\n\n\u2018Without doubt,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018the Sacred Number is Number One, which\nhas long been the favourite among mankind.\u2019\n\n\u2018You are wrong,\u2019 said I, \u2018and you must not think that the Americans\nare in general more selfish than other men. I think that the opposite\nis the case, and that nowhere on earth, not even among the Athenians,\nis there so much fellow-feeling and willingness to help combined with\nso much competitiveness and so great a desire to excel in contests.\nNo, the number is the symbol _n_, or whatever you choose that denotes\nthe greatest quantity. For they pay a most special and devout worship\nto a strange god whom they call Progress, and whose will they declare\nit to be that there shall be made as great a number as possible of all\nobjects that men make, but principally of the machines that are called\n\u201cautos\u201d or \u201ccars,\u201d which move men quickly from place to place.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is often a fine thing to go quickly from place to place,\u2019 said\nLysis.\n\n\u2018Why, yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018and in addition the control of these machines\ngives great joy to the Americans. So that it may well happen that they\nwill live altogether in their cars. For at present they must endeavour\nto find some place in the city where they can leave their car while\nthey go to an office, and he who is successful in doing this is said to\nhave parked his car, and is held in honour. And as among many peoples\na youth is not granted the dignity of manhood until he has slain an\nenemy, so among the Americans must he first prove himself by parking a\ncar.\u2019\n\n\u2018They would become men sooner if theirs was the old test of slaying a\nman, would they not?\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018for that requires but little skill\nin controlling cars and a stout heart is alone sufficient.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018and it is my belief that the present state of\naffairs cannot endure and that to park will soon be beyond the wit of\nany save a true philosopher, who will guard his place by his presence\nupon it night and day. So did Diogenes preserve his claim to the spot\nwhere he parked his tub. For the truth can be considered in any place,\nas I observed to the traffic-policemen in New York, who objected to my\nexamination of Glaucon in Broadway. But for the ordinary Americans,\nI think, there is no solution except the abolition of offices and\nthe transaction of all business in cars. They will equip their cars\nas offices and drive from their homes to the market-place. These\ncar-offices will enjoy all the space that is at present filled with\nbuildings. When their cars are so fitted as to take all the papers of\ntheir business, they can work freely on the journeys out and home,\ndictating to their clerks as they go. Nor will it much surprise me if\nthe private home is abolished to give place to the residential car\nso that the American soul may find a final happiness, and men may be\nborn in cars and live and wed and die in them, and be cremated in the\nengine, without ever having to put a foot on the ground. And so will\narise a new race to take the place of the centaurs of old. For, as the\ncentaurs were half men and half horses, so will these be half men and\nhalf motor-cars. And it would seem that of such a race the natural\nsustenance would be alcohol. So, at least, the future appears to me, or\ndo you not think so, Agathon?\u2019\n\n\u2018No\u2019, he said.\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 I replied, \u2018you may be right. It may happen that everybody\nwill be run over in the next few years, which will disprove all our\nprophecies and speculations.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 he said, \u2018that is much more likely.\u2019\n\n\u2018But I think,\u2019 I continued, \u2018that we will say that whether or not the\nAmericans remain in their cars, we for our part will have nothing to do\nwith them, but rather regard them as a vexatious interruption of right\nliving, and in particular as a great distraction in the search for\ntruth. And we will refuse to sit ourselves down as the Americans love\nto do and start the machinery and follow whithersoever the car leads.\nFor do you notice how we have wandered out of our course, as generally\nhappens with these machines, and have quite forgotten the original\nthread of our discourse and the question why the Americans worship this\nstrange god Progress, making an incantation of the name and chanting it\nas if it were an explanation of the way they spend their lives?\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, Socrates,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018most gods are strange, and if they\nwere not strange we should be doubtful if they were gods.\u2019\n\n\u2018True,\u2019 I said, \u2018but there is a strangeness which helps the divine\npart of the soul and a strangeness which oppresses it. If we consider\nthe past fortunes of America we shall see how the worship of theirs\ngrew up. And, to begin with, are not the Americans right when they say\nthat theirs is a great country?\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018it is certainly vast.\u2019\n\n\u2018And rich in the wealth of its agriculture and minerals and so offering\na fair field for endeavour and great rewards for enterprise and skill?\u2019\n\n\u2018Assuredly,\u2019 he said.\n\n\u2018Then we must remember that the Americans are for the most part the\ndescendants of those who left Europe as poor men. And this is true\nwhether we are considering those original Americans of three hundred\nyears ago, or those who went there within the last century, after the\nothers had freed themselves from the tyrant George.\u2019\n\n\u2018Was this George a heavy tyrant?\u2019 asked Lysis, \u2018for tyrant is a harsh\nname, and I have read that the English themselves were always well\npleased with him.\u2019\n\n\u2018I must confess,\u2019 I said, \u2018that he does not appeal much to me. Few\nmen have less resembled the philosopher King. It is plain that reason\nwas weak in his soul, and that he was narrow and obstinate and full\nof craftiness, and that the English only loved him as a check upon\ntheir lesser overlords and as the chief of their nation in their wars\nwith the French, which continued all his reign. And though he did not\nactually oppress the Americans it was not of advantage to them to be\nhis subjects, nor a thing to which they had of necessity to submit.\u2019\n\nHere Lysis looked up, and said: \u2018Tell me, Socrates, do you think they\nregret it now, and that they will soon return to their allegiance to\nKing George\u2019s house, for an English lady told me that it would happen\nvery quickly, the revolt having ended in the muddle America is in now.\u2019\n\n\u2018That word \u201cmuddle\u201d is a favourite with the English,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018And rightly,\u2019 said I, \u2018since our words are to designate the things\namong which we live. I know it is a common view among the English\nthat the Americans will abandon this attempt of theirs to found a new\ncountry, and that after this present President Coolidge they will not\nelect another, but will all pack up and return to the countries from\nwhich they originally came, regretting the increasingly disastrous\nexperiment and going back meekly to their respective kings and rulers,\nand leaving America to the Red Indians and the Buffalos, whose\npolitical life runs more easily. But, for my part, I reject this\nopinion, and believe that the Americans will persevere.\u2019\n\n\u2018I think so, too,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018And so it is important to consider this religious view of theirs about\nProgress. I said that most of the Americans went there in the last\nhundred years and found abundant rewards for work. The great need of\neverybody was that the total wealth should be increased and the country\nrendered fruitful, or in their phrase \u201copened up.\u201d This real occupation\nof America was the great and absorbing business of the Americans, who\nwere not troubled with strong foreign enemies. Their ablest citizens\ndevoted themselves to the pursuit of wealth, and received the public\nadmiration because in general, at that time, the man who enriched\nhimself enriched also everyone else. We must remember that the\nAmericans came from countries where there was a ruling caste to which\nthey did not belong, and from the first they so framed the constitution\nthat it should be clear that the ministers were the servants of the\npeople. While the independence was new and precarious, interest and\nprestige still followed those who transacted the business of the\npeople, but when the novelty had vanished the attention of everybody\nwas turned to developing the estate they had won. No one was willing to\nbe a minister without the wealth and dignity of European rulers, and\npolitical life attracted not the best but the less successful and able\nof the community, and ceased to fire the ambition of the young. For the\nlife of the country was altogether in its economic development and not\nin its political affairs.\u2019\n\nThen Agathon said: \u2018And should you not also say that political life was\nmade harder in America than elsewhere?\u2019\n\n\u2018Assuredly, we should,\u2019 I answered, \u2018for the truth is that this same\nworship of size and numbers that we spoke of before has nowhere hurt\nthe Americans more than in the ordering of their political life. Do you\nremember, Lysis, hearing of a discussion over the ideal State and how\nmany men it was settled should form the State, and what was the number\nbeyond which it was unsafe for a State to grow?\u2019\n\n\u2018Five thousand and forty,\u2019 he said, \u2018is the figure Plato gives.\u2019\n\n\u2018And will it surprise you to learn that the Americans considerably\nexceed that figure?\u2019\n\n\u2018I had suspected as much,\u2019 he replied, \u2018from the crowds of them that\nvisit Athens, for they must leave some of their number behind to\nhold the country, and there must be very many thousands of them to\nprovide all those audiences for Xantippe. And, after all, nobody ever\nquite does what Plato says, not even when he makes you, Socrates, the\nmouthpiece of his views. I will guess two hundred thousand.\u2019\n\n\u2018And what will you say when I tell you that you are yet short of the\nreal number, and that, not to make a long story, the Americans are far\nmore plentiful than the subjects of the Great King himself? There are\nmore than one hundred million Americans.\u2019\n\nAfter a long pause, Phaelon said rather faintly: \u2018Why, Socrates?\u2019\n\n\u2018That,\u2019 I answered, \u2018is known only to the Gods, whose ways are not the\nways of mortals, but certainly they have made this enormous number of\nAmericans and have not stopped yet.\u2019\n\n\u2018No wonder so many of them come to Europe,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018But listen,\u2019 I said, \u2018for the most extraordinary thing is yet to come.\nWhat will you think of such people when I tell you that they endeavour\nto live all under one government and to share one Assembly?\u2019\n\n\u2018Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, sitting up and looking me straight in the face,\n\u2018I do not believe you.\u2019\n\n\n\n\n                                BOOK II\n\n\nI then explained to them as well as I could about the forty-eight\nStates that make up the United States, making it plain that each State\nhad its own government, but that there was also the Federal Government,\nwhich had authority everywhere. And this they understood readily\nenough, for the notion of a federation of communities was familiar to\nthem. I told them briefly of how originally there were North and South,\nand of the Civil War, which was fought to establish the ascendancy\nof the Federal Government, and I made it plain that that ascendancy\nhad grown greater to this day and that the State Governments had\nbecome more and more unimportant. And I did not hide from them that\nthe choosing of parties and policies for the central assembly became\nless and less a thing over which ordinary citizens had any control\nat all, and that nowhere else in the world did the members so chosen\nreceive less respect or less truly represent the people electing them.\n\u2018Yet,\u2019 I said, \u2018the Americans are extremely attached to their Central\nGovernment, far more than they are to the governments of their own\nStates.\u2019\n\nLysis pondered for some moments on these things, and then said: \u2018Was\nthis a great civil war?\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018we Greeks have a high standard for such wars,\nwhen Greek meets Greek. But for barbarians it was a stern struggle.\u2019\n\n\u2018And terrible in its results,\u2019 I said, \u2018as you will agree if you are\nof my opinion that that Civil War was the most disastrous thing in the\nhistory of the Americans, if it fastened on their necks so great a\nmockery of popular government as is their central government.\u2019\n\n\u2018Assuredly they would not have fought for it if they had foreknown the\nfuture,\u2019 he said.\n\n\u2018On the contrary,\u2019 I said, \u2018most of them consider that it was the\nturning point in their history, and they have made their chief hero of\nthe statesman who saved the Union.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018Because being one has made them big and strong, or rather big and\nrich. Because the central government made commerce easier between men\nin different States, and thus assisted the great development of the\ncountry which has marked the years since the Civil War. In particular\nthe victory secured the market of the defeated States for the\nmanufacturers of the North. It is necessary to remember these things,\nfor in America it is the manufacturers and their wives who decide\nwhat other people shall think, for among their other products they\nmanufacture public opinion.\u2019\n\n\u2018Come, Socrates,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018you forget your old friends the\npreachers.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 I replied, \u2018I find the preachers have great influence. Yet they\nonly succeed in those matters where the manufacturers support them,\nthough the union of the two is irresistible.\u2019\n\n\u2018What would happen,\u2019 asked Lysis, \u2018if the preachers wished one thing\nand the manufacturers another?\u2019\n\n\u2018That seldom happens,\u2019 I said. \u2018For the majority of preachers have\nnever been known to wage a campaign against any activities that are\nthought desirable by the men of commerce, such as the prostitution\nof the soul which is called salesmanship, or the concentration upon\nbusiness success which is called \u201cmaking good.\u201d But they attack those\npleasures of ordinary men, like gambling and drinking, which the\nmanufacturers will support them in attacking. For I verily believe\nthey think it worse to be a drunkard than to sell one\u2019s soul for gold.\nNor is it difficult to understand how they have reached even such\nabsurdities as this.\u2019\n\n\u2018We are listening,\u2019 they said.\n\n\u2018Why, they hold that some sins might unfit a man to serve the Gods,\nand in particular the God Progress, for they do not value all the gods\nequally, and to Bacchus they will not agree to pay any honours at all.\nNow, to those who think like that, a man will seem not wholly bad\nthough the reasonable part of his soul be subordinated to a shameless\ndesire for pelf, because such a man can play his part, and, indeed, be\na leader, in that industrial life, walking calmly among the whirring\nwheels and running the machines whose buzz they consider a perpetual\nsong of praise to Progress. But a drunkard cannot safely assist at\nthese services.\u2019\n\n\u2018He might,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018if he would not mind being caught up in the\nwheels and immolated as a sacrifice, but I can well believe he sees\nenough things going round as it is without going into factories to see\nmore.\u2019\n\n\u2018So the manufacturers,\u2019 I resumed, \u2018were strongly in favour of this\nCivil War, and the preachers were with them. And these two parties make\nup the minds of millions of people.\u2019\n\n\u2018It must be fine fun, Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018to make up so many minds\nlike that.\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed they find it so, yet they must do it with care, for in many\nmatters they do not have the power of making the Americans think\nabsolutely anything they please, but only the power of making one out\nof several opinions prevail. For they see the American soul like a ship\nwith full-bellied sails, going to one of several harbours, according\nas the winds and currents drive it, and these manufacturers and these\npreachers can decide on the harbour and drive that ship before their\nmighty blasts and blowings, scattering away all contrary winds.\u2019\n\nAt this Lysis looked very thoughtful, and then said slowly: \u2018If they\nhave indeed so much power it must be that there is some correspondence\nin the American soul, and that the manufacturers and the preachers\nare strong in the national life because the manufacturing part of the\nsoul and the preaching part of the soul is strong inside the ordinary\nAmerican. For so you have explained to me that the constitution of a\nState is reflected in the constitution of the souls of its citizens.\u2019\n\n\u2018My excellent Lysis,\u2019 I said, \u2018you have well stated a difficult\ntruth, and much of the power of these people comes from the fact that\nan American thinks he ought to listen to a manufacturer because he\nhimself, in his own soul, thinks highly of manufacturing, and will not\nlisten to a philosopher, thinking meanly of philosophy. So also he\nadmires a preacher, though such are seldom humble and many, indeed, go\nabout bursting with presumption and acting as though they were wiser\nand better than all other men. But there is a further explanation of\ntheir power. These manufacturers and preachers are organized and have\nthe use of money, so that they can pay men to write and repeat the same\nthings over and over again, till the Americans, from seeing and hearing\nthem so often, assume that they are true.\u2019\n\nThen Lysis said: \u2018Has the strengthening of this power, Socrates, been\nthe worst of the evils that resulted from the Civil War?\u2019\n\n\u2018Many and heavy have been the ills,\u2019 said I, \u2018resulting from that\ncontest and the views dictated by the North.\u2019\n\n\u2018There are those,\u2019 Agathon said, \u2018who say that all that has happened\nwould have happened without the Civil War.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018but we cannot pretend to know that. And so I am content\nto look at what has taken place and to trace how events have helped\neach other without following such writers into the marshes and bogs of\nhypothetical imaginings. Now it seems to me that the Civil War gave\nthe death stroke to their political life, for it made the central\ngovernment supreme over the states at the same time as it made the\ninterests of commerce predominant over the central government.\u2019\n\n\u2018Explain to us, Socrates,\u2019 they said, as I was expecting they would.\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018you can easily understand that the war strengthened the\ncentral government, giving it new duties and new powers, and fixing all\nmen\u2019s eyes upon it, and accustoming them to think its needs and acts of\ngreater importance than the concerns of their own localities.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 they said.\n\n\u2018And if that very war is in support of the government\u2019s claim to\nauthority and is waged successfully, must not the prestige of that\ngovernment be established, and that of the smaller governments\ndiminished?\u2019\n\n\u2018It must,\u2019 they assented.\n\n\u2018Now, do you think,\u2019 I asked, \u2018that an ordinary man will be able to\nunderstand or even to follow questions of policy, especially when he is\nfar away from the place of government and is absorbed in the pursuit of\nhis private gain?\u2019\n\n\u2018Assuredly not.\u2019\n\n\u2018And that in proportion as America has increased in size and wealth\neach citizen has less and less felt able to take part in the\ngovernment, or even to weigh and judge of the opinions of the other\ncitizens when there are so many of them. For most citizens know only a\nsmall part of their enormous country. And so most of them do not follow\nthe questions of the public interest and act a part in political\nlife, which has become in their country a trade like any other. And\nas all traders must keep the goodwill of the public, so especially\nmust those who provide administration. But the need for goodwill is\nnot a great check in any trade where competition is weak, and two\nconcerns have a monopoly and can sell what article they like and call\nit administration. Furthermore, this war left strong feelings so that\nmen stood firmly by their parties, and it kept floating in the air many\nfine names like \u201cAmerican\u201d and \u201cRepublican,\u201d and \u201cUnion,\u201d in which\nthe men of commerce who desired to run the government could dress\nthemselves up. For it is difficult for such men themselves to invent\nnames which arouse emotion, and yet they do not dare to call things by\ntheir true names and show themselves as they are. But the memories of\nthe war made a grand cloak for their business purposes.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018I am beginning to see how their power was riveted\non the necks of the Americans, when they had all those powerful words\nat their disposal.\u2019\n\n\u2018At the very time,\u2019 I said, \u2018that they were making those railways\nof theirs and were determined to control the public treasury. And,\nmoreover, does it not follow that power will belong to whoever can\npersuade the Americans that popular opinion is with him and that, the\nlarger the number and the area, the greater the power of those who are\nrich and can pay for propaganda?\u2019\n\n\u2018What exactly is propaganda?\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018It is, with advertising, the chief curse of the Americans, and may,\nindeed, be described as political advertising. For never in the history\nof the world has there been so wonderful a field for the skilful\npersuader as are these modern democracies, where all the people can\nread and very few of them can think. All are secretly uncertain of\nthemselves, and in America more so than elsewhere, and look to see\nwhat their neighbours are thinking and desire to be counted among the\nmajority. For nothing is stronger in America than this desire to belong\nto the majority and to say \u201cWe think\u201d or \u201cWe feel.\u201d And it is natural\nfor business men to be timid, for their business depends upon the good\nopinion of others, and so it is that business men very easily become\nhypocrites. I believe myself the American men do not mind dying since\nit means joining the great majority.\u2019\n\n\u2018And one ever growing greater,\u2019 added Agathon.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018but they will not enjoy Hades, where time is not money\nany more, and no one but Charon has any wealth, so that the most\nforward salesmanship will be in vain.\u2019\n\n\u2018Poor Americans,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018they will feel very lost.\u2019\n\n\u2018They will understand giving a sop to Cerberus,\u2019 said Agathon; \u2018it will\nbe like their own politics. And they will like the crowds.\u2019\n\n\u2018Come, my good friends,\u2019 I said, \u2018cease to tarry with the Americans in\nHades, and let me resume my tale of their earthly misfortunes.\u2019\n\n\u2018Pray do so, Socrates,\u2019 they said.\n\n\u2018Then I will say,\u2019 I resumed, \u2018that the second great disaster of that\nwar has been this: that by the mechanism of the Constitution (to use\na phrase often in their mouths, by which they mean that the laws made\nfor other times and conditions produce different and strange results\nto-day), the opinions and ideas of one part of the country become the\nlaws that are to be obeyed by all the parts. For it is the people of\nthe North spreading westward to the great rivers that have built up in\nthe great agricultural plains the growing empire of the Middle West,\nof which we spoke earlier, where the preachers and manufacturers have\nmost power of all, having secured the ear of the women. Except for an\naccident once or twice the same party has been in power ever since the\nwar, and that is the party of the North and the manufacturers, and the\nSouth have hardly more voice in the central government than if they\nwere frankly governed as subjects.\u2019\n\n\u2018What sort of people were these in the South?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018The best of them were the very best sort of barbarians,\u2019 I replied,\n\u2018and the nearest to civilization of all the Americans.\u2019\n\n\u2018But they are from Ethiopia, are they not?\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018for I have\nheard men whistling in the streets of Athens songs in which the singer\npraises the blackness of his lover\u2019s or mother\u2019s face and these songs\nare what men sing in these Southern States.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018can you not guess the explanation, for indeed it is\nnot difficult? These Southerners had black slaves. Indeed, the war was\nlargely caused by that.\u2019\n\n\u2018How,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018Why, among barbarians it is not natural that one man should serve\nanother, for all are slaves by nature. And, in general all are slaves\nto one despot, as among the Persians. Now in America the northern\nbarbarians were angry that the Southerners were served by Ethiopians,\nwhom they declared to be in all respects the equals of the whites. And\nwhen they won the doubtful struggle, they wrote in their Constitution\nthat that was so. For they believe they can change the nature of things\nby changing that Constitution of theirs. But, indeed, they have made\nmuch less difference than they think, and freed individuals rather\nthan the race itself, and the chief part of the Ethiopians, and, as I\nbelieve, the happiest, are those serving in the fields and households\nof the South. For, if you do not pursue the life of reason as only the\nfew can do, it is better to serve a man pursuing, even faintly, that\nlife than to pass your days in the fever of petty trading. But these\nNortherners came from aristocratic countries where they had suffered\nthe insolence of aristocrats, and did not understand rightly about\npersonal dignity. For they are filled with pride against personal\nservice, being full of self-assertion towards individuals and of\nslavishness towards public opinion. Whereas, rightly, a man should not\nthink himself lowered by any useful service to a good man, supposing he\nshould meet with one, but should feel it extreme degradation to hand\nover his soul to the keeping of the crowd. Or does it not seem so to\nyou?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, yes, Socrates,\u2019 answered Agathon; \u2018I can see these Northerners\nwere the most unsuitable people possible to have a voice in the\nordering of the South.\u2019\n\n\u2018However,\u2019 I said, \u2018it has happened now, and the Southerners were\nall rendered poor by the exhaustion of the struggle, so that sheer\nnecessity has changed the character of southern life. But they still\ncontinue to show great understanding, for people who are not Greeks.\nThey measure things by other standards than quantity, and they do not\nthink meanly of leisure. But their glories they have left upon the\nfield of battle.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018and though they were able to prevent the North\nfrom dictating to them how they should live, they have been unable to\ndo the great work they were needed to do. For nothing else could check\nthe Middle West when that grew strong.\u2019\n\n\u2018I agree with you, Agathon,\u2019 I said, \u2018and now the standards of the\nmanufacturers spread steadily through the whole country. That was the\nthird disaster, and there still remains a fourth.\u2019\n\n\u2018Tell us, then,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018about the fourth disaster which, as it\nseems, this unfortunate Civil War has caused.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018did we not say that it had fixed the attention of\neverybody upon the central or federal government?\u2019\n\n\u2018We did.\u2019\n\n\u2018And made them cease to think of themselves as members of this state\nor that, but rather as Americans.\u2019\n\n\u2018Assuredly.\u2019\n\n\u2018But if the North had failed to impose unity, not the Southern States\nonly but in all probability the Northern ones also would have been\nvirtually independent of each other, and only joined to one another in\nsome kind of League such as we Greeks are used to. North America would\nhave resembled South America, but I think there would have been even\nmore complete peace among the North American States than among those of\nSouth America.\u2019\n\n\u2018Certainly,\u2019 Agathon said, \u2018they live with the Canadians in great and\nstriking amity. But they do not believe their condition would have been\none to envy.\u2019\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 I said, \u2018probably all sorts of other misfortunes would have\nvisited them. But they cannot really expect anything else, it being the\nnature of barbarians to incur disasters. We, however, are considering\ntheir actual ills to-day. Can they deny that they would have been saved\nfrom that glorification of strength which is a fatal temptation to\ngreat and powerful peoples, and never more than when they are unchecked\nby the presence of strong neighbours?\u2019\n\n\u2018They cannot deny it, Socrates,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018As it is, must we not say the size of their political unit has done\ngreat harm to the American soul? For every number that is sufficiently\nlarge is to them a magical number, and the Americans come easily to\nbelieve that everything they think or do must be right because there\nare so many of them thinking or doing it. And most of all do they tend\nto think that they cannot have anything to learn from foreign nations\nbecause America is bigger.\u2019\n\n\u2018Are there really far more Americans than other people?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 I said, \u2018there are, in fact, far more Chinamen than there are\nAmericans\u2015\u2015but they say that there is another test of superiority\nbesides size.\u2019\n\n\u2018And what is that?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018Speed.\u2019\n\n\u2018How?\u2019\n\n\u2018The speed,\u2019 I explained, \u2018with which the size is attained. And they\nsay they are greatly superior to the Chinese in speed of development,\nand this claim I believe to be true.\u2019\n\nLysis nodded his head slowly from side to side and said: \u2018Indeed,\nSocrates, the ills affecting the Americans seem to be many and heavy.\u2019\n\n\u2018But worse,\u2019 I said, \u2018is to come, unless they will change altogether\nand abandon their pride and listen meekly to the philosophers.\u2019\n\n\u2018How, Socrates?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018they are doomed to frustration, for the opportunities\nof wealth are not infinite. And at first it was reasonable to encourage\nmen of business that the resources of the land might be organized,\nbut when that has been done there begins a struggle among the people\nfor the largest share of the resources. And, in the end, that phase\nalso passes and the game is played out and the different resources are\ncontrolled by different groups of men. No newcomers can fight against\nthem, and the young men must be content to serve these groups, finding\ntheir reward in promotion and pay as though they were soldiers, as in a\nmanner they are. And these promotions also grow rigid and mechanical in\ntime. And great wealth is then only to be won in some strange and lucky\nway, and the battle for the market grows keener, and the cleverest men\ndevote themselves to what they call progressive advertising, and the\n\u201cProblem of Salesmanship.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u2018What is progressive advertising?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018It is arousing the widest possible sense of want.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is the Problem of Salesmanship?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018It is how best to mislead people about their own desires; persuading\nthem to give their time and strength and money to obtain something they\ndo not at all need, thus making them the instruments of your private\ngain.\u2019\n\nPhaelon at once demanded: \u2018And do they kill the salesman who does this?\u2019\n\n\u2018By the pillars of Hercules, no! they use the gold of the public\ntreasury to teach it in their schools, for they think that all men\nshould learn to prey upon one another in this way, deceiving and doing\nharm to one another with their tongues.\u2019\n\n\u2018It seems to me, Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018that these people spend their\nenergies in many strange and doubtful ways.\u2019\n\n\u2018They do, indeed,\u2019 I assented.\n\n\u2018And they have so much energy,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018It is stupendous,\u2019 I said. \u2018When I went to Niagara Falls an American\nsaid it made him sad that so much power was going to waste that might\nbe made productive. And I replied that I felt in that manner about\nthe vast energies of the people, for if they could be harnessed to\nthe problems of philosophy much knowledge might result. For if we\ncould have the energy pure without any of the American nature fixing\nits character, armed with so powerful a tool we could clear up many\ndoubtful speculations. But he seemed to think I wanted everybody to\nbusy themselves with serious questions, though the thoughts of such\npeople would, of course, be useless, and he recommended me to take\nmy proposition to an editor of a magazine, for he said that he \u201chad\na hunch philosophy might catch on, seeing the success of those other\nword-puzzle crazes.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u2018It was lucky for him, Socrates,\u2019 exclaimed Lysis \u2018that you are so\npatient with fools. Did you reason with him?\u2019\n\n\u2018I attempted it,\u2019 I replied. \u2018But he said he had no time to reason\nand that if he once began he would never \u201cmake good.\u201d And in that, at\nleast, I agreed with him.\u2019\n\n\u2018And you were not angry with him at all, O excellent Socrates,\u2019\nexclaimed Lysis.\n\n\u2018Pity,\u2019 I answered, \u2018and not anger, was what I felt, for I knew that\nhe had not a free mind of his own, but was, like most things in\nthat country, the result of what they proudly call \u201cmass production\nmanufacture.\u201d\u2019\n\n\n\n\n                                BOOK III\n\n\n\u2018Then tell me, Socrates, do you consider the Americans to be free?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, no,\u2019 I said, \u2018they are the least free of all the peoples of the\nearth. For they live under a tyrant, and one not a whit more merciful\nthan was Procrustes. For Procrustes forced all over whom he could\nobtain power to become standardized, fitting them to that bed of his\nand lopping off the feet of those that were too long, but racking and\nstretching the limbs of those that were too short, so that the bodies\nof all should conform to the same mould. But the tyrant who rules the\nAmericans\u2015\u2015or all whom he can master\u2015\u2015is worse than Procrustes, for he\nseeks to fashion and control not the body, as is the way of ordinary\ntyrants, but the soul itself. He standardizes their souls wherever he\nis strong.\u2019\n\n\u2018Truly a terrible tyrant,\u2019 said Lysis; \u2018who and what is he?\u2019\n\n\u2018His title,\u2019 I said, \u2018is Public Opinion, or the Opinion of the\nMajority, and he is the offspring of Propaganda.\u2019\n\n\u2018And why,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018do you call that opinion by so harsh a name?\nFor it seems to me that it is more sensible to be ruled by the opinion\nof the majority than by the whim of a single tyrant like most\nbarbarians, or the opinion of the minority like the English.\u2019\n\n\u2018Come,\u2019 I replied, \u2018and let us examine this question together. For does\nit not seem to you probable that men can be ruled by opinion in many\nways and that some ways may well be good but others bad?\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 he said.\n\n\u2018And that there will be a great difference between opinions, since some\nwill really belong to the people who hold them and be indeed a part\nof themselves, while others will be forced upon them from outside and\nwill be repeated and acted upon through fear, and so far from being an\nexpression of the soul of him who utters them, they will act as a great\nblanket stifling the breath of the soul and killing it and making the\nman an automaton and a slave and not a reasonable being at all.\u2019\n\n\u2018Certainly,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 I said, \u2018we will leave for the present the discussion of the\nEnglish soul, being careful to return to it later, and that for several\nreasons. For in the first place it is so odd and extraordinary that it\narouses our sense of wonder and we contemplate it without effort, and\nsecondly because it is always necessary to consider the English when we\nconsider the Americans, so great is the effect of the two races upon\neach other. But now we will look as closely as we can into the nature\nof this tyrant, who, as I verily believe, is the chief evil from which\nthe Americans suffer. And I think I shall lead you to agree with me\nwhen we have seen how their past history has made them into a prey for\nsuch a monster.\u2019\n\n\u2018Explain it in your own way,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018so that eventually you\ncome to the point.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018I wish to approach this matter delicately, treading\ncarefully like a scout at night and not rushing forward with great\nshouts, for I do not know how my words may be repeated and printed\nout wrongly in the news-sheets of the Americans. For the Americans\nhave long ears, and hear everything that is said of them. They are\nsensitive people and restive when criticized, and if I speak bluntly,\nas I generally do, there will be many who will refuse hereafter to pay\nattention not to me only, but to Plato and to all the Greeks. And yet\nit is among the Greeks that they find those who can teach them most\nand give them the greatest benefits, explaining to them the principles\nof right living and, in particular, the necessity for examining our\nnotions and for being cautious about declaring that we know things,\nand, above all, for being tolerant of disagreement and discussion.\u2019\n\n\u2018The men of Athens,\u2019 said Agathon slyly, \u2018have not always shown you\na proper tolerance, Socrates, and they are your own countrymen. How,\nthen, can you be surprised that the Business Men\u2019s Luncheon Club of\nHootsville, Iowa, was unwilling to hear your doubts, for I know that\nthat experience is what is in your mind.\u2019\n\n\u2018A singular power indeed,\u2019 I exclaimed, \u2018has been given to you, dear\nAgathon, of reading the minds of your friends. But I assure you that\nthere is in my mind at present no such personal recollection. I have\nonly the power to think of one thing at a time and I am now thinking\nthat we shall certainly never finish our inquiry if you keep laughing\nto yourself in this way in order to make Lysis curious over the\nincidents of my lecturing tour.\u2019\n\nHere Lysis intervened in a charming manner, and said to me: \u2018Let him\ntell us the story, Socrates, for I can see he is dying to do so, and\nI will confess that I want to hear it. And when he has told it he\nshall keep quiet, and you shall unfold to us the nature of this Public\nOpinion. And if he thinks he can make me doubt the wisdom of your talk\nI will tell him at once that he is mistaken, and that we are only\nlistening to him as to a sort of clown.\u2019\n\n\u2018So they spoke of Socrates in Hootsville,\u2019 said Agathon, who then\npulled from his robe what I saw were news cuttings. I remembered the\ngreat collection of such cuttings that Xantippe had made, and sent\nback with some little malice for the Athenians to read, especially of\ncuttings referring in an outspoken manner to myself.\n\nWhen he had refreshed his memory with these, he turned to Lysis and\nsaid:\u2015\u2015\n\n\u2018You must understand, Lysis, that our friend here has a different view\nof time from that held by the Americans. For he lives in a leisurely\nway and is never hurried even in the pursuit of wisdom. But the\nAmericans are hurried in everything they do. They are hurried into the\nworld and they are hurried out again, and all the time it is a rush,\nall crying \u201cStep along there, please!\u201d and the young applying to the\nold their proverb, \u201cPass right along down the car.\u201d No one here has\never told Socrates to step along. Now in nothing are they more hurried\nthan in the pursuit of wisdom and truth. Most of them do not join in\nthe pursuit at all, saying they have no time to spare from the pursuit\nof wealth, but some will give twenty minutes in the week at a luncheon.\nAnd it was at one of these luncheons that Socrates spoke.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is it possible both to eat and to talk in twenty minutes?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018The luncheon lasts a full hour,\u2019 replied Agathon, \u2018but you must\nunderstand that men so busy have much to do in that hour. In the first\nplace they must all keep friends and indulge in friendly feelings\nfor which there is no time in the rest of the day. And so they wear\nthe names by which their close friends call them on a piece of paper\non their garments, so that each friend may remember the special name\nof the other. The branch of commerce to which each one is devoted\nis also printed on the piece of paper or card, for the Americans\nunderstand that friendship consists in the exchange of services. And\nfor this reason they are careful to have only one of each calling in\nthese clubs. But it is furthermore necessary to feel cheerful and\nlight-hearted and to produce that in the hour is not easy. Least of all\nto men who have been deluded into denying themselves those fermented\nbeverages which alone can banish the anxieties of commerce. So these\nmen sing songs as they eat, rising between the mouthfuls to sing\npraises of their club or their town, or sometimes to sing tenderly of\ntheir mothers, of whom the food before them has caused them to think\nwith longing. Furthermore, there are announcements to be made and\nvisitors and their callings to be proclaimed. For the Americans never\nforget their proverb that friendship leads to business. So you will\nunderstand Socrates hardly had time to make his points, and, whether\nor not it was that no one understood him because to save time they had\nmade him begin while the sweet was being served with much clatter,\nyet it must be admitted that the paper reported it as \u201cconfessedly a\ndisappointment after last week\u2019s slap-up talk on personal contacts in\nbusiness.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u2018Poor Socrates!\u2019 said Lysis; \u2018did no one call yours a slap-up talk?\u2019\n\n\u2018I am afraid not,\u2019 I said, \u2018but then I said things they were not very\neager to hear, and even before I spoke there had been much question\nwhether I should be asked.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018many doubted the propriety of asking him, after a\nlocal minister had declared that our friend was not only a sort of dago\nbut that he was the lowest of crawling creatures, a man who had knocked\nhis own home town, meaning that he had criticized many of the actions\nof the Athenians. But another minister said that he had something in\nhim and was a prominent citizen back in Athens, and had secured a wide\npublicity for his slogan \u201cBoost Knowledge,\u201d though he was mistaken in\nthinking that Socrates had used that actual expression.\u2019\n\n\u2018But what was the address about?\u2019 Lysis demanded.\n\nI answered him: \u2018It was about the place of liberty in the life of the\nState, which they did not seem to me to understand.\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018they soon grow restive if you speak of\nliberty.\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed yes,\u2019 I assented. \u2018And yet two minutes before they had been\nsinging some praises to a sweet land of liberty which was also, as I\nunderstood the words, the home of the brave and free. But when the\nAmericans rejoice that they are free they mean free from King George\nIII. For they are slow in some matters.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is like you Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018to seize hold boldly of this\nquestion of liberty and not to let go but to force them to examine it.\u2019\n\n\u2018My heart had been touched,\u2019 I replied, \u2018by a spectacle which I saw\nwhen first our boat anchored in New York Harbour. There is an island\nthere called Ellis Island, the abode of the rejected of America, where\nI also spent two days. Many emigrants think that they are emigrating\nto the United States when in fact they are emigrating to Ellis Island,\nwhich is not a land of opportunity at all. So there crowd on Ellis\nIsland the wretched people whom America will not accept. Among the\nfigures in that part of the harbour there was one that at once held my\nattention because she was so much greater and nobler than the rest.\nBut she was not allowed on the mainland. Going close to her I saw that\nit was Liberty herself. She also was classed as undesirable. I will\nconfess that I could understand the Amazons of the Mississippi fearing\nher, so great and strong was she, and of such mighty reputation. Her\nplight too was more wretched than that of the others, because they all\nstretched out their hands with longing to the further bank, as the poet\nhas well sung, but with some hope also that there would one day be room\nfor them in the quota. But Liberty had no quota at all.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is this quota?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018The quota, dear Lysis,\u2019 I said, \u2018is another of the mystic numbers\nof the Americans and one that serves their desires. For by means of\nvarying numbers reached in an obscure manner they control the admission\ninto their country in such a manner that very few can come of those\nwho will be likely to resist having their souls made for them, but\na greater number of those who yield easily to Americanization. In\nparticular, is it contrived that hardly any of the Mediterranean\npeoples shall be admitted, for these peoples are the hardest of all to\nAmericanize, as they have lived in civilization for so great a time.\u2019\n\n\u2018I understand,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018But the people who are least unwelcome to-day are the partly civilized\npeoples of North Europe and the British Isles. For these people are not\nso wild as to be dangerous and they have lived in a hard struggle with\nnature which has made material prosperity seem to them an extremely\ngreat thing and one worthy of great efforts. Now material prosperity is\nwhat the Americans offer, and it is the inducement always held out when\nthose who make opinion wish to persuade the populace to any particular\ncourse.\u2019\n\n\u2018But,\u2019 asked Phaelon, \u2018why did you not tell the undesirables what you\nknew about America, so that they would have been glad they had been\nshut out? It does not sound much fun being an alien in America to-day.\u2019\n\n\u2018It would be grievous indeed,\u2019 I said, \u2018did not the aliens live\ntogether in communities, but so banded they maintain their own life\nand reproduce Greece or Italy beyond the seas, as is the purpose of\na colony. And it is a source of merriment to these men to be told to\nthink American thoughts, as the judges say who make them citizens.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018but it is not merriment for their children who\nbecome Americans.\u2019\n\n\u2018They enjoy it,\u2019 I said, \u2018for the children of bad Greeks make good\nAmericans. And bad we must consider the Greeks to be who leave Greece\nand risk their souls in America for the sake of wealth. Such folk do\nnothing to lead the Americans to Greek thought.\u2019\n\n\u2018Being such lovers of profit,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018they are timid and have\nlittle influence.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018but coming from civilization they have characters\nof their own, and are richly individual, for that is the mark of\ncivilization, but having left Greece for gain they have no proper\nsense of being members of a political community, while the Americans\nare filled to excess with that sense. But an alien child brought up in\nAmerica will often be both an individual and a citizen.\u2019\n\nLysis here said: \u2018Might not such an alien child combine the faults\nrather than the virtues of both types?\u2019\n\n\u2018That happens,\u2019 I replied, \u2018and I have great fears for Xantippe\u2019s\nchildren if she keeps them there to be Americanized.\u2019\n\n\u2018I may be a blockhead, Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018but I should like to\nhear you explain much more fully about the strength of the soul when it\nis Americanized.\u2019\n\n\u2018You are prepared to leave the address to the Business Men\u2019s Lunch\nClub, then,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018and follow Socrates on a new path?\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018let us leave the business men. For my part I feel\nfilled with pity for men leading such a life.\u2019\n\n\u2018That is well said, Lysis,\u2019 I replied, \u2018for I, too, loved these men\nand had pity for them, seeing them to work harder than ever during the\nshort hour of refreshment that their code allows them from business. I\ndo not wonder that so many of them drop dead, and I often thought of\nthe captives in the galleys being spurred on to exertions unnatural to\nman.\u2019\n\n\u2018Perhaps,\u2019 said Agathon with a sly look at the other two, \u2018your\nstandard of exertion, Socrates, is lower than that of most men.\u2019\n\n\u2018I know not how it is in your government office, Agathon,\u2019 I replied,\n\u2018but I do not believe you would long survive the pace set in America,\nand, indeed, more and more Americans themselves are becoming sensible\nand ceasing to think a man admirable in proportion as he is always at\nhis business. They have some excellent summer clubs, where they jest\nand play not for one day only but for several weeks. But I was going to\ntell Lysis that I can satisfy both his desire and yours, for if you, O\nAgathon, will tell the substance of my address to those men that will\nalso reveal in what they are lacking, according to my opinion, and in\nwhat they are strong. For they are lacking in reasonableness, and they\nare strong in sociability.\u2019\n\n\u2018Then let me read the report,\u2019 said Agathon, and he read from the\n_Hootsville Courier_ the paragraphs dealing with my address: \u2018\u201cThe\nPresident of the Club introduced the speaker as one who had made\ngood in his own line, and though it was not their own line, they\nwelcomed success wherever they saw it (_applause_). The visitor, as he\nunderstood it, was a specialist in truth and goodness, and would no\ndoubt give Hootsville some useful tips. If he, the speaker, understood\ntheir visitor\u2019s vocation he was a person you went to consult if you\nbecame doubtful about your religion or your politics and he would make\nyou more doubtful still (_laughter_). Fortunately, no one in Hootsville\nwas troubled with any doubts, and he must say he could not see how\ntheir visitor would fit into the life there. Still it was a big world,\nand they could not all live in Iowa. He confessed that he had not known\nabout the visitor till the question of this address was brought up,\nbut since then had looked up his record and, from the reports of the\ndebates that he had seen in the Plato publications, he had no doubt\nthat their visitor had the best of his discussions back in Athens and\nhad hit a home run every time. They welcomed him as a man who had won\nsomething, even if it was only an argument (_great applause_). That was\nwhat appealed to him, and he thought to all of them, for he did not\nclaim to have read the reports closely or to know what the arguments\nhad been about, but he felt clear their visitor had not come out\nsecond best. Hootsville could fairly claim to be listening to about\nthe best man in his own line that old Athens could send them, and that\nwould help them to see how Hootsville and Athens compared with one\nanother (_applause_). He was reminded of a story about a negro, called\nRastus....\u201d\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018he told a long story about an Ethiopian, and sat\ndown with laughter and applause.\u2019 Agathon then read: \u2018\u201cThe visitor,\nMr. Socrates S. Socrates, was understood to say: \u2018Men of Hootsville,\nif you will bear with a stupid and ignorant man (_laughter_) I would\nlike to correct what I am falsely supposed to think concerning\nliberty. I am not one of those who think that the ideal state will\ngrant an indiscriminate liberty. For the rulers must regard liberty\nwith caution. For I do not complain that here there is authority\nand that liberty is restricted, for that is necessary, but that the\nauthority is in the hands of men in no way worthy to hold it and that\nthe restrictions are not imposed for right objects but to achieve the\nmistaken notions of those holding chief influence in the land. I would\nnot question your carelessness of liberty if you were restraining bad\nand selfish men, and I would applaud you if I saw the majority taking\nsteps against too much interest in commerce. For commerce can do no\nmore than provide the basis for the good life, but is treated here as\nthough it were the good life itself. Indeed, you put notices, Men of\nHootsville, in your offices to discourage the conversation of your\nfriends, writing up: \u2018This is our busy day,\u2019 and keeping up the notice\nfor many days in succession; exhorting also your friends \u2018Come to the\npoint, but don\u2019t camp on it,\u2019 and these things hinder a friend from\nopening his soul. For there are many points upon which it is excellent\nto camp, and chief among them the nature of the good.\n\n\u2018\u201c\u2018I see everywhere around me refreshing signs of a growing interest\nin the Greeks on the part of the Americans. You have taken an extreme\ninterest in the Olympic Games. Your young men love to band themselves\ninto brotherhoods and fraternities named after the letters of our\nGreek alphabet, while older men band themselves together in a Klan\nwith a Greek name, when they would reform the general polity. I very\ngreatly hope, Men of Hootsville, that it is not true, as your critics\nallege, that you are so careless and ignorant of Greek things that to\nyou anything Greek is mysterious, and that these associations desire\nonly to suggest secrecy and bewilderment when they name themselves with\nGreek names. Now we Greeks rightly understand liberty, for liberty\nis of the seas and of the mountains, and Greece has both indeed but\nIowa neither. And your need in Iowa is for more Greeks to teach you\n(_vigorous dissent_).\n\n\u2018\u201c\u2018More Greeks to help you to discover justice and the rule of reason,\nO men of Hootsville, about which you know nothing (_interruption_).\nFor great things are here in issue, the greatest of those that are in\nour control. Much indeed of our human lot we cannot control. Consider\nhow the poets speak concerning the Fates, how the three sisters sit,\nthe one Clotho spinning the stuff of our human lives, and the next\nLachesis, mixing the strands and measuring off the lengths, while the\nlast, Atropos, cuts them with her dreaded shears. Men of Hootsville, we\nmust all accept what the Fates send us, as they sit eternally weaving\ntheir varied combinations. If I may use your term, you must all do\nbusiness with these three sisters. In the end you will find you cannot\nstand out against them.\u2019\u201d But at that,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018there was a\ngreat uproar and they refused to listen any more, though Socrates had\nby no means reached even the middle of his address, and was but making\na preliminary distinction.\n\n\u2018No self-respecting American business citizen, declared the President,\nred with anger, would have anything to do with a concern so out of date\nin factory methods as were these three sisters. Did their visitor know\nthat they in Hootsville and everywhere else in the States, had machines\nwhich spun, measured, and cut thread in the single operation. And here\nthere were three women employed all the time on what their American\nmachine could do with a hundredth part of the time and effort. To come\nto a go-ahead community with such a fool proposition was an insult.\nHootsville did not fear the competition of these Fates. Hootsville had\nbeen insulted as Chicago would not have been, just because Hootsville\nhad not quite overhauled Chicago yet in population. But he could tell\ntheir visitor that that was coming, and would like to warn him that if\nhe went on travelling on commission for these Fates and their underwear\ngarments he had better quit advertising the obsolete process or he\u2019d be\nrailroaded out of every decent town. And it was time for everyone to\nhurry back to business.\u2019\n\n\n\n\n                                BOOK IV\n\n\nAfter we had discussed these clubs a little longer, and I had given\nthem the full speech I would have made in Hootsville, Lysis said: \u2018And\nis it true, Socrates, that the lecture-tour of Alcibiades also was not\nwell received?\u2019\n\n\u2018It is true,\u2019 I answered.\n\n\u2018Yet is he not most brilliant and accomplished, and are not his brains,\nas he says, first-class?\u2019\n\n\u2018Assuredly,\u2019 I answered. \u2018But his manner was high-spirited, and he did\nnot apply himself to win the favour of the Americans as though they\nhad been the populace of Athens. He broke also, and that in a most\nshameless manner, the law which is the dearest to them of all their\nlaws. He violated the Volstead Act.\u2019\n\nAt this Agathon leaned forward and said: \u2018You must beware, O Lysis and\nPhaelon, of the Socratic irony, which has been the subject of a great\ndeal of comment, and of which you are the victims at this moment. For\nit is well known that the Volstead Act is not dear to the Americans at\nall and that Alcibiades did nothing uncommon or scandalous in violating\nit.\u2019\n\n\u2018Perhaps,\u2019 said Phaelon, \u2018we should first understand clearly what this\nVolstead Act is.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018it is the law by which the Americans imposed upon\nthemselves a most heavy sacrifice, and denied themselves in a loud\nvoice that great pleasure of human life, wine.\u2019\n\n\u2018Truly a heavy sacrifice,\u2019 exclaimed both Lysis and Phaelon, and Lysis\nadded the obvious question whether any reason could be found for such\namazing conduct, for the folly natural to barbarians seemed wholly\ninadequate to account for it.\n\n\u2018It is indeed,\u2019 I answered, \u2018a hard knot that we have to untangle,\nand one that will puzzle future generations. Many and various are the\nexplanations put forward. Thus some philosophers point out that the\nsacrifice is being made in a time of great prosperity, and believe that\nit is intended to avert the jealousy of the gods. And there is much\ntruth in that. For the Americans found themselves grown extremely rich,\nand, believing nothing to be so desirable as material prosperity, they\nfeared lest the whole company of Olympus, both gods and goddesses,\nshould resolve to become American citizens, and should achieve their\nends by cunning or magic, despite the immigration Authorities. The\nAmericans did not at all desire their company, partly through fear\nof the intensified and unscrupulous competition which it is the\nwont of the gods to indulge in, but chiefly because they consider\nthat the gods, with the uncertain exception of Zeus himself, are not\nof Anglo-Saxon stock. To abate the edge of envy, they resolved to\ninvolve themselves in calamity and, by inserting privation into their\nConstitution, to create such a drawback to their country that not the\ndivinities only but ordinary mortals also, should have no desire to\nshare their life. You have heard how the maidens of Leucris, to protect\ntheir honour, slit off their noses and went undesired of the invading\nhordes. So also the Americans deemed it prudent to show to the world a\nmutilated life. They also believed that their own gods would be touched\nby the sight of such suffering and would augment the number of their\nother possessions, and they were strengthened in this view when they\nsent to consult their national oracle at Detroit. For the oracle said:\u2015\u2015\n\n    In driest land,\n    \u2019Neath steadiest hand,\n    The iron steed\n    Will fastest breed.\n\nwhich they understood to mean that if they gave up all their potations\nthere would be more cars. And this was decisive, for they think that\neverything, even life itself, is worthily sacrificed to increase the\nnumber of these cars. They believed furthermore that this sacrifice\nwould increase the quantity of other things at their command.\u2019\n\n\u2018I have heard a different reason,\u2019 here put in Agathon, and seeing us\nnod to him to go on, he unfolded what follows:\n\n\u2018The Americans,\u2019 he said \u2018are a shrewd people, and know that men easily\nbecome lovers of ease unless there is necessity or some great future\ndelight to spur them on to exertion. How, they asked themselves, can\nthe mechanics and other workers be kept from the desire for ease and\nthe abandonment of intense daily toil. For a long time the desire to\npossess a car could be trusted to spur them on, but cars have grown\ncheap, and it is found beside that such objects tend by contrast to\nmake men love real ease more than ever before. What was needed was to\nrestore the right conception of wealth as something ardently to be\nlonged for, for invention had too greatly levelled the lives of rich\nand poor. The poor man had motion and music and print and divorce and\npatent food and cremation, and everything that was once the privilege\nof the rich. Nature had made men equal in the chief goods like health\nand affection, thus seeming herself to render vain the end for which,\nas they thought, men had been created, the production of wealth. And\nthey discovered that the devout worship of Progress, the very process\nof creating wealth, made the prize of private gain relatively less\nvaluable, thus threatening the springs of energy itself. As extreme\nwealth gave men the pleasures of successful propaganda so must ordinary\nwealth have some special privilege attached. And therefore did their\nchief men resolve to prohibit by law one of life\u2019s greatest amenities,\nfor if a thing is forbidden by the law, only the rich will enjoy it.\nFor wealth everywhere lifts a man above the laws and nowhere more than\nin the United States.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is it perhaps possible,\u2019 asked Phaelon, \u2018that it was done from a noble\ndesire to help the Europeans?\u2019\n\n\u2018How, dear Phaelon?\u2019 I said.\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 he said, \u2018it is a great advantage to the Spartans to make their\nHelots drunk that the young Spartans may have before them the spectacle\nof drunkenness and be warned and seek temperance. It is surely an equal\nadvantage for Europeans to have at hand a nation of teetotallers (I\nbelieve that is the word for such people) lest they should be tempted\nto err in the opposite direction to the Spartans. For I have read\nmany notices about the great charity of America towards Europe and I\nwondered if it was this self-denial of which you speak.\u2019\n\n\u2018That is not badly conceived, Phaelon,\u2019 said I, \u2018but I am afraid we\ncannot take it as an explanation. In the first place the nations of\nEurope do not at all need to be warned, by example or otherwise against\nteetotalism, and, secondly, the Americans are not at all a nation of\nteetotallers.\u2019\n\n\u2018You mean,\u2019 he said, \u2018that the rich can drink and do.\u2019\n\n\u2018Not the rich only, but all who will take a little trouble,\u2019 I answered.\n\n\u2018Then,\u2019 said he, \u2018is it possible that this law has been imposed not to\nmake teetotallers, but for the sake of the bribes of those who wish to\nbreak it?\u2019\n\n\u2018Not so,\u2019 I answered, \u2018for it costs the Americans a great deal of\nmoney to make this change in the way men drink. They employ many more\npolicemen than before and if there is a bribe it is these men who keep\nit and not the State, and though the State gains something from the\nfines it imposes, yet it loses a great deal more by not being able to\ntax wine and the other drinks.\u2019\n\nHereupon Lysis exclaimed: \u2018Then what is the real reason for such\nstrange goings on. For my part, I believe they prohibit drinks by\nlaw in order to give an added flavour or zest to their drinking. For\nforbidden fruit is sweet to taste.\u2019\n\n\u2018For the same reason, in fact,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018that they mix different\ndrinks together, to get more stimulus. So that we may say that\nProhibition and cocktails spring from the same source.\u2019\n\n\u2018That explanation and the others, my worthy friends,\u2019 I said, \u2018may help\nus to understand why so many are resigned to the privation. But very\ndifferent is the true cause why they have poured out so vast a libation\nto Efficiency.\u2019\n\n\u2018Explain it, then,\u2019 said they all.\n\n\u2018Did we not agree earlier,\u2019 I answered, \u2018that in America the State does\nmany things that are not for its own good, and that are not done in the\ninterests of the State itself, but that rich and energetic minorities\ncould use the machinery of representative government to make their own\nwill appear as the will of the State?\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed, yes,\u2019 they said. \u2018And truly,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018and when he said\nearlier that the combination of the manufacturers and the preachers\ncould never be resisted, I thought at once of this Prohibition.\u2019\n\n\u2018It seemed to the interests of those two classes and the women,\u2019 I\nsaid, \u2018and they brought it about. But such men commonly cannot judge\nwhat is to their own advantage. For the preachers are men who have\nchosen for themselves the task of moral leadership, and have commonly\ngreat earnestness and little else. You know, Lysis, that the preachers\nare those who have separated themselves from the priests and the old\nreligious traditions? Indeed it was largely by such preachers and their\nclose followers that the first colonies were founded in America.\u2019\n\n\u2018The priests themselves,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018are surely not enemies to drink.\u2019\n\n\u2018By Hercules, no,\u2019 I said.\n\n\u2018That means much,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018The priests,\u2019 I continued, \u2018took to Aristotle generations ago, and\nhave held by his teachings in a most striking manner. For Aristotle\u2019s\nmind is much like a corkscrew, being tortuous but powerful, and opening\nup worthy things for our satisfaction. His reputation has surprised\nme somewhat, seeing how often he is wrong. For he is in general\ntoo easily satisfied, and thinks that because a thing exists it is\ntherefore justified. But what he has written about preserving the mean\nof temperance is excellent, and to that the priests have adhered. The\nUnited States, however, is a preachers\u2019 country. Now the preachers\nare opposed by their natures to the humane and easy enjoyment of life\nand would sacrifice temperance to avoid excess. For they rightly hold\ndrunkenness to be a degrading thing, but wrongly suppose abstinence\nto be superior to moderation or temperance. Now while they preached\nagainst drunkenness they did no harm, but they made in my opinion a\ngreat mistake when they stirred up the women to tamper with the laws.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is that what they did?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018though the women did not want much persuading, for\nit seemed obvious to them that money spent by men in obtaining the\nenjoyment that friends gain by drinking together was wasted money\nwhile the same money spent in adorning the women themselves or their\noffspring was money profitably spent. For they were eager to believe\nsuch things.\u2019\n\nA great look of understanding came into the eyes of both Lysis and\nPhaelon, and Lysis said:\u2015\u2015\n\n\u2018Prohibition then is in large measure a part of that tyranny of the\nwomen of which you spoke a little while back?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, yes,\u2019 I replied, \u2018they were strong enough both by the votes that\nthey enjoyed in many States and by their ascendency over their men to\npass this law. For it was a strong alliance. The manufacturers also\nhad great influence with the men, for they kept repeating that all the\nother trades would share more money if the wine trade was forbidden by\nthe law, and in each man the trading part of the soul fought with the\nreasonable part, and with many of the Americans it conquered. And each\nman thought that he could himself evade the law.\u2019\n\n\u2018Did many say that, Socrates?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 I answered; \u2018they use other words. They say that such a law is\na good thing for the country, by which they mean that it is helping\ntheir business without changing their private habits. While others\nagain, both men and women, are of the nobler sort, and will gladly make\na personal sacrifice, in the belief that it will help the poor. There\nare many rich women who regard the poor as their family, and seek their\ngood as a mother seeks that of her children. Such are called Social\nReformers.\u2019\n\n\u2018But are not the poor grown up?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018Of course,\u2019 I answered; \u2018but the rich have different ideas from\ntheirs, especially if the poor are from south Europe. So the rich busy\nthemselves to change the character of the poor. When they are doing\nthat they call themselves by a high-sounding title, and say they are\nPractical Idealists.\u2019\n\n\u2018I understand,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018for the rich are the manufacturers, or\nshare the outlook of manufacturers, and when they are considering the\ncharacter of the poor, they will identify being a good man with being\na good worker, and will give no praise at all to such a one as you\nyourself, Socrates, forever sitting about in the public places and\nbusying yourself with subjects with which manufacturers have nothing to\ndo.\u2019\n\n\u2018You have understood perfectly, O excellent Lysis,\u2019 I exclaimed, \u2018and\nyou well describe what happens in America to-day, and among other\nthings why the manufacturers have abolished, as far as they could, the\ndrinking of the poor. For it is perhaps better for a workman to be a\nteetotaller if you consider him merely in his function as a workman,\nand as a machine to be treated in a certain way, but it is quite a\ndifferent story if you consider him as a man. For teetotalism makes a\nworker more a worker but a man less a man. And drunkenness makes him\nalso less a man, but instead of becoming more of a workman he ceases to\nbe a workman at all.\u2019\n\n\u2018But teetotalism,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018is the more dangerous extreme. For\nonly a very exceptional man can keep really drunk for long periods\nwhereas many teetotallers stay teetotallers for months together.\u2019\n\n\u2018Many months,\u2019 I agreed.\n\n\u2018And even years in some cases, Socrates,\u2019 he went on, \u2018if what I hear\nis true.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019m afraid we cannot deny it: there are men in\nKansas who have repressed their thirst for upwards of forty years.\u2019\n\n\u2018Surely,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018we would pay more to see them exhibited here\nthan the Americans would pay to see the Parthenon? Let us give the\nParthenon to that American who approached you this morning, Agathon,\nand let us have some Kansans.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018such a group of voluntary Tantaluses would be a\nspectacle of much interest to the young, who are commonly insensible\nto the griefs of others, and who would not think it base to let their\neyes have their fill of the dreadful sight. But I confess my heart was\ntouched, for the state of these Kansans is like that of the ponies\nthat are kept in coal pits, who by long habituation to the dark become\nblind. And to their children these people show imaginary pictures of\nthe inside of the human body and the effects of alcohol, for so they\nlove to call all fermented beverages, so that these children shall\nbelieve they are being saved from a most terrible dragon. Nor is it\ntill they visit Europe that they learn that the poison of alcohol is\nnot always fatal.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is a good thing for the Americans that so many of them visit\nEurope,\u2019 said Lysis gravely.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018for I met a man in Kansas who had never been out of\nKansas and who refused to believe that I was a human being at all.\nFor he said that Science had shown that alcohol was a poison, and as\nthe Europeans were known from history books to have made a habit of\nconsuming large quantities of this poison, it followed that they were\nall dead. And he declared that the present peoples in Europe were\nnothing but a race of apes pretending to be the same creatures that\nScience showed alcohol to have destroyed. He said the apes were doing\nit to win the affection that the Americans would show to other human\nbeings, however, degraded, but not to apes.\u2019\n\n\u2018Truly a striking view,\u2019 exclaimed Lysis.\n\n\u2018It was one that explained everything to my friend,\u2019 I answered. \u2018He\ndeclared the pretence could not last, and that the apes had accordingly\nbegun to spread a story round that all men, even the Americans, were\nkinsfolk to the apes. But with this, he said, he and all good hundred\nper cent Americans would have nothing whatever to do, and he added\nthey were prepared if necessary to disprove it by an amendment to the\nConstitution. He claimed, moreover, that this view of his gave by far\nthe best explanation of the chattering and quarrelling that was forever\ngoing on over in Europe. And he added that my appearance corroborated\nhis theory.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, Socrates,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018you must allow us to excuse him there.\u2019\n\n\u2018So did I excuse him,\u2019 I answered, \u2018for I knew that that man was\nintoxicated, not indeed by wine, but by statistics, for the Americans\nfind in statistics a drug more powerful than alcohol, the women\nshamelessly revealing their craving and attending lectures, and crying\nout for facts, but meaning these numbers. For all large numbers and all\nnumbers arranged in patterns have a magical power over them. And they\nwill eagerly deny their own personal experience if it seems to upset\nwhat the statistics say.\u2019\n\n\u2018Truly a pitiable servitude,\u2019 murmured Lysis.\n\n\u2018Pitiable indeed,\u2019 I agreed, \u2018but they wear these chains of numbers\nproudly, for in general the numbers are large. And they have no notion\nthat these numbers must be used with care, but will let themselves be\nled into any error by any cunning piper luring them to destruction,\nprovided only that he can pipe the proper magic ciphers and talk to\nthem of percentages. For these statisticians have more power to make\ngreat crowds follow them than ever Orpheus had. But I expect that in\nthe end they will most of them meet with the fate of Orpheus and be\ntorn to pieces by angry women, filled with a different kind of madness.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018there is one thing very hopeful for them and of\nexcellent augury.\u2019\n\n\u2018Which?\u2019 I asked.\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 he said, \u2018when they consider the number of their crimes and how\nmuch blood is shed and treasure seized each year, do you not think they\nwill be greatly impressed and will realize that their chief trouble is\nthat the laws are not kept and that obedience is not enforced?\u2019\n\n\u2018I do,\u2019 I agreed.\n\n\u2018And are they not an active people and one ready to make experiment,\neven to experiment with European usages?\u2019\n\n\u2018I believe so.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 he said, \u2018will they not be forced to realize that they were the\nvery last people in the world who should have attempted Prohibition,\nfor they cannot even protect human life well. For if they had been a\nvery poor people, fighting for a share in the commerce of nations,\nand endowed with a tradition of law observance, then they might have\nattempted this further discipline. But the Americans were not poor,\nnor were they desperately in need of such efficiency. Indeed no people\ncould better afford to drink.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018and their laws were the last laws that could stand the\nstrain. For they have never been well kept, and there has always been\ncorruption. So that they did not do well when they outlawed a permanent\nhuman appetite and made another enemy to the law.\u2019\n\n\u2018Did you keep the law yourself, Socrates?\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018for you always\nsay that even a bad law should be obeyed because it is the law.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I answered, \u2018thinking as I do, and being the guest of the\nAmericans, I would take no step to avoid the abstinence that the law\nimposed. Yet I must confess that there was no city in which I went\nunrefreshed.\u2019\n\n\u2018A great thing is friendship,\u2019 exclaimed Lysis.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018my friends and hosts everywhere insisted, not all of\nthem everywhere, but some in every place, who sought me out, knowing\nthat I was from the Mediterranean.\u2019\n\n\u2018And when these drinks were offered to you, Socrates,\u2019 demanded Lysis,\nlooking me straight in the face and fixing his eyes on mine, \u2018did\nyou still tell them that all laws should be obeyed until they can be\naltered?\u2019\n\n\u2018Assuredly.\u2019\n\n\u2018What did they answer?\u2019\n\n\u2018That I was to drink my fill, and not be at all uneasy lest I was\nbreaking any law, because it was lawful to drink the wine that you\npossessed in your cellar before the law was made. It seems it was\nalways such wine that I was drinking. Nor did they seem to fear that\nthey would ever exhaust those cellars of theirs.\u2019\n\n\u2018Happy Socrates,\u2019 they said.\n\n\u2018They urged moreover, when they were not too busy to discuss the\npoint, that a law among them is not at all the same as a law among\nthe Athenians. They said that perhaps in Athens, which was small,\nthe people made the law knowing what they did, but that in America\nthousands and thousands of laws were made every year. America\nwas equally the paradise of her who would make a law and him who\nwould break one, and in proportion as the existing laws were not\nkept was there a clamour for fresh laws. But there is no sense of\nresponsibility, either in the making or the breaking. And we would do\nwell, my wonderful friends, to give this advice to the Americans that\nthey should treat a law as a great luxury, to be cherished as Helen\nherself was cherished. Then when they find they are observing all, or\nsome part at least, of the laws they have, they may reward themselves\nby a new law. Do those who juggle and balance plates seek to add\nanother plate to the row standing edgeways on their noses or foreheads\nbefore they can balance those they already have?\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed, no, Socrates,\u2019 they replied.\n\n\u2018And if they did,\u2019 I continued, \u2018would they not break all their plates\nand not receive any plaudits from the spectators?\u2019\n\n\u2018Such,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018would be their deserved misfortune.\u2019\n\n\u2018And should we not call such jugglers presumptuous fools and men\nunskilled in their art?\u2019\n\n\u2018What else, indeed, O Socrates?\u2019\n\n\u2018And yet is their case any different from that of these Americans who\nbefore they can well keep ten laws will make fifty more? So that the\nlaw ceases to hold authority among them and they are careless who makes\nit and who breaks it. For there can be no more grievous ill done to\nany state than that its citizens should not think rightly about the\nlaws, and should forget that a good law is the expression of Justice,\nallotting to each man what is his, and is deserving of all reverence,\nwhile a bad law destroys the life of the state and ought by all means\nto be abolished as soon as possible.\u2019\n\n\u2018We agree,\u2019 they said.\n\n\n\n\n                                 BOOK V\n\n\n\u2018Does it not seem to you, O Lysis and Phaelon, that these Americans\nsuffer many grievous evils, and do not know where they are, and may\ntruly be called Atlantis, the Lost Continent?\u2019\n\n\u2018Lost, indeed, Socrates,\u2019 answered Lysis, \u2018and I pity them, though it\nis largely their own fault.\u2019\n\n\u2018And do you not think,\u2019 I asked, \u2018that education might help them, if it\nwere begun when they were quite young and kept up till thirty-five?\u2019\n\n\u2018It would be worth trying,\u2019 they said, \u2018but not safe to stop at\nthirty-five.\u2019\n\n\u2018You remember,\u2019 I continued, \u2018how in our ideal State we used to agree\nthat there must be a guardian class chosen from those of the best\nnatures and trained up to watch over the life of the state and to\ngovern the ordinary citizens.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes, Socrates.\u2019\n\n\u2018But it seems plain that in America the duties of these guardians, such\nas suppressing and encouraging opinions and the like, have been usurped\nby manufacturers and people of that sort who ought never to be given\nany power at all.\u2019\n\n\u2018Such is the unhappy truth in America.\u2019\n\n\u2018We must therefore educate a guardian class for the Americans who\nshall drive these usurpers from their position of influence and lead\nthe Americans towards wisdom.\u2019\n\n\u2018We must.\u2019\n\n\u2018And shall we draw our guardians from men or from women?\u2019\n\n\u2018As it is America, from women,\u2019 suggested Phaelon.\n\n\u2018I agree,\u2019 I said, \u2018we will make women guardians, for we are desperate\nand the proverb speaks truly:\u2015\u2015\n\n    Desperate diseases need desperate remedies.\n\nAnd we will do so for several reasons. For in the first place such an\narrangement will seem natural to the Americans themselves, and the poet\nhas well written:\n\n    Nature is strong.\n\n\u2018And secondly the women live longer and we shall be able to train\nthem more thoroughly. And thirdly, the women show some interest in\nphilosophy, while the men are hopeless. For the women think they know\nsomething when in fact they know nothing, but the men are not even\naware that there is anything to know. And fourthly the women are\naccustomed to leisure, and do not fear or despise it, for the men have\npassed it on to them, not knowing what to do with it themselves.\u2019\n\n\u2018But there is a better reason than any of these,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018What is that?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018Why, that the American women are exceedingly agreeable when they are\nyoung. Or did you not think so, Socrates?\u2019\n\n\u2018I did think so,\u2019 I said, \u2018and though I did not mention it, I will\nconfess it was the chief reason. They are not so attractive as our\nGrecian youths, indeed, but they are attractive all the same. For in\nAmerica the individuals, both youths and maidens and women, but chiefly\nthe maidens, are full of lovableness and goodwill when they are young,\nbut are very quickly brought under the tyranny of propaganda and\nbetrayed by riches and the sense of efficiency into a false valuing of\nwhat is to be aimed at in living.\u2019\n\n\u2018Begin quickly,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018and let us see you open this college\nfor young women, for I take it from what you say you would not wish\nXantippe to control so important a matter.\u2019\n\n\u2018By the dog, no,\u2019 I cried.\n\n\u2018Then,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018let us found our college.\u2019\n\n\u2018By all means,\u2019 I said, \u2018but first let us see whether any of the\nexisting universities and colleges will be of any use to us, for there\nare many hundreds of them.\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed, Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis in surprise, \u2018many hundred colleges? I\nshould not have supposed there were any at all.\u2019\n\nI had been of this opinion, and I said: \u2018I had not supposed so either,\nfor I thought no educated person would be willing to listen to\nXantippe, but I soon learned the answer to my puzzle, for nothing is\neasier in America than to attend college and nothing harder than to get\neducated.\u2019\n\n\u2018It seems certain that we shall have to change much,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I answered, \u2018for at present they educate the men and the women\ntogether though they are going to do different work afterwards and so\nshould receive a different training.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 they said, \u2018we must alter that, and not educate any more of the\nmen.\u2019\n\n\u2018That will go far to solve one of our problems, for at present the\nchances of education are destroyed by the numbers of the students, and\nthe Americans think it finer to give a smattering of information to\neverybody than to give education to a few, and talk with pride of the\npreposterous numbers that pass through their colleges.\u2019\n\n\u2018If there are so many students, Socrates,\u2019 asked Phaelon, \u2018is there not\na great body of teachers? What part do they play in America and could\nnot they be the guardians?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018of all who suffer from the present ill-ordered life\nthere, none suffer more than do these teachers. But if you will be\npatient with me I will describe how they live.\u2019\n\n\u2018Proceed, Socrates.\u2019\n\n\u2018To begin with, does it not seem to you that those who separate\nthemselves so sharply from the popular outlook and embrace the pursuit\nof learning rather than that of wealth will be no ordinary Americans,\nbut will either be above or below their fellow citizens.\u2019\n\n\u2018It would seem so, indeed,\u2019 they answered.\n\n\u2018The best,\u2019 I said, \u2018are much above their fellows and seek this life\nfrom a noble love of noble things. Do you know what happens to a great\nnumber of such men in America?\u2019\n\n\u2018What?\u2019 they asked with apprehension.\n\n\u2018You do well to look frightened,\u2019 I said gravely. \u2018They are made\nPresidents of universities and colleges, and after that there is no\npeace for them at all. But they are compelled to spend all their time\nlike the generals of disorderly and worthless troops, organizing the\ngreat numbers of their students and providing useless courses for\ncountless blockheads. Moreover, they are driven to associate with the\nmen of commerce and to flatter them for their great wealth.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why in the world should they have to do that?\u2019 Lysis demanded.\n\n\u2018To make the college bigger,\u2019 I replied. \u2018For the Americans estimate a\nPresident by his power to obtain benefactions and so to build new wings\nand offices, and leave a larger institution than he found. They are\nsoon to build in America the tallest university in the world. And there\nis a worse consequence even than this waste of fine men in presidential\nduties.\u2019\n\n\u2018What can be worse than that?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018with all the colleges competing for the gifts of rich\nmen will not those colleges obtain most whose teachers teach what the\nrich men like to have believed?\u2019\n\n\u2018Naturally.\u2019\n\n\u2018And where a college has much to hope from wealthy persons will it\nnot hesitate to lose large sums of money rather than discourage free\ninquiry into everything?\u2019\n\n\u2018I think it will do more than hesitate, it will sacrifice the inquiries\nfor the gold.\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed,\u2019 I said, \u2018it often happens, and the teachers do not dare to\ndiscuss freely the most important matters. But they are fearful of the\nopinion of the prosperous and they dread the crowd as no philosopher\nought to do. They are careful not to examine closely into the deepest\nquestions of all touching morality and the nature of the gods. They are\nequally afraid of the question how wealth should be divided and how the\nstate should behave to private riches. So that in the one place where\nyou might hope to see the existing system examined freely, you do not\nfind any such free spirit of questioning, but a nervous desire to give\nsatisfaction to the powerful element of society.\u2019\n\n\u2018Rich men can avail much,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018though they be base, mechanical\nfellows.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I replied, \u2018did I not say a moment ago that some who embraced\nacademic life were above their fellows but others indeed beneath?\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 they said.\n\n\u2018And you did not understand me?\u2019\n\n\u2018No.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018I meant that many embrace teaching not from any\nhigh-minded aloofness to commerce or love of knowledge, but because\nit is the easiest employment they can find and they shirk the labour\nof business life. Such men are not really students at all, and spend\ntheir lives repeating over and over the small stock of information\nthey gathered in early life. These inferior teachers live the life of\ndonkeys or mules working a water-wheel, treading for ever round and\nround the same narrow course after they have once learned how the\nroutine goes.\u2019\n\nAt which Lysis exclaimed: \u2018Truly a miserable existence.\u2019\n\n\u2018Wretched, indeed,\u2019 echoed Agathon, \u2018and one that does more harm than\ngood, for the majority of their students despise them, rightly guessing\nthat they would be prosperous business men if they knew how it was\ndone, and so the things of the mind are brought into dishonour.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018but we must not blame the teachers that they avoid an\nunequal contest. For already they have sacrificed much to pursue their\ncalling. Moreover a noble minority strives as bravely as did Leonidas\nand his three hundred Spartans, preferring all sacrifices before\nservitude to the barbarian hosts. But these men will agree with us.\u2019\n\n\u2018Will most of the teachers be with us?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018Alas,\u2019 I said, \u2018the most part of the teachers are not valiant.\u2019\n\n\u2018What do they fear,\u2019 asked Phaelon, \u2018for they know that they will never\nbecome at all like Cr\u0153sus. It is not a happy thing to be like Cr\u0153sus.\u2019\n\n\u2018No, Phaelon,\u2019 I said. \u2018They have no great ambition, as it seems to me.\nRather are they driven by fear. They fear, Phaelon, what the rich will\ndo to them.\u2019\n\n\u2018What?\u2019\n\n\u2018They might take away their cars. For they have bought cars for which\nthey have not paid, promising to do so by a life of labour. And the\nrich might take them away. Then, indeed, the poor teachers would have\nto become philosophers of the Peripatetic School.\u2019\n\n\u2018They would not love you, Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018if they heard you\nspeak unfeelingly like that.\u2019\n\n\u2018As it is,\u2019 I answered, \u2018they do not love the Greeks, and do not think\na knowledge of Greece anything but a strange superfluity. They do not\nconsider it a necessity at all.\u2019\n\n\u2018Then we will not allow such people to teach in our ideal America,\u2019\nexclaimed Lysis, hotly.\n\n\u2018Indeed no,\u2019 I said, \u2018for in our college we will have no necessity\nfor a large staff, and so we will not have any of these sham teachers\nlowering the dignity of learning.\u2019\n\n\u2018That will be a great gain.\u2019\n\n\u2018There are already some small colleges in America which can help us.\u2019\n\n\u2018How so?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, they are colleges that deliberately limit their numbers. Often\nthey refuse to train more than five hundred students at a time.\u2019\n\n\u2018Five hundred students!\u2019 echoed Lysis\u2015\u2015\u2018you call that a small number.\u2019\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 I said, \u2018but the Americans do, and if you had been among them\nyou would realize that it is indeed a heroic sacrifice that they make\nin opposing the common tendency and remaining small.\u2019\n\n\u2018And how are they to help us?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, in the first place we shall find, I think, the best material for\nour guardians among the pupils there, and secondly we can use these\ncolleges as nurseries and training grounds for assistants for our\nguardians. Or do you not think they will need assistants in their task\nof giving a changed outlook to the Americans?\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed, yes, Socrates.\u2019\n\n\u2018And another thing we will altogether change is the great variety of\nthe instruction. For that the Americans have no idea of the purpose of\neducation is seen in the way they provide courses of instruction in\neverything, even in the things that will only fit a man for low and\nbase employments. The student hurries from course to course and becomes\nacquainted with the preliminaries of many studies but is advanced in\nnone.\u2019\n\n\u2018We will keep our guardians to a few studies,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018and they will have to be very different studies.\u2019\n\n\u2018What will be the first great change?\u2019 he asked.\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I answered, \u2018as it seems to me, the first thing to destroy is\ntheir superstitious reverence for what they call facts and their\ncontempt for ideas. For they will often talk as if ideas were less real\nthan facts, instead of more real.\u2019\n\n\u2018What are these facts?\u2019\n\n\u2018They may be anything. Lists of names, and long technical words are\naccepted as facts. The biggest fact is the Divine Fact, Progress, which\nthey worship.\u2019\n\n\u2018Might not that be called an idea?\u2019\n\n\u2018You might say so, Lysis,\u2019 I answered, \u2018but I would advise you not to\ndo so, for the Americans dearly love Progress and will not tolerate\nyour insults.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is not evolution another favourite fact?\u2019 asked Agathon.\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018some cherish it as much as Progress, of which they say\nthat it is the explanation. But others say that Progress presides over\nthe Americans by the special wish of the divine powers, as a reward for\ntheir virtues. And these say evolution is a lie. But neither party will\nbe content to say it is a theory.\u2019\n\n\u2018And facts are what they teach in their colleges?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018for they have heard that knowledge is power, and they\ndesire power, and they think that knowledge consists of information.\u2019\n\n\u2018I have seen them myself, Socrates,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018running about as\nstudents, boasting of the number of courses they could take and of the\ndaily information that they could gather into notebooks.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018they are complacent, and are sure that when they have\ninformation they will instinctively act wisely and well. For we must\nremember that in a democracy men love to think they themselves are\ndeciding the great questions of life and of the State. And in America\nthey are very much on their dignity in this, being resolved to judge\nfor themselves from the facts, of which they love to speak, and not to\nvalue the opinion of each other.\u2019\n\n\u2018Except of experts, Socrates,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018Indeed, they value experts because experts, they think, know the\nfacts. And so two rules are to be observed carefully by all who would\nmake the Americans think one thing rather than another. First you must\ncall yourself an expert and second you must call everything you say the\nfacts.\u2019\n\n\u2018And then all will go well with you?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018Indeed, yes, for none of them know anything about the matters in hand\nand so they are prepared to hear that the facts are anything in the\nworld.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, Socrates,\u2019 said Phaelon, \u2018it sounds to me a fine pastime to go\npersuading these great herds of barbarians that Persians are finer\npeople than Greeks.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018they could easily be made to believe that or any other\npiece of nonsense.\u2019\n\n\u2018Would it not be fun?\u2019 said Phaelon eagerly. \u2018I must do it. Nor will I\nfear the perils of the country. I will go boldly among them as becomes\na Greek, resisting their hold-up men with my sword and opposing their\ncars with my shield.\u2019\n\n\u2018You must take care,\u2019 I said, \u2018that they do not fell you from behind\nwith a card-index.\u2019\n\n\u2018Card-index?\u2019 said Phaelon; \u2018what weapon is that?\u2019\n\n\u2018It is more than a weapon to the Americans,\u2019 I said: \u2018it is everything.\nIt is the symbol of their way of life and they intend shortly to put\nit on all their coins, and stamps. It is like a plank to a drowning\nsailor, for by its means they survive in the great heaving oceans of\nfacts with which they would otherwise be overwhelmed. Or you may think\nof them as a nation of Ariadnes.\u2019\n\n\u2018That is certainly a more pleasant picture,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018and for my\npart I will take care to think of them like that. For as Ariadne had a\nthread whereby her lover might find his way out of the Labyrinth, so\nhave the Americans card-indexes to prevent themselves from getting\nwholly lost in the modern world.\u2019\n\nAt this Phaelon exclaimed: \u2018I should dearly love to see what was inside\na card-index.\u2019\n\n\u2018That would not be easy,\u2019 I answered. \u2018For they are compiled with great\nsolemnity and reverence and are the nearest things in America to sacred\nobjects. The ritual of compilation is the chief way of practising\nefficiency and so of worshipping Progress.\u2019\n\n\u2018But what is on the cards?\u2019 insisted Lysis.\n\n\u2018The most sacred things of all\u2015\u2015entrancing statistics and The Facts,\nand all the things that Modern Science teaches.\u2019\n\n\u2018Tell us, Socrates, who is this Modern Science?\u2019\n\n\u2018A divine priestess,\u2019 I answered, \u2018who is invoked in all difficulties,\nwhose words are received with great reverence, and that though her\noracles are more than usually incomprehensible and fickle and her words\nlong and horrible. But she is dear to the Americans because she speaks\nprincipally about machines, and tells them there shall be more and more\nof them, and an increasing number of parts in each.\u2019\n\n\u2018And does she speak true things?\u2019 demanded Lysis.\n\n\u2018She knows about machines and the substances of the earth, and so\nthe Americans find her \u201cpractical,\u201d a word of supreme praise, and in\nconsequence are forever seeking to make her speak on other matters\nwhere she has no gift of utterance. They seek encouragement in their\nbeliefs about themselves and insist upon an answer about their race\ntill in self-defence she takes refuge in gibberish.\u2019\n\n\u2018That is a disappointment to them,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018In no wise,\u2019 I answered, \u2018for each can twist her answer to his\ndesires. And she is surrounded by people crying that they have heard\nher voice and they alone, and using her authority for their own views.\nIt is from this babble of tongues that the facts for the card-indexes\nare derived. But we will train our guardians never to use such things\nand to consider them only fit for slaves.\u2019\n\n\u2018We will,\u2019 they said.\n\n\u2018For their studies will not be the acquisition of information, which\nis a training in acquisitiveness and due to the hunger of their souls\nfor quantity. They acquire information as a second best until they\ncan acquire wealth. But our guardians will study those matters which\nsatisfy the reason and those which elevate the soul. Now these studies\nare many.\u2019\n\n\u2018You have described such studies many times, Socrates,\u2019 said they all.\n\n\u2018And do you not agree?\u2019\n\n\u2018We agree,\u2019 said they all again.\n\n\u2018And shall we,\u2019 I asked them next, \u2018permit our guardians to live in\nsisterhoods and sororities as they like to do to-day?\u2019\n\n\u2018Do the young American women live much in sisterhoods?\u2019 asked Phaelon,\n\u2018for I have read of sisterhoods and of convents, and the great\nprinciple of the life is to have nothing whatever to do with men.\u2019\n\nI reassured Phaelon. \u2018An American sorority is not at all like that. But\nI think we shall have to say that no men may go near these sororities\nwhere we are training our guardians, at least till our guardians have\nreached thirty-five. For the men are a great distraction.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018we don\u2019t want any young American men, for they\nare excellent to carry out what they are told but they will never make\nphilosophers. They will correspond indeed to that warrior class which\nyou provided for in your ideal state, but there will be this difference\nthat they will not often be called upon to fight and that their chief\nduties will be in the ordinary administration, arranging for food and\nother necessities, and holding the various positions in commerce.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is commerce still to continue?\u2019 said Phaelon.\n\n\u2018We must allow it,\u2019 I said, \u2018the Americans being what they are, but we\nwill take care that it receives no particular honour.\u2019\n\n\u2018Very well,\u2019 he said, \u2018but how are we to keep the women from the men?\u2019\n\n\u2018We must bring them all to Athens,\u2019 I said.\n\nAt this Agathon leaned forward eagerly and exclaimed: \u2018And it is agreed\nthat I am to select the guardians, and I will bring them to Athens\nand will myself superintend their training. And when we get a new\ngeneration I will superintend the later stages of their training, from\nfifteen to thirty-five, while you, Socrates, who are so patient and\ngood with the young shall take charge of them till they are fifteen.\u2019\n\n\u2018Indeed,\u2019 I said.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 he said, \u2018I consider that as settled.\u2019\n\n\u2018But I am troubled with a difficulty,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018and one which may\nput out all Agathon\u2019s fine plans, for I do not see how we can educate\nthem in Athens.\u2019\n\n\u2018How not?\u2019 said Agathon angrily.\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018if they come here they will meet the Greek men and\nwill see that there are beings much superior to themselves and lose\ntheir belief in themselves, and fall into despair and pine away.\u2019\n\n\u2018We will unbend,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018Even so, my excellent friend,\u2019 I said, \u2018I think Lysis speaks truly: it\nwill not be good for guardians to grow up among people so much superior\nto themselves. For they will have to rule a race of untravelled and\ncompletely self-confident people, and they will never do it if they are\ndoubtful of themselves.\u2019\n\n\u2018I can loosen the knot of difficulty,\u2019 said Agathon: \u2018I will build my\ncollege a little way out of Athens, and when you come to give them\nyour instructions you shall be concealed by a partition and I will\nsay you are the gods themselves. Nay, there is a machine called the\nbroadcast in use in America itself which enables men to practise useful\ndeceptions of that kind.\u2019\n\n\u2018I think not, my friends,\u2019 I said. \u2018They have suffered already from\nbeing told that too abundantly, and I think it will be best to tell\nthem a myth while they are in their cradles, saying they are the\nchildren of the people of Atlantis, and the sisters in some sort of the\nGreeks.\u2019\n\n\u2018Better say cousins,\u2019 corrected Agathon.\n\n\u2018The cousins, then, of the Greeks. And then they shall learn with the\npride of our own youth and maidens both gymnastic and music and all the\nother studies which we agreed to be necessary for our guardians.\u2019\n\nHere Lysis said: \u2018There is still one small matter to be resolved: How\nare you going to get your guardians, and the first supply of young\ngirls to train? For their men will not part with them.\u2019\n\n\u2018That is easy,\u2019 I said, \u2018as they are Americans, and the men do not\ncontrol the women.\u2019\n\nLysis looked puzzled: \u2018But surely the mothers control the daughters, at\nany rate when they are very young.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, no,\u2019 I said, \u2018that rarely happens either. We will invite such of\nthe young girls as seem to us to be the best endowed by nature and to\nbe likely to make good guardians and to be susceptible of education,\nno matter whether they be five or fifteen, and they will come if we\nconvince them, whatever the parents may think. For I assure you that\ntheir parents have no power over them at all.\u2019\n\n\u2018Really, Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018I cannot believe that some of these\ngreat women of the Middle West do not rule their children by terror as\nwell as their husbands.\u2019\n\n\u2018If we find that to be so,\u2019 I said, \u2018and some of the presidents of\nthese Women\u2019s Clubs are indeed so overpowering that it may well prove\nto be the case, we can easily convince the parents by a few statistics.\nWe will tell them that the liver corrodes and that metabolism is\ninhibited unless the years from fifteen to thirty-five are spent in\nAthens. And as that will be Science that we are telling them they\nwill send their children to Athens. For they all honestly desire the\nwell-being of their children, even those who are permanent presidents\nof their clubs.\u2019\n\n\u2018We may take it, then, O Socrates,\u2019 said Agathon, eagerly, \u2018that the\nyoung women will be here soon.\u2019\n\n\u2018And when they are here,\u2019 I said, \u2018they shall live in sororities\nas they do to-day. And I think their present sororities are a\nforeshadowing of their life here, and that now they do what they can,\nbut live in a dark cave compared with the bright sunlight of their\ncoming existence. To-day they know little Greek, three letters being\nthe general standard, but soon they will speak and think in Greek all\nthe time.\u2019\n\n\u2018And when we have educated them,\u2019 asked Lysis, \u2018will it be a difficult\nmatter for them to obtain authority to rule in America?\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018it will be easy if they have enough money.\u2019\n\n\u2018That will be easy,\u2019 I said, \u2018for they will be trained to consider it\ntheir duty that each of them marries a millionaire.\u2019\n\n\u2018They will find that easy,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018for I will be careful to\ninstruct them in the arts of courtship.\u2019\n\nLysis then asked: \u2018But when they have these funds at their command,\nwhat will be the quickest way for them to persuade the ordinary\nAmericans to accept their rule?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018they must proclaim a Philosophy Week, for these weeks\nare not expensive to buy and they give you the right to worry people\nfor seven days.\u2019\n\n\u2018And what shall they say?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018It will be simple enough,\u2019 I said. \u2018They must announce a new way to\nnational and individual prosperity. For prosperous peoples are forever\nlooking for ways to prosperity. And the adjective new recommends\nanything.\u2019\n\n\u2018And then, Socrates?\u2019\n\n\u2018And then they must proclaim that Philosophy is the key to Bigger\nand Better Business, and must tell the story of Thales, who was a\nphilosopher and easily outwitted the men of commerce of his day,\namassing a fortune in olive presses.\u2019\n\n\u2018But Thales lived long ago.\u2019\n\n\u2018That must be kept dark,\u2019 I said; \u2018but the story will throw a new light\non philosophy and if the propaganda is well done every progressive\nbusiness house will add to its staff a philosopher from Greece. And\nour guardians must go about persuading the women that there will be\nno real progress till Congressmen are philosophers or philosophers\nCongressmen.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why yes, Socrates,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018you shall yourself question the\naspirants for Congress and say which are truly philosophers and the\nguardians will persuade the populace not to vote for any of the others.\nAnd you shall select trusty Greeks who will hand over power to the\nguardians.\u2019\n\n\u2018It will take the fortunes of many husbands,\u2019 I said, \u2018but in the end\nthe guardians will control the central government, and then they can do\nwhat they like with the country, and make brave changes and substitute\na noble rule for an ignoble one.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is important to lose no time,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018in bringing the\nmaidens to Athens. For the sake of saving the Americans,\u2019 he added.\n\n\n\n\n                                BOOK VI\n\n\n\u2018And are you resolved, Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018not to give any sort of\neducation to the American men?\u2019\n\nI thought for a moment and then said: \u2018They are not comely like our\nGreek youths and they would not be an ornament to Athens. I do not\nthink they want any education.\u2019\n\n\u2018But, Socrates,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018how are they to spend their time when\nthey are young?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018I would let them go on watching that football game of\ntheirs.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is that?\u2019\n\n\u2018It is a mimic battle dear to all their hearts, and I would let them\nwatch it all the day, and I would not trouble their minds at all. For\nto watch it will be the right education for them.\u2019\n\n\u2018Watch it, Socrates?\u2019 demanded Lysis.\n\n\u2018Yes, for it is played between coaches or chief men, using young men as\npieces.\u2019\n\n\u2018Explain it to us,\u2019 they said.\n\n\u2018I will give you a fine lecture upon it,\u2019 I said; \u2018and you will marvel\nthat I know so much, until I first confess that I went much among the\nyoung Americans in the colleges from a desire to see into their minds,\nand what I saw made it clear to me that America was rightly called the\nland of \u201cgreat open spaces.\u201d For they spoke of nothing else at all but\nthis football, and cars, and to a lesser extent, of another form of\ncontest called baseball.\u2019\n\n\u2018Would you let them play baseball also?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018If we do,\u2019 I replied, \u2018I expect we shall have to be quick to save\nit. For many business men told me that the manufacturers will forbid\nit, because it distracts their workmen from their factory tasks. They\npurpose to substitute universal compulsory basket ball, which will keep\ntheir workers fit but unexcited.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is not football in danger?\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018It is most completely a students\u2019 spectacle,\u2019 I answered, \u2018and I think\nour guardians will be in time to save it, and thus make their rule\ndelightful to the young men.\u2019\n\n\u2018Explain about this game,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018and why you will still allow\nthem to watch it.\u2019\n\nThen I told them of the field marked out in lines, the gridiron\nand of the teams of sixty or seventy warriors a side, of whom only\neleven might do battle at any one time. I described the armour of\nthese warriors, and how they were the widest and weightiest of all\nthe young Americans, fit foemen for Ajax or Hector. And I explained\nthe discipline under which they lived and how the combinations were\nworked out by the coaches as a general prepares his campaign, and how\nthe men learnt over and over the cipher signs that told to each his\npart in the brief struggle. And I told of the fine tradition that made\nit disgraceful to flee from the field or avoid the ball, even for\ncommercial benefits, and I told of the heroes who preferred fierce\nhacks to the displeasure of their coach and death on the field to his\nbeing dismissed.\n\n\u2018It must be good fun being a coach,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018they are held in great honour provided they bring\nvictory. They do what they will with the minds and bodies of the\nstudents, and the Professors are proud to carry water for them. Often\nthe chosen students are kept shut up by their coaches before any great\nbattle, lest their minds should be disturbed. That will be a good\nsimilitude for us to use when we are moving the young girls to Athens.\nFor we deserve as great privileges as games coaches.\u2019\n\n\u2018But in these contests,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018only a few can be used. What is\nthe education of the vast majority?\u2019\n\n\u2018They cheer to order,\u2019 I replied. \u2018For the Americans are a practical\npeople and scheme that no single breath shall be wasted, but shall be\nused where it will be most effective. Moreover the game is so designed\nthat the better it is played the more difficult is it for the onlooker\nto follow the fortunes of the ball, the players struggling in a great\nbunch, pushing against one another. There must be some heralds to tell\nthe crowd which player has been pushing hardest that he may be rewarded\nwith a loud shout.\u2019\n\n\u2018But is shouting like that really the best education?\u2019 asked Lysis,\n\u2018for you will have to say a lot more to convince me.\u2019\n\n\u2018Have you not often agreed with me, Lysis, that it is in youth one\nlearns most easily?\u2019\n\n\u2018I agree.\u2019\n\n\u2018And that it is good to master early those activities which are to fill\nour after-lives?\u2019\n\n\u2018Very often it is good.\u2019\n\n\u2018And if you had to describe in one sentence the civic life of an\nAmerican could you do it better than by saying he spent his life\nshouting in chorus praise or blame about things he did not understand\nat the bidding of leaders?\u2019\n\n\u2018It is true.\u2019\n\n\u2018Then, can he begin too early to shout with the crowd?\u2019\n\n\u2018He cannot.\u2019\n\n\u2018For if he is by nature incapable of philosophy he must be led, and\nhe must be brought up to expect to feel to order without asking what\nit is about which he is to be enthusiastic, and without expecting to\nunderstand the details of the struggles his leaders are conducting.\u2019\n\n\u2018I agree.\u2019\n\n\u2018And for that there is nothing better then these football games. For\nmen who obey coaches and cheer leaders now will be ready to obey our\nguardians later on.\u2019\n\n\u2018I think so.\u2019\n\n\u2018And they enjoy this football of theirs a great deal more than they\nenjoy the lectures and other parts of college life, so that they will\nagree very happily to cheer football all the time.\u2019\n\n\u2018But,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018I hear the friends of peace are resolved to\nprohibit the football game, because it arouses admiration for martial\nqualities.\u2019\n\n\u2018The friends of peace will fail, my friends,\u2019 I said. \u2018For freedom from\nforeign wars reigns among the Americans from their position rather than\ntheir disposition. The only people who have ever invaded them are the\nEnglish. But now it is the other way about.\u2019\n\n\u2018I believe,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018that to-day the English and the Americans\nare very well disposed toward one another.\u2019\n\n\u2018They are,\u2019 I answered. \u2018Their friendship is much the chief friendship\namong barbarian peoples. For the English regard the Americans as their\ncountry cousins, living in the backwater of the New World and out of\ntouch with London life, but pleased to come and gape. And they consider\nthem as country cousins with a very rich farm, from which they and\ntheir neighbours often receive eggs, and they are careful to keep as\nfriendly as they can. For they imagine the Americans to be much like\nthemselves, but without their advantages.\u2019\n\n\u2018By advantages do they mean the nearness to Athens?\u2019 said Phaelon.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said slowly: \u2018If you search the matter to the bottom it comes\nto that, for the English are the link between Athens and America.\u2019\n\nThen Phaelon said: \u2018Is it true, Socrates, that the English and the\nAmericans speak the same language?\u2019\n\n\u2018No.\u2019\n\n\u2018But,\u2019 went on Phaelon, puzzled, \u2018they understand each other after a\nfashion, do they not? Do they use their hands to speak with?\u2019\n\n\u2018Only in New York.\u2019\n\n\u2018Socrates speaks truly,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018but New York is where the\nEnglishmen go who visit America. They stay in or near New York. For\nthey do not like to get far from the sea which is the source of their\nstrength. They love the deep waters.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said.\n\n\u2018And the strong waters, too, Socrates,\u2019 added Agathon, \u2018and that is\nanother reason why they like New York and are reluctant to go far\ninland. For they dread having to keep up long lines of communication.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 I said, \u2018they would be very safe in Kentucky.\u2019\n\n\u2018And what happens when the Englishmen visit America?\u2019 demanded Lysis.\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I answered, \u2018they are surprised it is not more like England, and\nat once complain; and many are offended that the Americans are not more\nlike the English, and say so, for they are subjected to torture to make\nthem say what they think.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is the torture?\u2019 cried Phaelon.\n\n\u2018They call it the Third Degree, and it consists in endless\ninterrogation.\u2019\n\n\u2018Could you not get such a post as torturer in America, Socrates?\u2019 asked\nLysis.\n\n\u2018There was talk of it,\u2019 I said, smiling at him, \u2018but I cast the\nproposal from me as cruel. Anyway the Americans question their visitors\nday and night, saying: \u201cWhat do you think of us?\u201d till in the end the\nvisitors confess.\u2019\n\n\u2018And then there is a war?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 I said, \u2018they just stop the mouths of such visitors with pie.\u2019\n\n\u2018Remember,\u2019 I resumed, \u2018that to visit America is the most expensive\nthing an Englishman can do, and so it is only rich and leisured\nEnglishmen who travel there. And these men do not admire commerce, for\nthough their fathers or perhaps themselves have grown rich by it, yet\nit has always been rated at its proper value in England. It has always\nbeen the means to the leisured life. Furthermore the Englishman is not\nimpressed by the very things that the American thinks will impress him.\nFor the English do not admire size or reverence bigness. They were not\nused to admire the Spaniards or the French or the Germans in the past\nfor being twice as many as they, and for having splendid courts and\ngreat armies and public works. Nor is there any sight in England more\ncomical than to behold the rich and vulgar cosmopolitans, who have\nbought a share in their government, attempting to arouse an audience\nof Englishmen to enthusiasm for their own British Empire just because\nit is so very big. But the Americans will point to a crowd of offices\nor cars and feel happy in the knowledge that their country is shouting\nfor itself. Now the English discover in the Americans most excellent\nhosts, for they are the most generous of all the barbarians, but the\nmore grateful the English are, the more criticisms do they express,\nfinding it intolerable that the hosts they like so much should go on\npouring out admiration on useless things and prostrating the soul\nbefore number and quantity.\u2019\n\n\u2018And what happens when the Americans come to England?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018That happens a great deal more often. The English enjoy that. They\nfeel very superior when they show to the Americans the cathedrals and\ncastles of their country. They act as if they had built these things\nthemselves, whereas, in fact, the dead who built them were as much the\nancestors of the Americans as of the English. But the English are the\nelder branch that has inherited the place. The buildings the modern\nEnglish themselves put up they do not point out with pride to anybody,\nand those that their fathers and grandfathers built they cover over,\nwhen they can, with great cloths. But many Americans are forever\nwandering to these new buildings and are filled with joy that they\nbuild such places larger and better. For the pleasure of travelling in\nEurope is spoilt for them by the thought that their hosts do not know\nwhat a wonderful place America is, and they are forever bringing it\ninto the conversation. Then they grow happy again, but their hosts less\nhappy.\u2019\n\n\u2018But it is the old things that they think they want to see,\u2019 said\nAgathon.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018they want to see Europe because they themselves came\nfrom it originally.\u2019\n\n\u2018They do not go to Mesopotamia,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018though they believe\nthey came originally from somewhere there.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is curious,\u2019 I said, \u2018but none of them boast of belonging to one\nof the first families of Mesopotamia. They want distinctions that are\nrarer than that. They get more pleasure from thinking their ancestors\nhad seats in the Mayflower than from thinking they had seats in the\nArk, though both voyages were what they call exclusive cruises.\u2019\n\n\u2018And have they a special affection for the island of England?\u2019 asked\nLysis.\n\n\u2018Why yes, most of the rich ones came originally from there,\u2019 I said.\n\n\u2018Well, why do they not buy it?\u2019 he demanded.\n\n\u2018Many think that will happen in time,\u2019 I replied, \u2018or at least that\nthey will purchase all the surface to a depth of forty feet, for that\nis the earth upon which English history has happened, and that they\nwill lay out the island in their western districts by Yellowstone\nPark, where there is plenty of room for it.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is it true\u2019 asked Phaelon, \u2018that the English will be forced to sell,\nSocrates, and that they can only live at all by getting the Americans\nto come and look at their country?\u2019\n\n\u2018I thought,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018the English had a great many factories like\nthe Americans.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I replied, \u2018what has happened to the English is one of the\nmost ironical things in the world. For during many years they have\nsacrificed their old and pleasant life to attain mechanical efficiency,\nand they have made the northern half of their little island dreary with\nfactories and blotted out its sky with smoke. They said: Here are our\nriches, and in the name of wealth we must desecrate the land. But do\nyou, O Lysis and Phaelon, observe the justice of what is happening to\nthem. Their factories have grown a burden to them, and a problem and\nsource of quarrels and poverty. And their real wealth lies in what is\nstill preserved of the old England.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, Socrates?\u2019\n\n\u2018Because the Americans will pay to see it and will not pay to see the\nfactories.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is their position so desperate?\u2019\n\n\u2018No\u2019 I said, \u2018if we are seeking the truth we must declare that it is\nnot so desperate as the Americans imagine for the Americans forget\nthat the English are in partnership with the Scotch.\u2019\n\n\u2018Who are the Scotch?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018I should call them the guardian class in Britain,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018they watch over the English and they have a great\nempire all over the world.\u2019\n\n\u2018And the English are allowed to share in this Empire?\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018by the terms of the partnership which was by far the\nmost important event in the economic history of the English. For this\nEmpire is very large and rich.\u2019\n\n\u2018And did the Scotchmen win it by the sword?\u2019 was Phaelon\u2019s next\nquestion.\n\n\u2018Indeed no,\u2019 I replied. \u2018In fact Englishmen and Irishmen\u2015\u2015you have\nheard of them?\u2019\n\n(Both Lysis and Phaelon nodded vigorously and Lysis said \u2018Of course,\u2019\nin such a tone that I felt ashamed of the foolish query.)\n\n\u2018Englishmen and Irishmen,\u2019 I went on, \u2018were rather more prominent in\nthose first stages. But it was the Scotchmen who made the Empire pay.\u2019\n\n\u2018And after all,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018that was the real point in having an\nEmpire.\u2019\n\n\u2018And they built up a great trade with everybody and prospered greatly,\u2019\nI said, \u2018the Scotch and the northern English particularly. And these\ntwo together, when they go abroad to gain money, call themselves the\nBritish. But they make the mistake of thinking their activities will go\non being profitable for ever. They think that because all the world,\neven Greece, has bought from them in the century past, the relationship\nwill continue. But I believe otherwise, and that this foreign trade\nwill be their destruction, and that they are selling the swords which\nwill pierce their own bodies.\u2019\n\n\u2018How, Socrates?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018whoever deals with them finds that they have nothing\nto give of the amenities of living. They do not sell you marbles, or\nstatues, or wine, but coal and machinery. And if you buy these things\nyou find they start industry in your own country also. For of all\nnewcomers to a country machinery is the most tenacious of its own\ncharacter and the most certain to make its new home resemble its old\none. An Italian will make Italy again in New York, and a machine will\nmake Sheffield in the furthest Indies.\u2019\n\n\u2018And is that really all the British offer the world?\u2019 exclaimed Lysis.\n\u2018They will not last long according to my opinion.\u2019\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 I said, \u2018for it will be realized that these iron machines of\ntheirs are a more deadly threat to the life of a city than was the\nWooden Horse himself.\u2019\n\n\u2018By Hercules, yes!\u2019 they agreed.\n\n\u2018If the British had desired wholly to destroy and change Troy they\nwould not have come with besieging armies. They would have sent some\nmachinery and divided the rich against the poor by holding out promises\nof all the machines would do to make life pleasanter for the rich. And\nin fewer years than ten, the walls of Troy would have disappeared. The\ncity would have vanished as though it had gone up in vengeful smoke.\nIndeed it would continue smoking not for a few days, in the manner of\nGreek destruction, but indefinitely, with chimneys to insult and dwarf\nthe lofty towers of Ilium, if this industrial system of theirs did not\nmake chimneys of the very towers themselves.\u2019\n\n\u2018The British, as it seems to me, are most dangerous,\u2019 said Lysis.\n\n\u2018But,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018they also offer the world other things beside\nmachinery and the coal to feed it with. Wool.\u2019\n\n\u2018The sheep\u2019s clothing of the fable,\u2019 I said, \u2018and a snare and one in\nwhich you soon discover the wolf, as many a simple barbarian race has\nfound. Buy from them one commodity only and you find that they use the\nmoney you pay them in a very alarming way. They use it to develop your\ncountry.\u2019\n\n\u2018How?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I said, \u2018they make you spend the money you owe them in putting\nyourself in a position to supply others with some commodity or other,\nso that you can buy more and more from the British. In this manner they\nhave changed the face of half the world. Those who buy little from them\nthey term \u201cbackward peoples.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u2018I am sorry for the barbarian world,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018with these two great\nbarbarian races, the British and the American, invading the rest in\nthis cunning way and weaving snares about them.\u2019\n\n\u2018Lysis,\u2019 I said, \u2018while you feel so full of pity, pity also the\nBritish. For I said that what they do they can only do for a certain\ntime.\u2019\n\n\u2018How?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 I explained, \u2018their prosperity depends upon being able to\npersuade other peoples to buy these goods of theirs.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes.\u2019\n\n\u2018But those who agree eagerly and buy machines and make railways become,\nin proportion as they are eager and active, independent of the British\nand manufacture everything for themselves, as happens in their own\ncolonies, while the others, not sharing these ideals, neglect the\nmachines and remain poor and can neither pay for what they have had nor\nbuy anything fresh. Against this second class, who are found largely\nin the other or southern Americas, the British merchants have a strong\nprejudice.\u2019\n\nAfter pondering for a moment, Lysis said: \u2018It seems to me the Scotch\nmust be very like the Americans.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018but when the Scotch first set out to grow rich and\nimportant they had themselves to please a guardian class that valued\nlearning, and so they learnt to value it too. Whereas there was no\nclass that the Americans had to please. But, in general, there is much\nin common between the Americans and the commercial people of Scotland,\nand those also of the North of England, who agree with the Scotch about\nlife. Of them we may say with the poet:\u2015\u2015\n\n    \u201cNursed in so harsh a clime what shouldst thou know of good?\u201d\n\n\u2018And these make the settlers the most acceptable to the Americans.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why do they not all go there,\u2019 said Phaelon; \u2018I do not like to think\nof them so near Greece.\u2019\n\n\u2018The men of South England, on the other hand, find it very useful to\nhave these Scots and northerners in the same island.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why?\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 I said, \u2018the southern English live a life that is almost\nreasonable, inquiring into things, and pondering upon them, and amusing\nthemselves with games, and, whenever possible, sitting in the sun.\nThose men who are both rich and sensible settle in South England.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is their pondering good pondering?\u2019 demanded Lysis.\n\n\u2018Why no,\u2019 I said, \u2018for they like to begin and end in the middle of all\nquestions. It is difficult to muddle through in philosophy.\u2019\n\n\u2018How do they live, apart from what they get from the Americans?\u2019 asked\nPhaelon.\n\n\u2018Some make these northerners pay them rents but a large part are\nconcerned one way or another, I am afraid, in the business of their\ngreat city of London.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is that?\u2019\n\n\u2018It is doing the business of other people for them, because it will be\ndone better than they could do it themselves. Even the Athenians use\nthe city of London.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is the secret of this London business?\u2019 asked Phaelon.\n\n\u2018There is a special climate in London,\u2019 I answered, \u2018which has the\nproperty of making every man feel that he is ruined. And no one is ever\ndistracted from minding his affairs by beholding the sun or the sky,\nwhose contemplation has ever led men to philosophy. So they do business\nthere in a very careful and concentrated way.\u2019\n\n\u2018But you say,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018that they do not come like the Americans to\nconsider commerce the end of life?\u2019\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 I said, \u2018for the Americans do their business where the climate\nmakes them over-sanguine and they become filled up with the hope of\ngain and cheerfully sacrifice everything else to the excitement of the\ncontest. But the Londoners regard their business hours as the scraping\nof a subsistence and skilful avoidance of starvation, and flee from\nthe city every evening. And they live in homes surrounded by other\ninfluences than that of commerce, and by the marks of the partial\ncivilization to which South England has attained. But when they are at\nbusiness they do about as much mischief to the rest of the world as do\nthe Americans.\u2019\n\n\u2018Ought we not to hope,\u2019 said Lysis thoughtfully, \u2018that the football\ngame will in fact make the Americans very warlike, and that they will\nattack the English and Scotch?\u2019\n\n\u2018Why, Lysis?\u2019\n\n\u2018That the great barbarian peoples may destroy each other and that the\nrest of the world may be freed from the aggression of their industrial\nlife.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018it might well be the best thing that could happen. But\nthey are more likely to combine forces in order to industrialize the\nrest of the world. And though they are very different people yet bonds\nof similarity are growing up, for machinery sets its stamp upon souls,\nand the same machines will in the end produce the same souls. To take\nbut one instance, among both peoples there has grown up the love of the\nDark Cave.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is the Dark Cave?\u2019 asked Lysis and Phaelon together.\n\n\u2018You tell me,\u2019 I said, \u2018that you remember the ideal state that Glaucon\nand others worked out with me?\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018it has often been spoken of since.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 I said, \u2018I there pictured the unhappy lot of men sitting\nhuddled together in a dark place, condemned all to look in the same\ndirection and to watch phantoms and shadows of men as though they saw\nsomething real.\u2019\n\n\u2018I remember.\u2019\n\n\u2018And I pitied such men, condemned to the contemplation of unreality,\nand sought, you remember, how they might be rescued and brought out\ninto the sunlight and might learn to see men as they were.\u2019\n\n\u2018You thought,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018no lot could be more wretched for\nreasonable men.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well,\u2019 I said, \u2018the Americans and the English are not reasonable and\nwill pay money to be imprisoned in these caves, and to contemplate\nlies and live altogether in a false world. This is making them one, for\nthe greatest bond of union is to share a common experience.\u2019\n\n\u2018Have you ever penetrated into a Dark Cave, Socrates?\u2019 asked Phaelon in\nexcitement.\n\n\u2018It was the end of my American adventures,\u2019 I answered. \u2018For I\nendeavoured to save men from entering these Caves, reasoning and\nexpostulating with them, asking them why they would give their\nsubstance to be so misled about life.\u2019\n\n\u2018And what happened, Socrates?\u2019\n\n\u2018Alas, my friends,\u2019 I answered, \u2018I was considered disgraced for\nattacking \u201cour American Movies.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u2018And in the end, Socrates, I suppose you were deported?\u2019 demanded Lysis.\n\n\u2018What else, indeed,\u2019 I answered.\n\n\u2018What, then, did they say to you?\u2019\n\n\u2018That I had lied in filling in my answers to those first questions\nthat all must answer who would receive a passport. For they said I had\nplainly intended to subvert the government of the United States, and\nthat they found, after inquiry from various publications, that I had\nbeen in prison. And the inspector added that I had been in an asylum\nalso, for that I came from Europe, and the Balkans at that, which he\nconsidered to be nothing less than a madhouse.\u2019\n\n\u2018And do you think,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018they will read your views about\nthem?\u2019\n\n\u2018I think so,\u2019 I answered, \u2018for they find the topic of themselves of\nmuch interest. But I do not expect them to profit by what I say, for\neven Xantippe is handicapped in their regard by belonging to the past.\nFor they do not admire the past at all, nor is the word \u201cancient\u201d ever\nused as praise.\u2019\n\n\u2018Do they despise all history?\u2019 asked Lysis.\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 I said, \u2018and they love the utterance of their Detroit Oracle,\nwhen he said\n\n    _History is bunk_,\n\nand they regard him with increasing honour as he says these things\nand as the Europeans have given to Aristotle the title they think\nhonourable, calling him the Master of them that Know, though they do\nnot add how little, so the Americans hail the Detroit Oracle as the\nMaster of them that Guess.\u2019\n\n\u2018But,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018though they despise even the story of the Greeks,\nsurely they are eager to know about Rome, for Rome excelled also in\nsize and great buildings and bridges and in buying culture from the\nEast. Do they not feel great sympathy?\u2019\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 I replied, \u2018and the priests and keepers of ancient tradition find\nthe name of Rome an embarrassment to them, for the Americans will have\nno respect for Rome, since they heard it was not built in a day.\u2019\n\n\u2018They have named a city after Plato,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018They will name a city after anybody,\u2019 I answered, \u2018and there are but\nfew of their own citizens whom they do not desire to forget.\u2019\n\nHere Agathon interrupted what I was going to explain about the cities,\nand said: \u2018But I believe they think of changing the names of their\ncities into numbers and of numbering the States. And some think it will\nhelp efficiency and be a compliment to themselves if they abolish the\nwords United States and America and get everybody in all countries to\ncall them One, as being country Number 1 of the whole world. But this\ncompliment will cost many dollars.\u2019\n\n\u2018If only philosophy cost many dollars,\u2019 reflected Lysis, \u2018they would\nvalue it more.\u2019\n\n\u2018They would,\u2019 said Agathon, \u2018but as it is you must not despair,\nSocrates, for your countenance is one that grows upon people.\u2019\n\n\u2018It grew upon me,\u2019 I said.\n\n\u2018We,\u2019 he said, \u2018have had to get used to you, and so it is perhaps with\nthe Americans and philosophy. They will acquire the taste\u2015\u2015in time.\u2019\n\n\u2018Anyway,\u2019 said Lysis, \u2018they ought to be grateful to you, Socrates, for\nexamining into what they think and do and value.\u2019\n\n\u2018I think so,\u2019 I replied, \u2018for I am pointing out to them something of\ngreat moment to their happiness when I declare that unless they reopen\nthe question of the end of living they will grow dissatisfied and exist\nwretchedly. For they must not go on letting themselves be led by men\nwith a low aim or no aim at all. For the conditions of the future will\nnot support the philosophy of \u201cmaking good\u201d as did the conditions of\nthe past. There is a point of view which suits a man or nation in the\nearly struggle with poverty which becomes ridiculous when the struggle\nis past.\u2019\n\n\u2018Many of them are beginning to think so,\u2019 said Agathon.\n\n\u2018And I am beginning to think,\u2019 said Lysis rising, \u2018that we have\nconsidered these Americans quite long enough, and that we should now\nmove to some other place and refresh ourselves, and with new companions\nexamine something else.\u2019\n\n\u2018I am of your mind; Lysis,\u2019 said Phaelon, and he also rose.\n\n\u2018I will accompany you,\u2019 I said. \u2018Perhaps when the Americans hear\nwhat we say of them they will change themselves of their own accord\nand become what we would like them to be. And if this discussion of\nours has that result it will be more useful, I think, than many of our\ntalks. But whatever happens we have done our best for these Americans\nby telling them the truth. For there are times when it is important to\nknow the truth, and life is one of them.\u2019\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n\n\n\n Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n\n \u2015\u2015Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n\n \u2015\u2015Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.\n\n \u2015\u2015Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.","title":"Plato's American Republic : $b Done out of the original","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":24804}