The World's Greatest Books - Volume 14 Part 7

Plato, for the better health and comfort of the body, earnestly persuades that no man should ever give feet or head other cover than nature had allotted them.

We Frenchmen are accustomed to array ourselves strangely in parti-coloured suits (not I, for I seldom wear any but black and white, like my father) to protect ourselves against the cold, but what should we do in cold like that Captain Martyn du Bellay describes--frosts so hard that the wine had to be chopped up with axes and shared to the soldiers by weight?

_V.--Of Solitariness_

Let us leave apart the outworn comparison between a solitary and an active life, and ask those who engage themselves "for the public good"

whether what they seek in these public charges is not, after all, private commodity? Public or private, as I suppose, the end is the same, to live better at ease. But a man does not always seek the best way to come at it, and often supposes himself to have quit cares when he has but changed them.

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in managing a state. Wheresoever the mind is buried, there lies all. And though domestic occupations may be less important, they are not less importunate.

Moreover, though we have freed ourselves from court or from market, we have still the torments of ambition, avarice, irresolution, fear, and unsatisfied desires. These follow us even into cloisters and schools of philosophy. When Socrates was told that a certain man was none the better for his travels, "I believe it well," said he, "for he took himself with him."

If a man do not first get rid of what burthens his mind, moving from place to place will not help him. It is not enough for a man to sequester himself from people; he must seclude himself from himself. We carry our fetters with us. Our evil is rooted in our mind, and the mind cannot escape from itself. Therefore must it be reduced and brought into itself, and that is the true solitariness, which may be enjoyed even in the throng of peopled cities or kings' courts.

A man may, if he can, have wife, children, goods, health, but not so tie himself to them that his felicity depends on them. We should reserve for ourselves some place where we may, as it were, h.o.a.rd up our true liberty. Virtue is contented with itself, without discipline, words, or deeds. Shake we off these violent holdfasts which engage us and estrange us from ourselves. The greatest thing is for a man to know how to be his own.

I esteem not Arcesilaus, the philosopher, less reformed because I know him to have used household utensils of gold and silver, as the condition of his fortune permitted. And knowing what slender hold accessory comforts have, I omit not, in enjoying them, humbly to beseech G.o.d of His mercy to make me content with myself and the goods I have in myself.

The wiser sort of men, having a strong and vigorous mind, may frame for themselves an altogether spiritual life. But mine being common, I must help to uphold myself by corporal comforts. And age having despoiled me of some of these, I sharpen my appet.i.te for those remaining. Glory, which Pliny and Cicero propose to us, is far from my thoughts. "Glory and rest are things that cannot squat on the same bench." Stay your mind in a.s.sured and limited cogitations, wherein it best may please itself, and having gained knowledge of true felicities, enjoy them, and rest satisfied without wishing a further continuance either of life or of name.

_VI.--Opinion in Good and Evil_

Men, saith an ancient Greek, are tormented by the opinion they have of things, and not by things themselves. It were a great conquest of our miserable human condition if any man could establish everywhere this true proposition. For if evils lie only in our judgment, it is in our power to condemn them or to turn them to good.

In death, what we princ.i.p.ally fear is pain; as also poverty has nothing to be feared for but what she casts upon us through hunger, thirst, cold, and other miseries. I will willingly grant that pain is the worst accident of our being; I hate and shun it as much as possible. But it is in our power, if not to annul, at least to diminish it, with patience, and though the body should be moved, yet to keep mind and reason in good temper.

If it were not so, what has brought virtue, valour, magnanimity, fort.i.tude, into credit? If a man is not to lie on the hard ground, to endure the heat of the scorching sun, to feed hungrily on a horse or an a.s.s, to see himself mangled and cut in pieces, to have a bullet plucked out of his bones, to suffer incisions, his flesh to be st.i.tched up, cauterised, and searched--all incident to a martial man--how shall we purchase the advantage and pre-eminence we so greedily seek over the vulgar sort?

Moreover, this ought to comfort us, that naturally, if pain be violent it is also short; if long, it is easier. Thou shall not feel it over-long; if thou feel it over-much, it will either end itself or end thee. Even as an enemy becomes more furious when we fly from him, so does pain grow prouder if we tremble under it. It will stoop and yield on better terms to him who makes head against it. In recoiling we draw on the enemy. As the body is steadier and stronger to a charge if it stand stiffly, so is the soul.

Weak-backed men, such as I am, feel a dash of a barber's razor more than ten blows with a sword in the heat of fight. The painful throes of childbearing, deemed by physicians and the word of G.o.d to be very great, some nations make no account of. I omit to speak of the Lacedaemonian women; come we to the Switzers of our infantry. Trudging and trotting after their husbands, to-day you see them carry the child around their neck which but yesterday they brought into the world.

How many examples have we not of contempt of pain and smart by that s.e.x!

What can they not do, what will they not do, what fear they to do, so they may but hope for some amendment of their beauty? To become slender in waist, and to have a straight spagnolised body, what pinching, what girding, what cingling will they not endure! Yea, sometimes with iron plates, with whalebones, and other such trashy implements, that their very skin and quick flesh is eaten in and consumed to the bones, whereby they sometimes work their own death.

There is a certain effeminate and light opinion, and that no more in sorrow than it is in pleasure, whereby we are so dainty tender that we cannot abide to be stung of a bee, but must roar and cry out. This is the total sum of all, that you be master of yourself.

PLATO

The Apology, or Defence of Socrates

Aristocles, the son of Ariston, whose birth name is almost forgotten because the whole world knows him as Plato, was born at Athens about the year 427 B.C. As he grew up he became a devoted disciple of Socrates, and when the Athenian people had put the master to death, the disciple gave up his life to expounding the wisdom of his teacher. How much of that teaching was really implicitly contained in the doctrines of Socrates, it is difficult to say, since very definite developments evidently took place in Plato's own views. Plato himself lived to the age of eighty, and died, as he had for the most part lived, at Athens, in 347. When Socrates was indicted for "corrupting the youth" of Athens and on other corresponding charges, Plato was himself present at the trial. We may believe that the "Apology" is substantially a reproduction of the actual defence made by Socrates. The "judges"

in the Athenian court were practically the a.s.sembled body of free Athenian citizens. When an adverse verdict was given, the accused could propose a penalty as an alternative to that which had been named by the accuser, and the court could choose between the two penalties. Socrates was found guilty by a small majority of votes, and sentence of death was pa.s.sed, as set forth in the last section of the "Apology."

_I.--The Official Indictment, and the Real Charges_

What my accusers have said, Athenians, has been most specious, but none of it is true. The falsehood which most astonished me was that you must beware of being beguiled by my consummate eloquence; for I am not eloquent at all, unless speaking pure truth be eloquence. You will hear me speak with adornments and without premeditation in my everyday language, which many of you have heard. I am seventy years old, yet this is my first appearance in the courts, and I have no experience of forensic arts. All I ask is that you will take heed whether what I say be just.

It is just that I should begin by defending myself against my accusers from of old, in priority to Anytus and these other latter-day accusers.

For, skilful as these are, I fear those more--those who from your youth have been untruthfully warning you against one Socrates, a wise man, who speculates about everything in heaven and under the earth, and tries to make the worse cause the better. Their charge is the craftier, because you think that a man who does as they say has no thought for the G.o.ds. I cannot name these gentlemen precisely, beyond indicating that one is a writer of comedies; I cannot meet and refute them individually. However, I must try to enter a brief defence. I think I know where my difficulty will lie; but the issue will be as the G.o.ds choose.

Now, what is the basis of this charge, on which Meletus also relies?

"Socrates is an evil doer, a busybody, who pries into things in heaven and under the earth, and teaches these same things to others." You all saw the Socrates in the comedy of Aristophanes engaged in these pursuits. I have nothing to say against such inquiries; but do not let Meletus charge me with them, for I have no part nor lot in them. Many of you have heard me talk, but never one on these subjects. Witness you yourselves. From this you should be able to gauge the other things that are said against me.

Equally untrue is the charge that I make a paid business of teaching my neighbours. It is a fine thing to be able to impart knowledge, like Gorgias, and Prodicus, and Hippias, who can go from city to city and draw to converse with them young men who pay for the privilege instead of enjoying their companions' society for nothing. I am told there is one Evenus, a Parian, practising now, whose fee is five minas. It must be delightful to possess such valuable knowledge and to impart it--if they do possess it. I should like to do it myself, but I do not possess the knowledge.

"Whence, then, comes the trouble, Socrates?" you will say; "if you have been doing nothing unusual, how have these rumours and slanders arisen?"

I will tell you what I take to be the explanation. It is due to a certain wisdom with which I seem to be endowed--not superhuman at all like that of these gentlemen. I speak not arrogantly, but on the evidence of the Oracle of Delphi, who told Chaerephon, a man known to you, that there was no wiser man than Socrates. Now, I am not conscious of possessing wisdom; but the G.o.d cannot lie. What did he mean?

Well, I tried to find out, by going to a man reputed wise, thinking to prove that there were wiser men. But I found him not wise at all, though he fancied himself so. I sought to show him this, but he was only very much annoyed. I concluded that, after all, I was wiser than he in one particular, because I was under no delusion that I possessed knowledge, as he was. I tried all the men reputed wise, one after the other, and made myself very unpopular, for the result was always the same. It was the same with the poets as with the politicians, and with the craftsmen as with the poets. The last did know something about their own particular art, and therefore imagined that they knew all about everything.

I went on, taking every opportunity of finding out whether people reputed wise, and thinking themselves so, were wise in reality, and pointing out that they were not. And because of my exposing the ignorance of others, I have got this groundless reputation of having knowledge myself, and have been made the object of many other calumnies.

And young gentlemen of position who have heard me follow my example, and annoy people by exposing their ignorance; and this is all visited on me; and I am called an ill-conditioned person who corrupts youth. To prove which my calumniators have to fall back on charging me with prying into all things in heaven and under the earth, and the rest of it.

_II.--The Cross-Examining of Meletus_

Such is my answer to the charges which have been poured into your ears for a long time. Now let me defend myself against these later accusations of Meletus and the rest--the virtuous patriot Meletus. I am an evil-doer, a corrupter of youth, who pays no reverence to the G.o.ds who the city reveres, but to strange daemons. Not I, but Meletus is the evil-doer, who rashly makes accusations so frivolous, pretending much concern for matters about which he has never troubled himself. Answer me, Meletus. You think it of the utmost importance that our youth should be made as excellent as possible.

MELETUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Tell us, then, who is it that makes them better; for of course, you know. You are silent. The laws, you say? The question was, "Who?"

MELETUS: The judges; all the judges.

SOCRATES: In other words, all the Athenian people--everyone but me? And I alone corrupt them? Truly, I am in an ill plight! But in the case of all other animals, horses, for instance, there are only a few people who are able to improve them. Your answer shows that you have never bestowed attention on the care of young people. Next, tell me is it better for a man to dwell among good citizens or bad? The good, since the bad will injure him. I cannot, then, set about making bad citizens designedly. My friend, no man designedly brings injury upon himself. If I corrupt them, it must be undesignedly--reason good for admonishing and instructing me, which you have not done; but not for bringing me into court, which you have done! However, I corrupt them by teaching them not to believe in the G.o.ds in whom the city believes, but in strange deities? Do I teach that there are some G.o.ds, or that there are no G.o.ds at all?

MELETUS: I say that you believe in no G.o.ds. You say the sun is a stone, and the moon earth.

SOCRATES: Most excellent Meletus, everyone knows that Anaxagoras says so; you can buy that information for a drachma! Do I really appear to you to revere no G.o.ds?

MELETUS: No, no G.o.ds at all.

SOCRATES: Now, that is incredible! You must have manufactured this riddle out of sheer wantonness, for in the indictment you charge me with reverencing G.o.ds! Can anyone believe that there are human affairs, or equine affairs, or instrumental affairs without believing that there are men, or horses, or instruments? You say expressly that I believe in daemonic affairs, therefore in daemons; but daemons are a sort of G.o.ds or the offspring of G.o.ds. Therefore, you cannot possibly believe that I do not believe in G.o.ds. Really, I have sufficiently answered the indictment. If I am condemned, it will not be on the indictment of Meletus, but on popular calumnies; which have condemned good men before me, and a.s.suredly I shall not be the last.

_III.--The Defence_

It may be suggested that I ought to be ashamed of practices which have brought you in danger of death. Risk of death is not to be taken into account in any action which really matters at all. If it ought to be, the heroes before Troy were bad characters! Every man should stand to his post, come life, come death. Should I have stood to my post and faced death when on service at Potidaca, but have failed through fear of death when the deity imposed on me a certain course of action? Whether to die be evil or good, I know not, though many think they know it to be evil. But to disobey authority, human or divine, I know to be evil; and I will not do what I know to be evil to avoid what may in fact be a good. Insomuch that if you now offer to set me free on condition that I should cease from these pursuits on pain of death, I should reply: "Men of Athens, I love and honour you, but I will obey the G.o.d rather than you; and while I breathe and have the power I will not cease from the pursuit of philosophy, or from exhorting and warning you as I have done hitherto, against caring much for riches and nothing for the perfecting of your souls. This is the bidding of the G.o.d. If to speak thus be to corrupt youth, then I corrupt youth. But he who says I speak other things than this talks vanity; and this I will do, though the penalty were many deaths."

Do not murmur, but listen, for you will profit. If you put me to death, you will harm yourselves more than me, for it is worse to do wrong than to suffer it. You will not easily find another to serve as the gadfly which rouses a n.o.ble horse--as I have done, being commissioned thereto by the G.o.d. For that I have made no profit for myself from this course, my poverty proves. If it seems absurd that I should meddle thus with each man privately, but take no part in public affairs, that is because of the divine or daemonic influence of which I have spoken, named also in mockery by Meletus in the indictment. This is a voice which checks but never urges me on. Indeed, had I meddled with politics, I should have been dead long ago.

That I will prove by facts. When you chose to condemn the ten generals, my phyle supplied the Prytanes, and I alone stood out against you. And in the time of the thirty, I was ordered with four others to bring Leon from Salamis to be executed, and I alone would not; and it may be that my own life was saved only because that government was broken up. Judge, then, if my life would not have been shorter, had I taken part in public life.