Theaetetus

SOC. And likewise in affairs of state, the honorable and disgraceful, the just and unjust, the pious and its opposite, are in truth to each state such as it thinks they are and as it enacts into law for itself, and in these matters no citizen and no state is wiser than another; but in making laws that are advantageous to the state, or the reverse, Protagoras again will agree that one counsellor is better than another, and the opinion of one state better than that of another as regards the truth, and he would by no means dare to affirm that whatsoever laws a state makes in the belief that they will be advantageous to itself are perfectly sure to prove advantageous. But in the other class of things—I mean just and unjust, pious and impious—they are willing to say with confidence that no one of them possesses by nature an existence of its own; on the contrary, that the common opinion becomes true at the time when it is adopted and remains true as long as it is held; this is substantially the theory of those who do not altogether affirm the doctrine of Protagoras. But, Theodorus, argument after argument, a greater one after a lesser, is overtaking us.

THEO. Well, Socrates, we have plenty of leisure, have we not?

SOC. Apparently we have. And that makes me think, my friend, as I have often done before, how natural it is that those who have spent a long time in the study of philosophy appear ridiculous when they enter the courts of law as speakers.

THEO. What do you mean?

SOC. Those who have knocked about in courts and the like from their youth up seem to me, when compared with those who have been brought up in philosophy and similar pursuits, to be as slaves in breeding compared with freemen.

THEO. In what way is this the case?

SOC. In this way: the latter always have that which you just spoke of, leisure, and they talk at their leisure in peace; just as we are now taking up argument after argument, already beginning a third, so can they, if as in our case, the new one pleases them better than that in which they are engaged; and they do not care at all whether their talk is long or short, if only they attain the truth. But the men of the other sort are always in a hurry—for the water flowing through the water-clock urges them on— and the other party in the suit does not permit them to talk about anything they please, but stands over them exercising the law’s compulsion by reading the brief, from which no deviation is allowed (this is called the affidavit); [*](In Athenian legal procedure each party to a suit presented a written statement—the charge and the reply—at a preliminary hearing. These statements were subsequently confirmed by oath, and the sworn statement was called διωμοσία or ἀντωμοσία, which is rendered above by affidavit as the nearest English equivalent.) and their discourse is always about a fellow slave and is addressed to a master who sits there holding some case or other in his hands; and the contests never run an indefinite course, but are always directed to the point at issue, and often the race is for the defendant’s life. As a result of all this, the speakers become tense and shrewd; they know how to wheedle their master with words and gain his favor by acts; but in their souls they become small and warped.

SOC. For they have been deprived of growth and straightforwardness and independence by the slavery they have endured from their youth up, for this forces them to do crooked acts by putting a great burden of fears and dangers upon their souls while these are still tender; and since they cannot bear this burden with uprightness and truth, they turn forthwith to deceit and to requiting wrong with wrong, so that they become greatly bent and stunted. Consequently they pass from youth to manhood with no soundness of mind in them, but they think they have become clever and wise. So much for them, Theodorus. Shall we describe those who belong to our band, or shall we let that go and return to the argument, in order to avoid abuse of that freedom and variety of discourse, of which we were speaking just now?

THEO. By all means, Socrates, describe them; for I like your saying that we who belong to this band are not the servants of our arguments, but the arguments are, as it were, our servants, and each of them must await our pleasure to be finished; for we have neither judge, nor, as the poets have, any spectator set over us to censure and rule us.

SOC. Very well, that is quite appropriate, since it is your wish; and let us speak of the leaders; for why should anyone talk about the inferior philosophers? The leaders, in the first place, from their youth up, remain ignorant of the way to the agora, do not even know where the court-room is, or the senate-house, or any other public place of assembly; as for laws and decrees, they neither hear the debates upon them nor see them when they are published; and the strivings of political clubs after public offices, and meetings, and banquets, and revellings with chorus girls—it never occurs to them even in their dreams to indulge in such things. And whether anyone in the city is of high or low birth, or what evil has been inherited by anyone from his ancestors, male or female, are matters to which they pay no more attention than to the number of pints in the sea, as the saying is. And all these things the philosopher does not even know that he does not know; for he does not keep aloof from them for the sake of gaining reputation, but really it is only his body that has its place and home in the city; his mind, considering all these things petty and of no account, disdains them and is borne in all directions, as Pindar [*](This may refer to Pind. Nem. 10.87 f.:ἥμισυ μέν κε πνέοις γαίας ὑπένερθεν ἐών,ἥμισυ δ’ οὐρανοῦ ἐν χρυσέοις δόμοσιν Thou (Polydeuces) shalt live being half the time under the earth and half the time in the golden dwellings of heaven, but it may be a quotation from one of the lost poems of Pindar.) says, both below the earth, and measuring the surface of the earth, and above the sky, studying the stars, and investigating the universal nature of every thing that is, each in its entirety, never lowering itself to anything close at hand.

THEO. What do you mean by this, Socrates?

SOC. Why, take the case of Thales, Theodorus. While he was studying the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit, and a neat, witty Thracian servant girl jeered at him, they say, because he was so eager to know the things in the sky that he could not see what was there before him at his very feet. The same jest applies to all who pass their lives in philosophy. For really such a man pays no attention to his next door neighbor; he is not only ignorant of what he is doing, but he hardly knows whether he is a human being or some other kind of a creature; but what a human being is and what is proper for such a nature to do or bear different from any other, this he inquires and exerts himself to find out. Do you understand, Theodorus, or not?

THEO. Yes, I do; you are right.

SOC. Hence it is, my friend, such a man, both in private, when he meets with individuals, and in public, as I said in the beginning, when he is obliged to speak in court or elsewhere about the things at his feet and before his eyes, is a laughing-stock not only to Thracian girls but to the multitude in general, for he falls into pits and all sorts of perplexities through inexperience, and his awkwardness is terrible, making him seem a fool; for when it comes to abusing people he has no personal abuse to offer against anyone, because he knows no evil of any man, never having cared for such things; so his perplexity makes him appear ridiculous; and as to laudatory speeches and the boastings of others, it becomes manifest that he is laughing at them—not pretending to laugh, but really laughing—and so he is thought to be a fool. When he hears a panegyric of a despot or a king he fancies he is listening to the praises of some herdsman—a swineherd, a shepherd, or a neatherd, for instance—who gets much milk from his beasts; but he thinks that the ruler tends and milks a more perverse and treacherous creature than the herdsmen, and that he must grow coarse and uncivilized, no less than they, for he has no leisure and lives surrounded by a wall, as the herdsmen live in their mountain pens. And when he hears that someone is amazingly rich, because he owns ten thousand acres of land or more, to him, accustomed as he is to think of the whole earth, this seems very little.