Phaethon: Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers

“It is so,” said I.

S.  “Let us, then, let nothing go its own way, while we go on ours with that which is only objectively true, lest coming to a river over which it is subjectively true to us that there is a bridge, and trying to walk over that work of our own mind, but no one’s hands, the bridge prove to be objectively false, and we, walking over the bank into the water, be set free from that which is subjectively on the farther bank of Styx.”

Then I, laughing: “This hardly coincides, Alcibiades, with Protagoras’s opinion, that subjective truth was alone useful.”

“But rather proves,” said Socrates, “that undiluted draughts of it are of a hurtful and poisonous nature, and require to be tempered with somewhat of objective truth, before it is safe to use them—at least in the case of bridges.”

“Did I not tell you,” interrupted Alcibiades, “how the old deceiver would try to put me to bed of some dead puppy or log?  Or do you not see how, in order, after his custom, to raise a laugh about the whole question by vulgar examples, he is blinking what he knows as well as I?”

S.  “What then, fair youth?”

A.  “That Protagoras was not speaking about bridges, or any other merely physical things, on which no difference of opinion need occur, because every one can satisfy himself by simply using his senses; but concerning moral and intellectual matters, which are not cognisable by the senses, and therefore permit, without blame, a greater diversity of opinion.  Error on such points, he told us—on the subject of religion, for example—was both pardonable and harmless; for no blame could be imputed to the man who acted faithfully up to his own belief, whatsoever that might be.”

S.  “Bravely spoken of him, and worthily of a free state.  But tell me, Alcibiades, with what matters does religion deal?”

A.  “With the Gods.”

S.  “Then it is not hurtful to speak false things of the Gods?”

A.  “Not unless you know them to be false.”

S.  “But answer me this, Alcibiades.  If you made a mistake concerning numbers, as that twice two made five, might it not be hurtful to you?”

A.  “Certainly; for I might pay away five obols instead of four.”

S.  “And so be punished, not by any anger of two and two against you, but by those very necessary laws of number, which you had mistaken?”

A.  “Yes.”

S.  “Or if you made a mistake concerning music, as that two consecutive notes could produce harmony, that opinion also, if you acted upon it, would be hurtful to you?”

A.  “Certainly; for I should make a discord, and pain my own ears, and my hearers’.”

S.  “And in this case also, be punished, not by any anger of the lyre against you, but by those very necessary laws of music which you had mistaken?”

A.  “Yes.”

S.  “Or if you mistook concerning a brave man, believing him to be a coward, might not this also be hurtful to you?  If, for instance, you attacked him carelessly, expecting him to run away, and he defended himself valiantly, and conquered you; or if you neglected to call for his help in need, expecting him falsely, as in the former case, to run away; would not such a mistake be hurtful to you, and punish you, not by any anger of the man against you, but by your mistake itself?”

A.  “It is evident.”

S.  “We may assume, then, that such mistakes at least are hurtful, and that they are liable to be punished by the very laws of that concerning which we mistake?”

A.  “We may so assume.”

S.  “Suppose, then, we were to say: ‘What argument is this of yours, Protagoras?—that concerning lesser things, both intellectual and moral, such as concerning number, music, or the character of a man, mistakes are hurtful, and liable to bring punishment, in proportion to our need of using those things: but concerning the Gods, the very authors and lawgivers of number, music, human character, and all other things whatsoever, mistakes are of no consequence, nor in any way hurtful to man, who stands in need of their help, not only in stress of battle, once or twice in his life, as he might of the brave man, but always and in all things both outward and inward?  Does it not seem strange to you, for it does to me, that to make mistakes concerning such beings should not bring an altogether infinite and daily punishment, not by any resentment of theirs, but, as in the case of music or numbers, by the very fact of our having mistaken the laws of their being, on which the whole universe depends?’—What do you suppose Protagoras would be able to answer, if he faced the question boldly?”

A.  “I cannot tell.”

S.  “Nor I either.  Yet one thing more it may be worth our while to examine.  If one should mistake concerning God, will his error be one of excess, or defect?”

A.  “How can I tell?”

S.  “Let us see.  Is not Zeus more perfect than all other beings?”

A.  “Certainly, if it be true that, as they say, the perfection of each kind of being is derived from him; he must therefore be himself more perfect than any one of those perfections.”

S.  “Well argued.  Therefore, if he conceived of himself, his conception of himself would be more perfect than that of any man concerning him?”

A.  “Assuredly; if he have that faculty, he must needs have it in perfection.”

S.  “Suppose, then, that he conceived of one of his own properties, such as his justice; how large would that perfect conception of his be?”

A.  “But how can I tell, Socrates?”

S.  “My good friend, would it not be exactly commensurate with that justice of his?”

A.  “How then?”

S.  “Wherein consists the perfection of any conception, save in this, that it be the exact copy of that whereof it is conceived, and neither greater nor less?”

A.  “I see now.”

S.  “Without the Pythia’s help, I should say.  But, tell me—We agree that Zeus’s conception of his own justice will be exactly commensurate with his justice?”

A.  “We do.”

S.  “But man’s conception thereof, it has been agreed, would be certainly less perfect than Zeus’s?”

A.  “It would.”

S.  “Man, then, it seems, would always conceive God to be less just than God conceives himself to be?”

A.  “He would.”

S.  “And therefore to be less just, according to the argument, than he really is?”

A.  “True.”

S.  “And therefore his error concerning Zeus, would be in this case an error of defect?”

A.  “It would.”

S.  “And so on of each of his other properties?”

A.  “The same argument would likewise, as far as I can see, apply to them.”

S.  “So that, on the whole, man, by the unassisted power of his own faculty, will always conceive Zeus to be less just, wise, good, and beautiful than he is?”

A.  “It seems probable.”

S.  “But does not that seem to you hurtful?”

A.  “Why so?”

S.  “As if, for instance, a man believing that Zeus loves him less than he really does, should become superstitious and self-tormenting.  Or, believing that Zeus will guide him less than he really will, he should go his own way through life without looking for that guidance: or if, believing that Zeus cares about his conquering his passions less than he really does, he should become careless and despairing in the struggle: or if, believing that Zeus is less interested in the welfare of mankind than he really is, he should himself neglect to assist them, and so lose the glory of being called a benefactor of his country: would not all these mistakes be hurtful ones?”

“Certainly,” said I: but Alcibiades was silent.

S.  “And would not these mistakes, by the hypothesis, themselves punish him who made them, without any resentment whatsoever, or Nemesis of the Gods being required for his chastisement?”

“It seems so,” said I.

S.  “But can we say of such mistakes, and of the harm which may accrue from them, anything but that they must both be infinite; seeing that they are mistakes concerning an infinite Being, and his infinite properties, on every one of which, and on all together, our daily existence depends?”

P.  “It seems so.”

S.  “So that, until such a man’s error concerning Zeus, the source of all things, is cleared up, either in this life or in some future one, we cannot but fear for him infinite confusion, misery, and harm, in all matters which he may take in hand?”

Then Alcibiades, angrily: “What ugly mask is this you have put on, Socrates?  You speak rather like a priest trying to frighten rustics into paying their first-fruits, than a philosopher inquiring after that which is beautiful.  But you shall never terrify me into believing that it is not a noble thing to speak out whatsoever a man believes, and to go forward boldly in the spirit of truth.”

S.  “Feeling first, I hope, with your staff, as would be but reasonable in the case of the bridge, whether your belief was objectively or only subjectively true, lest you should fall through your subjective bridge into objective water.  Nevertheless, leaving the bridge and the water, let us examine a little what this said spirit of truth may be.  How do you define it?”

A.  “I assert that whosoever says honestly what he believes, does so by the spirit of truth.”

S.  “Then if Lyce, patting those soft cheeks of yours, were to say: ‘Alcibiades, thou art the fairest youth in Athens,’ she would speak by the spirit of truth?”

A.  “They say so.”

S.  “And they say rightly.  But if Lyce, as is her custom, wished, by so saying, to cheat you into believing that she loved you, and thereby to wheedle you out of a new shawl, she would still speak by the spirit of truth?”

A.  “I suppose so.”

S.  “But if, again, she said the same thing to Phaethon, she would still speak by the spirit of truth?”

“By no means, Socrates,” said I, laughing.

S.  “Be silent, fair boy; you are out of court as an interested party.  Alcibiades shall answer.  If Lyce, being really mad with love, like Sappho, were to believe Phaethon to be fairer than you, and say so, she would still speak by the spirit of truth?”

A.  “I suppose so.”

S.  “Do not frown; your beauty is in no question.  Only she would then be saying what is not true?”

“I must answer for him after all,” said I.

S.  “Then it seems, from what has been agreed, that it is indifferent to the spirit of truth, whether it speak truth or not.  The spirit seems to be of an enviable serenity.  But suppose again, that I believed that Alcibiades had an ulcer on his leg, and were to proclaim the same now to the people, when they come into the Pnyx, should I not be speaking by the spirit of truth?”

A.  “But that would be a shameful and blackguardly action.”

S.  “Be it so.  It seems, therefore, that it is indifferent to the spirit of truth whether that which it affirms be honourable or blackguardly.  Is it not so?”

A.  “It seems so, most certainly, in that case at least.”

S.  “And in others, as I think.  But tell me—Is not the man who does what he believes, as much moved by this your spirit of truth as he who says what he believes?”

A.  “Certainly he is.”

S.  “Then if I believed it right to lie or steal, I, in lying or stealing, should lie or steal by the spirit of truth?”

A.  “Certainly: but that is impossible.”

S.  “My fine fellow, and wherefore?  I have heard of a nation among the Indians who hold it a sacred duty to murder every one not of their own tribe, whom they can waylay: and when they are taken and punished by the rulers of that country, die joyfully under the greatest torments, believing themselves certain of an entrance into the Elysian fields, in proportion to the number of murders which they have committed.”

A.  “They must be impious wretches.”

S.  “Be it so.  But believing themselves to be right, they commit murder by the spirit of truth.”

A.  “It seems to follow from the argument.”

S.  “Then it is indifferent to the spirit of truth whether the action which it prompts be right or wrong?”

A.  “It must be confessed.”

S.  “It is therefore not a moral faculty, this spirit of truth.  Let us see now whether it be an intellectual one.  How are intellectual things defined, Phaethon?  Tell me, for you are cunning in such matters.”

P.  “Those things which have to do with processes of the mind.”

S.  “With right processes, or with wrong?”

P.  “With right, of course.”

S.  “And processes for what purpose?”

P.  “For the discovery of facts.”

S.  “Of facts as they are, or as they are not?”

P.  “As they are.”

S.  “And he who discovers facts as they are, discovers truth; while he who discovers facts as they are not, discovers falsehood?”

P.  “He discovers nothing, Socrates.”

S.  “True; but it has been agreed already that the spirit of truth is indifferent to the question whether facts be true or false, but only concerns itself with the sincere affirmation of them, whatsoever they may be.  Much more then must it be indifferent to those processes by which they are discovered.”

P.  “How so?”

S.  “Because it only concerns itself with affirmation concerning facts; but these processes are anterior to that affirmation.”

P.  “I comprehend.”

S.  “And much more is it indifferent to whether those are right processes or not.”

P.  “Much more so.”

S.  “It is therefore not intellectual.  It remains, therefore, that it must be some merely physical faculty, like that of fearing, hungering, or enjoying the sexual appetite.”

A.  “Absurd, Socrates!”

S.  “That is the argument’s concern, not ours: let us follow manfully whithersoever it may lead us.”

A.  “Lead on, thou sophist!”

S.  “It was agreed, then, that he who does what he thinks right, does so by the spirit of truth—was it not?”

A.  “It was.”

S.  “Then he who eats when he thinks that he ought to eat, does so by the spirit of truth?”

A.  “What next?”

S.  “This next, that he who blows his nose when he thinks that it wants blowing, blows his nose by the spirit of truth.”

A.  “What next?”

S.  “Do not frown, friend.  Believe me, in such days as these, I honour even the man who is honest enough to blow his nose because he finds that he ought to do so.  But tell me—a horse, when he shies at a beggar, does not he also do so by the spirit of truth?  For he believes sincerely the beggar to be something formidable, and honestly acts upon his conviction.”

“Not a doubt of it,” said I, laughing, in spite of myself, at Alcibiades’s countenance.

S.  “It is in danger, then, of proving to be something quite brutish and doggish, this spirit of truth.  I should not wonder, therefore, if we found it proper to be restrained.”

A.  “How so, thou hair-splitter?”

S.  “Have we not proved it to be common to man and animals; but are not those passions which we have in common with animals to be restrained?”

P.  “Restrain the spirit of truth, Socrates?”

S.  “If it be doggishly inclined.  As, for instance, if a man knew that his father had committed a shameful act, and were to publish it, he would do so by the spirit of truth.  Yet such an act would be blackguardly, and to be restrained.”

P.  “Of course.”

S.  “But much more, if he accused his father only on his own private suspicion, not having seen him commit the act; while many others, who had watched his father’s character more than he did, assured him that he was mistaken.”

P.  “Such an act would be to be restrained, not merely as blackguardly, but as impious.”

S.  “Or if a man believed things derogatory to the character of the Gods, not having seen them do wrong himself, while all those who had given themselves to the study of divine things assured him that he was mistaken, would he not be bound to restrain an inclination to speak such things, even if he believed them?”

P.  “Surely, Socrates; and that even if he believed that the Gods did not exist at all.  For there would be far more chance that he alone was wrong, and the many right, than that the many were wrong, and he alone right.  He would therefore commit an insolent and conceited action, and, moreover, a cruel and shameless one; for he would certainly make miserable, if he were believed, the hearts of many virtuous persons who had never harmed him, for no immediate or demonstrable purpose except that of pleasing his own self-will; and that much more, were he wrong in his assertion.”

S.  “Here, then, is another case in which it seems proper to restrain the spirit of truth, whatsoever it may be?”

P.  “What, then, are we to say of those who speak fearlessly and openly their own opinions on every subject? for, in spite of all this, one cannot but admire them, whether rationally or irrationally.”

S.  “We will allow them at least the honour which we do to the wild boar, who rushes fiercely through thorns and brambles upon the dogs, not to be turned aside by spears or tree-trunks, and indeed charges forward the more valiantly the more tightly he shuts his eyes.  That praise we can bestow on him, but, I fear, no higher one.  It is expedient, nevertheless, to have such a temperament as it is to have a good memory, or a loud voice, or a straight nose unlike mine; only, like other animal passions, it must be restrained and regulated by reason and the law of right, so as to employ itself only on such matters and to such a degree as they prescribe.”

“It may seem so in the argument,” said I.  “Yet no argument, even of yours, Socrates, with your pardon, shall convince me that the spirit of truth is not fair and good, ay, the noblest possession of all; throwing away which, a man throws away his shield, and becomes unworthy of the company of gods or men.”

S.  “Or of beasts either, as it seems to me and the argument.  Nevertheless, to this point has the argument, in its cunning and malice, brought us by crooked paths.  Can we find no escape?”

P.  “I know none.”

S.  “But may it not be possible that we, not having been initiated, like Alcibiades, into the Babylonian mysteries, have somewhat mistaken the meaning of that expression, ‘spirit of truth’?  For truth we defined to be ‘facts as they are.’  The spirit of truth then should mean, should it not, the spirit of facts as they are?”

P.  “It should.”

S.  “But what shall we say that this expression, in its turn, means?  The spirit which makes facts as they are?”

A.  “Surely not.  That would be the supreme Demiurgus himself.”

S.  “Of whom you were not speaking, when you spoke of the spirit of truth?”

A.  “Certainly not.  I was speaking of a spirit in man.”

S.  “And belonging to him?”

A.  “Yes.”

S.  “And doing—what, with regard to facts as they are? for this is just the thing which puzzles me.”

A.  “Telling facts as they are.”

S.  “Without seeing them as they are?”

A.  “How you bore one! of course not.  It sees facts as they are, and therefore tells them.”

S.  “But perhaps it might see them as they are, and find it expedient, being of the same temperament as I, to hold its tongue about them?  Would it then be still the spirit of truth?”

A.  “It would, of course.”

S.  “The man then who possesses the spirit of truth will see facts as they are?”

A.  “He will.”

S.  “And conversely?”

A.  “Yes.”

S.  “But if he sees anything only as it seems to him, and is not in fact, he will not, with regard to that thing, see it by the spirit of truth?”

A.  “I suppose not.”

S.  “Neither then will he be able to speak of it by the spirit of truth.”

A.  “Why?”

S.  “Because, by what we agreed before, it will not be there to speak of, my wondrous friend.  For it appeared to us, if I recollect right, that facts can only exist as they are, and not as they are not, and that therefore the spirit of truth had nothing to do with any facts but those which are.”

“But,” I interrupted, “O dear Socrates, I fear much that if the spirit of truth be such as this, it must be beyond the reach of man.”

S.  “Why then?”

P.  “Because the immortal gods only can see things as they really are, having alone made all things, and ruling them all according to the laws of each.  They therefore, I much fear, will be alone able to behold them, how they are really in their inner nature and properties, and not merely from the outside, and by guess, as we do.  How then can we obtain such a spirit ourselves?”

S.  “Dear boy, you seem to wish that I should, as usual, put you off with a myth, when you begin to ask me about those who know far more about me than I do about them.  Nevertheless, shall I tell you a myth?”

P.  “If you have nothing better.”

S.  “They say, then, that Prometheus, when he grew to man’s estate, found mankind, though they were like him in form, utterly brutish and ignorant, so that, as Æschylus says:

Seeing they saw in vain,Hearing they heard not; but were like the shapesOf dreams, and long time did confuse all thingsAt random:

being, as I suppose, led, like the animals, only by their private judgments of things as they seemed to each man, and enslaved to that subjective truth, which we found to be utterly careless and ignorant of facts as they are.  But Prometheus, taking pity on them, determined in his mind to free them from that slavery and to teach them to rise above the beasts, by seeing things as they are.  He therefore made them acquainted with the secrets of nature, and taught them to build houses, to work in wood and metals, to observe the courses of the stars, and all other such arts and sciences, which if any man attempts to follow according to his private opinion, and not according to the rules of that art, which are independent of him and of his opinions, being discovered from the unchangeable laws of things as they are, he will fail.  But yet, as the myth relates, they became only a more cunning sort of animals; not being wholly freed from their original slavery to a certain subjective opinion about themselves, that each man should, by means of those arts and sciences, please and help himself only.  Fearing, therefore, lest their increased strength and cunning should only enable them to prey upon each other all the more fiercely, he stole fire from heaven, and gave to each man a share thereof for his hearth, and to each community for their common altar.  And by the light of this celestial fire they learnt to see those celestial and eternal bonds between man and man, as of husband to wife, of father to child, of citizen to his country, and of master to servant, without which man is but a biped without feathers, and which are in themselves, being independent of the flux of matter and time, most truly facts as they are.  And since that time, whatsoever household or nation has allowed these fires to become extinguished, has sunk down again to the level of the brutes: while those who have passed them down to their children burning bright and strong, become partakers of the bliss of the Heroes, in the Happy Islands.  It seems to me then, Phaethon and Alcibiades, that if we find ourselves in anywise destitute of this heavenly fire, we should pray for the coming of that day, when Prometheus shall be unbound from Caucasus, if by any means he may take pity on us and on our children, and again bring us down from heaven that fire which is the spirit of truth, that we may see facts as they are.  For which, if he were to ask Zeus humbly and filially, I cannot believe that He would refuse it.  And indeed, I think that the poets, as is their custom, corrupt the minds of young men by telling them that Zeus chained Prometheus to Caucasus for his theft; seeing that it befits such a ruler, as I take the Father of gods and men to be, to know that his subjects can only do well by means of his bounty, and therefore to bestow it freely, as the kings of Persia do, on all who are willing to use it in the service of their sovereign.”

“So then,” said Alcibiades, laughing, “till Prometheus be unbound from Caucasus, we who have lost, as you seem to hint, this heavenly fire, must needs go on upon our own subjective opinions, having nothing better to which to trust.  Truly, thou sophist, thy conclusion seems to me after all not to differ much from that of Protagoras.”

S.  “Ah dear boy! know you not that to those who have been initiated, and, as they say in the mysteries, twice born, Prometheus is always unbound, and stands ready to assist them; while to those who are self-willed and conceited of their own opinions, he is removed to an inaccessible distance, and chained in icy fetters on untrodden mountain-peaks, where the vulture ever devours his fair heart, which sympathises continually with the follies and the sorrows of mankind?  Of what punishment, then, must not those be worthy, who by their own wilfulness and self-confidence bind again to Caucasus the fair Titan, the friend of men?”