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“One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.” Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt—particularly to doubt one’s cherished beliefs, one’s dogmas and one’s axioms. Who knows how these cherished beliefs became certainties with us, and whether some secret wish did not furtively beget them, clothing desire in the dress of thought? There is no real philosophy until the mind turns round and examines itself. Gnothi seauton, said Socrates: Know thyself.
That is very good, said Socrates; but there is an infinitely worthier subject for philosophers than all these trees and stones, and even all those stars; there is the mind of man. What is man, and what can he become?
But if the government itself is a chaos and an absurdity, if it rules without helping, and commands without leading,—how can we persuade the individual, in such a state, to obey the laws and confine his self-seeking within the circle of the total good?
But this is the worst that we can say of him; and after it is said, the Dialogues remain one of the priceless treasures of the world.9 The best of them, The Republic, is a complete treatise in itself, Plato reduced to a book; here we shall find his metaphysics, his theology, his ethics, his psychology, his pedagogy, his politics, his theory of art. Here we shall find problems reeking with modernity and contemporary savor: communism and socialism, feminism and birth-control and eugenics, Nietzschean problems of morality and aristocracy, Rousseauian problems of return to nature and libertarian
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Human behavior, says Plato, flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. Desire, appetite, impulse, instinct—these are one; emotion, spirit, ambition, courage—these are one; knowledge, thought, intellect, reason—these are one. Desire has its seat in the loins; it is a bursting reservoir of energy, fundamentally sexual. Emotion has its seat in the heart, in the flow and force of the blood; it is the organic resonance of experience and desire. Knowledge has its seat in the head; it is the eye of desire, and can become the pilot of the soul. These powers and qualities are all in
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“Ruin comes when the trader, whose heart is lifted up by wealth, becomes ruler” (434); or when the general uses his army to establish a military dictatorship. The producer is at his best in the economic field, the warrior is at his best in battle; they are both at their worst in public office; and
Plato passes on to a remarkable anticipation of “psychoanalysis.” Our political psychology is perplexed, he argues, because we have not adequately studied the various appetites or instincts of man. Dreams may give us a clue to some of the subtle and more elusive of these dispositions.
The elements of instruction . . . should be presented to the mind in childhood, but not with any compulsion; for a freeman should be a freeman too in the acquisition of knowledge . . . . Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a sort of amusement; this will better enable you to find out the natural bent of the child
Plato believes that a nation cannot be strong unless it believes in God. A mere cosmic force, or first cause, or élan vital, that was not a person, could hardly inspire hope, or devotion, or sacrifice; it could not offer comfort to the hearts of the distressed, nor courage to embattled souls. But a living God can do all this, and can stir or frighten the self-seeking individualist into some moderation of his greed, some control of his passion. All the more so if to belief in God is added belief in personal immortality: the hope of another life gives us courage to meet our own death, and to
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They are taught philosophy. They have now reached the age of thirty; it would not have been wise to let them “taste the dear delight too early; . . . for young men, when they first get the taste of philosophy in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting, . . . like puppy-dogs who delight to tear and pull at all who come near them” (539). This dear delight, philosophy, means two things chiefly: to think clearly, which is metaphysics; and to rule wisely, which is politics. First then, our young Elite must learn to think clearly. For that purpose they shall
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Much of the politics of Catholicism was derived from Plato’s “royal lies,” or influenced by them: the ideas of heaven, purgatory, and hell, in their medieval form, are traceable to the last book of the Republic; the cosmology of scholasticism comes largely from the Timæus; the doctrine of realism (the objective reality of general ideas) was an interpretation of the doctrine of Ideas; even the educational “quadrivium” (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) was modeled on the curriculum outlined in Plato. With this body of doctrine the people of Europe were ruled with hardly any resort to
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(“Life,” says a fine Greek adage, “is the gift of nature; but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom.”)
no man is a hero to his debtors.
Yet, as is the usual humor of history, the young warrior takes over many of the qualities of the old master whom he assails. We have always goodly stock in us of that which we condemn: as only similars can be profitably contrasted, so only similar people quarrel, and the bitterest wars are over the slightest variations of purpose or belief.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; “these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions”;50 we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: “the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life; . . . for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.”
It is more important than justice: for “when men are friends, justice is unnecessary; but when men are just, friendship is still a boon.” “A friend is one soul in two bodies.”
Fine friendship requires duration rather than fitful intensity; and this implies stability of character; it is to altered character that we must attribute the dissolving kaleidoscope of friendship. And friendship requires equality; for gratitude gives it at best a slippery basis.
In the same year, and at the same age, sixty-two, Demosthenes, greatest of Alexander’s enemies, drank poison. Within twelve months Greece had lost her greatest ruler, her greatest orator, and her greatest philosopher. The glory that had been Greece faded now in the dawn of the Roman sun; and the grandeur that was Rome was the pomp of power rather than the light of thought. Then that grandeur too decayed, that little light went almost out. For a thousand years darkness brooded over the face of Europe. All the world awaited the resurrection of philosophy.
Great organizers, as much as inevitable slaves, tend to stoic moods: it is difficult to be either master or servant if one is sensitive.
bene vixit qui bene latuit.
“To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar . . . . Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.”
“men ought to know that in the theatre of human life it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.”28
A friend is an ear. “Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts . . . . Whoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshaleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by one hour’s discourse than by a day’s meditation.”34
“Learning conquers or mitigates the fear of death and adverse fortune.”
Francis Bacon
Virgil’s great lines: Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum, Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari— “happy the man who has learned the causes of things, and has put under his feet all fears, and inexorable fate, and the noisy strife of the hell of greed.”
Virgi translation
All superstition is much the same, whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omens, retributive judgment, or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.82
“In general let every student of nature take this as a rule—that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction, is to be held in suspicion; and that so much the more care is to be taken, in dealing with such questions, to keep the understanding even and clear.”
“Men in great place are thrice servants; servants to the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business, so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons nor in their action, nor in their time . . . . The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eclipse.”
1. To speak in a manner comprehensible to the people, and to do for them all things that do not prevent us from attaining our ends . . . . 2. To enjoy only such pleasures, as are necessary for the preservation of health. 3. Finally, to seek only enough money . . . as is necessary for the maintenance of our life and health, and to comply with such customs as are not opposed to what we seek.31
“There is in the mind no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined in willing this or that by a cause which is determined in its turn by another cause, and this by another, and so on to infinity.”
“He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully.”88 “Minds are conquered not by arms but by greatness of soul.”89
But the essence of his ethic is rather Greek than Christian. “The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue”90—nothing could be more simply and thoroughly Socratic. For “we are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.”91 We think we are most ourselves when we are most passionate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought
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By imagination and reason we turn experience into foresight; we become the creators of our future, and cease to be the slaves of our past.
The passivity of passion is “human bondage,” the action of reason is human liberty. Freedom is not from causal law or process, but from partial passion or impulse; and freedom not from passion, but from uncoördinated and uncompleted passion. We are free only where we know.99 To be a superman is to be free not from the restraints of social justice and amenity, but from the individualism of the instincts. With this completeness and integrity comes the equanimity of the wise man; not the aristocratic self-complacency of Aristotle’s hero, much less the supercilious superiority of Nietzsche’s
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And let no one suppose that because he is no longer “free,” he is no longer morally responsible for his behavior and the structure of his life. Precisely because men’s actions are determined by their memories, society must for its protection form its citizens through their hopes and fears into some measure of social order and coöperation. All education presupposes determinism, and pours into the open mind of youth a store of prohibitions which are expected to participate in determining conduct. “The
Above all, determinism fortifies us to expect and to bear both faces of fortune with an equal mind; we remember that all things follow by the eternal decrees of God. Perhaps even it will teach us the “intellectual love of God,” whereby we shall accept the laws of nature gladly, and find our fulfillment within her limitations. He who sees all things as determined cannot complain, though he may resist; for he “perceives things under a certain species of eternity,”103 and he understands that his mischances are not chances in the total scheme; that they find some justification in the eternal
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“That which is necessary,” says Nietzsche, “does not offend me. Amor fati”—love of fate—“is the core of my nature.”106 Or Keats: To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm: That is the top of sovereignty.107
Thus I have completed all I wished to show concerning the power of the mind over emotions, or the freedom of the mind. From which it is clear how much a wise man is in front of and how stronger he is than an ignorant one, who is guided by lust alone. For an ignorant man, besides being agitated in many ways by external causes, never enjoys one true satisfaction of the mind: he lives, moreover, almost unconscious of himself, God, and things, and as soon as he ceases to be passive, ceases to be. On the contrary the wise man, in so far as he is considered as such, is scarcely moved in spirit; he
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But among men, as mutual need begets mutual aid, this natural order of powers passes into a moral order of rights. “Since fear of solitude exists in all men, because no one in solitude is strong enough to defend himself and procure the necessaries of life, it follows that men by nature tend towards social organization.”120 To guard against danger “the force or strength of one man would hardly suffice if men did not arrange mutual aid and exchange.”121 Men are not by nature, however, equipped for the mutual forbearance of social order; but danger begets association, which gradually nourishes
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conscience. Conscience, however, is not innate, but acquired; and varies with geography.125 It is the deposit, in the mind of the growing individual, of the moral traditions of the group; through it society creates for itself an ally in the heart of its enemy—the naturally individualistic soul.
Law is necessary because men are subject to passions; if all men were reasonable, law would be superfluous.
And an action is good not because it has good results, or because it is wise, but because it is done in obedience to this inner sense of duty, this moral law that does not come from our personal experience, but legislates imperiously and à priori for all our behavior, past, present, and future. The only thing unqualifiedly good in this world is a good will—the will to follow the moral law, regardless of profit or loss for ourselves. Never mind your happiness; do your duty. “Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of
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Kant
Struggle is the law of growth; character is built in the storm and stress of the world; and a man reaches his full height only through compulsions, responsibilities, and suffering. Even pain has its rationale; it is a sign of life and a stimulus to reconstruction. Passion also has a place in the reason of things: “nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion”;
History is made only in those periods in which the contradictions of reality are being resolved by growth, as the hesitations and awkwardness of youth pass into the ease and order of maturity. History is a dialectical movement, almost a series of revolutions, in which people after people, and genius after genius, become the instrument of the Absolute. Great men are not so much begetters, as midwives, of the future; what they bring forth is mothered by the Zeitgeist, the Spirit of the Age. The genius merely places another stone on the pile, as others have done; “somehow his has the good fortune
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Hence the uselessness of logic: no one ever convinced anybody by logic; and even logicians use logic only as a source of income. To convince a man, you must appeal to his self-interest, his desires, his will.
“Brilliant qualities of mind win admiration, but never affection”; and “all religions promise a reward . . . for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.”38
We like to believe that all history is a halting and imperfect preparation for the magnificent era of which we are the salt and summit; but this notion of progress is mere conceit and folly. “In general, the wise in all ages have always said the same things, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way too acted alike, and done the opposite; and so it will continue. For, as Voltaire says, we shall leave the world as foolish and wicked as we found it.”65
But if the world is will, it must be a world of suffering. And first, because will itself indicates want, and its grasp is always greater than its reach. For every wish that is satisfied there remain ten that are denied. Desire is infinite, fulfilment is limited—“it is like the alms thrown to a beggar, that keeps him alive today in order that his misery may be prolonged tomorrow . . . . As long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with their constant hopes and fears, so long as we are subject to willing, we can never have lasting
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Again, life is evil because pain is its basic stimulus and reality, and pleasure is merely a negative cessation of pain. Aristotle was right: the wise man seeks not pleasure, but freedom from care and pain.
