"And as in music, even so in character. Where each individual distorts himself or herself into a narrow speciality, there people must needs become as angular, lop-sided, and grotesque as possible. They are, when together in a room, like the words on a page of a dictionary: they have nothing to communicate to one another. There they stand, each in his cage, uncommunicative, sulky, and forbidding. One thinks in F major; the other in F sharp minor. Harmony amongst them is impossible. Every one of them is hopelessly right in every one of his ideas; and of all mental processes, that of doubt or hesitation in judgment is the last they practise.
"A specialist does not doubt. Why should he? To him the most complicated things human appear as mere specialities, that is, as mere fragments. A woman is only a specialist in parturition. A physician is only a specialist in writing Latin words on small slips of paper. A barrister is only a man who wears neither moustache nor beard. A clergyman is practically a collar buttoning behind, and supported by a sort of man inside it. In that way everything is so simplified that no difficulty of comprehending it remains.
"All this clearly proves, O Empedocles, how right and, at the same time, how wrong you were in your view of the origin of things. Perhaps you were right in saying that the parts or organs of our bodies arose singly, or, as it were, as specialists. In times long before us there arose, as you taught, heads without necks; arms wandering alone in space; eyes, without foreheads, roaming about by themselves. But when you say that all this happened only at the beginning of things, you are, I take it, sorely mistaken. Indeed it is still going on in countries where specialism reigns supreme; at anyrate it is going on in the moral world. In such countries you still see arms wandering alone in space, or eyes roaming about without foreheads, as well as heads without brains flying about in space. Not literally, of course. But what else is a character-specialist cultivating exclusively one quality of the human soul than an arm wandering about alone? The little ones must come back to the Hellenic idea of seeing things as a whole, and not, as do wretched flies, as mere chips of things."
The divine Assembly had listened deferentially to the great sage. Zeus now charged Hermes to fetch some of the masterpieces from the room called the Tribuna at the Uffizi in Florence. Hermes, aided by a number of nymphs, fetched them and, placing them in the midst of the Assembly, exhibited their perfect beauty to the gods and heroes. This refreshed their souls sickened with the story of the serfdom of modern over-specialism.
DIOGENES AND PLATO ON TOLSTOY, IBSEN, SHAW, ETC.
On the second night the Olympians assembled at Pompeii. It was a balmy, starry night. The ruins of the old town, white in their marble dresses, shone with a spectral brightness against the mountains, bays, and meadows surrounding them. From Stabiæ and Gragnano opposite one could hear the pipe of Pan and the laughter of his nymphs, and on the dark water there were magic boats carrying Circe and her maids to their blue grotto in Capri. Selene sent her mildest rays over the scene, and grass and stone were as if steeped in silvery dreams. The place selected for the meeting was the amphitheatre. At a move of Zeus' right hand the seats and alleys, which had long since disappeared under the pressure of the ugly lava, rose from the ground. The orchestra and stage took up their old shape, and the whole graceful space with its incomparable view was again full of beauty, comfort, and pleasurableness. Zeus, and his wife Juno, sat down on the central seat, and around them the other gods and heroes. When everyone had found his or her seat, Zeus spake: "We have heard with much contentment the experiences of Aristotle in the country which the little ones below call England. We should now like to hear something about the theatres in that strange land. If life itself is so uncommon and funny in that part of the non-Grecian world, their theatre, reflecting life, must be unusually entertaining. Perhaps you Aristotle, as the most renowned critic of poetry and the drama, will be good enough to give us an idea of the thing they call drama in England."