Let there be imagined a cross-examination on the point by some modern follower of Socrates' methods:
S. You say that the Swiss people are a noble race because they are a mountain race. Will you, if you have time, explain to me why that is so? I am very anxious to know the true reason why the fact of living on a mountain should have this fine effect on the human character.
T. On that point, surely, there is no difference of opinion at all? Every one knows that the mountain races are the most brave, the most eager for liberty, the most virtuous of the earth.
S. But it happens that I am not so wise as those people. I do not know, and I am very anxious to learn. Can you show me that it is a fact that mountain races are as you say? And afterwards, since you evidently have knowledge on this point and I am anxious to be your pupil, perhaps you will tell me why it is so.
T. You ask a rather difficult question. It is like, almost, raising the question as to whether the earth is round. Are you not satisfied to know that nearly all the poets and philosophers who have written about the mountains seem to be agreed on this point when they refer to it at all; and that few have written about mountains without making some reference to the noble nature of mountain peoples?
S. To tell you the truth, I am not quite satisfied. It is even possible that the poets have been mistaken. Probably you have heard of a German wise man named Schopenhauer and have read his writings.
T. (Interrupting.) Yes. But if he writes against mountain people I would not accept him as an authority on this point about which we are talking, since there are many men on the other side of so much greater authority.
S. No. I do not wish you to accept him as an authority on the character of mountain peoples. Indeed I do not know whether he has ever written at all on that subject. But he has written on the subject of female and male beauty. He does not think that women are more beautiful than men, but less beautiful. And when they would argue against him the words of the great poets, who are all quite agreed that women are more beautiful than men, he retorts that all these poets have been men, and that they have been blinded by their passions for women, and have not been able therefore to come to a sound and cool judgment. He argues that if the greatest poets had been women the beauty of men and not of women would have been sung. Does that not seem to you a rational argument?
T. Yes. Certainly it is not absurd. There may be some truth in what he says.
S. So the words of the poets may not always be accepted as proof of the truth, especially if it can be shown that they may be prejudiced regarding the matters of which they speak.