[120] Plato, Gorgias, p, 481 E.
[121] Plato, Gorgias, p. 487 C. ἐνίκα ἐς ὑμῖν τοιάδε τις δόξα, μὴ προθυμεῖσθαι εἰς τὴν ἀκριβείαν φιλοσοφεῖν, ἀλλὰ εὐλαβεῖσθαι.… ὅπως μὴ πέρα τοῦ δέοντος σοφώτεροι γενόμενοι λήσετε διαφθαρέντες.
The view here advocated by Kallikles:—That philosophy is good and useful, to be studied up to a point in the earlier years of life, in order to qualify persons for effective discharge of the duties of active citizenship, but that it ought not to be made the main occupation of mature life, nor be prosecuted up to the pitch of accurate theorising: this view, since Plato here assigns it to Kallikles, is denounced by most of the Platonic critics as if it were low and worthless. Yet it was held by many of the most respectable citizens of antiquity; and the question is, in point of fact, that which has always been in debate between the life of theoretical speculation and the life of action.
Isokrates urges the same view both in Orat. xv. De Permutatione, sect. 282-287, pp. 485-486, Bekker; and Orat. xii. Panathenaic. sect. 29-32, p. 321, Bekker. διατρίψαι μὲν οὖν περὶ τὰς παιδείας ταύτας χρόνον τινὰ συμβουλεύσαιμ’ ἂν τοῖς νεωτέροις, μὴ μέντοι περιϊδεῖν τὴν φύσιν τὴν αὐτῶν κατασκελετευθεῖσαν ἐπὶ τούτοις, &c. Cicero quotes a similar opinion put by Ennius the poet into the mouth of Neoptolemus, Tusc. D. ii. 1, 1; Aulus Gell. v. 16 — “degustandum ex philosophiâ censet, non in eam ingurgitandum”.
Tacitus, in describing the education of Agricola, who was taken by his mother in his earlier years to study at Massilia, says, c. 4:—“Memoriâ teneo, solitum ipsum narrare, se in primâ juventâ studium philosophiæ, ultra quam concessum Romano et senatori, hausisse; ni prudentia matris incensum ac flagrantem animum coercuisset”.
I have already cited this last passage, and commented upon the same point, in my notes at the end of the Euthydêmus, [p. 230].
Position of one who dissents, upon material points, from the fixed opinions and creed of his countrymen.
That in order to succeed politically, a man must be a genuine believer in the creed of King Nomos or the ruling force — cast in the same spiritual mould — (I here take the word creed not as confined to religion, but as embracing the whole of a man’s critical idéal, on moral or social practice, politics, or taste — the ends which he deems worthy of being aspired to, or proper to be shunned, by himself or others) is laid down by Sokrates as a general position: and with perfect truth. In disposing of the force or influence of government, whoever possesses that force will use it conformably to his own maxims. A man who dissents from these maxims will find no favour in the public assembly; nor, probably, if his dissent be grave and wide, will he ever be able to speak out his convictions aloud in it, without incurring dangerous antipathy. But what is to become of such a dissenter[122] — the man who frequents the same porticos with the people, but does not hold the same creed, nor share their judgments respecting social expetenda and fugienda? How is he to be treated by the government, or by the orthodox majority of society in their individual capacity? Debarred, by the necessity of the case, from influence over the public councils — what latitude of pursuit, profession, or conduct, is to be left to him as a citizen? How far is he to question, or expose, or require to be proved, that which the majority believe without proof? Shall he be required to profess, or to obey, or to refrain from contradicting, religious or ethical doctrines which he has examined and rejected? Shall such requirement be enforced by threat of legal penalties, or of ill-treatment from individuals, which is not less intolerable than legal penalties? What is likely to be his character, if compelled to suppress all declaration of his own creed, and to act and speak as if he were believer in another?
[122] Horat. Epist. i. 1, 70 —
| “Quod si me populus Romanus forté roget, cur Non ut porticibus, sic judiciis fruar iisdem, Nec sequar aut fugiam quæ diligit ipse vel odit: Olim quod vulpes ægroto cauta leoni Respondit, referam: Quia me vestigia terrent Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum.” |