Parmenides declares that no object in nature is mean to the philosopher.
Parm. — You are still young, Sokrates:— you still defer to the common sentiments of mankind. But the time will come when philosophy will take stronger hold of you, and will teach you that no object in nature is mean or contemptible in her view.[7]
[7] Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 E. Νέος γὰρ εἶ ἔτι, καὶ οὕπω σου ἀντείληπται φιλοσοφία ὡς ἕτι ἀντιλήψεται, κατ’ ἐμὴν δόξαν, ὅτε οὐδὲν αὐτῶν ἀτιμάσεις· νῦν δὲ ἔτι πρὸς ἀνθρώπων ἀποβλέπεις δόξας διὰ τὴν ἡλικίαν.
Remarks upon this — Contrast between emotional and scientific classification.
This remark deserves attention. Plato points out the radical distinction, and frequent antipathy between classifications constructed by science, and those which grow up spontaneously under the associating influence of a common emotion. What he calls “the opinions of men,” — in other words, the associations naturally working in an untaught and unlettered mind — bring together the ideas of objects according as they suggest a like emotion — veneration, love, fear, antipathy, contempt, laughter, &c.[8] As things which inspire like emotions are thrown into the same category and receive the same denomination, so the opposite proceeding inspires great repugnance, when things creating antipathetic emotions are forced into the same category. A large proportion of objects in nature come to be regarded as unworthy of any serious attention, and fit only to serve for discharging on them our laughter, contempt, or antipathy. The investigation of the structure and manifestations of insects is one of the marked features which Aristophanes ridicules in Sokrates: moreover the same poet also brings odium on the philosopher for alleged study of astronomy and meteorology — the heavenly bodies being as it were at the opposite emotional pole, objects of such reverential admiration and worship, that it was impious to watch or investigate them, or calculate their proceedings beforehand.[9] The extent to which anatomy and physiology were shut out from study in antiquity, and have continued to be partially so even in modern times, is well known. And the proportion of phenomena is both great and important, connected with the social relations, which are excluded both from formal registration and from scientific review; kept away from all rational analysis either of causes or remedies, because of the strong repugnances connected with them. This emotional view of nature is here noted by Plato as conflicting with the scientific. No object (he says) is mean in the eyes of philosophy. He remarks to the same effect in the Sophistês and Politikus, and the remark is illustrated by the classifying processes there exhibited:[10] mean objects and esteemed objects being placed side by side.
[8] Plato, himself, however, occasionally appeals πρὸς ἀνθρώπων δόξας, and becomes ἀτεχνῶς δημήγορος, when it suits his argument; see Gorgias, 494 C.
[9] Aristophan. Nubes, 145-170-1490.
| τί γὰρ μαθόντ’ ἐς τοὺς θεοὺς ὑβρίζετον, καὶ τῆς σελήνης ἐσκοπεῖσθε τὴν ἔδραν; |
Compare Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 11-13, iv. 7, 6-7; Plutarch, Perikles, 23; also the second chapter of the first Book of Macrobius, about the discredit which is supposed to be thrown upon grand and solemn subjects by a plain and naked exposition. “Inimicam esse naturæ nudam expositionem sui.”