Part 14

[Sidenote: B] Let the love of glory, then, be brought to terms with the love of learning. Let us listen to a speaker with friendly courtesy, regarding ourselves as guests at a sacred banquet or sacrificial offering. Let us praise his ability when he makes a hit, or be satisfied with the mere goodwill of a man who is making the public a present of his views and endeavouring to convince others by means of the arguments which have convinced himself. When he goes right, let us consider that his rightness is due not to chance or accident, but to painstaking effort and learning. Let us take a pattern by it, and not only admire it, but emulate it. When he is at fault, let us stop and think for what reasons he is so, and at what point he began to go astray. [Sidenote: C] Xenophon observes that good managers derive profit from their enemies as well as from their friends. In the same way those who are attentive and alert derive benefit from a speaker not only when he is in the right, but also when he is in the wrong. Paltry thought, empty phrase, affected bearing, vulgar delight and excitement at applause, and the like, are more palpable to a listener in another’s case than to a speaker in his own. It is well, therefore, to take the criticism which we apply to him, and apply it to ourselves, asking whether we commit any mistake of the kind without being aware of it. It is the easiest thing in [Sidenote: D] the world to find fault with our neighbour, but it is a futile and meaningless proceeding, unless made to bear in some way upon the correction or prevention of similar faults. When lapses are committed, let us always be prompt to exclaim to ourselves in the phrase of Plato, ‘Am I, perhaps, as bad?’ As in the eyes of our neighbour we see the reflection of our own, so we should find a picture of our own speech in that of another. In that way we shall avoid treating others with over-confident contempt, and shall also look more carefully to our own deliverances.

There is another way in which comparison serves this useful [Sidenote: E] purpose. I mean if, when we get by ourselves after the lecture, we take some point which appears to have been wrongly or unsatisfactorily treated, and attack the same theme, doing our best to fill in, to correct, to re-word, or to attempt an entirely original contribution to the subject, as the case may be—doing, in fact, as Plato did[45] with the speech of Lysias. While to argue against a certain deliverance is not difficult, but, on the contrary, very easy, to set up a better in its stead is an extremely hard matter. As the Lacedaemonian said on hearing that Philip had razed Olynthus to the ground: ‘Yes, but to create a city as good is beyond the man’s power’. Accordingly, [Sidenote: F] when we find that in dealing with the same subject we can do but little better than the speaker in the case, we make a large reduction in our contempt and speedily prune down that self-satisfied conceit which has been exposed during such process of comparison.

Nevertheless, though admiration, as opposed to contempt, certainly betokens a fairer and gentler nature, it is a thing which, in its own turn, requires no little—perhaps greater—caution. [Sidenote: 41] For while a contemptuous and over-confident person derives too little benefit from a speaker, an enthusiastic and guileless admirer derives too much injury. He forms no exception to the rule of Heracleitus that ‘_Any dictum will flutter a fool_‘. One should be frank in yielding praise to the speaker, but cautious in yielding belief to the assertion; a kindly and candid observer of the diction and delivery of the arguer, but a sharp and exacting critic of the truth and value of his argument. [Sidenote: B] While we thus escape dislike from the speaker, we escape harm from the speech. How many false and pernicious doctrines we unawares accept through esteeming and trusting their exponent! The Lacedaemonian authorities, after examining a measure suggested by a man of evil life, instructed another person, famous for his conduct and character, to move it—a very proper and statesmanlike encouragement to the people to be led more by the character of an adviser than by his speech. But in philosophy we must put aside the reputation of the speaker and examine the speech in and by itself. In lecturing, as in war, there is much that is mere show. The speaker’s grey hairs, his vocal [Sidenote: C] affectations, his supercilious airs, his self-glorification; above all, the shouting, applauding, and dancing of the audience overwhelm the young and inexperienced student and sweep him along with the current. There is deception in the language also, when it streams upon the question in a delightful flood, and when it contains a measure of studied art and the grandiose. As, in singing to the accompaniment of the flageolet, mistakes are generally undetected by an audience, so an elaborate and pretentious diction dazzles the hearer and blinds him to the sense. I believe it was Melanthius who, when asked about [Sidenote: D] Diogenes’ tragedy, replied: ‘I could not get a sight of it; it was hidden behind the words.’ But with the discourses and declamations of the majority of our professors it is not merely a case of using the words to screen the thoughts. They also dulcify the voice—modulating, smoothing, and intoning—till the hearer is carried away with a perfect intoxication. They give an empty pleasure, and are paid with an emptier fame. Their case, in fact, is one for the quip given by Dionysius. It was he, I think, who, during the performance of a distinguished harp-player, promised him a liberal reward, but subsequently gave [Sidenote: E] him nothing, on the ground that he had made a sufficient return. ‘For as long a time as I was enjoying your singing’, said he, ‘you were enjoying your expectations.’ The deliverer of the lectures in question finds that they represent a joint contribution of the same kind. He receives admiration as long as his entertainment lasts. As soon as no more pleasure is forthcoming for the ear, there is no more glory left for him. The one party has wasted his time, the other his professional life.

Let us, then, strip aside all this empty show of language, and make for the actual fruit. It is better to imitate the bee than [Sidenote: F] the garland-maker. The latter looks for the bright-coloured fragrant petals, and, by twining and plaiting them together, produces an object which is pleasant enough, but short-lived and fruitless. Bees, on the contrary, frequently skim through meadows of violets, roses, or hyacinths, to settle upon the coarsest and bitterest thyme. To this they devote themselves

_Contriving yellow honey_,

and then fly home to their proper business with something worth the getting. So a student who takes his work in real earnest will pay no regard to dainty flowery words nor to showy [Sidenote: 42] theatrical matter. These he will consider as fodder for drones who play the sophist. For his own part he will probe with keen attention into the sense of a speech and the quality of the speaker. Therefrom he will suck such part as will be of service and profit. He will remember that he has not come to a theatre or concert-hall, but to a classroom in the schools, and that his object is to get his life corrected by means of reason. Hence he should form a critical judgement of the lecture from his own case, that is to say, from a calculation of its effect upon himself. Has it been the chastening of a passion, the lightening [Sidenote: B] of a grief? Has it been courage, firmness of spirit, enthusiasm for excellence and virtue? Upon rising from the barber’s chair he will stand at the glass and put his hands to his head, inspecting the trim and arrangement of the hair. No less should he, immediately on leaving a lecture in the philosophic school, look at himself and examine his own mind, to see if it has got rid of any useless and uncomfortable growth and become lighter and more at ease. ‘There is no use’, says Aristo, ‘in either a bath or a speech, unless it cleanses.’

[Sidenote: C] By all means let a young man, while profiting from a discourse, find pleasure in the process. But he must not treat the pleasure of the lecture as its end, nor expect to come out of the philosopher’s school with a beaming face and humming a tune. He must not ask for scented unguents when what he needs is a lotion or a poultice. On the contrary, he should be grateful if a pungent argument acts upon his mind like smoke upon a hive, and clears out all the darkness and mistiness that fill it. Though it is quite right for a speaker not to be altogether without concern for an attractive and persuasive style of language, that should be a matter least regarded by the young student, at any rate in the first instance. Later, no doubt, the case may be [Sidenote: D] different. It is when they are no longer thirsty that persons engaged in drinking will turn a cup about and inspect the chasing upon it. Similarly during a breathing-time, after taking our fill of the lesson, we may be permitted to examine any uncommon elegance in the language. But if from the very first, instead of taking a grip upon the substance, you insist upon ‘good pure Attic’ expression, you are like a person who refuses to take an antidote unless the vessel is made of the best Attic earthenware; or who declines to put on a thick cloak in winter unless the wool is from Attic sheep, preferring to sit, stubborn and impracticable, in the thin napless mantle of the ‘style of Lysias’. Perversities of this kind are responsible for a plentiful [Sidenote: E] lack of good sense and an abundance of loquacious claptrap in the schools. Young fellows keep no watch upon the life, the practical action, or the public services of a philosopher, but make a great merit of diction, phrase, and fine method of statement, while they possess neither the ability nor the desire to find out whether the statement is valuable or worthless, whether it is vital or a mere futility.

The next rule concerns the propounding of difficulties. A guest at a dinner is bound to accept what is put upon the [Sidenote: F] table, and neither to ask for anything else nor to find fault. When the feast consists of a discourse, any one who comes to it should listen and say nothing, if there is an understanding to that effect. Persons who cannot listen in a pleasant and sociable manner, but keep drawing the speaker off to other topics, interposing questions and mooting side-issues, get no benefit themselves and confuse both the speaker and the speech. When, however, he invites the audience to ask questions and advance difficulties, any that are proposed should prove to be useful and important. Odysseus, when in the suitors’ company, incurs ridicule through

_Begging for morsels and scraps, and not for a sword or a cauldron._

[Sidenote: 43] regard it as a sign of lofty-mindedness not only to give, but to ask for, something of value. It is, however, more a case for ridicule when a hearer poses a speaker with petty little problems of the kind often propounded by young men, when they are talking claptrap in order to make a show of attainments in logic or mathematics—for example, concerning ‘division of the indeterminate’ and the nature of ‘lateral’ or ‘diagonal’ [Sidenote: B] motion. The proper answer to such persons is the remark of Philotimus to a man who was suffering with abscesses and consumption, but who had been talking to him for some time about requiring ‘some little thing to cure a whitlow’. Perceiving the man’s condition from his complexion and breathing, Philotimus observed: ‘My good sir, a whitlow is not the question with you.’ Nor in your case, young sir, is it worth while to be discussing such questions as yours, but how you are to get rid of conceit, swaggering about love-affairs, and such-like nonsense, and how you are to plant your feet on the way to a healthy and sober-minded life.

Especially are you bound, in putting your questions, to accommodate yourself to a speaker’s range of knowledge or natural [Sidenote: C] ability—to his special _forte_. A philosopher who is more concerned with ethics should not be attacked with difficulties in natural science or mathematics, nor should one who prides himself upon his scientific knowledge be dragged into determining hypothetical syllogisms or solving fallacies. If you attempted to chop your wood with the key and to open your door with the axe, it would not be thought that you were making sport of these implements, but that you were depriving yourself of their respective powers and uses. In the same way, if you ask of a speaker a thing for which he has no gift or training, while you make no harvest of what he possesses and offers, [Sidenote: D] you not only do yourself harm to that extent, but you incur condemnation for malicious ill-nature.

Be careful also not to propound difficulties yourself in too great numbers or too frequently. This is, in a sense, another way of showing off. Meanwhile, to listen equably when some one else is mooting them, shows that you are a clubbable person and a student. This is assuming you have no harassing and urgent trouble of your own, no mental disturbance to be controlled or malady to be comforted. It may not, after all, be (as Heracleitus says) ‘better to conceal ignorance’, but to bring it into the open and cure it. If your mind is upset by a fit of anger, an attack of superstition, a violent quarrel with your friends, or a mad amorous passion which

_Stirreth the heart-strings that should rest unstirred_,

[Sidenote: E] you must not run away from a discourse which searches it home, and fly to others of a different nature. On the contrary, these are the very topics to which you should listen, both at lectures and also by privately approaching the lecturer afterwards and asking for further light.

The opposite course is the one too generally followed. So long as the philosopher is dealing with other persons, his hearers are all delight and admiration. But when he leaves those others alone and frankly administers some important reminder to themselves personally, they are disgusted with him for not minding his own business. Generally speaking, they think [Sidenote: F] a philosopher is entitled to a hearing inside his school, as the tragedian is in the theatre; but in matters beyond it they do not consider him in any way superior to themselves. Towards a sophist their attitude is natural enough; for when he rises from his chair, lays aside his books and his introductory manuals, and makes his appearance in the practical departments of life, he ranks in the popular mind as an unimportant and inferior person. But towards a philosopher in the real sense their attitude is wrong. They do not recognize that a tone of earnestness or jest, a sign of approval or disapproval, a smile or a frown, [Sidenote: 44] on his part—and, above all, his direct handling of their individual cases—are fruitful in good to those who have learned the art of listening with submission.

Applause, again, has its duties, which call for a certain caution and moderation. A gentleman bestows neither too little nor too much of it. A hearer shows churlishly bad taste when nothing whatever in a lecture will make him thaw or unbend; when he is diseased with festering conceit and chronic self-complacency, and is all the time thinking he could improve upon the deliverance; when he neither makes any appropriate movement of the brow nor utters any sound to prove that he is [Sidenote: B] a considerate and willing listener; when he is seeking a reputation for solidity and depth by means of silence, an affected gravity, and attitudes of pose, under the notion that applause is like money, and that whatever amount you give to another you take from yourself. The fact is that there are many who take up the well-known saying of Pythagoras and sing it to a false tune. His own gain from philosophy, he said, was to ‘_wonder at [Sidenote: *] nothing_‘; whereas theirs is to ‘praise nothing’ or to ‘honour nothing’. With them wisdom lies in contempt, and the way to be dignified is to be disdainful. While, by means of knowledge [Sidenote: C] and the ascertainment of the cause in a given case, philosophic reason does away with the wonder and awe due to unenlightenment and ignorance, it does not destroy a generous appreciation. Those whose excellence is genuine and firmly seated find it the highest honour to bestow honour, the highest distinction to bestow distinction, where honour and distinction are due. Such conduct implies that they have fame enough and to spare, and are free from jealousy, whereas those who are niggards of praise to others are in all probability pinched and hungry for praise of their own.

On the other hand, the opposite type of hearer is the fluttering feather-head who uses no discrimination, but punctuates with loud cheers at every word and syllable. While he is frequently obnoxious to the disputant himself, he is invariably a nuisance [Sidenote: D] to the hearers. He worries them on to their feet against their judgement, and drags them willy-nilly to join in the chorus because they are ashamed to refuse. Thanks to his applause deranging the lecture and making an imbroglio of it, he gets no good from it, but goes home with one of three descriptions to his credit—fleerer, sycophant, or ignoramus.

It is true that, when hearing a case in court, we must lean [Sidenote: E] neither towards hostility nor towards favour, but towards justice as we best understand it. But at a lecture on a subject of learning there is neither law nor oath to debar us from granting the speaker an indulgent reception. The reason why the ancients placed the statue of Hermes in the company of the Graces was that speaking has a special claim to a gracious friendliness. It is impossible for any one to be so complete a failure or so utterly astray as to offer us nothing deserving of a cheer, in the shape of a thought, a reference to others, the mere choice of theme or purpose, or, possibly, in the wording or arrangement of the matter,

_As among urchin-foot or mid coarse broom The tender snowflake springeth into bloom._

[Sidenote: F] There are persons who, for exhibition purposes, can lend a fair measure of plausibility to a panegyric upon vomiting or fever, or even a pot; and surely a deliverance by a man who has some sort of claim to be thought, or to call himself, a philosopher cannot absolutely fail to afford a well-disposed or courteous audience some opportunity of finding relief in applause.

According to Plato young persons in the bloom of life can always manage somehow to excite a lover’s passion. If they are white he calls them ‘saint-like’; if swarthy, ‘virile’. [Sidenote: 45] A hook-nose is ‘regal’, a snub nose ‘piquant’; a sallow skin is a ‘complexion of honey’. He uses these pretty names, and is pleased and satisfied. Love has, indeed, an ivy-like gift for clinging to any pretext. Much less will an eager and earnest student of letters ever fail in inventiveness. In every speaker he will discover some grounds for reasonable applause. In the speech of Lysias, though Plato objects to its want of arrangement, and though he has no praise for its inventiveness, he nevertheless commends him for his manner of statement, and because there is ‘a clear round finish in the chiselling of every word’. [Sidenote: B] We might find fault with Archilochus for his subject-matter, Parmenides for his versification, Phocylides for his commonplaceness, Euripides for his garrulity, Sophocles for his inequality. Similarly one of the orators has no characterization, another exerts no passion, a third is lacking in grace and charm. Nevertheless each wins praise for a power to move and sway us in his own peculiar way.

The hearer, then, has ample scope for showing good feeling to a speaker. In some instances it is sufficient if, without further declaration by word of mouth, we contribute a kindly eye, a genial expression, a friendly and agreeable mood. There are certain things for which even the man who is a total failure may [Sidenote: C] look, and which are but ordinary items of common etiquette for any and every audience. I mean an upright posture in our chairs, with no lolling or lounging; eyes kept directly upon the speaker; an air of businesslike attention; composure of countenance, with no sign, I need not say of insolence or peevishness, but of being taken up with other thoughts.

If in every exacting task beauty is made up of a number of factors happily combined in a due proportion and harmony, ugliness is the prompt and immediate outcome of the faulty [Sidenote: D] omission or addition of this or that one element. And in this particular matter of listening, not only is there impropriety in a scowling brow, a disagreeable expression, a roving glance, a twisting of the body, and a crossing of the legs; but nodding or whispering to a neighbour, smiling, yawning sleepily, looking at the ground, and actions of a similar nature, are censurable and should be studiously avoided.

There are some who think that, though the speaker has a duty, the hearer has none. They expect the former to present himself with his thoughts studiously prepared; yet, without a thought or care for their own obligations, they drop casually in and take their seats, for all the world as if they had come to a dinner to enjoy themselves while others are doing the work. Yet even a polite table-companion has his part to play, much [Sidenote: E] more a polite hearer. He is a partner in the speech and a coadjutor of the speaker; and he has no right to be sharply criticizing the mistakes, and taking every phrase and fact to task, while himself free from responsibility for the impropriety and the frequent solecisms which he commits as a hearer. In ball-play the catcher has to regulate his movements according to those of the thrower. So, in the case of a speech, there is a certain consonance of action in which both speaker and listener are concerned, if each is to sustain his proper part. [Sidenote: F]