Against
the Sophists
If all
who are engaged in the profession of education were willing to state
the facts instead of making greater promises than they can possibly
fulfill, they would not be in such bad repute with the lay-public. As
it is, however, the teachers who do not scruple to vaunt their powers
with utter disregard of the truth have created the impression that those
who choose a life of careless indolence are better advised than those
who devote themselves to serious study.
Indeed,
who can fail to abhor, yes to contemn, those teachers, in the first
place, who devote themselves to disputation, since they pretend to search
for truth, but straightway at the beginning of their professions attempt
to deceive us with lies?
For I
think it is manifest to all that foreknowledge of future events is not
vouchsafed to our human nature, but that we are so far removed from
this prescience that Homer, who has been conceded the highest reputation
for wisdom, has pictured even the gods as at times debating among themselves
about the future --not that he knew their minds but that he desired
to show us that for mankind this power lies in the realms of the impossible.
But these
professors have gone so far in their lack of scruple that they attempt
to persuade our young men that if they will only study under them they
will know what to do in life and through this knowledge will become
happy and prosperous. More than that, although they set themselves up
as masters and dispensers of goods so precious, they are not ashamed
of asking for them a price of three or four minae!
Why, if
they were to sell any other commodity for so trifling a fraction of
its worth they would not deny their folly; nevertheless, although they
set so insignificant a price on the whole stock of virtue and happiness,
they pretend to wisdom and assume the right to instruct the rest of
the world. Furthermore, although they say that they do not want money
and speak contemptuously of wealth as “filthy lucre,” they
hold their hands out for a trifling gain and promise to make their disciples
all but immortal!
But what
is most ridiculous of all is that they distrust those from whom they
are to get this money--they distrust, that is to say, the very men to
whom they are about to deliver the science of just dealing--and they
require that the fees advanced by their students be entrusted for safe
keeping to those who have never been under their instruction, being
well advised as to their security, but doing the opposite of what they
preach.
For it
is permissible to those who give any other instruction to be exacting
in matters open to dispute, since nothing prevents those who have been
made adept in other lines of training from being dishonorable in the
matter of contracts. But men who inculcate virtue and sobriety--is it
not absurd if they do not trust in their own students before all others?
For it is not to be supposed that men who are honorable and just-dealing
with others will be dishonest with the very preceptors who have made
them what they are.
When,
therefore, the layman puts all these things together and observes that
the teachers of wisdom and dispensers of happiness are themselves in
great want but exact only a small fee from their students, that they
are on the watch for contradictions in words but are blind to inconsistencies
in deeds, and that, furthermore, they pretend to have knowledge of the
future but are incapable either of saying anything pertinent or of giving
any counsel regarding the present, and when he observes that those who
follow their judgements are more consistent and more successful than
those who profess to have exact knowledge, then he has, I think, good
reason to contemn such studies and regard them as stuff and nonsense,
and not as a true discipline of the soul.
But it
is not these sophists alone who are open to criticism, but also those
who profess to teach political discourse. For the latter have no interest
whatever in the truth, but consider that they are masters of an art
if they can attract great numbers of students by the smallness of their
charges and the magnitude of their professions and get something out
of them. For they are themselves so stupid and conceive others to be
so dull that, although the speeches which they compose are worse than
those which some laymen improvise, nevertheless they promise to make
their students such clever orators that they will not overlook any of
the possibilities which a subject affords.
More than
that, they do not attribute any of this power either to the practical
experience or to the native ability of the student, but undertake to
transmit the science of discourse as simply as they would teach the
letters of the alphabet, not having taken trouble to examine into the
nature of each kind of knowledge, but thinking that because of the extravagance
of their promises they themselves will command admiration and the teaching
of discourse will be held in higher esteem--oblivious of the fact that
the arts are made great, not by those who are without scruple in boasting
about them, but by those who are able to discover all of the resources
which each art affords.
For myself,
I should have preferred above great riches that philosophy had as much
power as these men claim; for, possibly, I should not have been the
very last in the profession nor had the least share in its profits.
But since it has no such power, I could wish that this prating might
cease. For I note that the bad repute which results therefrom does not
affect the offenders only, but that all the rest of us who are in the
same profession share in the opprobium.
But I marvel
when I observe these men setting themselves up as instructors of youth
who cannot see that they are applying the analogy of an art with hard
and fast rules to a creative process. For, excepting these teachers,
who does not know that the art of using letters remains fixed and unchanged,
so that we continually and invariably use the same letters for the same
purposes, while exactly the reverse is true of the art of discourse?
For what has been said by one speaker is not equally useful for the
speaker who comes after him; on the contrary, he is accounted most skilled
in this art who speaks in a manner worthy of his subject and yet is
able to discover in it topics which are nowise the same as those used
by others.
But the
greatest proof of the difference between these two arts is that oratory
is good only if it has the qualities of fitness for the occasion, propriety
of style, and originality of treatment, while in the case of letters
there is no such need whatsoever. So that those who make use of such
analogies ought more justly to pay out than to accept fees, since they
attempt to teach others when they are themselves in great need of instruction.
However,
if it is my duty not only to rebuke others, but also to set forth my
own views, I think all intelligent people will agree with me that while
many of those who have pursued philosophy have remained in private life,
others, on the other hand, who have never taken lessons from any one
of the sophists have become able orators and statesmen. For ability,
whether in speech or in any other activity, is found in those who are
well endowed by nature and have been schooled by practical experience.
Formal
training makes such men more skilfull and more resourceful in discovering
the possibilities of a subject; for it teaches them to take from a readier
source the topics which they otherwise hit upon in haphazard fashion.
But it cannot fully fashion men who are without natural aptitude into
good debaters or writers, although it is capable of leading them on
to self-improvement and to a greater degree of intelligence on many
subjects.
But I desire,
now that I have gone this far, to speak more clearly on these matters.
For I hold that to obtain a knowledge of the elements out of which we
make and compose all discourses is not so very difficult if anyone entrusts
himself, not to those who make rash promises, but to those who have
some knowledge of these things. But to choose from these elements those
which should be employed for each subject, to join them together, to
arrange them properly, and also, not to miss what the occasion demands
but appropriately to adorn the whole speech with striking thoughts and
to clothe it in flowing and melodious phrase -- these things, I hold,
require much study and are the task of a vigorous and imaginative mind:
for this, the student must not only have the requisite aptitude but
he must learn the different kinds of discourse and practice himself
in their use; and the teacher, for his part, must so expound the principles
of the art with the utmost possible exactness as to leave out nothing
that can be taught, and, for the rest, he must in himself set such an
example of oratory that the students who have taken form under his instruction
and are able to pattern after him will, from the outset, show in their
speaking a degree of grace and charm which is not found in others. When
all of these requisites are found together, then the devotees of philosophy
will achieve complete success; but according as any one of the things
which I have mentioned is lacking, to this extent must their disciples
of necessity fall below the mark.
Now as
for the sophists who have lately sprung up and have very recently embraced
these pretensions, even though they flourish at the moment, they will
all, I am sure, come round to this position. But there remain to be
considered those who lived before our time and did not scruple to write
the so-called arts of oratory. These must not be dismissed without rebuke,
since they professed to teach how to conduct law-suits, picking out
the most discredited of terms, which the enemies, not the champions,
of this discipline might have been expected to employ-- and that too
although this facility, in so far as it can be taught, is of no greater
aid to forensic than to all other discourse. But they were much worse
than those who dabble in disputation; for although the latter expounded
such captious theories that were anyone to cleave to them in practice
he would at once be in all manner of trouble, they did, at any rate,
make professions of virtue and sobriety in their teaching, whereas the
former, although exhorting others to study political discourse, neglected
all the good things which this study affords, and became nothing more
than professors of meddlesomeness and greed.
And yet
those who desire to follow the true precepts of this discipline may,
if they will, be helped more speedily towards honesty of character than
towards facility in oratory. And let no one suppose that I claim that
just living can be taught; for, in a word, I hold that there does not
exist an art of the kind which can implant sobriety and justice in depraved
natures. Nevertheless, I do think that the study of political discourse
can help more than any other thing to stimulate and form such qualities
of character.
But in
order that I may not appear to be breaking down the pretensions of others
while myself making greater claims than are within my powers, I believe
that the very arguments by which I myself was convinced will make it
clear to others also that these things are true.