Ch. 23
To those who read and discuss for the sake of ostentation.
560
FIRST say to yourself Who you wish to be: then do
accordingly what you are doing; for in nearly all other
things we see this to be so. Those who follow athletic
exercises first determine what they wish to be, then they
do accordingly what follows. If a man is a runner in
the long course, there is a certain kind of diet, of
walking, rubbing, and exercise: if a man is a runner
in the stadium, all these things are different; if he is a
Pentathlete, they are still more different. So you will
find it also in the arts. If you are a carpenter, you will
have such and such things: if a worker in metal, such
things. For every thing that we do, if we refer it to no
end, we shall do it to no purpose; and if we refer it to
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the wrong end, we shall miss the mark. Further, there
is a general end or purpose, and a particular purpose.
First of all, we must act as a man. What is comprehended in this? We must not be like a sheep, though
gentle; nor mischievous, like a wild beast. But the
particular end has reference to each person's mode of life
and his will. The lute-player acts as a lute-player, the
carpenter as a carpenter, the philosopher as a philosopher,
the rhetorician as a rhetorician. When then you say,
Come and hear me read to you: take care first of all that
you are not doing this without a purpose; then if you
have discovered that you are doing this with reference to
a purpose, consider if it is the right purpose. Do you
wish to do good or to be praised? Immediately you hear
him saying, To me what is the value of praise from the
many? and he says well, for it is of no value to a
musician, so far as he is a musician, nor to a geometrician. Do you then wish to be useful? in what? tell us
that we may run to your audience room. Now can a man
do anything useful to others, who has not received something useful himself? No, for neither can a man do any
thing useful in the carpenter's art, unless he is a carpenter;
nor in the shoemaker's art, unless he is a shoemaker.
Do you wish to know then if you have received any
advantage? Produce your opinions, philosopher. What
is the thing which desire promises? Not to fail in the
object. What does aversion promise? Not to fall into
that which you would avoid. Well; do we fulfill their
promise? Tell me the truth; but if you lie, I will tell
you. Lately when your hearers came together rather
coldly, and did not give you applause, you went away
humbled. Lately again when you had been praised, you
went about and said to all, What did you think of me?
Wonderful, master, I swear by all that is dear to me. But
how did I treat of that particular matter? Which? The
passage in which I described Pan and the nymphs?561 Excellently. Then do you tell me that in desire and in
aversion you are acting according to nature? Be gone;
try to persuade somebody else. Did you not praise a cer-
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tain person contrary to your opinion? and did you not
flatter a certain person who was the son of a senator?
Would you wish your own children to be such persons?I
hope notWhy then did you praise and flatter him? He
is an ingenuous youth and listens well to discourses
How is this?He admires me. You have stated your
proof. Then what do you think? do not these very people
secretly despise you? When then a man who is conscious
that he has neither done any good nor ever thinks of it,
finds a philosopher who says, You have a great natural
talent, and you have a candid and good disposition, what
else do you think that he says except this, This man has
some need of me? Or tell me what act that indicates a
great mind has he shown? Observe; he has been in your
company a long time; he has listened to your discourses,
he has heard you reading; has he become more modest?
has he been turned to reflect on himself? has he per-
ceived in what a bad state he is? has he cast away self-
conceit? does he look for a person to teach him? He does.
A man who will teach him to live? No, fool, but how to
talk; for it is for this that he admires you also. Listen
and hear what he says: This man writes with perfect
art, much better than Dion.562 This is altogether another
thing. Does he say, This man is modest, faithful, free
from perturbations? and even if he did say it, I should
say to him, Since this man is faithful, tell me what this
faithful man is. And if he could not tell me, I should
add this, First understand what you say, and then speak.
You then, who are in a wretched plight and gaping
after applause and counting your auditors, do you intend
to be useful to others?To-day many more attended my
discourse. Yes, many; we suppose five hundred. That
is nothing; suppose that there were a thousandDion
never had so many hearersHow could he?And they
understand what is said beautifully. What is fine, master,
can move even a stoneSee, these are the words of a
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philosopher. This is the disposition of a man who will
do good to others; here is a man who has listened to discourses, who has read what is written about Socrates as
Socratic, not as the compositions of Lysias and Isocrates.
'I have often wondered by what arguments.'563 Not so,
but 'by what argument': this is more exact than that
What, have you read the words at all in a different way
from that in which you read little odes? For if you read
them as you ought, you would not have been attending to
such matters, but you would rather have been looking to
these words: Anytus and Melitus are able to kill me,
but they cannot harm me: and I am always of such a
disposition as to pay regard to nothing of my own except
to the reason which on inquiry seems to me the best.564
Hence who ever heard Socrates say, I know something
and I teach; but he used to send different people to
different teachers. Therefore they used to come to him
and ask to be introduced to philosophers by him; and he
would take them and recommend them.Not so; but as
he accompanied them he would say, Hear me to-day discoursing in the house of Quadratus.565 Why should I hear
you? Do you wish to show me that you put words
together cleverly? You put them together, man; and
what good will it do you?But only praise me.What
do you mean by praising?Say to me, admirable, wonderful.Well, I say so. But if that is praise whatever
it is which philosophers mean by the name (κατηγορία)566 of
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good, what have I to praise in you? If it is good to speak
well, teach me, and I will praise you.What then?
ought a man to listen to such things without pleasure?
I hope not. For my part I do not listen even to a lute-
player without pleasure. Must I then for this reason
stand and play the lute? Hear what Socrates says, Nor
would it be seemly for a man of my age, like a young
man composing addresses, to appear before you.567 Like a
young man, he says. For in truth this small art is an
elegant thing, to select words, and to put them together,
and to come forward and gracefully to read them or to
speak, and while he is reading to say, There are not
many who can do these things, I swear by all that you
value.
Does a philosopher invite people to hear him? As the
sun himself draws men to him, or as food does, does not
the philosopher also draw to him those who will receive
benefit? What physician invites a man to be treated by
him? Indeed I now hear that even the physicians in
Rome do invite patients, but when I lived there, the
physicians were invited. I invite you to come and hear
that things are in a bad way for you, and that you are
taking care of every thing except that of which you ought
to take care, and that you are ignorant of the good and
the bad and are unfortunate and unhappy. A fine kind
of invitation: and yet if the words of the philosopher do
not produce this effect on you, he is dead, and so is the
speaker. Rufus was used to say: If you have leisure to
praise me, I am speaking to no purpose.568 Accordingly
he used to speak in such a way that every one of us who
were sitting there supposed that some one had accused
him before Rufus: he so touched on what was doing, he
so placed before the eyes every man's faults.
The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery: you
ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain.
For you are not in sound health when you enter: one has
dislocated his shoulder, another has an abscess, a third a
fistula, and a fourth a head ache. Then do I sit and utter to
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you little thoughts and exclamations that you may praise
me and go away, one with his shoulder in the same condition in which he entered, another with his head still
aching, and a third with his fistula or his abscess just as
they were? Is it for this then that young men shall quit
home, and leave their parents and their friends and kin-
smen and property, that they may say to you, Wonderful!
when you are uttering your exclamations. Did Socrates
do this, or Zeno, or Cleanthes?
What then? is there not the hortatory style? Who
denies it? as there is the style of refutation, and the
didactic style. Who then ever reckoned a fourth style
with these, the style of display? What is the hortatory
style? To be able to show both to one person and to
many the struggle in which they are engaged, and that
they think more about any thing than about what they
really wish. For they wish the things which lead to happiness, but they look for them in the wrong place. In
order that this may be done, a thousand seats must be
placed and men must be invited to listen, and you must
ascend the pulpit in a fine robe or cloak and describe the
death of Achilles. Cease, I intreat you by the gods, to
spoil good words and good acts as much as you can.
Nothing can have more power in exhortation that when
the speaker shows to the hearers that he has need of
them. But tell me who when he hears you reaching or
discoursing is anxious about himself or turns to reflect on
himself? or when he has gone out says, The philosopher
hit me well: I must no longer do these things. But does
he not, even if you have a great reputation, say to some
person? He spoke finely about Xerxes;569 and another says,
No, but about the battle of Thermopylae. Is this listening
to a philosopher?
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