Soc. That is true, and your remark recalls to my mind an observation which I have often made, that those who have passed their days in the pursuit of philosophy are ridiculously at fault when they have to appear and speak in court. How natural is this !
Theod. What do you mean ?
Soc. I mean to say, that those who have been trained in philosophy and liberal pursuits are as unlike those who from their youth upwards have been knocking about in the courts and such places, as a freeman is in breeding unlike a slave.
Theod. In what is the difference seen ?
Soc. In the leisure spoken of by you, which a freeman can always command : he has his talk, out in peace, and, like ourselves, he wanders at will from one subject to another, and from a second to a third, — if the fancy takes him he begins again, as we are doing now, caring not whether his words are many or few ; his only aim is to attain the truth. But the lawyer is always in a hurry ; there is the water of the clepsydra driving him on, and not allowing him to expatiate at will : and there is his adversary standing over him, enforcing his rights ; the indictment, which in their phraseology is termed the affidavit, is recited at the time : and from this he must not deviate. He is a servant, and is continually disputing about a fellow servant before his master, who is seated, and has the cause in his hands ; the trial is never about some indifferent matter, but always concerns himself ; and often the race is for his life. The consequence has been, that he has become keen and shrewd ; he has learned how to flatter his master in word and indulge him in deed ; but his soul is small and unrighteous. His condition, which has been that of a slave from his youth upwards, has deprived him of growth and uprightness and independence ; dangers and fears, which were too much for his truth and honesty, came upon him in early years, when the tenderness of youth was unequal to them, and he has been driven into crooked ways ; from the first he has practised deception and retaliation, and has become stunted and warped. And so he has passed out of youth into manhood, having no soundness in him ; and is now, as he thinks, a master in wisdom. Such is the lawyer, Theodorus. Will you have the companion picture of the philosopher, who is of our brotherhood ; or shall we return to the argument ? Do not let us abuse the freedom of digression which we claim.
Theod. Nay, Socrates, not until we have finished what we are about ; for you truly said that we belong to a brotherhood which is free, and are not the servants of the argument ; but the argument is our servant, and must wait our leisure. Who is our judge ? Or where is the spectator having any right to censure or control us, as he might the poets ?
Soc. Then, as this is your wish, I will describe the leaders ; for there is no use in talking about the inferior sort. In the first place, the lords of philosophy have never, from their youth upwards, known their way to the Agora, or the dicastery, or the council, or any other political assembly ; they neither see nor hear the laws or decrees, as they are called, of the state written or recited ; the eagerness of political societies in the attainment of office-clubs, and banquets, and revels, and singing-maidens, — do not enter even into their dreams. Whether any event has turned out well or ill in the city, what disgrace may have descended to any one from his ancestors, male or female, are matters of which the philosopher no more knows than he can tell, as they say, how many pints are contained in the ocean. Neither is he conscious of his ignorance. For he does not hold aloof in order ; that he may gain a reputation ; but the truth is, that the outer form of him only is in the city : his mind, disdaining the littlenesses and nothingnesses of human things, is “flying all abroad” as Pindar says, measuring earth and heaven and the things which are under and on the earth and above the heaven, interrogating the whole nature of each and all in their entirety, but not condescending to anything which is within reach.
Theod. What do you mean, Socrates ?
Soc. I will illustrate my meaning, Theodorus, by the jest which the clever witty Thracian handmaid is said to have made about Thales, when he fell into a well as he was looking up at the stars. She said, that he was so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what was before his feet. This is a jest which is equally applicable to all philosophers. For the philosopher is wholly unacquainted with his next-door neighbour ; he is ignorant, not only of what he is doing, but he hardly knows whether he is a man or an animal ; he is searching into the essence of man, and busy in enquiring what belongs to such a nature to do or suffer different from any other ; — I think that you understand me, Theodorus ?
Theod. I do, and what you say is true.
Soc. And thus, my friend, on every occasion, private as well as public, as I said at first, when he appears in a law-court, or in any place in which he has to speak of things which are at his feet and before his eyes, he is the jest, not only of Thracian handmaids but of the general herd, tumbling into wells and every sort of disaster through his inexperience. His awkwardness is fearful, and gives the impression of imbecility. When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say in answer to the civilities of his adversaries, for he knows no scandals of any one, and they do not interest him ; and therefore he is laughed at for his sheepishness ; and when others are being praised and glorified, in the simplicity of his heart he cannot help going into fits of laughter, so that he seems to be a downright idiot. When he hears a tyrant or king eulogized, he fancies that he is listening to the praises of some keeper of cattle — a swineherd, or shepherd, or perhaps a cowherd, who is congratulated on the quantity of milk which he squeezes from them ; and he remarks that the creature whom they tend, and out of whom they squeeze the wealth, is of a less traitable and more insidious nature. Then, again, he observes that the great man is of necessity as ill-mannered and uneducated as any shepherd — for he has no leisure, and he is surrounded by a wall, which is his mountain-pen. Hearing of enormous landed proprietors of ten thousand acres and more, our philosopher deems this to be a trifle, because he has been accustomed to think of the whole earth ; and when they sing the, praises of family, and say that someone is a gentleman because he can show seven generations of wealthy ancestors, he thinks that their sentiments only betray a dull and narrow vision in those who utter them, and who are not educated enough to look at the whole, nor to consider that every man has had thousands and ten thousands of progenitors, and among them have been rich and poor, kings and slaves, Hellenes and barbarians, innumerable. And when people pride themselves on having a pedigree of twenty-five ancestors, which goes back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, he cannot understand their poverty of ideas. Why are they unable to calculate that Amphitryon had a twenty-fifth ancestor, who might have been anybody, and was such as fortune made him and he had a fiftieth, and so on ? He amuses himself with the notion that they cannot count, and thinks that a little arithmetic would have got rid of their senseless vanity. Now, in all these cases our philosopher is derided by the vulgar, partly because he is thought to despise them, and also because he is ignorant of what is before him, and always at a loss.
Theod. That is very true, Socrates.