Читать книгу Socratic Discourses - Xenophon - Страница 11

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Socrates not only exhorted men to practise virtue, but led them to the practice of it; his dialogue with Aristodemus, sect. 1, 2. Things formed for a purpose, must be the production, not of chance, but of reason, 3, 4. The human frame is a structure of great excellence, and admirably fitted for its purposes; and we must therefore suppose that man is the object of divine forethought, 5–7. The order of things throughout the universe shows that it is under the providence of a superior nature, 8, 9. The superiority of man over the inferior animals proves that he is more immediately under the care of the higher powers, 10–14. The gods also give instruction to man as to his conduct, 15. That they care for man both individually and collectively is evident from various considerations, 15, 16. As the mind governs the body, so the providence of the gods governs the world, 17. If men therefore worship the gods rightly, they may feel persuaded that the gods will be ready to aid them, 18, 19.

1. But if any suppose that Socrates, as some write and speak of him on conjecture, was excellently qualified to direct men to virtue, but incapable of leading them forward in it, let them, considering not only the arguments with which he refuted those who thought that they knew everything; asking them questions in order to check them; but what he used to say in his daily intercourse with his associates, form an opinion whether he was capable of making those who conversed with him better. 2. I will first mention what I myself once heard him advance in a dialogue with Aristodemus, surnamed The Little, concerning the gods; for having heard that Aristodemus neither sacrificed to the gods, when engaged on any enterprise, nor attended to auguries, but ridiculed those who regarded such matters, he said to him, “Tell me, Aristodemus, do you admire any men for their genius?” “I do,” replied he. “Tell us their names, then,” said Socrates. 3. “In epic poetry I most admire Homer, in dithyrambic Melanippides, in tragedy Sophocles, in statuary Polycletus, in painting Zeuxis.” 4. “And whether do those who form images without sense and motion, or those who form animals endowed with sense and vital energy, appear to you the more worthy of admiration?” “Those who form animals, by Jupiter, for they are not produced by chance, but by understanding.” “And regarding things of which it is uncertain for what purpose they exist, and those evidently existing for some useful purpose, which of the two would you say were the productions of chance, and which of intelligence?” “Doubtless those which exist for some useful purpose must be the productions of intelligence.” 5. “Does not he, then,” proceeded Socrates, “who made men at first, appear to you to have given them, for some useful purpose, those parts by which they perceive different objects, the eyes to see what is to be seen, the ears to hear what is to be heard? What would be the use of smells, if no nostrils had been assigned us? What perception would there have been of sweet and sour, and of all that is pleasant to the mouth, if a tongue had not been formed in it to have a sense of them? 6. In addition to these things, does it not seem to you like the work of forethought, to guard the eye, since it is tender with eyelids, like doors, which, when it is necessary to use the sight, are set open, but in sleep are closed? To make the eyelashes grow as a screen, that winds may not injure it? To make a coping on the parts above the eyes with the eyebrows, that the perspiration from the head may not annoy them? To provide that the ears may receive all kinds of sounds, yet never be obstructed? and that the front teeth in all animals may be adapted to cut, and the back teeth to receive food from them and grind it? To place the mouth, through which animals take in what they desire, near the eyes and the nose? and since what passes off from the stomach is offensive, to turn the channels of it away, and remove them as far as possible from the senses?—can you doubt whether such a disposition of things, made thus apparently with attention, is the result of chance or of intelligence?” 7. “No, indeed,” replied Aristodemus, “but to one who looks at those matters in this light, they appear like the work of some wise maker who studied the welfare of animals.” “And to have engendered in them a love of having offspring, and in mothers a desire to rear their progeny, and to have implanted in the young that are reared a desire of life, and the greatest dread of death?” “Assuredly these appear to be the contrivances of some one who designed that animals should continue to exist.”

8. “And do you think that you yourself have any portion of intelligence?” “Question me, at least, and I will answer.” “And can you suppose that nothing intelligent exists anywhere else? When you know that you have in your body but a small portion of the earth, which is vast, and a small portion of the water, which is vast, and that your frame is constituted for you to receive only a small portion of each of other things, that are vast, do you think that you have seized for yourself, by some extraordinary good fortune, intelligence alone which exists nowhere else, and that this assemblage of vast bodies, countless in number, is maintained in order by something void of reason?” 9. “Yes; for I do not see the directors of these things, as I see the makers of things which are done here.” “Nor do you see your own soul, which is the director of your body; so that, by like reasoning, you may say that you yourself do nothing with understanding, but everything by chance.”

10. “However, Socrates,” said Aristodemus, “I do not despise the gods, but consider them as too exalted to need my attention.” “But,” said Socrates, “the more exalted they are, while they deign to attend to you, the more ought you to honour them.” 11. “Be assured,” replied Aristodemus, “that if I believed the gods took any thought for men, I would not neglect them.” “Do you not, then, believe that the gods take thought for men? the gods who, in the first place, have made man alone, of all animals, upright (which uprightness enables him to look forward to a greater distance, and to contemplate better what is above, and to be less liable to injury, and have placed the eyes, and ears, and mouth); and, in the next place, have given to other animals only feet, which merely give them the capacity of walking, while to men they have added hands, which execute most of those things through which we are better off than they. 12. And though all animals have tongues, they have made that of man alone of such a nature, as, by touching sometimes one part of the mouth, and sometimes another, to express articulate sounds, and to signify everything that we wish to communicate one to another. Do you not see, too, that to other animals they have so given the pleasures of sexual intercourse as to limit them to a certain season of the year, but that they allow them to us uninterruptedly till extreme old age? 13. Nor did it satisfy the gods to take care of the body merely, but, what is most important of all, they implanted in him the soul, his most excellent part. For what other animal has a soul to understand, first of all, that the gods, who have arranged such a vast and noble order of things, exist? What other species of animal, besides man, offers worship to the gods? What other animal has a mind better fitted than that of man, to guard against hunger or thirst, or cold or heat, or to relieve disease, or to acquire strength by exercise, or to labour to attain knowledge; or more capable of remembering whatever it has heard, or seen, or learned? 14. Is it not clearly evident to you, that, in comparison with other animals, men live like gods, excelling them by nature, both in body and mind? For an animal, having the body of an ox, and the understanding of a man, would be unable to execute what it might meditate; and animals which have hands, but are without reason, have no advantage over others; and do you, who share both these excellent endowments, think that the gods take no thought for you? What then must they do, before you will think that they take thought for you?” 15. “I will think so,” observed Aristodemus, “when they send me, as you say that they send to you, monitors, to show what I ought, and what I ought not, to do.” “But when they send admonitions to the Athenians, on consulting them by divination, do you not think that they admonish you also? Or when they give warnings to the Greeks by sending portents, or when they give them to the whole human race, do they except you alone from the whole, and utterly neglect you? 16. Do you suppose, too, that the gods would have engendered a persuasion in men that they are able to benefit or injure them, unless they were really able to do so, and that men, if they had been thus perpetually deluded, would not have become sensible of the delusion? Do you not see that the oldest and wisest of human communities, the oldest and wisest cities and nations, are the most respectful to the gods, and that the wisest age of man is the most observant of their worship? 17. Learn also, my good youth,” continued Socrates, “that your mind, existing within your body, directs your body as it pleases; and it becomes you therefore to believe that the intelligence pervading all things directs all things as may be agreeable to it, and not to think that while your eye can extend its sight over many furlongs, that of the divinity is unable to see all things at once, or that while your mind can think of things here, or things in Ægypt or Sicily, the mind of the deity is incapable of regarding everything at the same time. 18. If, however, as you discover, by paying court to men, those who are willing to pay court to you in return, and, by doing favours to men, those who are willing to return your favours, and as, by asking counsel of men, you discover who are wise, you should, in like manner, make trial of the gods by offering worship to them, whether they will advise you concerning matters hidden from man, you will then find that the divinity is of such power, and of such a nature, as to see all things and hear all things at once, to be present everywhere, and to have a care for all things at the same time.”

19. By delivering such sentiments, Socrates seems to me to have led his associates to refrain from what was impious, or unjust, or dishonourable, not merely when they were seen by men, but when they were in solitude, since they would conceive that nothing that they did would escape the knowledge of the gods.