This leads up to the matter of proposing problems. Now the person who comes to a dinner is bound to eat what is set before him and not to ask for anything else or to be critical; so he who comes to a feast of reason, if it be on a specified subject, must feel bound to listen to the speaker in silence. For those persons who lead the speaker to digress to other topics, and interject questions, and raise new difficulties, are not pleasant or agreeable company at a lecture; they get no benefit from it, and they confuse both the speaker and his speech. However, when the speaker requests his hearers to ask questions or to propose problems, one should always manifestly propose some problem which is useful and essential. Now Odysseus among the suitors is derided for Asking for morsels of food and not for swords or for cauldrons, Homer, Odyssey , xvii. 222. for they regard it just as much a sign of magnanimity to ask for something great as to give it. But there is more reason for ridiculing a hearer who diverts the speaker to petty and frivolous problems, such as some of the young men are in the habit of proposing when they are only fooling and withal showing off their skill in logic or mathematics; take, for example, the question about the division of indeterminate propositions Apparently a quibble in logic: Man lives and breathes ; which man lives and which man breathes? or What is movement as determined by the bounding side or by the diagonal ? When a body moves are its various positions determined by the position of its diagonal ( i.e. interior lines) or of its exterior lines? To such by the position of its diagonal (i.e. interior lines) or of its exterior lines ? persons we may retort with the remark of Philotimus Again referred to by Plutarch, Moralia , 73 B. to the man who was dying of consumption. When he had addressed the physician, asking him for something to cure a sore finger, Philotimus, perceiving his condition from his colour and respiration, said, My dear sir, your concern is not about a sore finger. And so for you, young man, it is not the time to be inquiring about such questions, but how you may be rid of self-opinion and pretension, love affairs and nonsense, and settle down to a modest and wholesome mode of living. It is quite necessary that in formulating questions the questioner should accommodate himself to the proficiency or natural capacity of the speaker, to those matters in which he is at his best An adaptation of a line from the Antiope of Euripides. (Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Eurip. , No. 183). ; not forcibly to divert one who is more concerned with the ethical side of philosophy, by plying him with questions in natural science or mathematics, or to drag the man who poses as an authority on natural science into passing judgement on the hypothetical propositions Such as: If Plato walks, Plato moves. If it is daytime, the sun is in the sky. of logic or solutions of quibbles like the Liar Problem. If I say that I lie when I am lying, do I lie or tell the truth? For just as one who should go about to split wood with a key, or to open his door with an axe, would not be thought to offer an indignity to those instruments but to deprive himself of the proper use and function of each, so those persons who ask of a speaker something for which he is not apt by nature or by practice, and do not gather and take what he has to offer, not only suffer harm thereby, but also incur the name and blame of malice and hostility as well. A man must also guard against proposing many problems or proposing them often himself. For this is, in a way, the mark of a man who is taking occasion to show himself off. But to listen good-naturedly when another advances them, marks the considerate gentleman and the scholar. The only exception is in case some matter of his own is troublesome and urgent, some emotion requiring repression, or a disorder requiring relief. For perhaps it may not even be better to conceal ignorance, as Heracleitus Again referred to by Plutarch, Moralia , 439 D and 644 F. Cf. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker , i. 99. puts it, but to set it forth in public, and cure it. And if some fit of temper, or attack of superstition, or an intense disagreement with members of our own household, or a mad desire born of love, Stirring the heart-strings never stirred before, Again quoted Moralia , 456 C, 501 A, 502 D, and 657 D; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adesp. No. 361. brings confusion to our thoughts, we must not run away to other kinds of discourse to escape being taken to task, but we must listen to the discussion of these very matters both at the formal exercises, and after the exercises, when we approach the men privately and question them further. But save us from the contrary course, followed by the majority, who are delighted with the philosophers and admire them when they are discoursing about other people; but if the philosopher leaves the other people alone, and addresses himself frankly and freely to them, and sets them in mind of matters that much concern them, they are annoyed and think him officious. For, as a rule, they imagine that they ought to listen to the philosophers in the schools as they listen to the tragedians in the theatres; but in matters out of school they think the philosophers are no better men than themselves. Now there is some reason that they should feel thus towards the popular lecturers; for when these get up from the speaker’s chair, and put away their books and lecture notes, it is apparent that in the real pursuits of life they are small men and rank lower than the average; but towards philosophers of the real sort it is not right that they have such a feeling, not realizing that seriousness and jest in them, nod, or smile, or frown, and, above all, what they say to each person apart, may yield a return which is profitable for those who have acquired the habit of patient attention. The proprieties in regard to bestowing commendation also require some caution and moderation, for the reason that neither deficiency nor excess therein befits the free man. An offensive and tiresome listener is the man who is not to be touched or moved by anything that is said, full of festering presumption and ingrained self-assertion, as though convinced that he could say something better than what is being said, who neither moves his brow nor utters a single word to bear witness that he is glad to listen, but by means of silence and an affected gravity and pose, seeks to gain a reputation for poise and profundity; as though commendation were money, he feels that he is robbing himself of every bit that he bestows on another. For there are many who take that saying of Pythagoras wrongly and out of harmony with his meaning. He declared that he had gained this advantage from philosophy, to wonder at nothing; Cf. the nil admirari of Horace, Epistles , i. 6. 1. but these men think that their advantage gained is to commend nothing, to show respect for nothing, holding that immunity from wonder lies in disdain, and seeking to attain to dignity by means of contempt. Now it is true that philosophic reasoning, through knowledge and acquaintance with the cause in every case, does away with the wonder and amazement that spring from blindness and ignorance, but at the same time it does not destroy our serenity, moderation, or human interest. For to persons who are truly and consistently good it is the highest credit to bestow credit upon someone deserving of credit, and the most conspicuous honour to honour such a man, since this argues a superabundant and generous store of repute; whereas those who are niggardly in their commendation of others give the impression of being pinched and starving for their own. On the other hand, however, the opposite type of person, light-minded and flighty, who uses no judgement, but hangs intent on every word and syllable with an ejaculation ready on his lips, is frequently no satisfaction to the disputants themselves, and is always a painful affliction for the audience, startling them as he does and exciting them to join him contrary to their judgement, as though they for shame could not help being dragged into the applause. He gets no benefit from the lecture because for him it has been made full of confusion and fluttering excitement by his continual applaudings, and he departs with the name of being one of three things: a dissembler, a flatterer, or a boor in all that relates to discourse. Now a man sitting as a judge in court is bound to listen without regard either to enmity or favour, but in sober judgement with regard to justice; but at scholarly lectures no law and no oath prohibits us from receiving the lecturer with goodwill. Indeed, the ancients gave Hermes a place beside the Graces from a feeling that discourse demands, above all, graciousness and friendliness. For it is not possible for a speaker to be a failure so abject and complete that he does not afford something meriting commendation, an original thought, a reminiscence from others, the very subject and purpose of his discourse, or at least the style and arrangement of his remarks, Just as amid urchin’s foot and the rough rest-harrow Flowering snowdrops grow, delicate in their bloom. Source unknown; cf. Plutarch, Moralia , 485 A and 621 B. For when some have declaimed a panegyric upon vomiting or fever, nay I vow, even upon a kitchenpot, not without a certain amount of plausibility, how could it be that a discourse delivered by a man who in some sort bears the repute and name of philosopher, should not offer, at some point, to benevolent and humane hearers some respite and opportunity for commendation ? We know, at any rate, that all persons in the bloom of youth do somehow or other, as Plato Plato, Republic , 474 D. says, act as a stimulus upon the man inclined to love; the fair ones he names children of the gods, the dark manly, while the hook-nosed he endearingly terms kingly, the snub-nosed fetching, the sallow honey-hued, and so welcomes and likes them all; for love, like ivy, is clever in attaching itself to any support. Much more, then, will the scholar and diligent hearer always be ready to discover some cause for which he may openly bestow on every speaker some commendation not inappropriate. So Plato, Plato, Phaedrus , 234 E. although he cannot commend Lysias’s speech for invention, and although he condemns its arrangement as disorderly, nevertheless commends the style, and that each word was clearly and roundly turned. One might find fault with Archilochus for his subject matter, Parmenides for his versification, Phocylides as commonplace, Euripides for his loquacity, and Sophocles for his unevenness; and it is equally true of the orators that one of them has no power to portray character, another is slow to rouse emotion, another is lacking in grace; yet it is a fact that each one of them is commended for the special faculty with which Nature has taught him to move us and draw us on. It follows, then, that there is ample and abundant opportunity for hearers to show friendliness toward those who are speaking. For some it is quite enough, even if we do not attest this by the voice, that we vouchsafe to them a gentleness of glance, a serenity of countenance, and a disposition kindly and free from annoyance. Finally, the following matters, even with speakers who make a complete failure, are, as it were, general and common requirements at every lecture: to sit upright without any lounging or sprawling, to look directly at the speaker, to maintain a pose of active attention, and a sedateness of countenance free from any expression, not merely of arrogance or displeasure, but even of other thoughts and preoccupations. Now in every piece of work, beauty is achieved through the congruence of numerous factors, so to speak, brought into union under the rule of a certain due proportion and harmony, whereas ugliness is ready to spring into being if only a single chance element be omitted or added out of place. And so in the particular case of a lecture, not only frowning, a sour face, a roving glance, twisting the body about, and crossing the legs, are unbecoming, but even nodding, whispering to another, smiling, sleepy yawns, bowing down the head, and all like actions, are culpable and need to be carefully avoided. There are others who think that the speaker has a function to perform, and the hearer none. They think it only right that the speaker shall come with his discourse carefully thought out and prepared, while they, without consideration or thought of their obligations, rush in and take their seats exactly as though they had come to dinner, to have a good time while others toil. And yet even a well-bred guest at dinner has a function to perform, much more a hearer; for he is a participant in the discourse and a fellow-worker with the speaker, and he ought not rigorously to examine the speaker’s little slips, applying his criticism to every word and action, while he himself, without being subject to any criticism, acts unhandsomely and commits many gross improprieties in the matter of listening. On the contrary, just as in playing ball it is necessary for the catcher to adapt his movements to those of the thrower and to be actively in accord with him, so with discourses, there is a certain accord between the speaker and the hearer, if each is heedful of his obligation.