On Listening to Lectures (15-18)

Then also the terms used in commendations must not be indiscriminate. For Epicurus [*] himself is displeasing when he says of his friends’ letters that they give rise to hullabaloos. And those persons who nowadays introduce into our lecturerooms outlandish expressions, who are wont to exclaim over a lecture Divine, and Inspired, and Unapproachable, as though it were no longer enough to say Hear, Hear! and Good! and Right! as Plato and Socrates and Hypereides and their friends used to do to show their commendation,

behave in a most unseemly manner, and traduce the speakers, as though these desired such high-flown and excessive commendations. Exceedingly displeasing also are those who use an oath in testifying to their approval of the speakers as though in a law court. No less so are those who fail to respect the quality of persons, and cry aloud to a philosopher Smart! or to an aged man Clever! or Flowery!, thus transferring to the philosophers the expressions of those who make a sport and an opportunity to show off out of their scholastic exercises, and applying meretricious commendation to sober discourse, as though they should put on an athlete’s head a crown of lilies or roses instead of laurel or wild olive! Once when Euripides the poet was going over for the members of his chorus a lyric passage set to music one of them burst out laughing; whereat Euripides remarked, If you were not so stupid and ignorant, you would not have laughed while I was singing in most solemn measure. [*] And so, as I think, one who is a philosopher and statesman might repress the exuberance of a graceless hearer by saying, You seem to me to be an ill-bred fool; else, while I am giving instruction or admonition, or discoursing upon the gods or the State or its government, you would not be whistling and dancing a jig to my words. Just consider what it really means, if, when a philosopher is speaking, the people outside, by reason of the clamour and shouting of those within, are unable to make out whether the applause is for some flute-player, or harper, or dancer.

Moreover, admonitions and rebukes must be

listened to neither with stolid indifference nor with unseemly emotion. For those who can submit to being reproved by philosophers so light-heartedly and heedlessly as to laugh when being taken to task and to commend those who take them to task, as parasites do when abused by those at whose expense they live, are utterly froward and bold, and they give no good or genuine proof of manliness by their shameless behaviour. As for a pleasant scoff, wittily delivered and in pure fun, if a man know how to take it cheerfully and without offence, his conduct argues no ignoble or uncultured mind, but one altogether generous and Spartan. On the other hand, to hear a reprehension or admonition to reform character, delivered in words that penetrate like a biting drug, and not to be humbled at hearing it, not to run into a sweating and dizziness, not to burn with shame in the soul, but, on the contrary to listen unmoved, grinning, dissembling in the face of it all, is a notable sign of an illiberal nature in the young, dead to all modesty because of an habitual and continued acquaintance with wrongdoing, with a soul like hard and calloused flesh, upon which no lash can leave a weal.

Such is the behaviour of those who belong to this class. But young men of the opposite temperament, if they ever hear a single word directed against themselves, run away without looking back, and try to desert philosophy; and, although the sense of modesty which Nature has bestowed upon them is an admirable beginning for their salvation, they lose it through effeminacy and weakness, since they display no firmness under reproof, nor do they accept corrections with the proper spirit, but they turn away their ears toward the agreeable and gentle converse

of sundry flatterers or voluble talkers, who enchant them with useless and unprofitable but nevertheless pleasant utterances. Just as one who runs away from the physician after an operation, and will not submit to be bandaged, sustains all the pain of the treatment, but waits not for its benefits: so when the word has cut and wounded a man’s foolishness, if he give it no chance to heal and quiet the wound, he comes away from philosophy with a smart and pain but with no benefit. For not only the wound of Telephus, as Euripides [*] says,

Is soothed by fine-rasped filings from the spear,

but the smart from philosophy which sinks deep in young men of good parts is healed by the very words which inflicted the hurt. For this reason he who is taken to task must feel and suffer some smart, yet he should not be crushed or dispirited, but, as though at a solemn rite of novitiate which consecrates him to philosophy, he should submit to the initial purifications and commotions, in the expectation that something delectable and splendid will follow upon his present distress and perturbation. Indeed, even if the reproof seems to be given unjustly, it is an admirable thing to endure it with continued patience while the man is speaking; and when he has come to the end, to go to him with an explanation, and beg him to reserve for some real misconduct the frankness and earnestness that he has employed in the present instance.

Moreover, just as in learning to read and write, or in taking up music or physical training, the first lessons are attended with much confusion, hard work, and uncertainty, but later, as the learner makes progress, by slow degrees, just as in his

relations with human beings, a full familiarity is engendered and knowledge which renders everything attractive, feasible, and easy, both to say and to do, so also is it with philosophy, which undoubtedly has something knotty and unfamiliar in its terms and subject matter at the outset; yet one ought not to take fright at its beginnings, and to abandon it in timorous and craven fashion; rather should he examine each point, and persist and stick to the task of getting on, while awaiting that familiarity which makes every noble thing a pleasure. For come it will without long delay, bringing with it abundant light for the subject of study; it will inspire also a passionate love for virtue; and anyone who could endure to pass the rest of his life without this passion, because he has exiled himself from philosophy for want of true manliness, brands himself either as a very presumptuous man or else a coward.

It is quite possible that the subject of philosophy contains some matter which is difficult for young and inexperienced students to apprehend at the outset. But, at the same time, they must hold themselves responsible for most of the uncertainty and misunderstanding in which they find themselves involved, since quite opposite characters come to fall into the same error. Some, because of a feeling of shame and a desire to spare the speaker, hesitate to ask questions and to get the argument firmly fixed in their minds, nodding their heads in assent as though they comprehended it; others, led by an unseasonable ambition and inane rivalry with their fellow-students, to show off their acuteness and their ability to learn easily, avow that they have the meaning before they have grasped it, and so do not

grasp it at all. Then the result is that those modest and silent persons, after leaving the lecture, distress themselves over their difficulties, and finally, driven by necessity, with even greater shame this time, they trouble the lecturers with questions which they should have asked before, and try to catch up; but with the ambitious and self-confident young men, the result is that they are all the time trying to cover up and conceal the ignorance that abides with them.

Let us therefore put from us all such foolishness and pretension, and, as we go onward to the task of learning, let us take pains thoroughly to comprehend all profitable discourses; let us submit with patience to the laughter of those reputed to be clever, as did Cleanthes and Xenocrates, who, although they seemed to be slower than their schoolmates, yet did not try to escape learning or give it up in despair, but were the first to make jokes at themselves by comparing themselves to narrow-necked bottles and bronze tablets, as much as to say that they found great difficulty in taking in what was said, yet they kept it safely and securely. For not only is one bound, as Phocylides says,

Many a time to be cheated of hope when he seeks to be noble,[*]

but he is bound also many a time to be laughed at and to be in disrepute, and to put up with joking and buffoonery as he struggles with might and main against his ignorance and overthrows it.

On the other hand, however, we certainly must not neglect the mistake that leads to the opposite extreme, which some persons are led to commit by laziness, thus making themselves unpleasant and

irksome. For when they are by themselves they are not willing to give themselves any trouble, but they give trouble to the speaker by repeatedly asking questions about the same things, like unfledged nestlings always agape toward the mouth of another, and desirous of receiving everything ready prepared and predigested. There is another class, who, eager to be thought astute and attentive out of due place, wear out the speakers with loquacity and officiousness, by continually propounding some extraneous and unessential difficulty and asking for demonstrations of matters that need no demonstration, and so, as Sophocles [*] puts it,

Much time it takes to go a little way,

not only for themselves but for the rest of the company too. For holding back the speaker on every possible occasion by their inane and superfluous questions, as in a company of persons travelling together, they impede the regular course of the lecture, which has to put up with halts and delays. Now such persons are, according to Hieronymus, like cowardly and persistent puppies which, at home, bite at the skins of wild animals, and tear off what bits they can, but never touch the animals themselves. But as for those lazy persons whom we have mentioned, let us urge them that, when their intelligence has comprehended the main points, they put the rest together by their own efforts, and use their memory as a guide in thinking for themselves, and, taking the discourse of another as a germ and seed, develop and expand it. For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth. Imagine, then, that a man should need to get fire from a neighbour, and, upon finding a big bright fire there, should stay there continually warming himself; just so it is if a man comes to another to share the benefit of a discourse, and does not think it necessary to kindle from it some illumination for himself and some thinking of his own, but, delighting in the discourse, sits enchanted; he gets, as it were, a bright and ruddy glow in the form of opinion imparted to him by what is said, but the mouldiness and darkness of his inner mind he has not dissipated nor banished by the warm glow of philosophy.

Finally, if there be need of any other instruction in regard to listening to a lecture, it is that it is necessary to keep in mind what has here been said, and to cultivate independent thinking along with our learning, so that we may acquire a habit of mind that is not sophistic or bent on acquiring mere information, but one that is deeply ingrained and philosophic, as we may do if we believe that right listening is the beginning of right living.