On Listening to Lectures (7-10)

Now admiration, which is the antithesis of disdain, obviously betokens a kindlier and gentler nature, but even this requires certainly no little caution, perhaps even more. For while it is true that disdainful and self-confident persons are less apt to get benefit from the speakers, yet the enthusiastic and ingenuous are more apt to get harm; and they cause no one to question the saying of Heracleitus,[*] that A fool is wont to be agog at

every word that’s said. In praising a speaker we must be generous, but in believing his words cautious; as touching the style and the delivery of the performers, we should observe with a kindly and simple mind; but as for the utility and the truth of what they say, we must play the keen and heartless critics, that the speakers may feel no hatred, yet their words may do no harm. For we unwittingly receive into our minds a great many false and vicious doctrines by feeling goodwill and confidence towards the speakers. Upon a time the Spartan officials, after approving the proposal made by a man whose life had not been good, appointed another man of good repute in his life and character to present it, thus quite rightly and for the good of the State trying to accustom the people to being influenced more by the behaviour than by the speech of their counsellors. [*] But in a philosophic discussion we must set aside the repute of the speaker, and examine what he says quite apart. For as in war so also in lectures there is plenty of empty show. For example, a speaker’s grey hair, his formality, his serious brow, his self-assertion, and above all the clamour and shouting of the audience as he brings them to their feet, combine to disconcert the young and inexperienced listener, who is, as it were, swept away by the current. The speaker’s style also has a spice of deception when it is pleasing and copious, and is applied to the subject with dignity and artfulness. For as most of the mistakes of persons singing to the flute escape the audience, so an exuberant and impressive style flashed upon the listener blinds him to the matter set forth. It seems to have been Melanthius, who being asked about Diogenes’ tragedy, said he could not get a sight of it, there were so many words in the way; and the discussions and exercises of most popular lecturers not only use words to conceal their thoughts, but they so sweeten their voice by certain harmonious modulations and softenings and rhythmic cadences, as to ravish away and transport their hearers. It is an empty pleasure they give, and an even more empty renown they acquire, so that the remark of Dionysius [*] fits their case exactly. For he, as it appears, at some performance promised to a harp-player of great repute certain large gifts, but afterwards gave him nothing, on the ground that he had already discharged his obligation. For, said he, all the time that you were giving pleasure to us with your singing, you were enjoying the pleasure of your hopes. And this is just the meed that such lectures have for those who deliver them; for the speakers are admired in as far as they are entertaining, and afterwards, no sooner has the pleasure of listening passed away, than their repute deserts them, and so the time of their hearers and the life of the speakers is simply wasted.

One ought therefore to strip off the superfluity and inanity from the style, and to seek after the fruit itself, imitating not women that make garlands, but the bees. For those women, culling flowerclusters and sweet-scented leaves, intertwine and plait them, and produce something which is pleasant enough, but short-lived and fruitless; whereas the bees in their flight frequently pass through meadows of violets, roses, and hyacinths, and come to rest upon the exceeding rough and pungent thyme, and on this they settle close,

Making the yellow honey their care,[*]

and when they have got something of use, they fly away home to their own special work. In such wise, then, the sincere and single-minded student ought to regard flowery and dainty language and theatrical and spectacular subject matter as the pasturage of drones who practise the popular lecture; these he should leave alone and use all diligence to sound the deep meaning of the words and the intention of the speaker, drawing from it what is useful and profitable, and remembering that he has not come to a theatre or music-hall, but to a school and classroom with the purpose of amending his life by what is there said. Hence it follows that in making his examination and forming his judgement of the lecture he should begin with himself and his own state of mind, endeavouring to estimate whether any one of his emotions has become less intense, whether any one of his troubles weighs less heavily upon him, whether his confidence and his high purpose have become firmly rooted, whether he has acquired enthusiasm for virtue and goodness. As a matter of course, when he rises to leave the barber’s shop, he stands by the mirror and feels his head, examining the cut of his hair and the difference made by its trimming; so on his way home from a lecture or an academic exercise, it would be a shame not to direct his gaze forthwith upon himself and to note carefully his own spirit, whether it has put from it any of its encumbrances and superfluities, and has become lighter and more cheerful. For, as Ariston says, neither a bath nor a discourse is of any use unless it removes impurity.

Let the young man, then, find pleasure when

he finds profit from a discourse; but he should not hold that the pleasure derived from the lecture is an end in itself, nor would I have him hum a merry note or show a jovial face as he leaves the philosopher’s school, any more than he should seek to be sprinkled with perfume when he needs a fomentation and a hot poultice; but he should feel grateful if by pungent discourse someone has cleansed his mind teeming with fogginess and dullness, as a beehive is cleared by smoke. For even though it is quite right for a speaker not to be altogether neglectful of pleasantness and persuasion in his style, yet the young man should make least concern of this, at any rate at first. Afterwards no doubt he may have an eye to that; for just as those who drink, after they have quenched their thirst, begin then to observe the ornamentation of the drinking-cups and to turn them about, so the young man, when he is well replenished with doctrines and has some respite, may be allowed to inspect the style to see whether it contains anything elegant and exquisite. But he who at the very outset does not stick to the subject matter, but insists that the style shall be pure Attic and severely plain, is like the man who is unwilling to swallow an antidote for a poison unless the cup be of the finest Attic ware, or unwilling to put on an overcoat in winter unless the wool be from Attic sheep, but must needs sit still and inactive, with a delicate thin jacket of Lysias’s language cast over him. Indeed, this sort of unhealthiness has produced much barrenness of mind and of good sense, much foolery and bibble-babble in the schools, since younger men do not keep in view the life, the actions, and the public conduct of a man who follows philosophy, but rate as matters for commendation points of style and phrasing, and a fine delivery, while as for what is being delivered, whether it be useful or useless, whether essential or empty and superfluous, they neither understand nor wish to inquire.

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,[*]

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 [*] or What is movement as determined by the bounding side or by the diagonal ? [*] To such [*] persons we may retort with the remark of Philotimus [*] 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.