How a Man May Become Aware of His Progress in Virtue (10-14)

Everybody, without exception, ought to pay careful attention, not only to his words, but also to his actions, to see whether the element of usefulness in them prevails over ostentation, and whether their whole aim is the truth rather than display For if true love for a youth or a woman does not seek witnesses, but enjoys the fruits of pleasure even if it consummate its desire in secret, it is even more to be expected that the lover of honour and wisdom, in the familiar intercourse with virtue which comes through his actions, should keep his pride in himself to himself

and be silent, feeling no need of eulogists and auditors. Take, for example, the case of the man who in his own house called his maidservant and cried out, Look at me, Dionysia; I have stopped being conceited; very much like this is the behaviour of the man who performs some gracious and civil action, and then by telling about it and circulating it everywhere makes it clear that he is still looking beyond himself, and is still attracted toward repute, and that he has not yet had even a glimpse of virtue, nay, that he is not really awake but only dreaming as he roams about amid the shadows and phantoms of virtue, and afterwards puts what he has done on view like a painting. It is therefore the mark of a man who is making progress, not only when he has given to a friend or done a kindness to an acquaintance to refrain from telling of it to others, but also when he has given an honest judgement amidst a numerous and dishonest majority, when he has peremptorily declined a discreditable conference with some rich man or some official, when he has scorned bribes, and even when he has felt a craving in the night for a drink and has not taken it, or when he has fought a good fight, like Agesilaus, [*] against a kiss of a lovely girl or youth, to keep all this to himself and put the seal of silence on it. In fact, such a man, by standing well in his own estimation, inasmuch as he feels no disdain, but only pleasure and satisfaction at the thought that he is at the same time a competent witness and observer of honourable deeds, shows that reason is already growing within him and taking root in his own self, and, in the words of Democritus, [*] that he is becoming accustomed to find within himself the sources of enjoyment. Farmers take more pleasure in looking at the heads of grain that are bent over and bowed toward the ground, but those that tower aloft owing to their lightness the farmers think are empty cheats; so among the young men who would study philosophy: those who are most empty and have no weight, have assurance and a pose and a gait, and a countenance filled with a haughtiness and disdain which spares nobody; but, as their heads begin to fill and to accumulate some fruitage from their lectures and reading, they lay aside their swagger and superficiality. And just as when empty vessels are being filled with a liquid the air inside is expelled by the pressure, so when men are being filled with the really good things, their conceit gives way and their self-opinion becomes less inflexible; and, ceasing to feel pride in their philosopher’s beard and gown, they transfer their training to their mind, and apply their stinging and bitter criticism most of all to themselves, and are milder in their intercourse with others. They do not arrogate to themselves, as before, the name of philosophy and the repute of studying it, or even give themselves the title of philosopher; in fact, a young man of good parts, on being addressed by this title by another, would be quick to say with a blush:

I am no god, I assure you; why think me like the immortals?[*]

For as Aeschylus [*] puts it:

The ardent eye betrays the youthful maid Who once has tasted of the joys of love;

but with the young man who has had a taste of real progress in philosophy, these words of Sappho [*] are always associated:

My tongue breaks down, and all at once A secret flame throughout my body runs;

nevertheless, you will see an eye untroubled and serene, and you would yearn to hear him speak. Just as persons who are being initiated into the Mysteries throng together at the outset amid tumult and shouting, and jostle against one another, but when the holy rites are being performed and disclosed the people are immediately attentive in awe and silence, so too at the beginning of philosophy; about its portals also you will see great tumult and talking and boldness, as some boorishly and violently try to jostle their way towards the repute it bestows: but he who has succeeded in getting inside, and has seen a great light, as though a shrine were opened, adopts another bearing of silence and amazement, and humble and orderly attends upon [*] reason as upon a god. To these the humorous remark of Menedemus may, as it seems, be nicely applied; for he said that the multitudes who came to Athens to school were, at the outset, wise; later they became lovers of wisdom, later still orators, and, as time went on, just ordinary persons, and the more they laid hold on reason the more they laid aside their selfopinion and conceit.

Of persons needing the services of a physician those who have a painful tooth or finger go straightway to those who treat such ills; those who have

fever summon the physicians to their houses, and implore their assistance; but those who have reached a state of melancholia or frenzy or delirium sometimes cannot endure even the physicians’ visits, but either drive them away or run away from them, not realizing even that they are ill, because of the violence of their illness. So also of the erring: the incurable are those who take an hostile and savage attitude and show a hot temper toward those who take them to task and admonish them, while those who patiently submit to admonition and welcome it are in less serious plight. And for a man who is in error to submit himself to those who take him to task, to tell what is the matter with him, to disclose his depravity, and not to rejoice in hiding his fault or to take satisfaction in its not being known, but to confess it, and to feel the need of somebody to take him in hand and admonish him, is no slight indication of progress. So Diogenes [*] has somewhere said that, as a matter of self-preservation, a man should be concerned to find either an earnest friend or an ardent enemy, so that either by stern reprehension or by kindly attention he may escape vice. But just so long as a man, displaying a spot or a stain on his garment or a rip in his shoe, puts on airs in public by affecting a silly unconcern for such matters, or, by passing some jest about himself for being dwarfed or humpbacked, imagines that he is thus showing a spirit of youthful bravado, while, at the same time, the inward ugliness of his soul, the despicable acts of his life, his displays of pettiness or love of pleasure or malice or envy, he covers up and conceals as though they were ulcerous sores, and allows nobody to touch them or even see them because of his fear of being reprehended for them—such a man’s part in progress is little, or rather none at all. But the man who grapples with these faults, especially if he shows himself able and willing to make himself unhappy and wretched over his errors, and, next to that, to submit to another’s admonitions without flinching, and with a spirit made purer by such reproofs—such a man truly has every appearance of trying to divest himself of baseness and of abominating it. Beyond all question, anyone ought to have enough selfrespect to avoid even giving the impression of being bad; but the man who is more disturbed over the actual existence of baseness than over any ill-repute does not try to avoid uncomplimentary remarks to himself, or replying to them, when this may be made a means of improvement. Very neat was the remark made by Diogenes to a young man, [*] who, being seen at a tavern, fled for refuge within. The farther you flee inside, said he, the more you are in the tavern. And so of low things, the more each man denies, just so much the deeper does he become involved in vice, and cut off his escape therefrom. So, too, it is that among poor people those who make a show of being rich are even poorer because of their pretension; but the man who is making true progress takes as his example Hippocrates, [*] who published and recorded his failure to apprehend the facts about the cranial sutures; for such a man accounts it a dreadful thing, that here was Hippocrates who declared his own error so that others should not repeat his experience, and yet he himself, a man bent on saving his soul alive, should not have the courage to submit to being taken to task, and to confess his fatuity and ignorance. Indeed the declarations of Bion and Pyrrho might be construed as indication, not merely of progress, but rather of a higher state of mind and one which comes nearer to the ideal. Bion said to his intimate friends that they might well be justified in thinking that they were making progress when they could listen to their revilers as though they heard them say;

Friend, since you have not the look of a man that is base or unthinking,[*] Health and great joy be yours, and God grant that you ever may prosper.[*]

And the story about Pyrrho is that when he was on a voyage, and in peril during a storm, he pointed to a little pig contentedly feeding upon some barley which had been spilled near by, and said to his companions that a similar indifference must be acquired from reason and philosophy by the man who does not wish to be disturbed by anything that may befall him.

Note also the significance of Zeno’s statement. For he said that every man might fairly derive from his dreams a consciousness that he was making progress if he observed that during his period of sleep he felt no pleasure in anything disgraceful, and did not tolerate or commit any dreadful or untoward action, but as though in the clear depth of an absolute calm there came over him the radiant thought that the fanciful and emotional element in his soul had been dispelled by reason. Plato, [*] apparently realizing this even earlier, has given form and expression to the operations of the fanciful and irrational element in a naturally despotic soul

during sleep. It attempts incest, and feels a sudden hunger for a great variety of food, acting in lawless fashion, and giving loose rein to the desires which in the daytime the law keeps confined by means of shame and fear. Now well-trained beasts of burden, even if their driver lets go the reins, do not attempt to turn aside and leave the road, but in their accustomed manner they go on in their places and keep to their course without mishap; and so it is in the case of persons in whom the irrational impulse has already been rendered obedient and gentle by reason and has been thoroughly chastened; neither during sleep nor as a result of illness is it willing any longer to indulge readily in arrogance or lawlessness because of the desires, but it observes and bears in mind the habit it has acquired, and it is this which endows our vigilance with strength and intensity. For if the body by virtue of training is actually capable of rendering itself and its members so obedient to its injunctions of indifference that the eyes refrain from tears at a piteous sight, and the heart from throbbing in the midst of terrors, and the passions chastely remain unexcited and undisturbed in the presence of youthful or maidenly beauty, is it not indeed even more probable that training, by taking hold of the emotional element in the soul, will, as it were, do away with the irregularities and vagaries of our fancies and incitements, and carry its repression of them even into our slumbers ? There is a story, illustrating this point, about the philosopher Stilpo, who thought in his slumber that he saw Poseidon, who was angry at him for not having offered up a bull, which was the customary sacrifice; but he himself, in his dream, nowise disconcerted, replied, What are you saying, Poseidon ? Do you come whining like a child because I did not run into debt to fill the city with the savour of burnt offerings, but presented a modest offering from what I had in my house ? And then it seemed to him that Poseidon smiled and held out his hand, and said that he would send an abundance of anchovies to the Megarians for Stilpo’s sake. So in the case of persons blessed with dreams so pleasant and bright and untroubled, who experience in their hours of slumber no revival of anything terrifying or repellent nor of any act of malice or improbity, men like Zeno assert that such manifestations are bright reflections of their progress, but that torturing memories, perturbations, ignoble desertions, and childish transports of joy and sorrow, such as are experienced in dismal or abnormal dreams, are like to billows that break and toss, inasmuch as the soul does not yet possess the power to keep itself in order, but is still being moulded by external opinions and laws, and when it gets farthest away from these during the hours of slumber, it is again made free and open to other influences by the emotions. [*] I beg, therefore, that you also will consider whether these things belong to progress in virtue, or to a state of mind already possessed of a constancy and strength based on reason, and hence unwavering.

Inasmuch as complete indifference is a great and divine thing, whereas progress, as they say, resembles a sort of abatement and moderation of the emotions, it is our duty to compare our present emotions with their former selves and with one another, and thus determine the differences. We must compare them with their former selves, to see whether the desires and fears and angry passions

which we experience to-day are less intense than they used to be, inasmuch as we, by means of reason, are rapidly getting rid of the cause that kindles and inflames them; and we must compare them with one another, to see whether now we are more inclined to feel shame than fear, to be emulous rather than envious, more eager for good repute than for money, and, in general, whether, in case we err by going to extremes, we, after the manner of musicians, incline to the severity of the Dorian key rather than to the softness of the Lydian, as shown by our being strict rather than lax in our mode of life, and deliberate rather than precipitate in our actions, and given to expressing undue admiration rather than contempt of doctrines and persons. For just as the turning aside of a disease into the less vital parts of the body is an encouraging symptom, so it is reasonable to assume that when the vice of those who are making progress is transformed into more moderate emotions, it is being gradually blotted out. When Phrynis added two strings to the seven-stringed lyre, the Ephors inquired whether he preferred to let them cut out the two upper or the two lower strings; [*] but in our case it is both the upper and the lower that require lopping off if we are to be brought to the state which is a mean between excess in either direction; and one of the first results of progress is an abatement of the excess and keenness of our emotions,

Wherein the frenzied are most vehement,

as Sophocles [*] expresses it.

Furthermore, as has already been said, the translating of our judgements into deeds, and not allowing our words to remain mere words, but to make them into actions, is, above all else, a specific mark of

progress. An indication of this is, in the first place, the desire to emulate what we commend, eagerness to do what we admire, and, on the other hand, unwillingness to do, or even to tolerate, what we censure. For example, it was to be expected that all the Athenians should commend the daring and bravery of Miltiades, yet the remark of Themistocles [*] that the trophy of Miltiades would not suffer him to sleep, but roused him from his slumbers, made it plain at once that he was not merely commending and admiring, but emulating and imitating as well. We must therefore believe we are making but little progress so long as the admiration which we feel for successful men remains inert within us and does not of its own self stir us to imitation. In fact, love for a person is not active unless there is some jealousy with it, nor is that commendation of virtue ardent and efficacious which does not prod and prick us, and create in us not envy but an emulation over honourable things which strives earnestly for satisfaction. For not only, as Alcibiades [*] used to say, must the heart feel such anguish at the philosopher’s words that tears will flow; but more than that, the man who is truly making progress, comparing himself with the deeds and conduct of a good and perfect man, and being pricked by the consciousness of his own shortcomings, yet at the same time rejoicing because of his hope and yearning, and being filled with an urging that is never still, is ready in the words of Simonides [*]

To run like weanling colt beside its dam,

so great is his craving all but to merge his own identity in that of the good man. Indeed a peculiar symptom of true progress is found in this feeling of love and affection for the disposition shown by those whose deeds we try to emulate, and in the fact that our efforts to make ourselves like them are always attended by a goodwill which accords to them a fair meed of honour. But, on the other hand, if any man is imbued with a spirit of contentiousness and envy towards his betters, let him understand that he is merely chafing with jealousy at another’s repute or power, but not honouring or even admiring virtue.