Phaethon: Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers. Charles Kingsley
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seem like a man filled with the God, Socrates,” said Alcibiades.
“Would that were true,” answered he, “both of me and of all who will counsel here this day. In fact, I was praying for that very thing; namely, that they might have light to see the truth, in whatsoever matter might be discussed here.”
“And for me also?” said Alcibiades; “but I have prepared my speech already.”
“And for you also, if you desire it—even though some of your periods should be spoiled thereby. But why are you both here so early, before any business is stirring?”
“We were discussing,” said I, “that very thing for which we found you praying—namely, truth, and what it might be.”
“Perhaps you went a worse way toward discovering it than I did. But let us hear. Whence did the discussion arise?”
“From something,” said Alcibiades, “which Protagoras said in his lecture yesterday—How truth was what each man troweth, or believeth, to be true. ‘So that,’ he said, ‘one thing is true to me, if I believe it true, and another opposite thing to you, if you believe that opposite. For,’ continued he, ‘there is an objective and a subjective truth; the former, doubtless, one and absolute, and contained in the nature of each thing; but the other manifold and relative, varying with the faculties of each perceiver thereof.’ But as each man’s faculties, he said, were different from his neighbour’s, and all more or less imperfect, it was impossible that the absolute objective truth of anything could be seen by any mortal, but only some partial approximation, and, as it were, sketch of it, according as the object was represented with more or less refraction on the mirror of his subjectivity. And therefore, as the true inquirer deals only with the possible, and lets the impossible go, it was the business of the wise man, shunning the search after absolute truth as an impious attempt of the Titans to scale Olympus, to busy himself humbly and practically with subjective truth, and with those methods—rhetoric, for instance—by which he can make the subjective opinions of others either similar to his own, or, leaving them as they are—for it may be very often unnecessary to change them—useful to his own ends.”
Then Socrates, laughing:
“My fine fellow, you will have made more than one oration in the Pnyx to-day. And indeed, I myself felt quite exalted, and rapt aloft, like Bellerophon on Pegasus, upon the eloquence of Protagoras and you. But yet forgive me this one thing; for my mother bare me, as you know, a man-midwife, after her own trade, and not a sage.”
ALCIBIADES. “What then?”
SOCRATES. “This, my astonishing friend—for really I am altogether astonished and struck dumb, as I always am whensoever I hear a brilliant talker like you discourse concerning objectivities and subjectivities, and such mysterious words; at such moments I am like an old war-horse, who, though he will rush on levelled lances, shudders and sweats with terror at a boy rattling pebbles in a bladder; and I feel altogether dizzy, and dread lest I should suffer some such transformation as Scylla, when I hear awful words, like incantations, pronounced over me, of which I, being no sage, understand nothing. But tell me now, Alcibiades, did the opinion of Protagoras altogether please you?”
A. “Why not? Is it not certain that two equally honest men may differ in their opinions on the same matter?”
S. “Undeniable.”
A. “But if each is equally sincere in speaking what he believes, is not each equally moved by the spirit of truth?”
S. “You seem to have been lately initiated, and that not at Eleusis merely, nor in the Cabiria, but rather in some Persian or Babylonian mysteries, when you discourse thus of spirits. But you, Phaethon” (turning to me), “how did you like the periods of Protagoras?”
“Do not ask me, Socrates,” said I, “for indeed we have fought a weary battle together ever since sundown last night, and all that I had to say I learnt from you.”
S. “From me, good fellow?”
PHAETHON. “Yes, indeed. I seemed to have heard from you that truth is simply ‘facts as they are.’ But when I urged this on Alcibiades, his arguments seemed superior to mine.”
A. “But I have been telling him, drunk and sober, that it is my opinion also as to what truth is. Only I, with Protagoras, distinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion.”
S. “Doing rightly, too, fair youth. But how comes it then that you and Phaethon cannot agree?”
“That,” said I, “you know better than either of us.”
“You seem both of you,” said Socrates, “to be, as usual, in the family way. Shall I exercise my profession on you?”
“No, by Zeus!” answered Alcibiades, laughing; “I fear thee, thou juggler, lest I suffer once again the same fate with the woman in the myth, and after I have conceived a fair man-child, and, as I fancy, brought it forth; thou hold up to the people some dead puppy, or log, or what not, and cry: ‘Look what Alcibiades has produced!’”
S. “But, beautiful youth, before I can do that, you will have spoken your oration on the bema, and all the people will be ready and able to say ‘Absurd! Nothing but what is fair can come from so fair a body.’ Come, let us consider the question together.”
I assented willingly; and Alcibiades, mincing and pouting, after his fashion, still was loath to refuse.
S. “Let us see, then. Alcibiades distinguishes, he says, between objective fact and subjective opinion?”
A. “Of course I do.”
S. “But not, I presume, between objective truth and subjective truth, whereof Protagoras spoke?”
A. “What trap are you laying now? I distinguish between them also, of course.”
S. “Tell me, then, dear youth, of your indulgence, what they are; for I am shamefully ignorant on the matter.”
A. “Why, do they not call a thing objectively true, when it is true absolutely in itself; but subjectively true, when it is true in the belief of a particular person?”
S. “—Though not necessarily true objectively, that is, absolutely and in itself?”
A. “No.”
S. “But possibly true so?”
A. “Of course.”
S. “Now, tell me—a thing is objectively true, is it not, when it is a fact as it is?”
A. “Yes.”
S. “And when it is a fact as it is not, it is objectively false; for such a fact would not be true absolutely, and in itself, would it?”
A. “Of course not.”
S. “Such a fact would be, therefore, no fact, and nothing.”
A. “Why so?”
S. “Because, if a thing exists, it can only exist as it is, not as it is not; at least my opinion inclines that way.”
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