My dear Nicander, "37 C"

This is an article upon ‘The Attitude of the Student’, which I have written and am sending to you. Its purpose is to teach you the right attitude towards your philosophic teacher, now that you are a grown-up man and are no longer obliged merely to obey orders.

Some young men are so ill-informed as to suppose that absence of restraint is the same thing as freedom, whereas, by unchaining "D" the passions, it makes them slaves to a set of masters more tyrannical than all the teachers and mentors of childhood. Herodotus says that when women take off the tunic they also take off shame. It is the same with some young men. In laying aside the garb of childhood they also lay aside shame and fear. No sooner do they unloose the cloak which controlled their conduct than they indulge in the utmost misbehaviour. With you it should be otherwise. You have been told over and over again that to ‘follow God’ and to ‘obey reason’ are the same thing. Understand, therefore, that with right-minded persons a coming of age does not mean rejection of rule, but change of ruler. For the hired or purchased^[44] director of conduct they "E" substitute one that is divine—namely, reason. Only those who follow reason deserve to be considered free; for they alone live as they choose, because they alone have learned to make the right choice, whereas ignorant and irrational desires and actions give small and paltry scope to the will, but great scope to repentance.

Note what happens in the case of naturalized citizens. Entire "F" foreigners from another country will often grumble irritably at their experiences, whereas those who have previously been denizens of the state, and have therefore lived in intimate touch with the laws, will accept their obligations with cheerful readiness. So with yourself. For a long time you have been growing up in the company of philosophy. From the first you have been accustomed to a taste of philosophic reason in everything that you have been taught or told as a child. It should therefore be in a well-disposed and congenial spirit that you come to Philosophy, who alone can adorn a youth with that finish of manhood which genuinely and rationally deserves the name.

You will not, I believe, object to a prefatory remark upon "38" the sense of hearing. Theophrastus asserts that it is the most susceptible of all the senses, inasmuch as nothing that can be seen, tasted, or touched, is the cause of such strong emotional disturbance and excitement as takes hold upon the mind when certain sounds of beating, clashing, or ringing fall upon the ear. It is, however, more rational, rather than more emotional, than the other senses. Vice can find many places and parts of the body open for it to enter and seize upon the soul. But the only hold that virtue can take is upon pure young ears "B" which have at all times been protected from the corruptions of flattery or the touch of low communications. Hence the advice of Xenocrates, that ear-guards should be worn by boys more than by athletes, inasmuch as the latter merely have their ears disfigured by blows, while the former have their characters disfigured by words. Not that he would wed us to inattention or deafness. It is but a warning to beware of wrong communications, and to see that others of the right nature have first been fostered in our character by philosophy and have mounted guard in that quarter which is most open to influence and persuasion.

Bias, the ancient sage, was once bidden by Amasis to send him that piece of meat from a sacrificial victim which was at the same time the best and the worst. He replied by taking out and sending the tongue, on the ground that speech can do both the greatest harm and the greatest good. It is a general practice in fondling little children to take them by the ears, and to bid "C" them do the same to us—an indirect and playful way of suggesting that we should be especially fond of those who make our ears the instruments to our advantage.

It is, of course, obvious that a youth cannot be debarred from any or every kind of hearing, or from tasting any discourse at all. Otherwise not only will he remain entirely without fruit or growth in the way of virtue; he will actually be perverted in the direction of vice, his mind being an idle and uncultivated patch producing a plentiful crop of weeds. Propensity to pleasure and dislike of labour—the springs of innumerable forms of trouble and disease—are not of external origin, nor imported "D" from teaching, but they well up naturally from the soil. If therefore they are left free to take their natural course; if they are not done away with, or turned aside, by sound instruction; if nature is not thus brought under control, man will prove more unreclaimed than any brute beast.

The hearing of lectures, then, may be of great profit, but at the same time of great danger, to a young man. This being so, I believe it a good thing to make the matter one of constant discussion, both with oneself and with others. In most cases "E" we may notice a false procedure—that of cultivating the art of speaking before being trained to the art of listening. It is thought that, while speaking requires instruction and practice, any kind of listening is attended with profit. But not so. Whereas in ball-play one learns simultaneously how to throw and how to catch, in the business of speech the right taking in is prior to the giving out, just as conception is prior to parturition. We are told that in the case of a hen laying a wind-egg her labour and travail end in nothing but an abortive and lifeless piece of refuse. So when a young man lacks the ability to listen, "F" or the training to gather profit through the ear, the speech which he lets fall is wind-begotten indeed:

He will take a vessel and tilt it in the right direction for receiving anything to be poured into it, and so ensure a real ‘in-pouring’ instead of a pouring to waste. But he does not learn to lend his own attention to a speaker and meet the lecture half-way, so as to miss no valuable point. On the contrary, his behaviour is in the last degree ridiculous. If he happens upon a person "39" describing a dinner, a procession, a dream, or a brawling-match in which he has been engaged, he listens in silence and is eager for more. But if a teacher to whom he has attached himself tries to impart something useful, or to urge him to some duty, to admonish him when wrong, or to soothe him when angry, he is out of all patience. If possible, he shows fight, and is ambitious to get the best of the argument. Otherwise he is off and away to discourses of a different and a rubbishy kind, filling his ears—the poor leaky vessels—with anything rather than the thing they need.

"B" From the right kind of breeder a horse obtains a good mouth for the bit, and a lad a good ear for reason. He is taught to do much listening, but to avoid much speaking. We may quote the remark of Spintharus in praise of Epaminondas, that he had scarcely ever met with any man either of greater judgement or of fewer words. Moreover, we are told, the reason why nature gave each of us two ears, but only one tongue, was that we should do less speaking than hearing.

A youth is at all times sure to find silence a credit to him; but in one case it is especially so—when he can listen to another without becoming excited and continually yelping; when, even "C" if what is being said is little to his liking, he waits patiently for the speaker to finish; when, at the close, he does not immediately come to the attack with his contradiction, but (to quote Aeschines) waits a while, in case the speaker might wish to supplement his remarks, or perhaps to adjust or qualify his position. To take instant objection, neither party listening to the other but both talking at once, is an unseemly performance. On the other hand, those who have been trained to listen with modest self-control will accept a valuable argument and make it their own, while they will be in a better position to see through a worthless or false one and to expose it, thereby "D" showing that they are lovers of truth, and not merely contentious, headstrong, or quarrelsome persons. It is therefore not a bad remark of some, that there is more need to expel the wind of vanity and self-conceit from the young, than to expel the air from a skin, when you wish to pour in anything of value: otherwise they are too swollen and flatulent to receive it.

The presence of envious and malicious jealousy is, of course, never to good purpose, but always an impediment to proper action. In the case of a student at lectures it is the most perverse of prompters. Words which ought to do him good are rendered vexing, distasteful, and unwelcome by the fact that there is nothing which an envious man likes so little as an "E" excellent piece of reasoning. And note that, when a man is piqued by fame or beauty belonging to others, he is envious and nothing more; what annoys him is another’s good fortune. But when he is irritated by admirable argument, his vexation is at his own good, since reason—if he has a mind to accept it—is as much to the good of one who hears as light is to the good of one who sees.

Envy in other matters is the result of various coarse or low attitudes of mind; envy of a speaker is born of inordinate love of glory and unfair ambition. A person so disposed is prevented "F" from listening to reason. His mind is perturbed and distracted. At one and the same time it is looking at its own endowments, to see if they are inferior to those of the speaker, and at the rest of the company, to see if they are wondering and admiring. It is disgusted at their applause, and exasperated at their approval. The previous portions of the speech it forgets and ignores, because the recollection is irksome. The parts yet to come it awaits with trembling anxiety, for fear they may prove better still. When the speaker is at his best, it is most "40" eager for him to stop. When the lecture is over, it thinks of nothing that was said, but takes count of the expressions and attitudes of the audience. From those who give praise it dances away in a frenzy; and to those who carp and distort it runs to form one of the herd. If there is nothing to distort, it makes comparisons with others who have spoken ‘better and more eloquently to the same purpose’. In the end our friend has so cruelly mishandled the lecture that he has made it of no use or profit to himself.

"B" Let the love of glory, then, be brought to terms with the love of learning. Let us listen to a speaker with friendly courtesy, regarding ourselves as guests at a sacred banquet or sacrificial offering. Let us praise his ability when he makes a hit, or be satisfied with the mere goodwill of a man who is making the public a present of his views and endeavouring to convince others by means of the arguments which have convinced himself. When he goes right, let us consider that his rightness is due not to chance or accident, but to painstaking effort and learning. Let us take a pattern by it, and not only admire it, but emulate it. When he is at fault, let us stop and think for what reasons he is so, and at what point he began to go astray. "C" Xenophon observes that good managers derive profit from their enemies as well as from their friends. In the same way those who are attentive and alert derive benefit from a speaker not only when he is in the right, but also when he is in the wrong. Paltry thought, empty phrase, affected bearing, vulgar delight and excitement at applause, and the like, are more palpable to a listener in another’s case than to a speaker in his own. It is well, therefore, to take the criticism which we apply to him, and apply it to ourselves, asking whether we commit any mistake of the kind without being aware of it. It is the easiest thing in "D" the world to find fault with our neighbour, but it is a futile and meaningless proceeding, unless made to bear in some way upon the correction or prevention of similar faults. When lapses are committed, let us always be prompt to exclaim to ourselves in the phrase of Plato, ‘Am I, perhaps, as bad?’ As in the eyes of our neighbour we see the reflection of our own, so we should find a picture of our own speech in that of another. In that way we shall avoid treating others with over-confident contempt, and shall also look more carefully to our own deliverances.

There is another way in which comparison serves this useful "E" purpose. I mean if, when we get by ourselves after the lecture, we take some point which appears to have been wrongly or unsatisfactorily treated, and attack the same theme, doing our best to fill in, to correct, to re-word, or to attempt an entirely original contribution to the subject, as the case may be—doing, in fact, as Plato did^[45] with the speech of Lysias. While to argue against a certain deliverance is not difficult, but, on the contrary, very easy, to set up a better in its stead is an extremely hard matter. As the Lacedaemonian said on hearing that Philip had razed Olynthus to the ground: ‘Yes, but to create a city as good is beyond the man’s power’. Accordingly, "F" when we find that in dealing with the same subject we can do but little better than the speaker in the case, we make a large reduction in our contempt and speedily prune down that self-satisfied conceit which has been exposed during such process of comparison.

Nevertheless, though admiration, as opposed to contempt, certainly betokens a fairer and gentler nature, it is a thing which, in its own turn, requires no little—perhaps greater—caution. "41" For while a contemptuous and over-confident person derives too little benefit from a speaker, an enthusiastic and guileless admirer derives too much injury. He forms no exception to the rule of Heracleitus that ‘Any dictum will flutter a fool‘. One should be frank in yielding praise to the speaker, but cautious in yielding belief to the assertion; a kindly and candid observer of the diction and delivery of the arguer, but a sharp and exacting critic of the truth and value of his argument. "B" While we thus escape dislike from the speaker, we escape harm from the speech. How many false and pernicious doctrines we unawares accept through esteeming and trusting their exponent! The Lacedaemonian authorities, after examining a measure suggested by a man of evil life, instructed another person, famous for his conduct and character, to move it—a very proper and statesmanlike encouragement to the people to be led more by the character of an adviser than by his speech. But in philosophy we must put aside the reputation of the speaker and examine the speech in and by itself. In lecturing, as in war, there is much that is mere show. The speaker’s grey hairs, his vocal "C" affectations, his supercilious airs, his self-glorification; above all, the shouting, applauding, and dancing of the audience overwhelm the young and inexperienced student and sweep him along with the current. There is deception in the language also, when it streams upon the question in a delightful flood, and when it contains a measure of studied art and the grandiose. As, in singing to the accompaniment of the flageolet, mistakes are generally undetected by an audience, so an elaborate and pretentious diction dazzles the hearer and blinds him to the sense. I believe it was Melanthius who, when asked about "D" Diogenes’ tragedy, replied: ‘I could not get a sight of it; it was hidden behind the words.’ But with the discourses and declamations of the majority of our professors it is not merely a case of using the words to screen the thoughts. They also dulcify the voice—modulating, smoothing, and intoning—till the hearer is carried away with a perfect intoxication. They give an empty pleasure, and are paid with an emptier fame. Their case, in fact, is one for the quip given by Dionysius. It was he, I think, who, during the performance of a distinguished harp-player, promised him a liberal reward, but subsequently gave "E" him nothing, on the ground that he had made a sufficient return. ‘For as long a time as I was enjoying your singing’, said he, ‘you were enjoying your expectations.’ The deliverer of the lectures in question finds that they represent a joint contribution of the same kind. He receives admiration as long as his entertainment lasts. As soon as no more pleasure is forthcoming for the ear, there is no more glory left for him. The one party has wasted his time, the other his professional life.

Let us, then, strip aside all this empty show of language, and make for the actual fruit. It is better to imitate the bee than "F" the garland-maker. The latter looks for the bright-coloured fragrant petals, and, by twining and plaiting them together, produces an object which is pleasant enough, but short-lived and fruitless. Bees, on the contrary, frequently skim through meadows of violets, roses, or hyacinths, to settle upon the coarsest and bitterest thyme. To this they devote themselves

and then fly home to their proper business with something worth the getting. So a student who takes his work in real earnest will pay no regard to dainty flowery words nor to showy "42" theatrical matter. These he will consider as fodder for drones who play the sophist. For his own part he will probe with keen attention into the sense of a speech and the quality of the speaker. Therefrom he will suck such part as will be of service and profit. He will remember that he has not come to a theatre or concert-hall, but to a classroom in the schools, and that his object is to get his life corrected by means of reason. Hence he should form a critical judgement of the lecture from his own case, that is to say, from a calculation of its effect upon himself. Has it been the chastening of a passion, the lightening "B" of a grief? Has it been courage, firmness of spirit, enthusiasm for excellence and virtue? Upon rising from the barber’s chair he will stand at the glass and put his hands to his head, inspecting the trim and arrangement of the hair. No less should he, immediately on leaving a lecture in the philosophic school, look at himself and examine his own mind, to see if it has got rid of any useless and uncomfortable growth and become lighter and more at ease. ‘There is no use’, says Aristo, ‘in either a bath or a speech, unless it cleanses.’

"C" By all means let a young man, while profiting from a discourse, find pleasure in the process. But he must not treat the pleasure of the lecture as its end, nor expect to come out of the philosopher’s school with a beaming face and humming a tune. He must not ask for scented unguents when what he needs is a lotion or a poultice. On the contrary, he should be grateful if a pungent argument acts upon his mind like smoke upon a hive, and clears out all the darkness and mistiness that fill it. Though it is quite right for a speaker not to be altogether without concern for an attractive and persuasive style of language, that should be a matter least regarded by the young student, at any rate in the first instance. Later, no doubt, the case may be "D" different. It is when they are no longer thirsty that persons engaged in drinking will turn a cup about and inspect the chasing upon it. Similarly during a breathing-time, after taking our fill of the lesson, we may be permitted to examine any uncommon elegance in the language. But if from the very first, instead of taking a grip upon the substance, you insist upon ‘good pure Attic’ expression, you are like a person who refuses to take an antidote unless the vessel is made of the best Attic earthenware; or who declines to put on a thick cloak in winter unless the wool is from Attic sheep, preferring to sit, stubborn and impracticable, in the thin napless mantle of the ‘style of Lysias’. Perversities of this kind are responsible for a plentiful "E" lack of good sense and an abundance of loquacious claptrap in the schools. Young fellows keep no watch upon the life, the practical action, or the public services of a philosopher, but make a great merit of diction, phrase, and fine method of statement, while they possess neither the ability nor the desire to find out whether the statement is valuable or worthless, whether it is vital or a mere futility.

The next rule concerns the propounding of difficulties. A guest at a dinner is bound to accept what is put upon the "F" table, and neither to ask for anything else nor to find fault. When the feast consists of a discourse, any one who comes to it should listen and say nothing, if there is an understanding to that effect. Persons who cannot listen in a pleasant and sociable manner, but keep drawing the speaker off to other topics, interposing questions and mooting side-issues, get no benefit themselves and confuse both the speaker and the speech. When, however, he invites the audience to ask questions and advance difficulties, any that are proposed should prove to be useful and important. Odysseus, when in the suitors’ company, incurs ridicule through

"43" regard it as a sign of lofty-mindedness not only to give, but to ask for, something of value. It is, however, more a case for ridicule when a hearer poses a speaker with petty little problems of the kind often propounded by young men, when they are talking claptrap in order to make a show of attainments in logic or mathematics—for example, concerning ‘division of the indeterminate’ and the nature of ‘lateral’ or ‘diagonal’ "B" motion. The proper answer to such persons is the remark of Philotimus to a man who was suffering with abscesses and consumption, but who had been talking to him for some time about requiring ‘some little thing to cure a whitlow’. Perceiving the man’s condition from his complexion and breathing, Philotimus observed: ‘My good sir, a whitlow is not the question with you.’ Nor in your case, young sir, is it worth while to be discussing such questions as yours, but how you are to get rid of conceit, swaggering about love-affairs, and such-like nonsense, and how you are to plant your feet on the way to a healthy and sober-minded life.

Especially are you bound, in putting your questions, to accommodate yourself to a speaker’s range of knowledge or natural "C" ability—to his special forte. A philosopher who is more concerned with ethics should not be attacked with difficulties in natural science or mathematics, nor should one who prides himself upon his scientific knowledge be dragged into determining hypothetical syllogisms or solving fallacies. If you attempted to chop your wood with the key and to open your door with the axe, it would not be thought that you were making sport of these implements, but that you were depriving yourself of their respective powers and uses. In the same way, if you ask of a speaker a thing for which he has no gift or training, while you make no harvest of what he possesses and offers, "D" you not only do yourself harm to that extent, but you incur condemnation for malicious ill-nature.

Be careful also not to propound difficulties yourself in too great numbers or too frequently. This is, in a sense, another way of showing off. Meanwhile, to listen equably when some one else is mooting them, shows that you are a clubbable person and a student. This is assuming you have no harassing and urgent trouble of your own, no mental disturbance to be controlled or malady to be comforted. It may not, after all, be (as Heracleitus says) ‘better to conceal ignorance’, but to bring it into the open and cure it. If your mind is upset by a fit of anger, an attack of superstition, a violent quarrel with your friends, or a mad amorous passion which

"E" you must not run away from a discourse which searches it home, and fly to others of a different nature. On the contrary, these are the very topics to which you should listen, both at lectures and also by privately approaching the lecturer afterwards and asking for further light.

The opposite course is the one too generally followed. So long as the philosopher is dealing with other persons, his hearers are all delight and admiration. But when he leaves those others alone and frankly administers some important reminder to themselves personally, they are disgusted with him for not minding his own business. Generally speaking, they think "F" a philosopher is entitled to a hearing inside his school, as the tragedian is in the theatre; but in matters beyond it they do not consider him in any way superior to themselves. Towards a sophist their attitude is natural enough; for when he rises from his chair, lays aside his books and his introductory manuals, and makes his appearance in the practical departments of life, he ranks in the popular mind as an unimportant and inferior person. But towards a philosopher in the real sense their attitude is wrong. They do not recognize that a tone of earnestness or jest, a sign of approval or disapproval, a smile or a frown, "44" on his part—and, above all, his direct handling of their individual cases—are fruitful in good to those who have learned the art of listening with submission.

Applause, again, has its duties, which call for a certain caution and moderation. A gentleman bestows neither too little nor too much of it. A hearer shows churlishly bad taste when nothing whatever in a lecture will make him thaw or unbend; when he is diseased with festering conceit and chronic self-complacency, and is all the time thinking he could improve upon the deliverance; when he neither makes any appropriate movement of the brow nor utters any sound to prove that he is "B" a considerate and willing listener; when he is seeking a reputation for solidity and depth by means of silence, an affected gravity, and attitudes of pose, under the notion that applause is like money, and that whatever amount you give to another you take from yourself. The fact is that there are many who take up the well-known saying of Pythagoras and sing it to a false tune. His own gain from philosophy, he said, was to ‘wonder at "*" nothing‘; whereas theirs is to ‘praise nothing’ or to ‘honour nothing’. With them wisdom lies in contempt, and the way to be dignified is to be disdainful. While, by means of knowledge "C" and the ascertainment of the cause in a given case, philosophic reason does away with the wonder and awe due to unenlightenment and ignorance, it does not destroy a generous appreciation. Those whose excellence is genuine and firmly seated find it the highest honour to bestow honour, the highest distinction to bestow distinction, where honour and distinction are due. Such conduct implies that they have fame enough and to spare, and are free from jealousy, whereas those who are niggards of praise to others are in all probability pinched and hungry for praise of their own.

On the other hand, the opposite type of hearer is the fluttering feather-head who uses no discrimination, but punctuates with loud cheers at every word and syllable. While he is frequently obnoxious to the disputant himself, he is invariably a nuisance "D" to the hearers. He worries them on to their feet against their judgement, and drags them willy-nilly to join in the chorus because they are ashamed to refuse. Thanks to his applause deranging the lecture and making an imbroglio of it, he gets no good from it, but goes home with one of three descriptions to his credit—fleerer, sycophant, or ignoramus.

It is true that, when hearing a case in court, we must lean "E" neither towards hostility nor towards favour, but towards justice as we best understand it. But at a lecture on a subject of learning there is neither law nor oath to debar us from granting the speaker an indulgent reception. The reason why the ancients placed the statue of Hermes in the company of the Graces was that speaking has a special claim to a gracious friendliness. It is impossible for any one to be so complete a failure or so utterly astray as to offer us nothing deserving of a cheer, in the shape of a thought, a reference to others, the mere choice of theme or purpose, or, possibly, in the wording or arrangement of the matter,

"F" There are persons who, for exhibition purposes, can lend a fair measure of plausibility to a panegyric upon vomiting or fever, or even a pot; and surely a deliverance by a man who has some sort of claim to be thought, or to call himself, a philosopher cannot absolutely fail to afford a well-disposed or courteous audience some opportunity of finding relief in applause.

According to Plato young persons in the bloom of life can always manage somehow to excite a lover’s passion. If they are white he calls them ‘saint-like’; if swarthy, ‘virile’. "45" A hook-nose is ‘regal’, a snub nose ‘piquant’; a sallow skin is a ‘complexion of honey’. He uses these pretty names, and is pleased and satisfied. Love has, indeed, an ivy-like gift for clinging to any pretext. Much less will an eager and earnest student of letters ever fail in inventiveness. In every speaker he will discover some grounds for reasonable applause. In the speech of Lysias, though Plato objects to its want of arrangement, and though he has no praise for its inventiveness, he nevertheless commends him for his manner of statement, and because there is ‘a clear round finish in the chiselling of every word’. "B" We might find fault with Archilochus for his subject-matter, Parmenides for his versification, Phocylides for his commonplaceness, Euripides for his garrulity, Sophocles for his inequality. Similarly one of the orators has no characterization, another exerts no passion, a third is lacking in grace and charm. Nevertheless each wins praise for a power to move and sway us in his own peculiar way.

The hearer, then, has ample scope for showing good feeling to a speaker. In some instances it is sufficient if, without further declaration by word of mouth, we contribute a kindly eye, a genial expression, a friendly and agreeable mood. There are certain things for which even the man who is a total failure may "C" look, and which are but ordinary items of common etiquette for any and every audience. I mean an upright posture in our chairs, with no lolling or lounging; eyes kept directly upon the speaker; an air of businesslike attention; composure of countenance, with no sign, I need not say of insolence or peevishness, but of being taken up with other thoughts.

If in every exacting task beauty is made up of a number of factors happily combined in a due proportion and harmony, ugliness is the prompt and immediate outcome of the faulty "D" omission or addition of this or that one element. And in this particular matter of listening, not only is there impropriety in a scowling brow, a disagreeable expression, a roving glance, a twisting of the body, and a crossing of the legs; but nodding or whispering to a neighbour, smiling, yawning sleepily, looking at the ground, and actions of a similar nature, are censurable and should be studiously avoided.

There are some who think that, though the speaker has a duty, the hearer has none. They expect the former to present himself with his thoughts studiously prepared; yet, without a thought or care for their own obligations, they drop casually in and take their seats, for all the world as if they had come to a dinner to enjoy themselves while others are doing the work. Yet even a polite table-companion has his part to play, much "E" more a polite hearer. He is a partner in the speech and a coadjutor of the speaker; and he has no right to be sharply criticizing the mistakes, and taking every phrase and fact to task, while himself free from responsibility for the impropriety and the frequent solecisms which he commits as a hearer. In ball-play the catcher has to regulate his movements according to those of the thrower. So, in the case of a speech, there is a certain consonance of action in which both speaker and listener are concerned, if each is to sustain his proper part. "F"

Our expressions in applauding must not, however, be used without discrimination. It is an unpleasing phrase of Epicurus when, in speaking of the little epistles from his friends, he says, ‘We give them a rattling clapping.’ But what of those who nowadays introduce such outrÉ expressions into our lecture-rooms? The Capital! Well said! and Very true! which were the terms of commendation used by the hearers of Plato, Socrates, and Hypereides, are not enough for these persons. With their exclamations Divine! An inspiration! or Unapproachable! they commit a gross impropriety, libellously making out that the speaker requires far-fetched eulogies of an "46" outrageous kind. Highly obnoxious also are those who accompany their attestations with an oath, as if they were in a court of law. And equally so those who blunder in their descriptive terms; for instance, when the lecturer is a philosopher and they call out, A shrewd hit!, or an old man and they exclaim Cleverly put! or Brilliant!, thus misapplying to a philosopher the expressions used at academic exercises, where the speaking is not serious but merely an exhibition of adroitness. To offer "B" to a sober discourse such meretricious praise is like crowning an athlete with a wreath of lilies or roses instead of laurel or wild olive. Once when the poet Euripides was going over a song "*" with an original setting for the benefit of the members of his chorus, and one of them happened to laugh, he observed: ‘If you had not been an ignorant dolt, you could not have laughed while I was teaching you a mixolydian^[46] piece.’ So, I take it, a serious and practical philosopher might very well make short work of the airs and affectations of a hearer by saying, ‘I presume your case is one of foolishness or ill breeding; otherwise you would not have been piping out and jigging about at my remarks, when I was teaching, or admonishing, or arguing concerning religion, statesmanship, or the duties of "C" office.’ Just frankly consider what it means, when a philosopher is speaking, and the shouting and hurrahing inside the building make people outside wonder whether it is a flute-player, a harpist, or a dancer who is being applauded.

Meanwhile, in listening to admonition and reproof, the pupil must be neither insensible nor unmanly. There are some who bear the philosopher’s reproaches with an easy-going indifference, laughing under the correction and applauding the corrector, just as parasites applaud in sheer impudence and recklessness when they are abused by those who keep them. The shamelessness which such persons display is no proper or genuine proof of courage. When a jibe containing no insult, and uttered in "D" a playful and tactful way, is borne cheerfully and without annoyance, it shows neither a want of spirit nor a want of breeding. On the contrary, it is exactly what a gentleman of the true Spartan style would do. But it is different when admonition takes in hand the correction of character by means of a stinging remedy in the shape of rational reproof. If a young man does not cower under the lesson and feel his soul burning with shame, till he breaks into a sweat and is ready to faint; if, on the contrary, he is unperturbed, gives a broad grin of self-depreciation, and refuses to take the matter seriously, then he is an extremely vulgar creature beyond all sense of shame, a constant habituation to misconduct having made his soul no more capable of a bruise than a thick callus in the flesh.

These form the one class. Youths of the opposite disposition, "E" if a single hard word is said to them, turn deserters from philosophy and run away without a glance behind them. While nature has given them, in the shape of modesty, an excellent start towards moral salvation, they are so squeamish and timid that they throw their chance away. Unable to put up with reproof or to accept correction with spirit, they turn away to listen to the soft and agreeable utterances of some time-server or sophist, who charms them with melodious phrases as useless and futile as they are pleasing. If a man runs away from the surgeon after the operation and objects to be bandaged, he is submitting to the pain of the treatment but refusing to put up with its benefit. So when a lesson has lanced and probed his "F" folly, if he will not permit it to close and dress the wound, he is abandoning philosophy after feeling the sting and the pain but before deriving any advantage therefrom.

Euripides says that the wound of Telephus was

It is no less true that the sting implanted by philosophy in "47" a youth of parts is cured by the same reasoning that caused the wound. While, therefore, it is right that the subject of reproof should feel some pain from the sting, he must not be crushed or dispirited, but, after undergoing the first discomposing rites of purification, he should look for some sweet and splendid revelation to follow the distress and confusion of the moment. For though the reproof may appear to be unjust, the proper course is to endure it with all patience until the speaker concludes. Then he may be met by a plea in self-defence, and by "B" a request to reserve for some real fault all the vigorous candour which he has shown in the present instance.

To proceed to the next consideration. In reading and writing, playing the lyre, or wrestling, the first lessons are very harassing, laborious, and unsure; but, as we advance step by step, it is much as in dealing with mankind. By dint of frequent and familiar acquaintance we find that it all becomes pleasant and manageable, and every word or action easy. It is the same with philosophy. No doubt the language and matter, as first met with, contain something both hard and strange. But we must not take fright at the rudiments and prove so timid and spiritless "C" as to abandon the study. On the contrary, our duty is to grapple with every question, to persevere, to be resolved on making progress, and then to wait for that familiarity which converts all right action into a pleasure. It will not be long before it arrives, casting upon the study a flood of light, and inspiring an ardent passion for excellence. To be without such passion and to put up with the ordinary type of life because one is driven from philosophy by a lack of mettle, is to be a miserable or cowardly creature.

We may also expect that at first the argumentation will prove somewhat difficult for young and inexperienced students to understand. For the most part, however, the obscurity and want of comprehension are due to themselves. Opposite dispositions "D" lead to the same mistake. Thus one class, through bashfulness and a desire to spare the teacher, will shrink from putting questions and making sure of the argument, and will ostensibly assent as if they quite understood. The others, led by misplaced ambition and meaningless rivalry to make a show of cleverness and quickness, pretend to have mastered a thing before they take it in, and so will not take it in at all. The consequence is that when the former—the modest and silent kind—go home, they will worry themselves with their perplexities, and in the end they will be driven perforce to trouble the speaker by harking back with their questions at a later date, when they will feel still more ashamed. Meanwhile the bold and ambitious kind will be perpetually cloaking their ignorance and hiding the fact that it haunts them.

Let us then thrust aside all this pretentious silliness, and march "E" on towards learning. Let our business be to get an intelligent grasp upon valuable instruction. And let us put up with the laughter of those who are thought to be clever. Remember how Cleanthes and Xenocrates, though to all appearance slower than their fellow-pupils, refused to give up or run away from their studies. On the contrary, they were the first to joke at their own expense, comparing themselves to a narrow-necked bottle or a brass tablet, inasmuch as, though slow at taking their instruction in, they were safe and sure at retaining it. Not only must we, as Phocylides puts it,

we must also ‘oft-times’ be laughed at, and bear with scoffing "F" and jeering, meanwhile putting all our heart and energy into winning the struggle against our ignorance.

We must, however, be quite as careful not to err in the opposite direction. Some do so from sloth, which makes them a wearisome infliction. Unwilling to trouble themselves when "48" alone, they keep troubling the teacher by repeatedly asking for information on the same questions. Like unfledged birds in the nest, they are perpetually agape to be fed from another’s mouth, and expect to receive everything ready masticated by someone else.

Another kind, in the misplaced quest of a reputation for alertness and acumen, worry the lecturer with their fussy garrulity, perpetually mooting some unimportant difficulty or demanding some unnecessary demonstration,

"B" —as Sophocles says—not only to themselves but to every one else. By continually arresting the teacher with superfluous and futile questions, as if they were merely chatting with a companion, they interfere with the continuity of the lesson by a series of checks and delays. Persons of this class are (to quote Hieronymus) like wretched cowardly puppies, who bite the skins and tear the odds and ends of wild animals at home, but who never touch the animals themselves.

As for the former and lazy class, let us give them this advice. When they have managed to comprehend the main points, let them piece the rest together for themselves, using their "C" memory as a guide to independent thought. And let them take the reasoning they hear from another as a beginning—a seed which they are to make grow and thrive.

The mind is not a vessel which calls for filling. It is a pile, which simply requires kindling-wood to start the flame of eagerness for original thought and ardour for truth. Suppose someone goes to borrow from his neighbour’s fire, and then, on finding a large bright blaze, persists in staying and basking on the spot. It is the same when a man comes to another to borrow reason, and does not realize that he must kindle a light of his own in the shape of thinking for himself, but sits enchanted with enjoyment of the lecture. He derives from the lesson "D" a ruddy glow or outward brilliance, but he fails to drive out the mould and darkness from within by the warming power of philosophy.

If therefore any advice is needed for the hearing of lectures, it is to remember the rule just given—to practise independent thought along with learning. We shall thus attain, not to the ability of a sophist or the ‘well-informed’ man, but to a deep-seated philosophic power. Right listening will be for us the introduction to right living.