Question I
What Is The Reason That God Bade Socrates to Act The Midwife's Part To Others, But Charged Himself Not To Generate; As He Says In Theaetetus? (Theaet. 149B)
1. For he would never have used the name of God in such a merry,
jesting manner, though Plato in that book makes Socrates several times to talk with great
boasting and arrogance, as he does now. 'There are many, dear friend, so affected towards
me, that they are ready even to bite me, when I offer to cure them of the least madness.
For they will not be persuaded that I do it out of good-will, because they are ignorant
that no God bears ill-will to man, and that therefore I wish ill to no man; but I cannot
allow myself either to stand in a lie or to stifle the truth.' (Theaet. 151c). Whether
therefore did he style his own nature, which was a very strong and pregnant wit, by the
name of God, -- as Menander says, 'For our mind is God,' and as Heraclitus, 'Man's genius
is a deity'? Or did some divine cause or some Daemon or other impart this way of
philosophizing to Socrates, whereby always interrogating others, he cleared them of pride,
error, and ignorance, and of being troublesome both to themselves and to others? For about
that time there happened to be in Greece several sophisters; to these young men paid great
somes of money, for which they purchased a strong opinion of learning and wisdom, and of
being stout disputants; but this sort of disputation spent much time in trifling
squabblings, which were of no credit or profit. Now Socrates, using an argumentative
discourse by way of a purgative remedy, procured belief and authority to what he said,
because in refusing others he himself affirmed nothing; and he the sooner gained upon
people, because he seemed rather to be inquisitive after the truth as well as they, than
to maintain his own opinion.
2. Now, however useful a thing judgement is, it is mightily impeached
by the begetting of one's own fancies. For the lover is blinded with the thing loved; and
nothing of a man's own is so beloved as is the opinion of discourse which he has begotten.
And the distribution of children, said to be the justest, in respect of discourses is the
unjustest; for there a man must take his own, but here a man must choose the best, though
it be another man's. Therefore he that has children of his own, is a worse judge of other
men's; it being true, as the sophister said well, 'The Eleans would be the most proper
judges of the Olympic games, were no Eleans gamesters.' So he that would judge of
disputants cannot be just, if he either seeks the bays for himself, or is himself
antagonist to either of the antagonists. For as the Grecian captains, when they were to
decide by their suffrages who had behaved himself the best, every man of them voted for
himself'; so there is not a philosopher of them all but would do the like, besides those
that acknowledge, like Socrates, that they can say nothing that is their own; and these
only are the pure uncorrupt judges of the truth. For as the air in the ears, unless it be
still and void of noise itself, with out any sound or buzzing, does not exactly take
sounds; so the philosophical judgement in disputations, if it be disturbed and
obstreperous within, is hardly comprehensive of what is said without. For our familiar and
inbred opinion will not admit that which is at variance with itself, as the number of
seeds and parties proves, of which philosophers-- if she deals with them in the best
manner-- must hold one to be right, and all others to be at war with the truth in their
opinions.
3. Furthermore, if men can comprehend and know nothing, God did justly
interdict Socrates the procreation of false and unstable discourses, which are like
wind-eggs, and bid him convince others who were of any other opinion. And reasoning, which
rids us of the greatest of evils, error and vanity of mind, is none of the least benefit
to us, 'For God has not granted this to the Esculapians.' (Theognis, vs. 432). Nor did
Socrates give physic to the body; indeed he purged the mind of secret corruption. But if
there be any knowledge of the truth, and if the truth be one, he has as much that learns
it of him that invented it, as the inventor himself. Now he the most easily attains the
truth, that is persuaded he has it not; and he chooses best just as he that has no
children of his own adopts the best. Mark this well, that poetry, mathematics, oratory,
and sophistry, which are things the Deity forbade Socrates to generate, are of no value;
and that of the sole wisdom about what is divine and intelligible (which Socrates called
amiable and eligible for itself), there is neither generation nor invention by man, but
reminiscence. Wherefore Socrates taught nothing, but suggesting principles of doubt, as
birth-pains, to young men, he excited and called his Art Midwifery, which did not (as
other professed) extrinsically confer intelligence upon his auditors; but demonstrated it
to be innate, yet imperfect and confused, and in want of a nurse to feed and strengthen
it.