diff options
Diffstat (limited to '76595-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 76595-0.txt | 3007 |
1 files changed, 3007 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/76595-0.txt b/76595-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..afc31c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/76595-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3007 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76595 *** + + + + + + PLATO’S AMERICAN + REPUBLIC + + + + + PLATO’S AMERICAN + REPUBLIC + + Done out of the original + by + DOUGLAS WOODRUFF + + + [Illustration] + + + “_fidelia vulnera amantis_” + + + New York + E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY + 681 Fifth Avenue + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1926 + BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY + + _All Rights Reserved_ + + First Printing August, 1926 + Second Printing October, 1926 + Third Printing January, 1927 + Fourth Printing March, 1927 + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + _TO + M. C. HOLLIS + AND + M. J. MACDONALD_ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + BOOK PAGE + I. WOMEN, CARS, AND MEN 1 + II. GOVERNMENT 18 + III. PUBLIC OPINION 36 + IV. PROHIBITION 53 + V. EDUCATION 71 + VI. AMERICA AND ENGLAND 93 + + + + + PLATO’S AMERICAN + REPUBLIC + + + + + BOOK I + + _Scene: Athens, 1925_ + + SOCRATES (THE NARRATOR); AGATHON; + LYSIS; PHAELON + + +We were sitting on the pavement in our usual way, considering all +things, and examining into them one at a time. There were with me Lysis +and his younger brother Phaelon, two youths whom I loved for their +inquiring dispositions and habit of always asking why. As we were +sitting there we suddenly saw Agathon approaching, and called to him +to join us. When we had made room for him he turned to me and said: +‘Listen, Socrates, to a strange thing which happened to me to-day as +I was going down to the Piræus. For I now work, as you know, in the +Government, and to-day a stranger came up to me outside my office, +proposing to buy the Parthenon and all the buildings on the Acropolis +and remove them to his own land, and re-erect them there.’ + +‘Truly a strange way of honouring the Athenians,’ I said. + +‘I think,’ answered Agathon, ‘that it was less his idea to honour the +Athenians than to make his own countrymen pay him many _denarii_ to +behold the sight.’ ‘And did he wish to buy the hill as well as the +buildings on it?’ ‘Why no,’ answered Agathon, ‘for he spoke as one +most ignorant, but he guessed that there were as good hills in his own +country, which he explained was also the particular residence of the +Gods.’ ‘Without doubt he was an American,’ I exclaimed. + +At this word ‘American’ the two young men leaned forward eagerly, and +Phaelon said:―― + +‘Tell us, Socrates, have you ever lectured in America?’ + +‘How not?’ said I. + +‘And did you like the Americans?’ asked Lysis. ‘Tell us what manner +of people they are. For we have heard many stories of them. For +Thrasymachus tells us that he has nowhere been so well received. And +he, you know, has lectured in all the lands he could. But, he says +that where in other countries he received nothing but kindness, in +America he received a great many dollars as well. And he says that he +is convinced that the Gods have emigrated and made it their country, +and that, when it has improved a little more, he also will follow the +example of the Gods. But Glaucon says just the opposite, maintaining +that as the Americans are the farthest away of all the barbarians +from Athens and civilization, so are they without any doubt the most +completely barbarian. Tell us, therefore, what is true about the +Americans, for at your lectures you must have seen and questioned them +all.’ + +At this Agathon, who had been trying to repress his laughter since +first Lysis had spoken of my lecture-tour, became redder than ever +in the face, and finally burst out saying: ‘Yes, indeed, Socrates is +the best person to give you a faithful picture, if he is sufficiently +master of himself and a true lover of wisdom.’ + +‘Go on,’ I said, ‘and make your meaning clearer and cease to bewilder +the young.’ For I knew what Agathon had in his mind to tell them. + +‘Why, then, Lysis and Phaelon,’ said Agathon, ‘you must forgive +Socrates if he looks like a sheep while I am speaking shamefully of +him, as I intend to do. But the truth is that his lectures were much +less successful than were those of his wife Xantippe. There were, it is +true, many Americans who had heard of Socrates, whose name is painted +up on the walls of many of their libraries, and these came to look at +him. But he is not a great spectacle to behold, and when he spoke they +found he was not interested in any of the things which they desired to +know, such as the art of succeeding in the world and the other things +which the sophists profess to teach. Whereas Xantippe spoke to the +women, praising women and declaring them to be the moral leaders of +the community, and demanding for them the chief voice in ordering the +affairs of the city.’ + +‘Go on to the end, my good Agathon,’ said I, ‘for I know you will not +be able to sleep unless you also tell them how I came to see the Middle +West.’ + +‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it was in my mind to tell them that also. Xantippe’s +best lecture, which she gave more than two hundred times, was on the +management of the home and the husband, and in this lecture poor +Socrates was made to assist. For in no other way could he hope to +see the most powerful and strange region of America, which in their +dialect they term the Middle West. It was also the only way he could +ever pay his passage back to Athens. Many of the women who had read +the teachings of a local sage, Emerson, spoke kindly to Socrates and +inquired his angle on the beautiful, as though he had been Euclid. +But Xantippe showed him to them as an example of the mismanaged home, +blaming the spirit of Athens which did not give her authority enough, +and warning the women of America to take care lest their menfolk should +become too much like Socrates. But this danger they did not seem to +think imminent.’ + +‘Indeed,’ said Phaelon, ‘you endured much, Socrates.’ + +‘Indeed he did, for Xantippe praised the women of America and the +women of America praised Xantippe, and with each exchange of flattery +they became more boastful and reckless. At all such gatherings the +Americans, especially the women, expect to hear themselves praised. +Indeed, that people is like a Persian monarch, for all who approach +and speak to them desire gifts from them and endeavour to recommend +themselves by flattery. Before half her tour was over Xantippe was +openly saying that there were no truer lovers of the good than her +audience in the whole world, and that they did quite right to be well +satisfied with themselves and to have nothing to do with humility and +not to believe it possible they were mistaken in what they thought +to be the proper objects of the soul’s desire. And in particular she +praised them for their refusal to believe there was anything requiring +deep thought in philosophy or in public life, saying that people +so wise and good did right to trust to their first impressions of +everything. Then she told them that the idea that there was anything +difficult and mysterious in life was only fit for people like +Socrates, who were unfit for anything but philosophy. And she explained +that the reason that more thinking was done in Europe, and that there +was more philosophical discussion there, was that people had so much +time on their hands while waiting for their passports to the United +States. For these passports, she said, are as long in coming as a +conclusion is in the chatterings of Socrates and his friends, and the +Europeans spend the time in philosophy hoping to learn resignation +and the acceptance of one’s destiny. Because more and more often the +passport is in the end refused, and nowhere more often than among the +Greeks. She is already full with engagements for such addresses for the +next two years.’ + +‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I am glad I went there. For as the silent butt of +Xantippe’s scorn I was free to turn my attention wholly to the strange +places we visited. And in particular I satisfied to the full my desire +to see and study a Woman’s Club, than which I had not been able to +imagine anything more unnatural.’ + +‘Tell us,’ said they both, ‘about a Woman’s Club.’ + +‘If I did,’ said I with a smile, ‘I do not think you would believe me. +But you would say that in America I had indulged myself too freely in +potent distillations of the tail of the cock, and spoke the thing +which was not.’ + +‘Oh no, Socrates,’ exclaimed Phaelon, ‘for I have often heard the +Americans spoken of before, and I know about the women who rule the men +in the valley of the great river. The river is the Amazon, the greatest +of all American rivers, and the inhabitants are called Amazons. Do I +not understand rightly?’ + +‘Not quite rightly,’ put in Agathon, ‘for the Amazon River is in +another America altogether, and the chief rivers where Socrates was +are the Mississippi and the Missouri, named, I believe, after the two +first women who tamed their menfolk, the one her husband, the other her +father.’ + +‘You should also tell them, Agathon, should you not, that the method +of domination is different, and that, whereas the Amazons triumphed by +skill in arms and valour, the American women triumph by something more +lasting and stronger than physical force. They have managed to make the +men believe that they are superior and ought to be obeyed.’ + +‘How so?’ said Lysis. ‘Is it in fact true that they are superior?’ + +‘My answer will surprise you perhaps,’ I replied, ‘but I will answer +boldly and say, Yes, if it is a better thing to be alive than dead, +which, as I have said elsewhere, is not a thing we can decide. But it +is certain that in America the women are more alive than the men. For +the men work so hard that they kill themselves, and are so busy while +living that they have no time for the proper business of life.’ + +‘They must work, must they not,’ said Lysis, ‘in order to obtain the +leisure for philosophy and public life, for I have heard that they have +no slaves, and no class beneath the men, and if they did not work they +would starve.’ + +‘Listen,’ I said, ‘and learn how little you yet understand about +the character of this extraordinary people, the most extraordinary, +as I believe, that has yet appeared upon the face of the earth. For +if you see men engaging of their own will in the most heavy and +degrading employments of commerce, long after they have accumulated for +themselves and their families not a sufficiency only but an extreme +abundance both of those things that may be called necessities and those +that are plainly luxuries, can anything be said of such men except that +they are either ignoble in their own souls and ignorant of the true +nature of what is good, or else that they are acting in obedience to +the orders of some tyrant, and are, in fact, not freemen at all, but +slaves?’ + +‘Assuredly,’ they said, ‘they must be one or the other.’ + +‘Or both,’ said Agathon. + +‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘that was well added by Agathon, for we must not +forget the influence of religion which even tyrants can modify only +through slow degrees. But as religion is the manifestation of the +soul’s nature, if we find the religion of these people compelling them +to lead the life they do, shall we not justly decide that there is +in their souls an ignorance of what is truly good? Now I say that in +religion they are followers of Pythagoras without rightly understanding +his doctrine, and that they are to be numbered among the worshippers of +the Sacred Number.’ + +‘Without doubt,’ said Lysis, ‘the Sacred Number is Number One, which +has long been the favourite among mankind.’ + +‘You are wrong,’ said I, ‘and you must not think that the Americans +are in general more selfish than other men. I think that the opposite +is the case, and that nowhere on earth, not even among the Athenians, +is there so much fellow-feeling and willingness to help combined with +so much competitiveness and so great a desire to excel in contests. +No, the number is the symbol _n_, or whatever you choose that denotes +the greatest quantity. For they pay a most special and devout worship +to a strange god whom they call Progress, and whose will they declare +it to be that there shall be made as great a number as possible of all +objects that men make, but principally of the machines that are called +“autos” or “cars,” which move men quickly from place to place.’ + +‘It is often a fine thing to go quickly from place to place,’ said +Lysis. + +‘Why, yes,’ I said, ‘and in addition the control of these machines +gives great joy to the Americans. So that it may well happen that they +will live altogether in their cars. For at present they must endeavour +to find some place in the city where they can leave their car while +they go to an office, and he who is successful in doing this is said to +have parked his car, and is held in honour. And as among many peoples +a youth is not granted the dignity of manhood until he has slain an +enemy, so among the Americans must he first prove himself by parking a +car.’ + +‘They would become men sooner if theirs was the old test of slaying a +man, would they not?’ said Lysis, ‘for that requires but little skill +in controlling cars and a stout heart is alone sufficient.’ + +‘Why, yes,’ I said, ‘and it is my belief that the present state of +affairs cannot endure and that to park will soon be beyond the wit of +any save a true philosopher, who will guard his place by his presence +upon it night and day. So did Diogenes preserve his claim to the spot +where he parked his tub. For the truth can be considered in any place, +as I observed to the traffic-policemen in New York, who objected to my +examination of Glaucon in Broadway. But for the ordinary Americans, +I think, there is no solution except the abolition of offices and +the transaction of all business in cars. They will equip their cars +as offices and drive from their homes to the market-place. These +car-offices will enjoy all the space that is at present filled with +buildings. When their cars are so fitted as to take all the papers of +their business, they can work freely on the journeys out and home, +dictating to their clerks as they go. Nor will it much surprise me if +the private home is abolished to give place to the residential car +so that the American soul may find a final happiness, and men may be +born in cars and live and wed and die in them, and be cremated in the +engine, without ever having to put a foot on the ground. And so will +arise a new race to take the place of the centaurs of old. For, as the +centaurs were half men and half horses, so will these be half men and +half motor-cars. And it would seem that of such a race the natural +sustenance would be alcohol. So, at least, the future appears to me, or +do you not think so, Agathon?’ + +‘No’, he said. + +‘Well,’ I replied, ‘you may be right. It may happen that everybody +will be run over in the next few years, which will disprove all our +prophecies and speculations.’ + +‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that is much more likely.’ + +‘But I think,’ I continued, ‘that we will say that whether or not the +Americans remain in their cars, we for our part will have nothing to do +with them, but rather regard them as a vexatious interruption of right +living, and in particular as a great distraction in the search for +truth. And we will refuse to sit ourselves down as the Americans love +to do and start the machinery and follow whithersoever the car leads. +For do you notice how we have wandered out of our course, as generally +happens with these machines, and have quite forgotten the original +thread of our discourse and the question why the Americans worship this +strange god Progress, making an incantation of the name and chanting it +as if it were an explanation of the way they spend their lives?’ + +‘Well, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘most gods are strange, and if they +were not strange we should be doubtful if they were gods.’ + +‘True,’ I said, ‘but there is a strangeness which helps the divine +part of the soul and a strangeness which oppresses it. If we consider +the past fortunes of America we shall see how the worship of theirs +grew up. And, to begin with, are not the Americans right when they say +that theirs is a great country?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘it is certainly vast.’ + +‘And rich in the wealth of its agriculture and minerals and so offering +a fair field for endeavour and great rewards for enterprise and skill?’ + +‘Assuredly,’ he said. + +‘Then we must remember that the Americans are for the most part the +descendants of those who left Europe as poor men. And this is true +whether we are considering those original Americans of three hundred +years ago, or those who went there within the last century, after the +others had freed themselves from the tyrant George.’ + +‘Was this George a heavy tyrant?’ asked Lysis, ‘for tyrant is a harsh +name, and I have read that the English themselves were always well +pleased with him.’ + +‘I must confess,’ I said, ‘that he does not appeal much to me. Few +men have less resembled the philosopher King. It is plain that reason +was weak in his soul, and that he was narrow and obstinate and full +of craftiness, and that the English only loved him as a check upon +their lesser overlords and as the chief of their nation in their wars +with the French, which continued all his reign. And though he did not +actually oppress the Americans it was not of advantage to them to be +his subjects, nor a thing to which they had of necessity to submit.’ + +Here Lysis looked up, and said: ‘Tell me, Socrates, do you think they +regret it now, and that they will soon return to their allegiance to +King George’s house, for an English lady told me that it would happen +very quickly, the revolt having ended in the muddle America is in now.’ + +‘That word “muddle” is a favourite with the English,’ said Agathon. + +‘And rightly,’ said I, ‘since our words are to designate the things +among which we live. I know it is a common view among the English +that the Americans will abandon this attempt of theirs to found a new +country, and that after this present President Coolidge they will not +elect another, but will all pack up and return to the countries from +which they originally came, regretting the increasingly disastrous +experiment and going back meekly to their respective kings and rulers, +and leaving America to the Red Indians and the Buffalos, whose +political life runs more easily. But, for my part, I reject this +opinion, and believe that the Americans will persevere.’ + +‘I think so, too,’ said Agathon. + +‘And so it is important to consider this religious view of theirs about +Progress. I said that most of the Americans went there in the last +hundred years and found abundant rewards for work. The great need of +everybody was that the total wealth should be increased and the country +rendered fruitful, or in their phrase “opened up.” This real occupation +of America was the great and absorbing business of the Americans, who +were not troubled with strong foreign enemies. Their ablest citizens +devoted themselves to the pursuit of wealth, and received the public +admiration because in general, at that time, the man who enriched +himself enriched also everyone else. We must remember that the +Americans came from countries where there was a ruling caste to which +they did not belong, and from the first they so framed the constitution +that it should be clear that the ministers were the servants of the +people. While the independence was new and precarious, interest and +prestige still followed those who transacted the business of the +people, but when the novelty had vanished the attention of everybody +was turned to developing the estate they had won. No one was willing to +be a minister without the wealth and dignity of European rulers, and +political life attracted not the best but the less successful and able +of the community, and ceased to fire the ambition of the young. For the +life of the country was altogether in its economic development and not +in its political affairs.’ + +Then Agathon said: ‘And should you not also say that political life was +made harder in America than elsewhere?’ + +‘Assuredly, we should,’ I answered, ‘for the truth is that this same +worship of size and numbers that we spoke of before has nowhere hurt +the Americans more than in the ordering of their political life. Do you +remember, Lysis, hearing of a discussion over the ideal State and how +many men it was settled should form the State, and what was the number +beyond which it was unsafe for a State to grow?’ + +‘Five thousand and forty,’ he said, ‘is the figure Plato gives.’ + +‘And will it surprise you to learn that the Americans considerably +exceed that figure?’ + +‘I had suspected as much,’ he replied, ‘from the crowds of them that +visit Athens, for they must leave some of their number behind to +hold the country, and there must be very many thousands of them to +provide all those audiences for Xantippe. And, after all, nobody ever +quite does what Plato says, not even when he makes you, Socrates, the +mouthpiece of his views. I will guess two hundred thousand.’ + +‘And what will you say when I tell you that you are yet short of the +real number, and that, not to make a long story, the Americans are far +more plentiful than the subjects of the Great King himself? There are +more than one hundred million Americans.’ + +After a long pause, Phaelon said rather faintly: ‘Why, Socrates?’ + +‘That,’ I answered, ‘is known only to the Gods, whose ways are not the +ways of mortals, but certainly they have made this enormous number of +Americans and have not stopped yet.’ + +‘No wonder so many of them come to Europe,’ said Lysis. + +‘But listen,’ I said, ‘for the most extraordinary thing is yet to come. +What will you think of such people when I tell you that they endeavour +to live all under one government and to share one Assembly?’ + +‘Socrates,’ said Lysis, sitting up and looking me straight in the face, +‘I do not believe you.’ + + + + + BOOK II + + +I then explained to them as well as I could about the forty-eight +States that make up the United States, making it plain that each State +had its own government, but that there was also the Federal Government, +which had authority everywhere. And this they understood readily +enough, for the notion of a federation of communities was familiar to +them. I told them briefly of how originally there were North and South, +and of the Civil War, which was fought to establish the ascendancy +of the Federal Government, and I made it plain that that ascendancy +had grown greater to this day and that the State Governments had +become more and more unimportant. And I did not hide from them that +the choosing of parties and policies for the central assembly became +less and less a thing over which ordinary citizens had any control +at all, and that nowhere else in the world did the members so chosen +receive less respect or less truly represent the people electing them. +‘Yet,’ I said, ‘the Americans are extremely attached to their Central +Government, far more than they are to the governments of their own +States.’ + +Lysis pondered for some moments on these things, and then said: ‘Was +this a great civil war?’ + +‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘we Greeks have a high standard for such wars, +when Greek meets Greek. But for barbarians it was a stern struggle.’ + +‘And terrible in its results,’ I said, ‘as you will agree if you are +of my opinion that that Civil War was the most disastrous thing in the +history of the Americans, if it fastened on their necks so great a +mockery of popular government as is their central government.’ + +‘Assuredly they would not have fought for it if they had foreknown the +future,’ he said. + +‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘most of them consider that it was the +turning point in their history, and they have made their chief hero of +the statesman who saved the Union.’ + +‘Why?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘Because being one has made them big and strong, or rather big and +rich. Because the central government made commerce easier between men +in different States, and thus assisted the great development of the +country which has marked the years since the Civil War. In particular +the victory secured the market of the defeated States for the +manufacturers of the North. It is necessary to remember these things, +for in America it is the manufacturers and their wives who decide +what other people shall think, for among their other products they +manufacture public opinion.’ + +‘Come, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘you forget your old friends the +preachers.’ + +‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I find the preachers have great influence. Yet they +only succeed in those matters where the manufacturers support them, +though the union of the two is irresistible.’ + +‘What would happen,’ asked Lysis, ‘if the preachers wished one thing +and the manufacturers another?’ + +‘That seldom happens,’ I said. ‘For the majority of preachers have +never been known to wage a campaign against any activities that are +thought desirable by the men of commerce, such as the prostitution +of the soul which is called salesmanship, or the concentration upon +business success which is called “making good.” But they attack those +pleasures of ordinary men, like gambling and drinking, which the +manufacturers will support them in attacking. For I verily believe +they think it worse to be a drunkard than to sell one’s soul for gold. +Nor is it difficult to understand how they have reached even such +absurdities as this.’ + +‘We are listening,’ they said. + +‘Why, they hold that some sins might unfit a man to serve the Gods, +and in particular the God Progress, for they do not value all the gods +equally, and to Bacchus they will not agree to pay any honours at all. +Now, to those who think like that, a man will seem not wholly bad +though the reasonable part of his soul be subordinated to a shameless +desire for pelf, because such a man can play his part, and, indeed, be +a leader, in that industrial life, walking calmly among the whirring +wheels and running the machines whose buzz they consider a perpetual +song of praise to Progress. But a drunkard cannot safely assist at +these services.’ + +‘He might,’ said Agathon, ‘if he would not mind being caught up in the +wheels and immolated as a sacrifice, but I can well believe he sees +enough things going round as it is without going into factories to see +more.’ + +‘So the manufacturers,’ I resumed, ‘were strongly in favour of this +Civil War, and the preachers were with them. And these two parties make +up the minds of millions of people.’ + +‘It must be fine fun, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘to make up so many minds +like that.’ + +‘Indeed they find it so, yet they must do it with care, for in many +matters they do not have the power of making the Americans think +absolutely anything they please, but only the power of making one out +of several opinions prevail. For they see the American soul like a ship +with full-bellied sails, going to one of several harbours, according +as the winds and currents drive it, and these manufacturers and these +preachers can decide on the harbour and drive that ship before their +mighty blasts and blowings, scattering away all contrary winds.’ + +At this Lysis looked very thoughtful, and then said slowly: ‘If they +have indeed so much power it must be that there is some correspondence +in the American soul, and that the manufacturers and the preachers +are strong in the national life because the manufacturing part of the +soul and the preaching part of the soul is strong inside the ordinary +American. For so you have explained to me that the constitution of a +State is reflected in the constitution of the souls of its citizens.’ + +‘My excellent Lysis,’ I said, ‘you have well stated a difficult +truth, and much of the power of these people comes from the fact that +an American thinks he ought to listen to a manufacturer because he +himself, in his own soul, thinks highly of manufacturing, and will not +listen to a philosopher, thinking meanly of philosophy. So also he +admires a preacher, though such are seldom humble and many, indeed, go +about bursting with presumption and acting as though they were wiser +and better than all other men. But there is a further explanation of +their power. These manufacturers and preachers are organized and have +the use of money, so that they can pay men to write and repeat the same +things over and over again, till the Americans, from seeing and hearing +them so often, assume that they are true.’ + +Then Lysis said: ‘Has the strengthening of this power, Socrates, been +the worst of the evils that resulted from the Civil War?’ + +‘Many and heavy have been the ills,’ said I, ‘resulting from that +contest and the views dictated by the North.’ + +‘There are those,’ Agathon said, ‘who say that all that has happened +would have happened without the Civil War.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but we cannot pretend to know that. And so I am content +to look at what has taken place and to trace how events have helped +each other without following such writers into the marshes and bogs of +hypothetical imaginings. Now it seems to me that the Civil War gave +the death stroke to their political life, for it made the central +government supreme over the states at the same time as it made the +interests of commerce predominant over the central government.’ + +‘Explain to us, Socrates,’ they said, as I was expecting they would. + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘you can easily understand that the war strengthened the +central government, giving it new duties and new powers, and fixing all +men’s eyes upon it, and accustoming them to think its needs and acts of +greater importance than the concerns of their own localities.’ + +‘Yes,’ they said. + +‘And if that very war is in support of the government’s claim to +authority and is waged successfully, must not the prestige of that +government be established, and that of the smaller governments +diminished?’ + +‘It must,’ they assented. + +‘Now, do you think,’ I asked, ‘that an ordinary man will be able to +understand or even to follow questions of policy, especially when he is +far away from the place of government and is absorbed in the pursuit of +his private gain?’ + +‘Assuredly not.’ + +‘And that in proportion as America has increased in size and wealth +each citizen has less and less felt able to take part in the +government, or even to weigh and judge of the opinions of the other +citizens when there are so many of them. For most citizens know only a +small part of their enormous country. And so most of them do not follow +the questions of the public interest and act a part in political +life, which has become in their country a trade like any other. And +as all traders must keep the goodwill of the public, so especially +must those who provide administration. But the need for goodwill is +not a great check in any trade where competition is weak, and two +concerns have a monopoly and can sell what article they like and call +it administration. Furthermore, this war left strong feelings so that +men stood firmly by their parties, and it kept floating in the air many +fine names like “American” and “Republican,” and “Union,” in which +the men of commerce who desired to run the government could dress +themselves up. For it is difficult for such men themselves to invent +names which arouse emotion, and yet they do not dare to call things by +their true names and show themselves as they are. But the memories of +the war made a grand cloak for their business purposes.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Lysis, ‘I am beginning to see how their power was riveted +on the necks of the Americans, when they had all those powerful words +at their disposal.’ + +‘At the very time,’ I said, ‘that they were making those railways +of theirs and were determined to control the public treasury. And, +moreover, does it not follow that power will belong to whoever can +persuade the Americans that popular opinion is with him and that, the +larger the number and the area, the greater the power of those who are +rich and can pay for propaganda?’ + +‘What exactly is propaganda?’ said Lysis. + +‘It is, with advertising, the chief curse of the Americans, and may, +indeed, be described as political advertising. For never in the history +of the world has there been so wonderful a field for the skilful +persuader as are these modern democracies, where all the people can +read and very few of them can think. All are secretly uncertain of +themselves, and in America more so than elsewhere, and look to see +what their neighbours are thinking and desire to be counted among the +majority. For nothing is stronger in America than this desire to belong +to the majority and to say “We think” or “We feel.” And it is natural +for business men to be timid, for their business depends upon the good +opinion of others, and so it is that business men very easily become +hypocrites. I believe myself the American men do not mind dying since +it means joining the great majority.’ + +‘And one ever growing greater,’ added Agathon. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but they will not enjoy Hades, where time is not money +any more, and no one but Charon has any wealth, so that the most +forward salesmanship will be in vain.’ + +‘Poor Americans,’ said Lysis, ‘they will feel very lost.’ + +‘They will understand giving a sop to Cerberus,’ said Agathon; ‘it will +be like their own politics. And they will like the crowds.’ + +‘Come, my good friends,’ I said, ‘cease to tarry with the Americans in +Hades, and let me resume my tale of their earthly misfortunes.’ + +‘Pray do so, Socrates,’ they said. + +‘Then I will say,’ I resumed, ‘that the second great disaster of that +war has been this: that by the mechanism of the Constitution (to use +a phrase often in their mouths, by which they mean that the laws made +for other times and conditions produce different and strange results +to-day), the opinions and ideas of one part of the country become the +laws that are to be obeyed by all the parts. For it is the people of +the North spreading westward to the great rivers that have built up in +the great agricultural plains the growing empire of the Middle West, +of which we spoke earlier, where the preachers and manufacturers have +most power of all, having secured the ear of the women. Except for an +accident once or twice the same party has been in power ever since the +war, and that is the party of the North and the manufacturers, and the +South have hardly more voice in the central government than if they +were frankly governed as subjects.’ + +‘What sort of people were these in the South?’ asked Lysis. + +‘The best of them were the very best sort of barbarians,’ I replied, +‘and the nearest to civilization of all the Americans.’ + +‘But they are from Ethiopia, are they not?’ said Lysis, ‘for I have +heard men whistling in the streets of Athens songs in which the singer +praises the blackness of his lover’s or mother’s face and these songs +are what men sing in these Southern States.’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘can you not guess the explanation, for indeed it is +not difficult? These Southerners had black slaves. Indeed, the war was +largely caused by that.’ + +‘How,’ said Lysis. + +‘Why, among barbarians it is not natural that one man should serve +another, for all are slaves by nature. And, in general all are slaves +to one despot, as among the Persians. Now in America the northern +barbarians were angry that the Southerners were served by Ethiopians, +whom they declared to be in all respects the equals of the whites. And +when they won the doubtful struggle, they wrote in their Constitution +that that was so. For they believe they can change the nature of things +by changing that Constitution of theirs. But, indeed, they have made +much less difference than they think, and freed individuals rather +than the race itself, and the chief part of the Ethiopians, and, as I +believe, the happiest, are those serving in the fields and households +of the South. For, if you do not pursue the life of reason as only the +few can do, it is better to serve a man pursuing, even faintly, that +life than to pass your days in the fever of petty trading. But these +Northerners came from aristocratic countries where they had suffered +the insolence of aristocrats, and did not understand rightly about +personal dignity. For they are filled with pride against personal +service, being full of self-assertion towards individuals and of +slavishness towards public opinion. Whereas, rightly, a man should not +think himself lowered by any useful service to a good man, supposing he +should meet with one, but should feel it extreme degradation to hand +over his soul to the keeping of the crowd. Or does it not seem so to +you?’ + +‘Why, yes, Socrates,’ answered Agathon; ‘I can see these Northerners +were the most unsuitable people possible to have a voice in the +ordering of the South.’ + +‘However,’ I said, ‘it has happened now, and the Southerners were +all rendered poor by the exhaustion of the struggle, so that sheer +necessity has changed the character of southern life. But they still +continue to show great understanding, for people who are not Greeks. +They measure things by other standards than quantity, and they do not +think meanly of leisure. But their glories they have left upon the +field of battle.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘and though they were able to prevent the North +from dictating to them how they should live, they have been unable to +do the great work they were needed to do. For nothing else could check +the Middle West when that grew strong.’ + +‘I agree with you, Agathon,’ I said, ‘and now the standards of the +manufacturers spread steadily through the whole country. That was the +third disaster, and there still remains a fourth.’ + +‘Tell us, then,’ said Lysis, ‘about the fourth disaster which, as it +seems, this unfortunate Civil War has caused.’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘did we not say that it had fixed the attention of +everybody upon the central or federal government?’ + +‘We did.’ + +‘And made them cease to think of themselves as members of this state +or that, but rather as Americans.’ + +‘Assuredly.’ + +‘But if the North had failed to impose unity, not the Southern States +only but in all probability the Northern ones also would have been +virtually independent of each other, and only joined to one another in +some kind of League such as we Greeks are used to. North America would +have resembled South America, but I think there would have been even +more complete peace among the North American States than among those of +South America.’ + +‘Certainly,’ Agathon said, ‘they live with the Canadians in great and +striking amity. But they do not believe their condition would have been +one to envy.’ + +‘No,’ I said, ‘probably all sorts of other misfortunes would have +visited them. But they cannot really expect anything else, it being the +nature of barbarians to incur disasters. We, however, are considering +their actual ills to-day. Can they deny that they would have been saved +from that glorification of strength which is a fatal temptation to +great and powerful peoples, and never more than when they are unchecked +by the presence of strong neighbours?’ + +‘They cannot deny it, Socrates,’ said Agathon. + +‘As it is, must we not say the size of their political unit has done +great harm to the American soul? For every number that is sufficiently +large is to them a magical number, and the Americans come easily to +believe that everything they think or do must be right because there +are so many of them thinking or doing it. And most of all do they tend +to think that they cannot have anything to learn from foreign nations +because America is bigger.’ + +‘Are there really far more Americans than other people?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘No,’ I said, ‘there are, in fact, far more Chinamen than there are +Americans――but they say that there is another test of superiority +besides size.’ + +‘And what is that?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘Speed.’ + +‘How?’ + +‘The speed,’ I explained, ‘with which the size is attained. And they +say they are greatly superior to the Chinese in speed of development, +and this claim I believe to be true.’ + +Lysis nodded his head slowly from side to side and said: ‘Indeed, +Socrates, the ills affecting the Americans seem to be many and heavy.’ + +‘But worse,’ I said, ‘is to come, unless they will change altogether +and abandon their pride and listen meekly to the philosophers.’ + +‘How, Socrates?’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘they are doomed to frustration, for the opportunities +of wealth are not infinite. And at first it was reasonable to encourage +men of business that the resources of the land might be organized, +but when that has been done there begins a struggle among the people +for the largest share of the resources. And, in the end, that phase +also passes and the game is played out and the different resources are +controlled by different groups of men. No newcomers can fight against +them, and the young men must be content to serve these groups, finding +their reward in promotion and pay as though they were soldiers, as in a +manner they are. And these promotions also grow rigid and mechanical in +time. And great wealth is then only to be won in some strange and lucky +way, and the battle for the market grows keener, and the cleverest men +devote themselves to what they call progressive advertising, and the +“Problem of Salesmanship.”’ + +‘What is progressive advertising?’ asked Lysis. + +‘It is arousing the widest possible sense of want.’ + +‘What is the Problem of Salesmanship?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘It is how best to mislead people about their own desires; persuading +them to give their time and strength and money to obtain something they +do not at all need, thus making them the instruments of your private +gain.’ + +Phaelon at once demanded: ‘And do they kill the salesman who does this?’ + +‘By the pillars of Hercules, no! they use the gold of the public +treasury to teach it in their schools, for they think that all men +should learn to prey upon one another in this way, deceiving and doing +harm to one another with their tongues.’ + +‘It seems to me, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘that these people spend their +energies in many strange and doubtful ways.’ + +‘They do, indeed,’ I assented. + +‘And they have so much energy,’ said Agathon. + +‘It is stupendous,’ I said. ‘When I went to Niagara Falls an American +said it made him sad that so much power was going to waste that might +be made productive. And I replied that I felt in that manner about +the vast energies of the people, for if they could be harnessed to +the problems of philosophy much knowledge might result. For if we +could have the energy pure without any of the American nature fixing +its character, armed with so powerful a tool we could clear up many +doubtful speculations. But he seemed to think I wanted everybody to +busy themselves with serious questions, though the thoughts of such +people would, of course, be useless, and he recommended me to take +my proposition to an editor of a magazine, for he said that he “had +a hunch philosophy might catch on, seeing the success of those other +word-puzzle crazes.”’ + +‘It was lucky for him, Socrates,’ exclaimed Lysis ‘that you are so +patient with fools. Did you reason with him?’ + +‘I attempted it,’ I replied. ‘But he said he had no time to reason +and that if he once began he would never “make good.” And in that, at +least, I agreed with him.’ + +‘And you were not angry with him at all, O excellent Socrates,’ +exclaimed Lysis. + +‘Pity,’ I answered, ‘and not anger, was what I felt, for I knew that +he had not a free mind of his own, but was, like most things in +that country, the result of what they proudly call “mass production +manufacture.”’ + + + + + BOOK III + + +‘Then tell me, Socrates, do you consider the Americans to be free?’ + +‘Why, no,’ I said, ‘they are the least free of all the peoples of the +earth. For they live under a tyrant, and one not a whit more merciful +than was Procrustes. For Procrustes forced all over whom he could +obtain power to become standardized, fitting them to that bed of his +and lopping off the feet of those that were too long, but racking and +stretching the limbs of those that were too short, so that the bodies +of all should conform to the same mould. But the tyrant who rules the +Americans――or all whom he can master――is worse than Procrustes, for he +seeks to fashion and control not the body, as is the way of ordinary +tyrants, but the soul itself. He standardizes their souls wherever he +is strong.’ + +‘Truly a terrible tyrant,’ said Lysis; ‘who and what is he?’ + +‘His title,’ I said, ‘is Public Opinion, or the Opinion of the +Majority, and he is the offspring of Propaganda.’ + +‘And why,’ said Lysis, ‘do you call that opinion by so harsh a name? +For it seems to me that it is more sensible to be ruled by the opinion +of the majority than by the whim of a single tyrant like most +barbarians, or the opinion of the minority like the English.’ + +‘Come,’ I replied, ‘and let us examine this question together. For does +it not seem to you probable that men can be ruled by opinion in many +ways and that some ways may well be good but others bad?’ + +‘Yes,’ he said. + +‘And that there will be a great difference between opinions, since some +will really belong to the people who hold them and be indeed a part +of themselves, while others will be forced upon them from outside and +will be repeated and acted upon through fear, and so far from being an +expression of the soul of him who utters them, they will act as a great +blanket stifling the breath of the soul and killing it and making the +man an automaton and a slave and not a reasonable being at all.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Lysis. + +‘Well,’ I said, ‘we will leave for the present the discussion of the +English soul, being careful to return to it later, and that for several +reasons. For in the first place it is so odd and extraordinary that it +arouses our sense of wonder and we contemplate it without effort, and +secondly because it is always necessary to consider the English when we +consider the Americans, so great is the effect of the two races upon +each other. But now we will look as closely as we can into the nature +of this tyrant, who, as I verily believe, is the chief evil from which +the Americans suffer. And I think I shall lead you to agree with me +when we have seen how their past history has made them into a prey for +such a monster.’ + +‘Explain it in your own way,’ said Agathon, ‘so that eventually you +come to the point.’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘I wish to approach this matter delicately, treading +carefully like a scout at night and not rushing forward with great +shouts, for I do not know how my words may be repeated and printed +out wrongly in the news-sheets of the Americans. For the Americans +have long ears, and hear everything that is said of them. They are +sensitive people and restive when criticized, and if I speak bluntly, +as I generally do, there will be many who will refuse hereafter to pay +attention not to me only, but to Plato and to all the Greeks. And yet +it is among the Greeks that they find those who can teach them most +and give them the greatest benefits, explaining to them the principles +of right living and, in particular, the necessity for examining our +notions and for being cautious about declaring that we know things, +and, above all, for being tolerant of disagreement and discussion.’ + +‘The men of Athens,’ said Agathon slyly, ‘have not always shown you +a proper tolerance, Socrates, and they are your own countrymen. How, +then, can you be surprised that the Business Men’s Luncheon Club of +Hootsville, Iowa, was unwilling to hear your doubts, for I know that +that experience is what is in your mind.’ + +‘A singular power indeed,’ I exclaimed, ‘has been given to you, dear +Agathon, of reading the minds of your friends. But I assure you that +there is in my mind at present no such personal recollection. I have +only the power to think of one thing at a time and I am now thinking +that we shall certainly never finish our inquiry if you keep laughing +to yourself in this way in order to make Lysis curious over the +incidents of my lecturing tour.’ + +Here Lysis intervened in a charming manner, and said to me: ‘Let him +tell us the story, Socrates, for I can see he is dying to do so, and +I will confess that I want to hear it. And when he has told it he +shall keep quiet, and you shall unfold to us the nature of this Public +Opinion. And if he thinks he can make me doubt the wisdom of your talk +I will tell him at once that he is mistaken, and that we are only +listening to him as to a sort of clown.’ + +‘So they spoke of Socrates in Hootsville,’ said Agathon, who then +pulled from his robe what I saw were news cuttings. I remembered the +great collection of such cuttings that Xantippe had made, and sent +back with some little malice for the Athenians to read, especially of +cuttings referring in an outspoken manner to myself. + +When he had refreshed his memory with these, he turned to Lysis and +said:―― + +‘You must understand, Lysis, that our friend here has a different view +of time from that held by the Americans. For he lives in a leisurely +way and is never hurried even in the pursuit of wisdom. But the +Americans are hurried in everything they do. They are hurried into the +world and they are hurried out again, and all the time it is a rush, +all crying “Step along there, please!” and the young applying to the +old their proverb, “Pass right along down the car.” No one here has +ever told Socrates to step along. Now in nothing are they more hurried +than in the pursuit of wisdom and truth. Most of them do not join in +the pursuit at all, saying they have no time to spare from the pursuit +of wealth, but some will give twenty minutes in the week at a luncheon. +And it was at one of these luncheons that Socrates spoke.’ + +‘Is it possible both to eat and to talk in twenty minutes?’ asked Lysis. + +‘The luncheon lasts a full hour,’ replied Agathon, ‘but you must +understand that men so busy have much to do in that hour. In the first +place they must all keep friends and indulge in friendly feelings +for which there is no time in the rest of the day. And so they wear +the names by which their close friends call them on a piece of paper +on their garments, so that each friend may remember the special name +of the other. The branch of commerce to which each one is devoted +is also printed on the piece of paper or card, for the Americans +understand that friendship consists in the exchange of services. And +for this reason they are careful to have only one of each calling in +these clubs. But it is furthermore necessary to feel cheerful and +light-hearted and to produce that in the hour is not easy. Least of all +to men who have been deluded into denying themselves those fermented +beverages which alone can banish the anxieties of commerce. So these +men sing songs as they eat, rising between the mouthfuls to sing +praises of their club or their town, or sometimes to sing tenderly of +their mothers, of whom the food before them has caused them to think +with longing. Furthermore, there are announcements to be made and +visitors and their callings to be proclaimed. For the Americans never +forget their proverb that friendship leads to business. So you will +understand Socrates hardly had time to make his points, and, whether +or not it was that no one understood him because to save time they had +made him begin while the sweet was being served with much clatter, +yet it must be admitted that the paper reported it as “confessedly a +disappointment after last week’s slap-up talk on personal contacts in +business.”’ + +‘Poor Socrates!’ said Lysis; ‘did no one call yours a slap-up talk?’ + +‘I am afraid not,’ I said, ‘but then I said things they were not very +eager to hear, and even before I spoke there had been much question +whether I should be asked.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘many doubted the propriety of asking him, after a +local minister had declared that our friend was not only a sort of dago +but that he was the lowest of crawling creatures, a man who had knocked +his own home town, meaning that he had criticized many of the actions +of the Athenians. But another minister said that he had something in +him and was a prominent citizen back in Athens, and had secured a wide +publicity for his slogan “Boost Knowledge,” though he was mistaken in +thinking that Socrates had used that actual expression.’ + +‘But what was the address about?’ Lysis demanded. + +I answered him: ‘It was about the place of liberty in the life of the +State, which they did not seem to me to understand.’ + +‘Indeed,’ said Agathon, ‘they soon grow restive if you speak of +liberty.’ + +‘Indeed yes,’ I assented. ‘And yet two minutes before they had been +singing some praises to a sweet land of liberty which was also, as I +understood the words, the home of the brave and free. But when the +Americans rejoice that they are free they mean free from King George +III. For they are slow in some matters.’ + +‘It is like you Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘to seize hold boldly of this +question of liberty and not to let go but to force them to examine it.’ + +‘My heart had been touched,’ I replied, ‘by a spectacle which I saw +when first our boat anchored in New York Harbour. There is an island +there called Ellis Island, the abode of the rejected of America, where +I also spent two days. Many emigrants think that they are emigrating +to the United States when in fact they are emigrating to Ellis Island, +which is not a land of opportunity at all. So there crowd on Ellis +Island the wretched people whom America will not accept. Among the +figures in that part of the harbour there was one that at once held my +attention because she was so much greater and nobler than the rest. +But she was not allowed on the mainland. Going close to her I saw that +it was Liberty herself. She also was classed as undesirable. I will +confess that I could understand the Amazons of the Mississippi fearing +her, so great and strong was she, and of such mighty reputation. Her +plight too was more wretched than that of the others, because they all +stretched out their hands with longing to the further bank, as the poet +has well sung, but with some hope also that there would one day be room +for them in the quota. But Liberty had no quota at all.’ + +‘What is this quota?’ asked Lysis. + +‘The quota, dear Lysis,’ I said, ‘is another of the mystic numbers +of the Americans and one that serves their desires. For by means of +varying numbers reached in an obscure manner they control the admission +into their country in such a manner that very few can come of those +who will be likely to resist having their souls made for them, but +a greater number of those who yield easily to Americanization. In +particular, is it contrived that hardly any of the Mediterranean +peoples shall be admitted, for these peoples are the hardest of all to +Americanize, as they have lived in civilization for so great a time.’ + +‘I understand,’ said Lysis. + +‘But the people who are least unwelcome to-day are the partly civilized +peoples of North Europe and the British Isles. For these people are not +so wild as to be dangerous and they have lived in a hard struggle with +nature which has made material prosperity seem to them an extremely +great thing and one worthy of great efforts. Now material prosperity is +what the Americans offer, and it is the inducement always held out when +those who make opinion wish to persuade the populace to any particular +course.’ + +‘But,’ asked Phaelon, ‘why did you not tell the undesirables what you +knew about America, so that they would have been glad they had been +shut out? It does not sound much fun being an alien in America to-day.’ + +‘It would be grievous indeed,’ I said, ‘did not the aliens live +together in communities, but so banded they maintain their own life +and reproduce Greece or Italy beyond the seas, as is the purpose of +a colony. And it is a source of merriment to these men to be told to +think American thoughts, as the judges say who make them citizens.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘but it is not merriment for their children who +become Americans.’ + +‘They enjoy it,’ I said, ‘for the children of bad Greeks make good +Americans. And bad we must consider the Greeks to be who leave Greece +and risk their souls in America for the sake of wealth. Such folk do +nothing to lead the Americans to Greek thought.’ + +‘Being such lovers of profit,’ said Agathon, ‘they are timid and have +little influence.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but coming from civilization they have characters +of their own, and are richly individual, for that is the mark of +civilization, but having left Greece for gain they have no proper +sense of being members of a political community, while the Americans +are filled to excess with that sense. But an alien child brought up in +America will often be both an individual and a citizen.’ + +Lysis here said: ‘Might not such an alien child combine the faults +rather than the virtues of both types?’ + +‘That happens,’ I replied, ‘and I have great fears for Xantippe’s +children if she keeps them there to be Americanized.’ + +‘I may be a blockhead, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘but I should like to +hear you explain much more fully about the strength of the soul when it +is Americanized.’ + +‘You are prepared to leave the address to the Business Men’s Lunch +Club, then,’ said Agathon, ‘and follow Socrates on a new path?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Lysis, ‘let us leave the business men. For my part I feel +filled with pity for men leading such a life.’ + +‘That is well said, Lysis,’ I replied, ‘for I, too, loved these men +and had pity for them, seeing them to work harder than ever during the +short hour of refreshment that their code allows them from business. I +do not wonder that so many of them drop dead, and I often thought of +the captives in the galleys being spurred on to exertions unnatural to +man.’ + +‘Perhaps,’ said Agathon with a sly look at the other two, ‘your +standard of exertion, Socrates, is lower than that of most men.’ + +‘I know not how it is in your government office, Agathon,’ I replied, +‘but I do not believe you would long survive the pace set in America, +and, indeed, more and more Americans themselves are becoming sensible +and ceasing to think a man admirable in proportion as he is always at +his business. They have some excellent summer clubs, where they jest +and play not for one day only but for several weeks. But I was going to +tell Lysis that I can satisfy both his desire and yours, for if you, O +Agathon, will tell the substance of my address to those men that will +also reveal in what they are lacking, according to my opinion, and in +what they are strong. For they are lacking in reasonableness, and they +are strong in sociability.’ + +‘Then let me read the report,’ said Agathon, and he read from the +_Hootsville Courier_ the paragraphs dealing with my address: ‘“The +President of the Club introduced the speaker as one who had made +good in his own line, and though it was not their own line, they +welcomed success wherever they saw it (_applause_). The visitor, as he +understood it, was a specialist in truth and goodness, and would no +doubt give Hootsville some useful tips. If he, the speaker, understood +their visitor’s vocation he was a person you went to consult if you +became doubtful about your religion or your politics and he would make +you more doubtful still (_laughter_). Fortunately, no one in Hootsville +was troubled with any doubts, and he must say he could not see how +their visitor would fit into the life there. Still it was a big world, +and they could not all live in Iowa. He confessed that he had not known +about the visitor till the question of this address was brought up, +but since then had looked up his record and, from the reports of the +debates that he had seen in the Plato publications, he had no doubt +that their visitor had the best of his discussions back in Athens and +had hit a home run every time. They welcomed him as a man who had won +something, even if it was only an argument (_great applause_). That was +what appealed to him, and he thought to all of them, for he did not +claim to have read the reports closely or to know what the arguments +had been about, but he felt clear their visitor had not come out +second best. Hootsville could fairly claim to be listening to about +the best man in his own line that old Athens could send them, and that +would help them to see how Hootsville and Athens compared with one +another (_applause_). He was reminded of a story about a negro, called +Rastus....” + +‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘he told a long story about an Ethiopian, and sat +down with laughter and applause.’ Agathon then read: ‘“The visitor, +Mr. Socrates S. Socrates, was understood to say: ‘Men of Hootsville, +if you will bear with a stupid and ignorant man (_laughter_) I would +like to correct what I am falsely supposed to think concerning +liberty. I am not one of those who think that the ideal state will +grant an indiscriminate liberty. For the rulers must regard liberty +with caution. For I do not complain that here there is authority +and that liberty is restricted, for that is necessary, but that the +authority is in the hands of men in no way worthy to hold it and that +the restrictions are not imposed for right objects but to achieve the +mistaken notions of those holding chief influence in the land. I would +not question your carelessness of liberty if you were restraining bad +and selfish men, and I would applaud you if I saw the majority taking +steps against too much interest in commerce. For commerce can do no +more than provide the basis for the good life, but is treated here as +though it were the good life itself. Indeed, you put notices, Men of +Hootsville, in your offices to discourage the conversation of your +friends, writing up: ‘This is our busy day,’ and keeping up the notice +for many days in succession; exhorting also your friends ‘Come to the +point, but don’t camp on it,’ and these things hinder a friend from +opening his soul. For there are many points upon which it is excellent +to camp, and chief among them the nature of the good. + +‘“‘I see everywhere around me refreshing signs of a growing interest +in the Greeks on the part of the Americans. You have taken an extreme +interest in the Olympic Games. Your young men love to band themselves +into brotherhoods and fraternities named after the letters of our +Greek alphabet, while older men band themselves together in a Klan +with a Greek name, when they would reform the general polity. I very +greatly hope, Men of Hootsville, that it is not true, as your critics +allege, that you are so careless and ignorant of Greek things that to +you anything Greek is mysterious, and that these associations desire +only to suggest secrecy and bewilderment when they name themselves with +Greek names. Now we Greeks rightly understand liberty, for liberty +is of the seas and of the mountains, and Greece has both indeed but +Iowa neither. And your need in Iowa is for more Greeks to teach you +(_vigorous dissent_). + +‘“‘More Greeks to help you to discover justice and the rule of reason, +O men of Hootsville, about which you know nothing (_interruption_). +For great things are here in issue, the greatest of those that are in +our control. Much indeed of our human lot we cannot control. Consider +how the poets speak concerning the Fates, how the three sisters sit, +the one Clotho spinning the stuff of our human lives, and the next +Lachesis, mixing the strands and measuring off the lengths, while the +last, Atropos, cuts them with her dreaded shears. Men of Hootsville, we +must all accept what the Fates send us, as they sit eternally weaving +their varied combinations. If I may use your term, you must all do +business with these three sisters. In the end you will find you cannot +stand out against them.’” But at that,’ said Agathon, ‘there was a +great uproar and they refused to listen any more, though Socrates had +by no means reached even the middle of his address, and was but making +a preliminary distinction. + +‘No self-respecting American business citizen, declared the President, +red with anger, would have anything to do with a concern so out of date +in factory methods as were these three sisters. Did their visitor know +that they in Hootsville and everywhere else in the States, had machines +which spun, measured, and cut thread in the single operation. And here +there were three women employed all the time on what their American +machine could do with a hundredth part of the time and effort. To come +to a go-ahead community with such a fool proposition was an insult. +Hootsville did not fear the competition of these Fates. Hootsville had +been insulted as Chicago would not have been, just because Hootsville +had not quite overhauled Chicago yet in population. But he could tell +their visitor that that was coming, and would like to warn him that if +he went on travelling on commission for these Fates and their underwear +garments he had better quit advertising the obsolete process or he’d be +railroaded out of every decent town. And it was time for everyone to +hurry back to business.’ + + + + + BOOK IV + + +After we had discussed these clubs a little longer, and I had given +them the full speech I would have made in Hootsville, Lysis said: ‘And +is it true, Socrates, that the lecture-tour of Alcibiades also was not +well received?’ + +‘It is true,’ I answered. + +‘Yet is he not most brilliant and accomplished, and are not his brains, +as he says, first-class?’ + +‘Assuredly,’ I answered. ‘But his manner was high-spirited, and he did +not apply himself to win the favour of the Americans as though they +had been the populace of Athens. He broke also, and that in a most +shameless manner, the law which is the dearest to them of all their +laws. He violated the Volstead Act.’ + +At this Agathon leaned forward and said: ‘You must beware, O Lysis and +Phaelon, of the Socratic irony, which has been the subject of a great +deal of comment, and of which you are the victims at this moment. For +it is well known that the Volstead Act is not dear to the Americans at +all and that Alcibiades did nothing uncommon or scandalous in violating +it.’ + +‘Perhaps,’ said Phaelon, ‘we should first understand clearly what this +Volstead Act is.’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘it is the law by which the Americans imposed upon +themselves a most heavy sacrifice, and denied themselves in a loud +voice that great pleasure of human life, wine.’ + +‘Truly a heavy sacrifice,’ exclaimed both Lysis and Phaelon, and Lysis +added the obvious question whether any reason could be found for such +amazing conduct, for the folly natural to barbarians seemed wholly +inadequate to account for it. + +‘It is indeed,’ I answered, ‘a hard knot that we have to untangle, +and one that will puzzle future generations. Many and various are the +explanations put forward. Thus some philosophers point out that the +sacrifice is being made in a time of great prosperity, and believe that +it is intended to avert the jealousy of the gods. And there is much +truth in that. For the Americans found themselves grown extremely rich, +and, believing nothing to be so desirable as material prosperity, they +feared lest the whole company of Olympus, both gods and goddesses, +should resolve to become American citizens, and should achieve their +ends by cunning or magic, despite the immigration Authorities. The +Americans did not at all desire their company, partly through fear +of the intensified and unscrupulous competition which it is the +wont of the gods to indulge in, but chiefly because they consider +that the gods, with the uncertain exception of Zeus himself, are not +of Anglo-Saxon stock. To abate the edge of envy, they resolved to +involve themselves in calamity and, by inserting privation into their +Constitution, to create such a drawback to their country that not the +divinities only but ordinary mortals also, should have no desire to +share their life. You have heard how the maidens of Leucris, to protect +their honour, slit off their noses and went undesired of the invading +hordes. So also the Americans deemed it prudent to show to the world a +mutilated life. They also believed that their own gods would be touched +by the sight of such suffering and would augment the number of their +other possessions, and they were strengthened in this view when they +sent to consult their national oracle at Detroit. For the oracle said:―― + + In driest land, + ’Neath steadiest hand, + The iron steed + Will fastest breed. + +which they understood to mean that if they gave up all their potations +there would be more cars. And this was decisive, for they think that +everything, even life itself, is worthily sacrificed to increase the +number of these cars. They believed furthermore that this sacrifice +would increase the quantity of other things at their command.’ + +‘I have heard a different reason,’ here put in Agathon, and seeing us +nod to him to go on, he unfolded what follows: + +‘The Americans,’ he said ‘are a shrewd people, and know that men easily +become lovers of ease unless there is necessity or some great future +delight to spur them on to exertion. How, they asked themselves, can +the mechanics and other workers be kept from the desire for ease and +the abandonment of intense daily toil. For a long time the desire to +possess a car could be trusted to spur them on, but cars have grown +cheap, and it is found beside that such objects tend by contrast to +make men love real ease more than ever before. What was needed was to +restore the right conception of wealth as something ardently to be +longed for, for invention had too greatly levelled the lives of rich +and poor. The poor man had motion and music and print and divorce and +patent food and cremation, and everything that was once the privilege +of the rich. Nature had made men equal in the chief goods like health +and affection, thus seeming herself to render vain the end for which, +as they thought, men had been created, the production of wealth. And +they discovered that the devout worship of Progress, the very process +of creating wealth, made the prize of private gain relatively less +valuable, thus threatening the springs of energy itself. As extreme +wealth gave men the pleasures of successful propaganda so must ordinary +wealth have some special privilege attached. And therefore did their +chief men resolve to prohibit by law one of life’s greatest amenities, +for if a thing is forbidden by the law, only the rich will enjoy it. +For wealth everywhere lifts a man above the laws and nowhere more than +in the United States.’ + +‘Is it perhaps possible,’ asked Phaelon, ‘that it was done from a noble +desire to help the Europeans?’ + +‘How, dear Phaelon?’ I said. + +‘Why,’ he said, ‘it is a great advantage to the Spartans to make their +Helots drunk that the young Spartans may have before them the spectacle +of drunkenness and be warned and seek temperance. It is surely an equal +advantage for Europeans to have at hand a nation of teetotallers (I +believe that is the word for such people) lest they should be tempted +to err in the opposite direction to the Spartans. For I have read +many notices about the great charity of America towards Europe and I +wondered if it was this self-denial of which you speak.’ + +‘That is not badly conceived, Phaelon,’ said I, ‘but I am afraid we +cannot take it as an explanation. In the first place the nations of +Europe do not at all need to be warned, by example or otherwise against +teetotalism, and, secondly, the Americans are not at all a nation of +teetotallers.’ + +‘You mean,’ he said, ‘that the rich can drink and do.’ + +‘Not the rich only, but all who will take a little trouble,’ I answered. + +‘Then,’ said he, ‘is it possible that this law has been imposed not to +make teetotallers, but for the sake of the bribes of those who wish to +break it?’ + +‘Not so,’ I answered, ‘for it costs the Americans a great deal of +money to make this change in the way men drink. They employ many more +policemen than before and if there is a bribe it is these men who keep +it and not the State, and though the State gains something from the +fines it imposes, yet it loses a great deal more by not being able to +tax wine and the other drinks.’ + +Hereupon Lysis exclaimed: ‘Then what is the real reason for such +strange goings on. For my part, I believe they prohibit drinks by +law in order to give an added flavour or zest to their drinking. For +forbidden fruit is sweet to taste.’ + +‘For the same reason, in fact,’ said Agathon, ‘that they mix different +drinks together, to get more stimulus. So that we may say that +Prohibition and cocktails spring from the same source.’ + +‘That explanation and the others, my worthy friends,’ I said, ‘may help +us to understand why so many are resigned to the privation. But very +different is the true cause why they have poured out so vast a libation +to Efficiency.’ + +‘Explain it, then,’ said they all. + +‘Did we not agree earlier,’ I answered, ‘that in America the State does +many things that are not for its own good, and that are not done in the +interests of the State itself, but that rich and energetic minorities +could use the machinery of representative government to make their own +will appear as the will of the State?’ + +‘Indeed, yes,’ they said. ‘And truly,’ said Agathon, ‘and when he said +earlier that the combination of the manufacturers and the preachers +could never be resisted, I thought at once of this Prohibition.’ + +‘It seemed to the interests of those two classes and the women,’ I +said, ‘and they brought it about. But such men commonly cannot judge +what is to their own advantage. For the preachers are men who have +chosen for themselves the task of moral leadership, and have commonly +great earnestness and little else. You know, Lysis, that the preachers +are those who have separated themselves from the priests and the old +religious traditions? Indeed it was largely by such preachers and their +close followers that the first colonies were founded in America.’ + +‘The priests themselves,’ said Lysis, ‘are surely not enemies to drink.’ + +‘By Hercules, no,’ I said. + +‘That means much,’ said Agathon. + +‘The priests,’ I continued, ‘took to Aristotle generations ago, and +have held by his teachings in a most striking manner. For Aristotle’s +mind is much like a corkscrew, being tortuous but powerful, and opening +up worthy things for our satisfaction. His reputation has surprised +me somewhat, seeing how often he is wrong. For he is in general +too easily satisfied, and thinks that because a thing exists it is +therefore justified. But what he has written about preserving the mean +of temperance is excellent, and to that the priests have adhered. The +United States, however, is a preachers’ country. Now the preachers +are opposed by their natures to the humane and easy enjoyment of life +and would sacrifice temperance to avoid excess. For they rightly hold +drunkenness to be a degrading thing, but wrongly suppose abstinence +to be superior to moderation or temperance. Now while they preached +against drunkenness they did no harm, but they made in my opinion a +great mistake when they stirred up the women to tamper with the laws.’ + +‘Is that what they did?’ asked Lysis. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘though the women did not want much persuading, for +it seemed obvious to them that money spent by men in obtaining the +enjoyment that friends gain by drinking together was wasted money +while the same money spent in adorning the women themselves or their +offspring was money profitably spent. For they were eager to believe +such things.’ + +A great look of understanding came into the eyes of both Lysis and +Phaelon, and Lysis said:―― + +‘Prohibition then is in large measure a part of that tyranny of the +women of which you spoke a little while back?’ + +‘Why, yes,’ I replied, ‘they were strong enough both by the votes that +they enjoyed in many States and by their ascendency over their men to +pass this law. For it was a strong alliance. The manufacturers also +had great influence with the men, for they kept repeating that all the +other trades would share more money if the wine trade was forbidden by +the law, and in each man the trading part of the soul fought with the +reasonable part, and with many of the Americans it conquered. And each +man thought that he could himself evade the law.’ + +‘Did many say that, Socrates?’ asked Lysis. + +‘No,’ I answered; ‘they use other words. They say that such a law is +a good thing for the country, by which they mean that it is helping +their business without changing their private habits. While others +again, both men and women, are of the nobler sort, and will gladly make +a personal sacrifice, in the belief that it will help the poor. There +are many rich women who regard the poor as their family, and seek their +good as a mother seeks that of her children. Such are called Social +Reformers.’ + +‘But are not the poor grown up?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘Of course,’ I answered; ‘but the rich have different ideas from +theirs, especially if the poor are from south Europe. So the rich busy +themselves to change the character of the poor. When they are doing +that they call themselves by a high-sounding title, and say they are +Practical Idealists.’ + +‘I understand,’ said Lysis, ‘for the rich are the manufacturers, or +share the outlook of manufacturers, and when they are considering the +character of the poor, they will identify being a good man with being +a good worker, and will give no praise at all to such a one as you +yourself, Socrates, forever sitting about in the public places and +busying yourself with subjects with which manufacturers have nothing to +do.’ + +‘You have understood perfectly, O excellent Lysis,’ I exclaimed, ‘and +you well describe what happens in America to-day, and among other +things why the manufacturers have abolished, as far as they could, the +drinking of the poor. For it is perhaps better for a workman to be a +teetotaller if you consider him merely in his function as a workman, +and as a machine to be treated in a certain way, but it is quite a +different story if you consider him as a man. For teetotalism makes a +worker more a worker but a man less a man. And drunkenness makes him +also less a man, but instead of becoming more of a workman he ceases to +be a workman at all.’ + +‘But teetotalism,’ said Agathon, ‘is the more dangerous extreme. For +only a very exceptional man can keep really drunk for long periods +whereas many teetotallers stay teetotallers for months together.’ + +‘Many months,’ I agreed. + +‘And even years in some cases, Socrates,’ he went on, ‘if what I hear +is true.’ + +‘Why, yes,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid we cannot deny it: there are men in +Kansas who have repressed their thirst for upwards of forty years.’ + +‘Surely,’ said Lysis, ‘we would pay more to see them exhibited here +than the Americans would pay to see the Parthenon? Let us give the +Parthenon to that American who approached you this morning, Agathon, +and let us have some Kansans.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘such a group of voluntary Tantaluses would be a +spectacle of much interest to the young, who are commonly insensible +to the griefs of others, and who would not think it base to let their +eyes have their fill of the dreadful sight. But I confess my heart was +touched, for the state of these Kansans is like that of the ponies +that are kept in coal pits, who by long habituation to the dark become +blind. And to their children these people show imaginary pictures of +the inside of the human body and the effects of alcohol, for so they +love to call all fermented beverages, so that these children shall +believe they are being saved from a most terrible dragon. Nor is it +till they visit Europe that they learn that the poison of alcohol is +not always fatal.’ + +‘It is a good thing for the Americans that so many of them visit +Europe,’ said Lysis gravely. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘for I met a man in Kansas who had never been out of +Kansas and who refused to believe that I was a human being at all. +For he said that Science had shown that alcohol was a poison, and as +the Europeans were known from history books to have made a habit of +consuming large quantities of this poison, it followed that they were +all dead. And he declared that the present peoples in Europe were +nothing but a race of apes pretending to be the same creatures that +Science showed alcohol to have destroyed. He said the apes were doing +it to win the affection that the Americans would show to other human +beings, however, degraded, but not to apes.’ + +‘Truly a striking view,’ exclaimed Lysis. + +‘It was one that explained everything to my friend,’ I answered. ‘He +declared the pretence could not last, and that the apes had accordingly +begun to spread a story round that all men, even the Americans, were +kinsfolk to the apes. But with this, he said, he and all good hundred +per cent Americans would have nothing whatever to do, and he added +they were prepared if necessary to disprove it by an amendment to the +Constitution. He claimed, moreover, that this view of his gave by far +the best explanation of the chattering and quarrelling that was forever +going on over in Europe. And he added that my appearance corroborated +his theory.’ + +‘Well, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘you must allow us to excuse him there.’ + +‘So did I excuse him,’ I answered, ‘for I knew that that man was +intoxicated, not indeed by wine, but by statistics, for the Americans +find in statistics a drug more powerful than alcohol, the women +shamelessly revealing their craving and attending lectures, and crying +out for facts, but meaning these numbers. For all large numbers and all +numbers arranged in patterns have a magical power over them. And they +will eagerly deny their own personal experience if it seems to upset +what the statistics say.’ + +‘Truly a pitiable servitude,’ murmured Lysis. + +‘Pitiable indeed,’ I agreed, ‘but they wear these chains of numbers +proudly, for in general the numbers are large. And they have no notion +that these numbers must be used with care, but will let themselves be +led into any error by any cunning piper luring them to destruction, +provided only that he can pipe the proper magic ciphers and talk to +them of percentages. For these statisticians have more power to make +great crowds follow them than ever Orpheus had. But I expect that in +the end they will most of them meet with the fate of Orpheus and be +torn to pieces by angry women, filled with a different kind of madness.’ + +‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘there is one thing very hopeful for them and of +excellent augury.’ + +‘Which?’ I asked. + +‘Why,’ he said, ‘when they consider the number of their crimes and how +much blood is shed and treasure seized each year, do you not think they +will be greatly impressed and will realize that their chief trouble is +that the laws are not kept and that obedience is not enforced?’ + +‘I do,’ I agreed. + +‘And are they not an active people and one ready to make experiment, +even to experiment with European usages?’ + +‘I believe so.’ + +‘Well,’ he said, ‘will they not be forced to realize that they were the +very last people in the world who should have attempted Prohibition, +for they cannot even protect human life well. For if they had been a +very poor people, fighting for a share in the commerce of nations, +and endowed with a tradition of law observance, then they might have +attempted this further discipline. But the Americans were not poor, +nor were they desperately in need of such efficiency. Indeed no people +could better afford to drink.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and their laws were the last laws that could stand the +strain. For they have never been well kept, and there has always been +corruption. So that they did not do well when they outlawed a permanent +human appetite and made another enemy to the law.’ + +‘Did you keep the law yourself, Socrates?’ said Lysis, ‘for you always +say that even a bad law should be obeyed because it is the law.’ + +‘Why,’ I answered, ‘thinking as I do, and being the guest of the +Americans, I would take no step to avoid the abstinence that the law +imposed. Yet I must confess that there was no city in which I went +unrefreshed.’ + +‘A great thing is friendship,’ exclaimed Lysis. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘my friends and hosts everywhere insisted, not all of +them everywhere, but some in every place, who sought me out, knowing +that I was from the Mediterranean.’ + +‘And when these drinks were offered to you, Socrates,’ demanded Lysis, +looking me straight in the face and fixing his eyes on mine, ‘did +you still tell them that all laws should be obeyed until they can be +altered?’ + +‘Assuredly.’ + +‘What did they answer?’ + +‘That I was to drink my fill, and not be at all uneasy lest I was +breaking any law, because it was lawful to drink the wine that you +possessed in your cellar before the law was made. It seems it was +always such wine that I was drinking. Nor did they seem to fear that +they would ever exhaust those cellars of theirs.’ + +‘Happy Socrates,’ they said. + +‘They urged moreover, when they were not too busy to discuss the +point, that a law among them is not at all the same as a law among +the Athenians. They said that perhaps in Athens, which was small, +the people made the law knowing what they did, but that in America +thousands and thousands of laws were made every year. America +was equally the paradise of her who would make a law and him who +would break one, and in proportion as the existing laws were not +kept was there a clamour for fresh laws. But there is no sense of +responsibility, either in the making or the breaking. And we would do +well, my wonderful friends, to give this advice to the Americans that +they should treat a law as a great luxury, to be cherished as Helen +herself was cherished. Then when they find they are observing all, or +some part at least, of the laws they have, they may reward themselves +by a new law. Do those who juggle and balance plates seek to add +another plate to the row standing edgeways on their noses or foreheads +before they can balance those they already have?’ + +‘Indeed, no, Socrates,’ they replied. + +‘And if they did,’ I continued, ‘would they not break all their plates +and not receive any plaudits from the spectators?’ + +‘Such,’ said Lysis, ‘would be their deserved misfortune.’ + +‘And should we not call such jugglers presumptuous fools and men +unskilled in their art?’ + +‘What else, indeed, O Socrates?’ + +‘And yet is their case any different from that of these Americans who +before they can well keep ten laws will make fifty more? So that the +law ceases to hold authority among them and they are careless who makes +it and who breaks it. For there can be no more grievous ill done to +any state than that its citizens should not think rightly about the +laws, and should forget that a good law is the expression of Justice, +allotting to each man what is his, and is deserving of all reverence, +while a bad law destroys the life of the state and ought by all means +to be abolished as soon as possible.’ + +‘We agree,’ they said. + + + + + BOOK V + + +‘Does it not seem to you, O Lysis and Phaelon, that these Americans +suffer many grievous evils, and do not know where they are, and may +truly be called Atlantis, the Lost Continent?’ + +‘Lost, indeed, Socrates,’ answered Lysis, ‘and I pity them, though it +is largely their own fault.’ + +‘And do you not think,’ I asked, ‘that education might help them, if it +were begun when they were quite young and kept up till thirty-five?’ + +‘It would be worth trying,’ they said, ‘but not safe to stop at +thirty-five.’ + +‘You remember,’ I continued, ‘how in our ideal State we used to agree +that there must be a guardian class chosen from those of the best +natures and trained up to watch over the life of the state and to +govern the ordinary citizens.’ + +‘Yes, Socrates.’ + +‘But it seems plain that in America the duties of these guardians, such +as suppressing and encouraging opinions and the like, have been usurped +by manufacturers and people of that sort who ought never to be given +any power at all.’ + +‘Such is the unhappy truth in America.’ + +‘We must therefore educate a guardian class for the Americans who +shall drive these usurpers from their position of influence and lead +the Americans towards wisdom.’ + +‘We must.’ + +‘And shall we draw our guardians from men or from women?’ + +‘As it is America, from women,’ suggested Phaelon. + +‘I agree,’ I said, ‘we will make women guardians, for we are desperate +and the proverb speaks truly:―― + + Desperate diseases need desperate remedies. + +And we will do so for several reasons. For in the first place such an +arrangement will seem natural to the Americans themselves, and the poet +has well written: + + Nature is strong. + +‘And secondly the women live longer and we shall be able to train +them more thoroughly. And thirdly, the women show some interest in +philosophy, while the men are hopeless. For the women think they know +something when in fact they know nothing, but the men are not even +aware that there is anything to know. And fourthly the women are +accustomed to leisure, and do not fear or despise it, for the men have +passed it on to them, not knowing what to do with it themselves.’ + +‘But there is a better reason than any of these,’ said Agathon. + +‘What is that?’ asked Lysis. + +‘Why, that the American women are exceedingly agreeable when they are +young. Or did you not think so, Socrates?’ + +‘I did think so,’ I said, ‘and though I did not mention it, I will +confess it was the chief reason. They are not so attractive as our +Grecian youths, indeed, but they are attractive all the same. For in +America the individuals, both youths and maidens and women, but chiefly +the maidens, are full of lovableness and goodwill when they are young, +but are very quickly brought under the tyranny of propaganda and +betrayed by riches and the sense of efficiency into a false valuing of +what is to be aimed at in living.’ + +‘Begin quickly,’ said Agathon, ‘and let us see you open this college +for young women, for I take it from what you say you would not wish +Xantippe to control so important a matter.’ + +‘By the dog, no,’ I cried. + +‘Then,’ said Agathon, ‘let us found our college.’ + +‘By all means,’ I said, ‘but first let us see whether any of the +existing universities and colleges will be of any use to us, for there +are many hundreds of them.’ + +‘Indeed, Socrates,’ said Lysis in surprise, ‘many hundred colleges? I +should not have supposed there were any at all.’ + +I had been of this opinion, and I said: ‘I had not supposed so either, +for I thought no educated person would be willing to listen to +Xantippe, but I soon learned the answer to my puzzle, for nothing is +easier in America than to attend college and nothing harder than to get +educated.’ + +‘It seems certain that we shall have to change much,’ said Lysis. + +‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘for at present they educate the men and the women +together though they are going to do different work afterwards and so +should receive a different training.’ + +‘Yes,’ they said, ‘we must alter that, and not educate any more of the +men.’ + +‘That will go far to solve one of our problems, for at present the +chances of education are destroyed by the numbers of the students, and +the Americans think it finer to give a smattering of information to +everybody than to give education to a few, and talk with pride of the +preposterous numbers that pass through their colleges.’ + +‘If there are so many students, Socrates,’ asked Phaelon, ‘is there not +a great body of teachers? What part do they play in America and could +not they be the guardians?’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘of all who suffer from the present ill-ordered life +there, none suffer more than do these teachers. But if you will be +patient with me I will describe how they live.’ + +‘Proceed, Socrates.’ + +‘To begin with, does it not seem to you that those who separate +themselves so sharply from the popular outlook and embrace the pursuit +of learning rather than that of wealth will be no ordinary Americans, +but will either be above or below their fellow citizens.’ + +‘It would seem so, indeed,’ they answered. + +‘The best,’ I said, ‘are much above their fellows and seek this life +from a noble love of noble things. Do you know what happens to a great +number of such men in America?’ + +‘What?’ they asked with apprehension. + +‘You do well to look frightened,’ I said gravely. ‘They are made +Presidents of universities and colleges, and after that there is no +peace for them at all. But they are compelled to spend all their time +like the generals of disorderly and worthless troops, organizing the +great numbers of their students and providing useless courses for +countless blockheads. Moreover, they are driven to associate with the +men of commerce and to flatter them for their great wealth.’ + +‘Why in the world should they have to do that?’ Lysis demanded. + +‘To make the college bigger,’ I replied. ‘For the Americans estimate a +President by his power to obtain benefactions and so to build new wings +and offices, and leave a larger institution than he found. They are +soon to build in America the tallest university in the world. And there +is a worse consequence even than this waste of fine men in presidential +duties.’ + +‘What can be worse than that?’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘with all the colleges competing for the gifts of rich +men will not those colleges obtain most whose teachers teach what the +rich men like to have believed?’ + +‘Naturally.’ + +‘And where a college has much to hope from wealthy persons will it +not hesitate to lose large sums of money rather than discourage free +inquiry into everything?’ + +‘I think it will do more than hesitate, it will sacrifice the inquiries +for the gold.’ + +‘Indeed,’ I said, ‘it often happens, and the teachers do not dare to +discuss freely the most important matters. But they are fearful of the +opinion of the prosperous and they dread the crowd as no philosopher +ought to do. They are careful not to examine closely into the deepest +questions of all touching morality and the nature of the gods. They are +equally afraid of the question how wealth should be divided and how the +state should behave to private riches. So that in the one place where +you might hope to see the existing system examined freely, you do not +find any such free spirit of questioning, but a nervous desire to give +satisfaction to the powerful element of society.’ + +‘Rich men can avail much,’ said Lysis, ‘though they be base, mechanical +fellows.’ + +‘Why,’ I replied, ‘did I not say a moment ago that some who embraced +academic life were above their fellows but others indeed beneath?’ + +‘Yes,’ they said. + +‘And you did not understand me?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘I meant that many embrace teaching not from any +high-minded aloofness to commerce or love of knowledge, but because +it is the easiest employment they can find and they shirk the labour +of business life. Such men are not really students at all, and spend +their lives repeating over and over the small stock of information +they gathered in early life. These inferior teachers live the life of +donkeys or mules working a water-wheel, treading for ever round and +round the same narrow course after they have once learned how the +routine goes.’ + +At which Lysis exclaimed: ‘Truly a miserable existence.’ + +‘Wretched, indeed,’ echoed Agathon, ‘and one that does more harm than +good, for the majority of their students despise them, rightly guessing +that they would be prosperous business men if they knew how it was +done, and so the things of the mind are brought into dishonour.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but we must not blame the teachers that they avoid an +unequal contest. For already they have sacrificed much to pursue their +calling. Moreover a noble minority strives as bravely as did Leonidas +and his three hundred Spartans, preferring all sacrifices before +servitude to the barbarian hosts. But these men will agree with us.’ + +‘Will most of the teachers be with us?’ asked Lysis. + +‘Alas,’ I said, ‘the most part of the teachers are not valiant.’ + +‘What do they fear,’ asked Phaelon, ‘for they know that they will never +become at all like Crœsus. It is not a happy thing to be like Crœsus.’ + +‘No, Phaelon,’ I said. ‘They have no great ambition, as it seems to me. +Rather are they driven by fear. They fear, Phaelon, what the rich will +do to them.’ + +‘What?’ + +‘They might take away their cars. For they have bought cars for which +they have not paid, promising to do so by a life of labour. And the +rich might take them away. Then, indeed, the poor teachers would have +to become philosophers of the Peripatetic School.’ + +‘They would not love you, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘if they heard you +speak unfeelingly like that.’ + +‘As it is,’ I answered, ‘they do not love the Greeks, and do not think +a knowledge of Greece anything but a strange superfluity. They do not +consider it a necessity at all.’ + +‘Then we will not allow such people to teach in our ideal America,’ +exclaimed Lysis, hotly. + +‘Indeed no,’ I said, ‘for in our college we will have no necessity +for a large staff, and so we will not have any of these sham teachers +lowering the dignity of learning.’ + +‘That will be a great gain.’ + +‘There are already some small colleges in America which can help us.’ + +‘How so?’ + +‘Why, they are colleges that deliberately limit their numbers. Often +they refuse to train more than five hundred students at a time.’ + +‘Five hundred students!’ echoed Lysis――‘you call that a small number.’ + +‘No,’ I said, ‘but the Americans do, and if you had been among them +you would realize that it is indeed a heroic sacrifice that they make +in opposing the common tendency and remaining small.’ + +‘And how are they to help us?’ + +‘Why, in the first place we shall find, I think, the best material for +our guardians among the pupils there, and secondly we can use these +colleges as nurseries and training grounds for assistants for our +guardians. Or do you not think they will need assistants in their task +of giving a changed outlook to the Americans?’ + +‘Indeed, yes, Socrates.’ + +‘And another thing we will altogether change is the great variety of +the instruction. For that the Americans have no idea of the purpose of +education is seen in the way they provide courses of instruction in +everything, even in the things that will only fit a man for low and +base employments. The student hurries from course to course and becomes +acquainted with the preliminaries of many studies but is advanced in +none.’ + +‘We will keep our guardians to a few studies,’ said Lysis. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and they will have to be very different studies.’ + +‘What will be the first great change?’ he asked. + +‘Why,’ I answered, ‘as it seems to me, the first thing to destroy is +their superstitious reverence for what they call facts and their +contempt for ideas. For they will often talk as if ideas were less real +than facts, instead of more real.’ + +‘What are these facts?’ + +‘They may be anything. Lists of names, and long technical words are +accepted as facts. The biggest fact is the Divine Fact, Progress, which +they worship.’ + +‘Might not that be called an idea?’ + +‘You might say so, Lysis,’ I answered, ‘but I would advise you not to +do so, for the Americans dearly love Progress and will not tolerate +your insults.’ + +‘Is not evolution another favourite fact?’ asked Agathon. + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘some cherish it as much as Progress, of which they say +that it is the explanation. But others say that Progress presides over +the Americans by the special wish of the divine powers, as a reward for +their virtues. And these say evolution is a lie. But neither party will +be content to say it is a theory.’ + +‘And facts are what they teach in their colleges?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘for they have heard that knowledge is power, and they +desire power, and they think that knowledge consists of information.’ + +‘I have seen them myself, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘running about as +students, boasting of the number of courses they could take and of the +daily information that they could gather into notebooks.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they are complacent, and are sure that when they have +information they will instinctively act wisely and well. For we must +remember that in a democracy men love to think they themselves are +deciding the great questions of life and of the State. And in America +they are very much on their dignity in this, being resolved to judge +for themselves from the facts, of which they love to speak, and not to +value the opinion of each other.’ + +‘Except of experts, Socrates,’ said Agathon. + +‘Indeed, they value experts because experts, they think, know the +facts. And so two rules are to be observed carefully by all who would +make the Americans think one thing rather than another. First you must +call yourself an expert and second you must call everything you say the +facts.’ + +‘And then all will go well with you?’ asked Lysis. + +‘Indeed, yes, for none of them know anything about the matters in hand +and so they are prepared to hear that the facts are anything in the +world.’ + +‘Well, Socrates,’ said Phaelon, ‘it sounds to me a fine pastime to go +persuading these great herds of barbarians that Persians are finer +people than Greeks.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they could easily be made to believe that or any other +piece of nonsense.’ + +‘Would it not be fun?’ said Phaelon eagerly. ‘I must do it. Nor will I +fear the perils of the country. I will go boldly among them as becomes +a Greek, resisting their hold-up men with my sword and opposing their +cars with my shield.’ + +‘You must take care,’ I said, ‘that they do not fell you from behind +with a card-index.’ + +‘Card-index?’ said Phaelon; ‘what weapon is that?’ + +‘It is more than a weapon to the Americans,’ I said: ‘it is everything. +It is the symbol of their way of life and they intend shortly to put +it on all their coins, and stamps. It is like a plank to a drowning +sailor, for by its means they survive in the great heaving oceans of +facts with which they would otherwise be overwhelmed. Or you may think +of them as a nation of Ariadnes.’ + +‘That is certainly a more pleasant picture,’ said Agathon, ‘and for my +part I will take care to think of them like that. For as Ariadne had a +thread whereby her lover might find his way out of the Labyrinth, so +have the Americans card-indexes to prevent themselves from getting +wholly lost in the modern world.’ + +At this Phaelon exclaimed: ‘I should dearly love to see what was inside +a card-index.’ + +‘That would not be easy,’ I answered. ‘For they are compiled with great +solemnity and reverence and are the nearest things in America to sacred +objects. The ritual of compilation is the chief way of practising +efficiency and so of worshipping Progress.’ + +‘But what is on the cards?’ insisted Lysis. + +‘The most sacred things of all――entrancing statistics and The Facts, +and all the things that Modern Science teaches.’ + +‘Tell us, Socrates, who is this Modern Science?’ + +‘A divine priestess,’ I answered, ‘who is invoked in all difficulties, +whose words are received with great reverence, and that though her +oracles are more than usually incomprehensible and fickle and her words +long and horrible. But she is dear to the Americans because she speaks +principally about machines, and tells them there shall be more and more +of them, and an increasing number of parts in each.’ + +‘And does she speak true things?’ demanded Lysis. + +‘She knows about machines and the substances of the earth, and so +the Americans find her “practical,” a word of supreme praise, and in +consequence are forever seeking to make her speak on other matters +where she has no gift of utterance. They seek encouragement in their +beliefs about themselves and insist upon an answer about their race +till in self-defence she takes refuge in gibberish.’ + +‘That is a disappointment to them,’ said Lysis. + +‘In no wise,’ I answered, ‘for each can twist her answer to his +desires. And she is surrounded by people crying that they have heard +her voice and they alone, and using her authority for their own views. +It is from this babble of tongues that the facts for the card-indexes +are derived. But we will train our guardians never to use such things +and to consider them only fit for slaves.’ + +‘We will,’ they said. + +‘For their studies will not be the acquisition of information, which +is a training in acquisitiveness and due to the hunger of their souls +for quantity. They acquire information as a second best until they +can acquire wealth. But our guardians will study those matters which +satisfy the reason and those which elevate the soul. Now these studies +are many.’ + +‘You have described such studies many times, Socrates,’ said they all. + +‘And do you not agree?’ + +‘We agree,’ said they all again. + +‘And shall we,’ I asked them next, ‘permit our guardians to live in +sisterhoods and sororities as they like to do to-day?’ + +‘Do the young American women live much in sisterhoods?’ asked Phaelon, +‘for I have read of sisterhoods and of convents, and the great +principle of the life is to have nothing whatever to do with men.’ + +I reassured Phaelon. ‘An American sorority is not at all like that. But +I think we shall have to say that no men may go near these sororities +where we are training our guardians, at least till our guardians have +reached thirty-five. For the men are a great distraction.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘we don’t want any young American men, for they +are excellent to carry out what they are told but they will never make +philosophers. They will correspond indeed to that warrior class which +you provided for in your ideal state, but there will be this difference +that they will not often be called upon to fight and that their chief +duties will be in the ordinary administration, arranging for food and +other necessities, and holding the various positions in commerce.’ + +‘Is commerce still to continue?’ said Phaelon. + +‘We must allow it,’ I said, ‘the Americans being what they are, but we +will take care that it receives no particular honour.’ + +‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but how are we to keep the women from the men?’ + +‘We must bring them all to Athens,’ I said. + +At this Agathon leaned forward eagerly and exclaimed: ‘And it is agreed +that I am to select the guardians, and I will bring them to Athens +and will myself superintend their training. And when we get a new +generation I will superintend the later stages of their training, from +fifteen to thirty-five, while you, Socrates, who are so patient and +good with the young shall take charge of them till they are fifteen.’ + +‘Indeed,’ I said. + +‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I consider that as settled.’ + +‘But I am troubled with a difficulty,’ said Lysis, ‘and one which may +put out all Agathon’s fine plans, for I do not see how we can educate +them in Athens.’ + +‘How not?’ said Agathon angrily. + +‘Why,’ said Lysis, ‘if they come here they will meet the Greek men and +will see that there are beings much superior to themselves and lose +their belief in themselves, and fall into despair and pine away.’ + +‘We will unbend,’ said Agathon. + +‘Even so, my excellent friend,’ I said, ‘I think Lysis speaks truly: it +will not be good for guardians to grow up among people so much superior +to themselves. For they will have to rule a race of untravelled and +completely self-confident people, and they will never do it if they are +doubtful of themselves.’ + +‘I can loosen the knot of difficulty,’ said Agathon: ‘I will build my +college a little way out of Athens, and when you come to give them +your instructions you shall be concealed by a partition and I will +say you are the gods themselves. Nay, there is a machine called the +broadcast in use in America itself which enables men to practise useful +deceptions of that kind.’ + +‘I think not, my friends,’ I said. ‘They have suffered already from +being told that too abundantly, and I think it will be best to tell +them a myth while they are in their cradles, saying they are the +children of the people of Atlantis, and the sisters in some sort of the +Greeks.’ + +‘Better say cousins,’ corrected Agathon. + +‘The cousins, then, of the Greeks. And then they shall learn with the +pride of our own youth and maidens both gymnastic and music and all the +other studies which we agreed to be necessary for our guardians.’ + +Here Lysis said: ‘There is still one small matter to be resolved: How +are you going to get your guardians, and the first supply of young +girls to train? For their men will not part with them.’ + +‘That is easy,’ I said, ‘as they are Americans, and the men do not +control the women.’ + +Lysis looked puzzled: ‘But surely the mothers control the daughters, at +any rate when they are very young.’ + +‘Why, no,’ I said, ‘that rarely happens either. We will invite such of +the young girls as seem to us to be the best endowed by nature and to +be likely to make good guardians and to be susceptible of education, +no matter whether they be five or fifteen, and they will come if we +convince them, whatever the parents may think. For I assure you that +their parents have no power over them at all.’ + +‘Really, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘I cannot believe that some of these +great women of the Middle West do not rule their children by terror as +well as their husbands.’ + +‘If we find that to be so,’ I said, ‘and some of the presidents of +these Women’s Clubs are indeed so overpowering that it may well prove +to be the case, we can easily convince the parents by a few statistics. +We will tell them that the liver corrodes and that metabolism is +inhibited unless the years from fifteen to thirty-five are spent in +Athens. And as that will be Science that we are telling them they +will send their children to Athens. For they all honestly desire the +well-being of their children, even those who are permanent presidents +of their clubs.’ + +‘We may take it, then, O Socrates,’ said Agathon, eagerly, ‘that the +young women will be here soon.’ + +‘And when they are here,’ I said, ‘they shall live in sororities +as they do to-day. And I think their present sororities are a +foreshadowing of their life here, and that now they do what they can, +but live in a dark cave compared with the bright sunlight of their +coming existence. To-day they know little Greek, three letters being +the general standard, but soon they will speak and think in Greek all +the time.’ + +‘And when we have educated them,’ asked Lysis, ‘will it be a difficult +matter for them to obtain authority to rule in America?’ + +‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘it will be easy if they have enough money.’ + +‘That will be easy,’ I said, ‘for they will be trained to consider it +their duty that each of them marries a millionaire.’ + +‘They will find that easy,’ said Agathon, ‘for I will be careful to +instruct them in the arts of courtship.’ + +Lysis then asked: ‘But when they have these funds at their command, +what will be the quickest way for them to persuade the ordinary +Americans to accept their rule?’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘they must proclaim a Philosophy Week, for these weeks +are not expensive to buy and they give you the right to worry people +for seven days.’ + +‘And what shall they say?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘It will be simple enough,’ I said. ‘They must announce a new way to +national and individual prosperity. For prosperous peoples are forever +looking for ways to prosperity. And the adjective new recommends +anything.’ + +‘And then, Socrates?’ + +‘And then they must proclaim that Philosophy is the key to Bigger +and Better Business, and must tell the story of Thales, who was a +philosopher and easily outwitted the men of commerce of his day, +amassing a fortune in olive presses.’ + +‘But Thales lived long ago.’ + +‘That must be kept dark,’ I said; ‘but the story will throw a new light +on philosophy and if the propaganda is well done every progressive +business house will add to its staff a philosopher from Greece. And +our guardians must go about persuading the women that there will be +no real progress till Congressmen are philosophers or philosophers +Congressmen.’ + +‘Why yes, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘you shall yourself question the +aspirants for Congress and say which are truly philosophers and the +guardians will persuade the populace not to vote for any of the others. +And you shall select trusty Greeks who will hand over power to the +guardians.’ + +‘It will take the fortunes of many husbands,’ I said, ‘but in the end +the guardians will control the central government, and then they can do +what they like with the country, and make brave changes and substitute +a noble rule for an ignoble one.’ + +‘It is important to lose no time,’ said Agathon, ‘in bringing the +maidens to Athens. For the sake of saving the Americans,’ he added. + + + + + BOOK VI + + +‘And are you resolved, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘not to give any sort of +education to the American men?’ + +I thought for a moment and then said: ‘They are not comely like our +Greek youths and they would not be an ornament to Athens. I do not +think they want any education.’ + +‘But, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘how are they to spend their time when +they are young?’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘I would let them go on watching that football game of +theirs.’ + +‘What is that?’ + +‘It is a mimic battle dear to all their hearts, and I would let them +watch it all the day, and I would not trouble their minds at all. For +to watch it will be the right education for them.’ + +‘Watch it, Socrates?’ demanded Lysis. + +‘Yes, for it is played between coaches or chief men, using young men as +pieces.’ + +‘Explain it to us,’ they said. + +‘I will give you a fine lecture upon it,’ I said; ‘and you will marvel +that I know so much, until I first confess that I went much among the +young Americans in the colleges from a desire to see into their minds, +and what I saw made it clear to me that America was rightly called the +land of “great open spaces.” For they spoke of nothing else at all but +this football, and cars, and to a lesser extent, of another form of +contest called baseball.’ + +‘Would you let them play baseball also?’ asked Lysis. + +‘If we do,’ I replied, ‘I expect we shall have to be quick to save +it. For many business men told me that the manufacturers will forbid +it, because it distracts their workmen from their factory tasks. They +purpose to substitute universal compulsory basket ball, which will keep +their workers fit but unexcited.’ + +‘Is not football in danger?’ said Agathon. + +‘It is most completely a students’ spectacle,’ I answered, ‘and I think +our guardians will be in time to save it, and thus make their rule +delightful to the young men.’ + +‘Explain about this game,’ said Lysis, ‘and why you will still allow +them to watch it.’ + +Then I told them of the field marked out in lines, the gridiron +and of the teams of sixty or seventy warriors a side, of whom only +eleven might do battle at any one time. I described the armour of +these warriors, and how they were the widest and weightiest of all +the young Americans, fit foemen for Ajax or Hector. And I explained +the discipline under which they lived and how the combinations were +worked out by the coaches as a general prepares his campaign, and how +the men learnt over and over the cipher signs that told to each his +part in the brief struggle. And I told of the fine tradition that made +it disgraceful to flee from the field or avoid the ball, even for +commercial benefits, and I told of the heroes who preferred fierce +hacks to the displeasure of their coach and death on the field to his +being dismissed. + +‘It must be good fun being a coach,’ said Lysis. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they are held in great honour provided they bring +victory. They do what they will with the minds and bodies of the +students, and the Professors are proud to carry water for them. Often +the chosen students are kept shut up by their coaches before any great +battle, lest their minds should be disturbed. That will be a good +similitude for us to use when we are moving the young girls to Athens. +For we deserve as great privileges as games coaches.’ + +‘But in these contests,’ said Lysis, ‘only a few can be used. What is +the education of the vast majority?’ + +‘They cheer to order,’ I replied. ‘For the Americans are a practical +people and scheme that no single breath shall be wasted, but shall be +used where it will be most effective. Moreover the game is so designed +that the better it is played the more difficult is it for the onlooker +to follow the fortunes of the ball, the players struggling in a great +bunch, pushing against one another. There must be some heralds to tell +the crowd which player has been pushing hardest that he may be rewarded +with a loud shout.’ + +‘But is shouting like that really the best education?’ asked Lysis, +‘for you will have to say a lot more to convince me.’ + +‘Have you not often agreed with me, Lysis, that it is in youth one +learns most easily?’ + +‘I agree.’ + +‘And that it is good to master early those activities which are to fill +our after-lives?’ + +‘Very often it is good.’ + +‘And if you had to describe in one sentence the civic life of an +American could you do it better than by saying he spent his life +shouting in chorus praise or blame about things he did not understand +at the bidding of leaders?’ + +‘It is true.’ + +‘Then, can he begin too early to shout with the crowd?’ + +‘He cannot.’ + +‘For if he is by nature incapable of philosophy he must be led, and +he must be brought up to expect to feel to order without asking what +it is about which he is to be enthusiastic, and without expecting to +understand the details of the struggles his leaders are conducting.’ + +‘I agree.’ + +‘And for that there is nothing better then these football games. For +men who obey coaches and cheer leaders now will be ready to obey our +guardians later on.’ + +‘I think so.’ + +‘And they enjoy this football of theirs a great deal more than they +enjoy the lectures and other parts of college life, so that they will +agree very happily to cheer football all the time.’ + +‘But,’ said Agathon, ‘I hear the friends of peace are resolved to +prohibit the football game, because it arouses admiration for martial +qualities.’ + +‘The friends of peace will fail, my friends,’ I said. ‘For freedom from +foreign wars reigns among the Americans from their position rather than +their disposition. The only people who have ever invaded them are the +English. But now it is the other way about.’ + +‘I believe,’ said Agathon, ‘that to-day the English and the Americans +are very well disposed toward one another.’ + +‘They are,’ I answered. ‘Their friendship is much the chief friendship +among barbarian peoples. For the English regard the Americans as their +country cousins, living in the backwater of the New World and out of +touch with London life, but pleased to come and gape. And they consider +them as country cousins with a very rich farm, from which they and +their neighbours often receive eggs, and they are careful to keep as +friendly as they can. For they imagine the Americans to be much like +themselves, but without their advantages.’ + +‘By advantages do they mean the nearness to Athens?’ said Phaelon. + +‘Yes,’ I said slowly: ‘If you search the matter to the bottom it comes +to that, for the English are the link between Athens and America.’ + +Then Phaelon said: ‘Is it true, Socrates, that the English and the +Americans speak the same language?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘But,’ went on Phaelon, puzzled, ‘they understand each other after a +fashion, do they not? Do they use their hands to speak with?’ + +‘Only in New York.’ + +‘Socrates speaks truly,’ said Agathon, ‘but New York is where the +Englishmen go who visit America. They stay in or near New York. For +they do not like to get far from the sea which is the source of their +strength. They love the deep waters.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said. + +‘And the strong waters, too, Socrates,’ added Agathon, ‘and that is +another reason why they like New York and are reluctant to go far +inland. For they dread having to keep up long lines of communication.’ + +‘Well,’ I said, ‘they would be very safe in Kentucky.’ + +‘And what happens when the Englishmen visit America?’ demanded Lysis. + +‘Why,’ I answered, ‘they are surprised it is not more like England, and +at once complain; and many are offended that the Americans are not more +like the English, and say so, for they are subjected to torture to make +them say what they think.’ + +‘What is the torture?’ cried Phaelon. + +‘They call it the Third Degree, and it consists in endless +interrogation.’ + +‘Could you not get such a post as torturer in America, Socrates?’ asked +Lysis. + +‘There was talk of it,’ I said, smiling at him, ‘but I cast the +proposal from me as cruel. Anyway the Americans question their visitors +day and night, saying: “What do you think of us?” till in the end the +visitors confess.’ + +‘And then there is a war?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘No,’ I said, ‘they just stop the mouths of such visitors with pie.’ + +‘Remember,’ I resumed, ‘that to visit America is the most expensive +thing an Englishman can do, and so it is only rich and leisured +Englishmen who travel there. And these men do not admire commerce, for +though their fathers or perhaps themselves have grown rich by it, yet +it has always been rated at its proper value in England. It has always +been the means to the leisured life. Furthermore the Englishman is not +impressed by the very things that the American thinks will impress him. +For the English do not admire size or reverence bigness. They were not +used to admire the Spaniards or the French or the Germans in the past +for being twice as many as they, and for having splendid courts and +great armies and public works. Nor is there any sight in England more +comical than to behold the rich and vulgar cosmopolitans, who have +bought a share in their government, attempting to arouse an audience +of Englishmen to enthusiasm for their own British Empire just because +it is so very big. But the Americans will point to a crowd of offices +or cars and feel happy in the knowledge that their country is shouting +for itself. Now the English discover in the Americans most excellent +hosts, for they are the most generous of all the barbarians, but the +more grateful the English are, the more criticisms do they express, +finding it intolerable that the hosts they like so much should go on +pouring out admiration on useless things and prostrating the soul +before number and quantity.’ + +‘And what happens when the Americans come to England?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘That happens a great deal more often. The English enjoy that. They +feel very superior when they show to the Americans the cathedrals and +castles of their country. They act as if they had built these things +themselves, whereas, in fact, the dead who built them were as much the +ancestors of the Americans as of the English. But the English are the +elder branch that has inherited the place. The buildings the modern +English themselves put up they do not point out with pride to anybody, +and those that their fathers and grandfathers built they cover over, +when they can, with great cloths. But many Americans are forever +wandering to these new buildings and are filled with joy that they +build such places larger and better. For the pleasure of travelling in +Europe is spoilt for them by the thought that their hosts do not know +what a wonderful place America is, and they are forever bringing it +into the conversation. Then they grow happy again, but their hosts less +happy.’ + +‘But it is the old things that they think they want to see,’ said +Agathon. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they want to see Europe because they themselves came +from it originally.’ + +‘They do not go to Mesopotamia,’ said Agathon, ‘though they believe +they came originally from somewhere there.’ + +‘It is curious,’ I said, ‘but none of them boast of belonging to one +of the first families of Mesopotamia. They want distinctions that are +rarer than that. They get more pleasure from thinking their ancestors +had seats in the Mayflower than from thinking they had seats in the +Ark, though both voyages were what they call exclusive cruises.’ + +‘And have they a special affection for the island of England?’ asked +Lysis. + +‘Why yes, most of the rich ones came originally from there,’ I said. + +‘Well, why do they not buy it?’ he demanded. + +‘Many think that will happen in time,’ I replied, ‘or at least that +they will purchase all the surface to a depth of forty feet, for that +is the earth upon which English history has happened, and that they +will lay out the island in their western districts by Yellowstone +Park, where there is plenty of room for it.’ + +‘Is it true’ asked Phaelon, ‘that the English will be forced to sell, +Socrates, and that they can only live at all by getting the Americans +to come and look at their country?’ + +‘I thought,’ said Agathon, ‘the English had a great many factories like +the Americans.’ + +‘Why,’ I replied, ‘what has happened to the English is one of the +most ironical things in the world. For during many years they have +sacrificed their old and pleasant life to attain mechanical efficiency, +and they have made the northern half of their little island dreary with +factories and blotted out its sky with smoke. They said: Here are our +riches, and in the name of wealth we must desecrate the land. But do +you, O Lysis and Phaelon, observe the justice of what is happening to +them. Their factories have grown a burden to them, and a problem and +source of quarrels and poverty. And their real wealth lies in what is +still preserved of the old England.’ + +‘Why, Socrates?’ + +‘Because the Americans will pay to see it and will not pay to see the +factories.’ + +‘Is their position so desperate?’ + +‘No’ I said, ‘if we are seeking the truth we must declare that it is +not so desperate as the Americans imagine for the Americans forget +that the English are in partnership with the Scotch.’ + +‘Who are the Scotch?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘I should call them the guardian class in Britain,’ said Agathon. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they watch over the English and they have a great +empire all over the world.’ + +‘And the English are allowed to share in this Empire?’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘by the terms of the partnership which was by far the +most important event in the economic history of the English. For this +Empire is very large and rich.’ + +‘And did the Scotchmen win it by the sword?’ was Phaelon’s next +question. + +‘Indeed no,’ I replied. ‘In fact Englishmen and Irishmen――you have +heard of them?’ + +(Both Lysis and Phaelon nodded vigorously and Lysis said ‘Of course,’ +in such a tone that I felt ashamed of the foolish query.) + +‘Englishmen and Irishmen,’ I went on, ‘were rather more prominent in +those first stages. But it was the Scotchmen who made the Empire pay.’ + +‘And after all,’ said Agathon, ‘that was the real point in having an +Empire.’ + +‘And they built up a great trade with everybody and prospered greatly,’ +I said, ‘the Scotch and the northern English particularly. And these +two together, when they go abroad to gain money, call themselves the +British. But they make the mistake of thinking their activities will go +on being profitable for ever. They think that because all the world, +even Greece, has bought from them in the century past, the relationship +will continue. But I believe otherwise, and that this foreign trade +will be their destruction, and that they are selling the swords which +will pierce their own bodies.’ + +‘How, Socrates?’ + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘whoever deals with them finds that they have nothing +to give of the amenities of living. They do not sell you marbles, or +statues, or wine, but coal and machinery. And if you buy these things +you find they start industry in your own country also. For of all +newcomers to a country machinery is the most tenacious of its own +character and the most certain to make its new home resemble its old +one. An Italian will make Italy again in New York, and a machine will +make Sheffield in the furthest Indies.’ + +‘And is that really all the British offer the world?’ exclaimed Lysis. +‘They will not last long according to my opinion.’ + +‘No,’ I said, ‘for it will be realized that these iron machines of +theirs are a more deadly threat to the life of a city than was the +Wooden Horse himself.’ + +‘By Hercules, yes!’ they agreed. + +‘If the British had desired wholly to destroy and change Troy they +would not have come with besieging armies. They would have sent some +machinery and divided the rich against the poor by holding out promises +of all the machines would do to make life pleasanter for the rich. And +in fewer years than ten, the walls of Troy would have disappeared. The +city would have vanished as though it had gone up in vengeful smoke. +Indeed it would continue smoking not for a few days, in the manner of +Greek destruction, but indefinitely, with chimneys to insult and dwarf +the lofty towers of Ilium, if this industrial system of theirs did not +make chimneys of the very towers themselves.’ + +‘The British, as it seems to me, are most dangerous,’ said Lysis. + +‘But,’ said Agathon, ‘they also offer the world other things beside +machinery and the coal to feed it with. Wool.’ + +‘The sheep’s clothing of the fable,’ I said, ‘and a snare and one in +which you soon discover the wolf, as many a simple barbarian race has +found. Buy from them one commodity only and you find that they use the +money you pay them in a very alarming way. They use it to develop your +country.’ + +‘How?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘Why,’ I said, ‘they make you spend the money you owe them in putting +yourself in a position to supply others with some commodity or other, +so that you can buy more and more from the British. In this manner they +have changed the face of half the world. Those who buy little from them +they term “backward peoples.”’ + +‘I am sorry for the barbarian world,’ said Lysis, ‘with these two great +barbarian races, the British and the American, invading the rest in +this cunning way and weaving snares about them.’ + +‘Lysis,’ I said, ‘while you feel so full of pity, pity also the +British. For I said that what they do they can only do for a certain +time.’ + +‘How?’ + +‘Why,’ I explained, ‘their prosperity depends upon being able to +persuade other peoples to buy these goods of theirs.’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘But those who agree eagerly and buy machines and make railways become, +in proportion as they are eager and active, independent of the British +and manufacture everything for themselves, as happens in their own +colonies, while the others, not sharing these ideals, neglect the +machines and remain poor and can neither pay for what they have had nor +buy anything fresh. Against this second class, who are found largely +in the other or southern Americas, the British merchants have a strong +prejudice.’ + +After pondering for a moment, Lysis said: ‘It seems to me the Scotch +must be very like the Americans.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but when the Scotch first set out to grow rich and +important they had themselves to please a guardian class that valued +learning, and so they learnt to value it too. Whereas there was no +class that the Americans had to please. But, in general, there is much +in common between the Americans and the commercial people of Scotland, +and those also of the North of England, who agree with the Scotch about +life. Of them we may say with the poet:―― + + “Nursed in so harsh a clime what shouldst thou know of good?” + +‘And these make the settlers the most acceptable to the Americans.’ + +‘Why do they not all go there,’ said Phaelon; ‘I do not like to think +of them so near Greece.’ + +‘The men of South England, on the other hand, find it very useful to +have these Scots and northerners in the same island.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘Well,’ I said, ‘the southern English live a life that is almost +reasonable, inquiring into things, and pondering upon them, and amusing +themselves with games, and, whenever possible, sitting in the sun. +Those men who are both rich and sensible settle in South England.’ + +‘Is their pondering good pondering?’ demanded Lysis. + +‘Why no,’ I said, ‘for they like to begin and end in the middle of all +questions. It is difficult to muddle through in philosophy.’ + +‘How do they live, apart from what they get from the Americans?’ asked +Phaelon. + +‘Some make these northerners pay them rents but a large part are +concerned one way or another, I am afraid, in the business of their +great city of London.’ + +‘What is that?’ + +‘It is doing the business of other people for them, because it will be +done better than they could do it themselves. Even the Athenians use +the city of London.’ + +‘What is the secret of this London business?’ asked Phaelon. + +‘There is a special climate in London,’ I answered, ‘which has the +property of making every man feel that he is ruined. And no one is ever +distracted from minding his affairs by beholding the sun or the sky, +whose contemplation has ever led men to philosophy. So they do business +there in a very careful and concentrated way.’ + +‘But you say,’ said Lysis, ‘that they do not come like the Americans to +consider commerce the end of life?’ + +‘No,’ I said, ‘for the Americans do their business where the climate +makes them over-sanguine and they become filled up with the hope of +gain and cheerfully sacrifice everything else to the excitement of the +contest. But the Londoners regard their business hours as the scraping +of a subsistence and skilful avoidance of starvation, and flee from +the city every evening. And they live in homes surrounded by other +influences than that of commerce, and by the marks of the partial +civilization to which South England has attained. But when they are at +business they do about as much mischief to the rest of the world as do +the Americans.’ + +‘Ought we not to hope,’ said Lysis thoughtfully, ‘that the football +game will in fact make the Americans very warlike, and that they will +attack the English and Scotch?’ + +‘Why, Lysis?’ + +‘That the great barbarian peoples may destroy each other and that the +rest of the world may be freed from the aggression of their industrial +life.’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it might well be the best thing that could happen. But +they are more likely to combine forces in order to industrialize the +rest of the world. And though they are very different people yet bonds +of similarity are growing up, for machinery sets its stamp upon souls, +and the same machines will in the end produce the same souls. To take +but one instance, among both peoples there has grown up the love of the +Dark Cave.’ + +‘What is the Dark Cave?’ asked Lysis and Phaelon together. + +‘You tell me,’ I said, ‘that you remember the ideal state that Glaucon +and others worked out with me?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Lysis, ‘it has often been spoken of since.’ + +‘Well,’ I said, ‘I there pictured the unhappy lot of men sitting +huddled together in a dark place, condemned all to look in the same +direction and to watch phantoms and shadows of men as though they saw +something real.’ + +‘I remember.’ + +‘And I pitied such men, condemned to the contemplation of unreality, +and sought, you remember, how they might be rescued and brought out +into the sunlight and might learn to see men as they were.’ + +‘You thought,’ said Lysis, ‘no lot could be more wretched for +reasonable men.’ + +‘Well,’ I said, ‘the Americans and the English are not reasonable and +will pay money to be imprisoned in these caves, and to contemplate +lies and live altogether in a false world. This is making them one, for +the greatest bond of union is to share a common experience.’ + +‘Have you ever penetrated into a Dark Cave, Socrates?’ asked Phaelon in +excitement. + +‘It was the end of my American adventures,’ I answered. ‘For I +endeavoured to save men from entering these Caves, reasoning and +expostulating with them, asking them why they would give their +substance to be so misled about life.’ + +‘And what happened, Socrates?’ + +‘Alas, my friends,’ I answered, ‘I was considered disgraced for +attacking “our American Movies.”’ + +‘And in the end, Socrates, I suppose you were deported?’ demanded Lysis. + +‘What else, indeed,’ I answered. + +‘What, then, did they say to you?’ + +‘That I had lied in filling in my answers to those first questions +that all must answer who would receive a passport. For they said I had +plainly intended to subvert the government of the United States, and +that they found, after inquiry from various publications, that I had +been in prison. And the inspector added that I had been in an asylum +also, for that I came from Europe, and the Balkans at that, which he +considered to be nothing less than a madhouse.’ + +‘And do you think,’ said Agathon, ‘they will read your views about +them?’ + +‘I think so,’ I answered, ‘for they find the topic of themselves of +much interest. But I do not expect them to profit by what I say, for +even Xantippe is handicapped in their regard by belonging to the past. +For they do not admire the past at all, nor is the word “ancient” ever +used as praise.’ + +‘Do they despise all history?’ asked Lysis. + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and they love the utterance of their Detroit Oracle, +when he said + + _History is bunk_, + +and they regard him with increasing honour as he says these things +and as the Europeans have given to Aristotle the title they think +honourable, calling him the Master of them that Know, though they do +not add how little, so the Americans hail the Detroit Oracle as the +Master of them that Guess.’ + +‘But,’ said Lysis, ‘though they despise even the story of the Greeks, +surely they are eager to know about Rome, for Rome excelled also in +size and great buildings and bridges and in buying culture from the +East. Do they not feel great sympathy?’ + +‘No,’ I replied, ‘and the priests and keepers of ancient tradition find +the name of Rome an embarrassment to them, for the Americans will have +no respect for Rome, since they heard it was not built in a day.’ + +‘They have named a city after Plato,’ said Agathon. + +‘They will name a city after anybody,’ I answered, ‘and there are but +few of their own citizens whom they do not desire to forget.’ + +Here Agathon interrupted what I was going to explain about the cities, +and said: ‘But I believe they think of changing the names of their +cities into numbers and of numbering the States. And some think it will +help efficiency and be a compliment to themselves if they abolish the +words United States and America and get everybody in all countries to +call them One, as being country Number 1 of the whole world. But this +compliment will cost many dollars.’ + +‘If only philosophy cost many dollars,’ reflected Lysis, ‘they would +value it more.’ + +‘They would,’ said Agathon, ‘but as it is you must not despair, +Socrates, for your countenance is one that grows upon people.’ + +‘It grew upon me,’ I said. + +‘We,’ he said, ‘have had to get used to you, and so it is perhaps with +the Americans and philosophy. They will acquire the taste――in time.’ + +‘Anyway,’ said Lysis, ‘they ought to be grateful to you, Socrates, for +examining into what they think and do and value.’ + +‘I think so,’ I replied, ‘for I am pointing out to them something of +great moment to their happiness when I declare that unless they reopen +the question of the end of living they will grow dissatisfied and exist +wretchedly. For they must not go on letting themselves be led by men +with a low aim or no aim at all. For the conditions of the future will +not support the philosophy of “making good” as did the conditions of +the past. There is a point of view which suits a man or nation in the +early struggle with poverty which becomes ridiculous when the struggle +is past.’ + +‘Many of them are beginning to think so,’ said Agathon. + +‘And I am beginning to think,’ said Lysis rising, ‘that we have +considered these Americans quite long enough, and that we should now +move to some other place and refresh ourselves, and with new companions +examine something else.’ + +‘I am of your mind; Lysis,’ said Phaelon, and he also rose. + +‘I will accompany you,’ I said. ‘Perhaps when the Americans hear +what we say of them they will change themselves of their own accord +and become what we would like them to be. And if this discussion of +ours has that result it will be more useful, I think, than many of our +talks. But whatever happens we have done our best for these Americans +by telling them the truth. For there are times when it is important to +know the truth, and life is one of them.’ + + + THE END + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes: + + ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + + ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. + + ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76595 *** |