From the Reports of the Plato Club: In Two Parts. Part One
DURING a recent winter, a company of from half a dozen to a dozen gentlemen met together once a week to read the Dialogues of Plato in English. Plato was chosen for many reasons, — his influence upon all subsequent thought, his distance from modern controversies, his grace of expression, his clearness, and his depth ; the English text was used because a comprehensive view of the author’s thought was desired rather than a minute knowledge of one or two pieces. At each meeting some member of the company read what he regarded as the most important passages of a Dialogue, and gave an account of the parts omitted ; then there was a free discussion of whatever topics the reading suggested. In this way, not only all of Plato’s writings except The Laws, but several volumes of Aristotle and the later Stoics were read in the course of six or seven months, though sometimes the discussion was cut short, in order that the evening might end with selections from a Greek drama. The conversation which followed the readings proved of so much interest to those who took part in it that, after the first two or three weeks, one of the company was asked to write a little account of what was said at each meeting, and read it at the next. The reports naturally took the form of the Dialogues discussed. A few of them are now published, with very little alteration beyond the substitution of pseudonyms for proper names, not for the sake of proving anything in particular, but in the hope that they may help to stimulate a healthy interest in the problems discussed.
THE PROTAGORAS. (November 28.)
When Red Cap had aroused Socrates, and got the indolent Hippias out of bed, and followed with ordered tread the steps of the stately Protagoras, and then outraged the distinguished stranger’s dignity by setting Socrates on him with his villainous questions about the One and the Many, he tried to atone for his lack of courtesy by saying : “ It seems to me that Protagoras is a much more exact debater and much more logical than Socrates, though perhaps he is not so bold. There are several examples of very bad reasoning on the part of Socrates. But are the virtues really one ? and can we be overcome by evil, knowing it to be evil ? These are the questions I should like to have discussed.”
The Dominie. “ Do you doubt the fact? We find bright men becoming drunkards, though they know better, as they show by their regrets. How can such a question as that be a real, practical question for us? ”
Red Cap. "But I do not think, really, that Plato has proved the point that we do evil when we know that it is evil.”
The Timekeeper. "For my part, I have often done wrong knowing it to be wrong; but there is one very peculiar thing about it, — we don’t think it is wrong when we are doing it, yet if any one else were to do it we should.”
The Doctor. “ The answer to Socrates’ question depends upon what is meant by wrong, — wrong in itself, or productive of evil consequences. I should be willing to admit that no one does what he knows is going to lead to more pain than pleasure for himself, and I think that is what Socrates meant. As to what is wrong in itself, some people take a positive delight in it, it is so much less tiresome. A little ‘ devilment ’ gives a pleasant variety and spice to life.”
The Parson. “ Like the French lady who had poured out a glass of water for herself, and was raising it to her lips, when she was suddenly struck by its limpid beauty, and cried, ‘ Oh, if it were only a sin to drink this, how I should enjoy it! ’ But in spite of this I have been convinced by my pastoral experience that cases of absolute vicious wrongare very rare ; though, to be sure, some people have such erroneous ideas of the Atonement that they think they can attain a balance of pleasure by sinning, and adjusting the matter with the Deity afterwards.”
Then the Prophet and the Deacon and the Visitor each added a little to the following : There can be no doubt that we often do wrong knowing that the punishment will be greater than the pleasure. But all the Greeks were trained to temperance and self - restraint by the most severe discipline, and even among the Greeks Socrates was recognized as a man of iron will. It would therefore be hard for him to realize the weakness out of which so much sin grows. Nevertheless, Shakespeare and Hawthorne and George Eliot could see it, and we too see it and feel it, for we sympathize with the Macbeths and Donnithorne and Dimmesdale. It may be that in some of these cases our sympathy is aroused by the really noble traits of character which the sinner possesses along with his meaner qualities ; yet this is certainly not the case with Donnithorne. In him there is nothing noble. He is only a “good fellow,” and there is often nothing good about a good fellow but good health and good nature.
Then Red Cap took hold of the scattered threads and began to weave them together: “ The Timekeeper has said that when we do wrong we do not realize at the moment that it is wrong. But what is this moral weakness of which the last speakers have been talking ? Is it not just this failure to realize the consequences of our acts at the time of acting, even though they be perfectly known to us ? We often hear young ladies say, ‘ This is the most beautiful thing I ever saw ! ’ Now it is not so ; but when they are looking at it they forget the other beautiful things they have seen. If they could keep them vividly in mind they would not speak so, and if we could keep the consequences vividly in mind we should not act so ; but other ideas, other emotions, fill momentarily all our consciousness and make us blind.”
The Dominie. “ There are some people who can recall visual images with all, or nearly all, the intensity of the first sensation. Your idea, if I understand you aright, is, that if we could only visualize the consequences of our acts and our remorse for sin in some such sensuous way we should be saved. But this is just the opposite of Plato’s idea, for his saving knowledge was rational and non-sensuous.”
The Professor. “ It seems to me that the standpoint of such modern psychologists as Pflüger and Janet, with their views of multiple personality, might help us here. Each personality has command of but a portion of the whole field of consciousness ; and so in hypnosis the field becomes limited to a few suggested ideas. Now, it seems to me that we live most of the time in a kind of ethical sleep, and only at very rare intervals attain to a full moral consciousness. Thus it is that we often do wrong knowingly.”
The Dominie. “ Then what are we to do? Is one personality tempted, and does another repent ? And must we practice a kind of classical temperance, in order, if possible, to weed out the multiplex personality ? ”
The Professor. “ I think that what you say is what I would have tried to say. In virtue one feels complete ; he is at home in himself.”
The Dominie. “Yes, it is wholeness, — holiness, in the good old Bible sense. When we are weak we fall apart, and the black horse of the Phædrus takes the bit in its mouth. It is a throwing out of function of the association fibres, — the last to be developed; it is dissociation. And so in morality we say that we ‘ pull ourselves together.’ Perhaps this expression has a real physiological justification. If so, is it not a question of fatigue? We cannot always be at our best, as Emerson tells us to be.”
Then we roused ourselves, and some of us changed our seats ; but we had not long to rest, for the Theologian hurried us off to the palæstra to learn from Socrates how to talk to boys about such things as temperance and friendship. As we listened to Charmides and Lysis, we felt stealing over us a strange reverence for youth with its naïveté and enthusiasm, and a growing love for the old philosopher who could talk to boys with such genial banter and interest; he seemed so much finer-grained and nobler than when he was lost in admiration of Protagoras’ eloquence, and had but one little question to ask. But when Socrates tried to explain the impossibility of the love of the good, in so far as good, for the bad, in so far as bad, and of the neither good nor bad, in so far as neither good nor bad, for the neither good nor bad, we could follow him no longer, and went home. How bright the Greek boys must have been !
THE GORGIAS. (December 5.)
The Parson read from the Gorgias; and when he had finished he wished to talk about rhetoric, for it did not seem to him that Socrates should have taken it for granted that every rhetorician was a Sophist. But the discussion was to take another turn, for some one asked, “ What do you think, Parson, of Socrates’ paradox, that a sinner punished is happier than a sinner unpunished, and that all evil doers would thereforeseek punishment if they were only wise enough ? ”
The Parson. “ It seems to me quite true ; and many law - breakers have sought punishment. They have confessed their crimes, and submitted to imprisonment or even death, and have been happier for it.”
The Dominie. “ Do not all the cases of flagellation and conscience-money bear out this view? What is the psychological motif underlying all this ? ”
Bed Cap. “ I never shall believe that physical pain can take away the sting of conscience. It is the repentance of the confessing criminal, not the punishment, that gives him relief ; and, as Victor Hugo shows in his beautiful story of Jean Valjean and the bishop, kindness may lead to this repentance, as well as punishment. It is through an illusion that the cessation of remorse and the advent of peace are attributed to the merit of the physical pain; for the relief comes only when the punishment is looked upon as deserved, and this already involves repentance.”
The Deacon. “Would n’t it help to explain the puzzle if we were to distinguish between two things ? The escaped criminal confesses and takes his punishment, not because he wishes to suffer for his original crime, but because he wishes to avoid the additional wrong of defeating the ends of the law. And so with the man who pays consciencemoney : he is trying, not to suffer for the wrong he has done, but to undo it. Is it not true, also, that the whole system of sacrifices, found among so many peoples, results from their effort to avoid personal punishment, though they know they deserve it, by satisfying the gods with the blood of a sheep ? ”
The Pilgrim. “ Is not the Christian doctrine generally preached just a statement of how we are to avoid punishment for our sins ? But according to what you say, we should all wish to go to hell.”
The Parson said he should not like to go so far as that, and when we had ceased laughing the Pilgrim continued : “ Martineau says this doctrine of remedial punishment is Pagan, not Christian ethics. I should like to know how that is ; for I had supposed myself to be a Christian, but if Martineau is right I am afraid I am a Pagan.”
Then some one appealed to the Doctor for a solution of Socrates’ riddle ; but he said that he should like to know first whether it were true that the wicked are miserable; for the Scripture says their cheeks hang down with fatness, and he thought the Scripture was right, and that the unjust and wicked could be happy.
The Theologian. “ What do you mean by happiness ? ”
The Doctor. “ I mean, to enjoy life and have a good time, and no pangs of conscience withal. What do you say ? ”
But the Theologian did not answer.
The Timekeeper said that when his baby felt guilty she demanded kisses from her mother; Hillbrook thought that our conceptions of guilt and the punishment it deserved depended largely upon paternal castigations in early life, though he would not deny that we had a real sense of guilt; and the Doctor asked whether these fatherly offices were not of great educational value, since physical pain inhibits disagreeable moods, and makes the surly child sweet and reasonable.
The Dominie. ” That there is an innate sense of justice seems sure. We find ourselves getting into discord with the deeper notes of our being, and we call this conscience. We may not perhaps recognize that there is such a discord ; yet it is there, and the sooner we find it out and try to overcome it, the better. It may result from a whole education at variance with the deeper law of our being, and it may show itself more in small things than in great. It is very likely that some persons are born with an abnormal twist towards evil, and that for them to do wrong does not involve this discord ; but with the rest of us, when we do wrong, even if it be in secret, and if it leave no mark upon our body, do we not feel that we have got off the track, and that we must get on again, that there must be some atonement or at-one-ment, — I am not using the word in any theological sense ; and do we not wish to endure some self-imposed penalty to aid us in this atonement ? ”
THE SOPHIST. (December 12.)
When the scribe arrived, this evening, the Timekeeper was already reading from the Sophist. When he had finished, the Dominie said : “ I see you must have a very valuable discussion in mind for us, since you have made the reading so short. What questions have you to suggest ? ”
The Timekeeper. “Well, it is hard for us to separate ourselves from our profession; so I should like to have a little talk about methods of teaching. Let us make a study of Socrates’ method of questioning, — he succeeded so well in showing his hearers that they knew nothing; and till you can teach a pupil this you can teach him nothing else.”
The Dominie. “ Can we find any resemblance between Socrates’ method and Descartes’s way of doubting everything ? Or shall we say that it bears an analogy to the theological way of starting with the conviction of sin, the conviction that all one’s righteousness is as filthy rags ? To be sure, Descartes’s doubt was more universal than Socrates’, and he slapped his own face, not other people’s ; so perhaps they were not the same. But in this country, particularly, where there is so much cocksureness and precociousness, resulting more or less from our political institutions, is not this Socratic way of taking the conceit out of a young man a good thing? Of course there is a kind of skepticism that makes a man conceited, — he can doubt so many things the vulgar herd never thought of doubting ; but then there is another kind,— the kind the young man has when he says to himself, ‘ I thought I knew everything, but, hang it all, I don’t, I really don’t.’ It is this consciousness of ignorance that may perhaps be compared to the conviction of sin.”
The Prophet. “ What do you think of a professor of philosophy plunging his pupils into doubt in order that they may afterwards have a firmer faith ? I know of a college where this is done, and the men are noted for the horrible, bloodcurdling stories they tell of the terrible doubts, the throes of skepticism, they have suffered. But apparently they are all pulled safely through the deep waters before they leave college. Is not this rush through the various phases of thought just a little too rapid to do much good or to be very healthful ? ”
The Theologian. “ Does not this cold skeptical plunge sometimes lead to a real collapse ? ”
The Dominie. “Yes, I have seen some very sad cases indeed, — one or two almost too sad to speak about. But in such cases the doubt was not merely philosophical, and the minds were more or less morbid. A healthy mind cannot be led to such despair by suggested doubt; the instincts of action and belief are too strong. But this humbling of the young man’s conceit is a different thing. Let him go on talking till you can prove to him that he does not know what he is talking about. Theologian, suppose you try it on us here some time, and see what comes of it ? ”
The Visitor. “ Is there not an immense amount of so - called Socratic method which is not Socratic at all ? Can we blame Socrates for all the crimes committed in his name ?”
The Dominie. “ You are quite right. This pseudo-Socratic method generally takes one of two forms. First, there is the bulldozing teacher, who stops thought rather than quickens it ; and the pupil acquiesces too readily — his only problem is one in mind-reading — to find out what the teacher wants said. Then there is the other form, — questioning for an answer. The teacher will go all around Robin Hood’s barn to get just the answer he wants ; and when some pupil happens to hit upon it, in spite of his clumsy, blind questioning, he will turn to you and say, ‘ See what the method will do ! ’ ”
Red Cap. “ I have seen some schools in this country where a child can’t take up its pencil without waiting for a bell to ring. If I had any children, I should rather send them to the woods than to such schools! ”
The Dominie. “Some time ago an effort was made to tabulate the ignorance of Boston schoolchildren. They were asked where their noses, chins, ribs, thighs, hips, were; and how many of them had ever seen growing corn or wheat, or cows. When they were asked the size of a cow, they gave all sorts of answers; but if you put them all together, you find the average size to be actually smaller than one’s thumb-nail! Yet most of the stories in the schoolbooks had to do with the country. What can a child understand about milking and milkmaids, and cows with crumpled horns, who thinks a cow is the size of its finger-nail ? Yet it is exactly so in philosophy. Metaphysics is taught by those for whom it is a mere abstraction, who cannot see the body of which it is the soul.”
The Deacon. “ Perhaps, if philosophy does so much harm, it would be better not to teach it in college at all.”
The Dominie. “ I should not like to say that, though to be sure there is danger of pulling the milk tooth too soon, or perhaps it may turn out not to have been a milk tooth, after all. It is easy to pull down ; but to build up, and give one’s pupils something they can cling to and live by, is very hard. There are different kinds of doubt. Among certain classes it is the fashion to have no strong convictions or deep interests. (This is not so common in some of our colleges as it used to be. Perhaps the modern athletic spirit may have helped it away.) There is another class of people who affect positive disbelief. Where this is genuine, they have generally been bitten ; the old creed has proved a broken reed, and they throw it off with violence. There is a third class, who really hold opinions and live by them, and then they are all of a sudden convinced, by their teacher or some one else, that they are wrong; and the problem works riot with some of them. There is a state of very great mental ferment; there is a tremendous task to be performed, and some minds break down under it.”
The Prophet. “ Do you not think it is safest to begin the teaching of philosophy with psychology, and to leave out the metaphysics ? Is there not danger in getting into Berkeley too soon ? ”
The Dominie. “I should think that to plunge a class into Berkeley or Hume would be about the worst beginning ; but surely no harm can be done by showing them experiments in psychology. There is no danger of making any one subjective by it, and no one could object to such practical things. Why not throw all the textbooks to the wind, and stand your class up in a row and make them ‘ pass on ’ a touch? From this experiment in reaction time you can get into psychology. If you have a class in ethics, why not begin with hygiene ? This will introduce the general subject of body-keeping and its relation to ethics, then the general relations of mind and body, then conscience - cases ; and the whole field is open. I once had a Sunday -school class in the penitentiary. There were six murderers in it ! I began by teaching the Bible, but it would not do. They would say right out, ‘ I don’t believe that damned stuff ; ’ and if they did not believe it , it was so much the worse for the Bible. When I found the whole class was going to pieces, I tried a new tack : I told the men I was interested in medicine, and asked them how they kept well there in the prison. I got right down where they lived, and when they saw I was really interested in them I heard some experiences ! It is a great thing to begin with the boys where they live. Show them the moral aspect of athletic training. Then the ancient philosophy is good. It has a completeness about it which the modern lacks. Of course Plato has his limitations, but they can be pointed out sympathetically. I do not believe in starting with these modern teachers, Hegel and Kant, or Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. This is a bad beginning. What young men need is a person or a cause to admire. They must have faith, and faith is courage, and courage is the great thing. It is that which tells in even a bit of literary work : plunge right into it, however difficult it may seem, and keep up your heart; do something, and teach the young man to do something. A young man must be either an enthusiast, or self-indulgent, or dead.”
When the clock struck, the Dominie was still speaking about the possibility of treating every author sympathetically, so as to leave a positive rather than a negative impression on the mind of the pupil, and not only make him a logical machine, but give him some real “ sweetness and light ” to live by. We would gladly have listened to him longer ; but the Timekeeper was inexorable, so we adjourned.
THE EUTHYPHRO. (December 19.)
The Pilgrim read from the Euthyphro. You all remember the story. Socrates is sauntering about near the court where his fatal trial is soon to take place, and he stumbles across the young priest Euthyphro hastening to the court to prosecute his own father for the murder of a slave. Socrates stops him, and when he learns his business tries to get from him a definition of piety; for it is in the name of this virtue that the young man is proceeding. But he can give no definition that withstands Socrates’ criticism, and at last finds it necessary to attend to business elsewhere.
The Pilgrim. “The Socratic irony seems to go very well here; but still Plato is driving after scientific ethics, and he worries poor Euthyphro for a definition of piety ; yet he does not appear to know any more about it than Euthyphro. It is like our own craze for scientific ethics. But plenty of people who have no scientific ethics are doing lots of good in the world, and they know in a general way what they mean by piety. It may be largely feeling, but at any rate it leads to good actions, while the craze for scientific ethics often paralyzes action. When Plato proves, in the Meno, that knowledge is remembrance, from the fact that the slave knows that the square on a given base is four times as large as the square on half the base, he forgets that the boy had been learning geometry all his life; and the people nowadays seem to think that both church and press have failed, and so they want to put scientific ethics into the schools.”
The Dominie. “ Then you perhaps agree with Adler and Lavisse, who would teach ethics all by example, by fairy tales and Bible stories ; but do you think Socrates would have agreed with you?”
The Pilgrim. “ Probably not ; for he leaves no room for the influence of the feelings, — he wants to get it all out and skin it and stuff it. Euthyphro was a good example of what the popular religion of feeling can do. There are some people to-day who can’t stand scientific ethics ; and it was a good healthy kick that the Athenians made against Socrates. From their point of view something was going wrong. All felt it, and all knew that quibbling did not help matters. Socrates thought the remedy was to be found in knowledge, and he was wrong. True, he lived the life ; yet he did not say ‘ I am the way,’but ‘ I do not know the way.' He failed to put his side plainly, and so they failed to see how to dovetail life and theory. There is something similar to-day in the study of comparative religions, which makes men disinclined to active missionary work. Socrates was undermining the Athenians’ religion, and it would have been a good thing if they could have got him and all the other Sophists out of the way.”
The Parson. ” Was it not a high stand that Euthyphro took ? ”
The Pilgrim. “He thought he had oceans of piety, and he did not know anything about it.”
The Parson. “ I think he was the real hero ; and it was a grand opportunity for Socrates to take the ground of humanity. To-day I would not speak to a young man as Socrates did, for the young man would be taking a grand stand. It strikes me it is quite noble.”
The Visitor. "Euthyphro seems to me to be straining for effect, palming himself off as possessing a virtue which he really has not. I can’t but feel that it smacked a little of insincerity.”
The Pilgrim. “ I have seen men just like him.”
Red Cap. “ He was like a man who has been taught ethics by rules; coldly he followed them in their crudity, without allowing his moral sense to guide his application of them.”
The Parson’s praise of Euthyphro had been so warm that it had carried our minds away from the case in hand to the general principle he defended so well. But now the Theologian called us back, and reviewed the facts. The slave had been guilty of murder, and Euthyphro’s father, naturally indignant, had caught and bound him and thrown him into a ditch, while he went to find a magistrate. Before he could return, the slave had died of exposure. His death was therefore quite unintended ; it was not a case of murder at all; and Euthyphro was a contemptible Pharisee.
The Pilgrim. "No, he was not. There are plenty more like him to-day, brought up in orthodox churches as Euthyphro had been, and trying like him to do what is right, though they have lost the feeling that should guide them. Does not Plato want to contrast real genuine piety, which tries to make others happier, with a blind conformity to rules ? ”
The Dominie. “ Is not Euthyphro a man who makes a virtue of insisting upon the dictates of a rather unenlightened conscience, — one of those people who make their conscience an excuse for mere crankiness and stubbornness ? and do not these men need a Socrates to educate their conscience ? ”
The Pilgrim. ” If you call a perverted conscience an educated conscience, yes. It is not wise to argue the question with such people. The best way to treat them is to leave them alone, and let the light come to them from within. Discussion only makes them worse.”
Then the Parson returned to the rescue of Euthyphro, and pictured the scene as it might well be conceived : the cruel, passionate father ; the defenseless slave; and Euthyphro, trembling with conflicting emotions, yet hastening to see justice done for the poor wretch who had met such an end after a life of toil and misery. He was obeying the voice of duty, which called him to protect, the oppressed. But in spite of the Parson’s generous defense of Euthyphro, and of the Timekeeper’s warning not to be carried too far by our prepossession in Socrates’ favor, most of us still inclined to cast our beans against the exponent of piety and the rights of humanity.
The Dominie. “The broader question involved in the Euthyphro grows out of the conflict between institutional and natural morality, — the conflict that is seen in the story of Jephthah’s daughter, in the story of Iphigenia, and in Christ’s discussions with the Pharisees about the Sabbath. Literature is full of it. It is this conflict that causes so much moral difficulty, and it was to regulate it that the Roman Catholic Church made its books of casuistry and its hierarchy of virtues.”
Then the Pilgrim led us back to the practical field by asking how virtue was to be taught in the public schools. If we leave out scientific ethics, shall we teach morality by history or by literature ? The Timekeeper thought an example should be found for children among their own companions rather than in the musty pages of school readers ; the Deacon suggested that Bible stories, now that we are beginning to understand their real significance, should be given a large place, for if the Hebrews can teach us anything it is righteousness ; and the Pilgrim thought the miraculous element of the Bible gave it a great power. Even the impossible miracles in such books as Ryan’s Star Dollars are good, for they give the emotions plenty of play, and children like to be humbugged. “ Why, dear me,” he said, "I suppose that every bachelor here expects to marry a pretty wife, but most of us won’t; and if we cling to such romantic imaginings, how about children ? ”
THE THEÆTETUS. (January 9.)
This evening it was the Deacon’s turn to read, and his selections were from the Theætetus. When he had spent an hour on Plato’s struggle with the problem of knowledge, he tried to get the company to devote the rest of the evening to some of his own questions on the subject; so he jumbled up a great many of them, and asked them all at once. What he wanted to say was perhaps something like this : —
“ Our question is, What is knowledge, and what does it imply ? The most natural answer is, that we know when our thought copies things. But then physics teaches that things are not at all like our mental pictures of them. We see red and blue, not the long and short vibrations that are really in the object. Not a single sense, perhaps, gives a true image of reality. So how can we say that to know is to copy things in thought?
“If we say that to know is to have ideas, not copying, but corresponding with things, what do we mean by this correspondence ? There is a sense in which every thought corresponds with the thing that caused it; but some of these caused thoughts are supposed to be true, and others false. Is the true thought the one that corresponds with its object, not in the sense that it actually is caused by that object, but in the sense that it ought to be caused by it, so that the true idea of a thing is the idea we ought to have of it ? But, granting that the true idea is the idea we ought to have, is the fact that we ought to have it the essence of its truth, or only a consequence of it? Further, if truth or knowledge means the thought we ought to have about reality, what is to become of the idea of obligation or design implied by the word ‘ought ’ ?
“ Shall we try another line of thought, and define truth as the idea of reality possessed by a normal mind ? Very good ; but what do we mean by a normal mind? The Divine Mind, as Green and Royce maintain, or the average mind, or the mind as it ought to be ? Is not the existence of a Divine Thinker a tremendous inference to draw from the belief in a truth ? To make the average mind or the majority of minds a measure of all things, to make truth by popular vote, is absurd ; for we try to find the truth, not to make it. To define knowledge as the notion of reality possessed by a mind constituted as it ought to be constituted is to introduce again the conceptions of worth and all that they imply. Evolution cannot aid us. For if we say the true conception is the one that survives, the one that will be held in the future, have we not taken it for granted that that which will survive is that which ought to survive, or is fitted to survive ; and it is fitted to survive because — it is true ?
“ Possibly some light may be thrown on this question, what is truth ? if we try to answer two simpler questions: first, what is our criterion of particular truths ? — that is, what do we believe, — and second, what is belief ?
“ Professor James says that, of two equally possible hypotheses, we accept that which is most interesting and which best satisfies the needs of the heart; and writers as much opposed to each other as David Hume and John Henry Newman give the same emphasis to the influence of vivid conceptions and strong emotions on belief. I once heard a professor of philosophy say that to read In Memoriam to a skeptic would do infinitely more towards giving him religious convictions than all the metaphysical arguments he could be made to listen to. Is not Lotze right when he maintains that the strong ethical and æsthetic conviction that something is good and worthy to be, that it ought to be, is often the strongest proof that it is ? Is emotional value, then, the ultimate test of truth, or at any rate one ultimate test ?
“But what is belief? Hume defines it as vivid conception, and Professor Bain says, I think, that it is vivid conception due to indissoluble association and leading to action. It is this connection between belief and action that I want you to tell me about. Is the action the result of the belief, or the belief of the action, or are they both the mental aspect of the same physiological facts ? What is the motor activity involved in belief ? We certainly do know that men of action are men of conviction, and that idlers are often without convictions. Descartes did his thinking in bed, and Hume tells us that he was a skeptic in his study only, not when playing backgammon or making merry with his friends.
“ There seems also to be a connection between truth and morality. You remember that in this very dialogue Plato makes bad men hate the truth, but adds that if they hear it and think about it, it makes them strangely discontented with themselves. Moreover, those who have lived the best lives, who have best acted, seem to have had the strongest convictions about transcendental things. Socrates tried again and again to prove the resurrection for the comfort of his friends, and when he failed he fell back with unabated confidence on the myth; and Christ was so sure of it that proof seemed unnecessary. ‘ If it were not so, I would have told you.’ Must there not be a ’ faith that comes of self-control '? But what is this strange connection between conviction and action, between the true and the good and the beautiful ? What is truth ? ”
The Parson. ” ‘ The greatest thing in the world ’ is truth, and truth is moral truth.”
The Pilgrim. “ Truth is what we can tie to in practical life. When the flatboats float down the Mississippi, they always tie up at night to a snubbing-post, and the crew go to sleep. If the night is too dark to see the post, they can still feel that it is there. If what they have tied to begins to give way in the dark, it is not the post. Truth is the snubbingpost that we can tie up to.”
The Parson. “ And go to sleep by.”
The Timekeeper. Truth is the experience of the age. But the trouble about it is that every once in a while somebody comes along and shows that the age is wrong.”
The Prophet. “ Truth and reality are synonymous, and both are incapable of definition. The more healthy a man is, the more truth he gets; and it is not necessary to ask what the feeling is by which we recognize it.”
The Deacon had ventured to suggest that truth might be defined as that which is in accordance with the deepest impulses of our whole nature, and the belief in which leads to the best life; but Red Cap objected to this definition on the ground that it assumed that human nature is uniform, and Hillbrook on the ground that ethical and æsthetic feelings are often a matter of habit.
The Dominie. “We have outgrown the days when truth was defined in a single sentence. The definition must depend upon the kind of truth that is meant. As to what we believe, the first step in the grammar of assent is where our nature goes out in an immediate feeling: ‘ That is beautiful,’ or ‘ That is true.’ When we have this feeling, and it is reinforced by that of others and forms a good basis of action, I do not see how we can get back of it in regard to ultimate truth.”
Herbert Austin Aikins.