Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 8 part 5/7

And so, Alypius, although I see you wholly on my side, nevertheless take up the case for them a little and answer me. — 'Since today,' he said, 'you have set out, as they say, under good auspices, I will not hinder your fullest victory, and I will now more securely attempt to take up those parts which are imposed on me by you — provided, however, that this which you signify you will do by questioning, you would rather, if it is convenient to you, turn into a continuous oration, lest, truly like an obstinate adversary — which is very far from your kindness — I, already your captive, be tormented by those tiny darts.' And I, when I noticed that they too were expecting this, as though entering upon another opening, said:

'I will comply with you,' I said; 'and although after that labor of the rhetorical school I had presumed that in this light armor I would rest somewhat — so as to conduct these matters by questioning rather than by speaking — nevertheless, both because we are very few, so that I need not raise my voice against my health, and because I wished this pen, for the sake of that same well-being, to be as it were the charioteer and moderator of my discourse, lest I be swept along by my mind more violently than care for the body demands, hear in continuous oration, as you wish, what I think. But first let us consider of what sort that is from which the lovers of the Academics are wont to boast too much.'

For there is in the books of Cicero, which he wrote in patronage of this cause, a certain passage — seasoned, as it seems to me, with wondrous wit, but, as to some, even fortified with force. It is altogether difficult that it should not move anyone, what is there said: that to the Academic wise man second place is granted by all of the other sects who think themselves wise, since each must necessarily claim first place for himself. From which it can be probably concluded that he is by his own judgment rightly first who is second in the judgment of all the rest. For let there be present, for the sake of argument, a Stoic wise man; for it was against them chiefly that the genius of the Academics blazed forth.

Therefore, if Zeno or Chrysippus be asked who is the wise man, he will answer that it is the one whom he himself has described. On the contrary, Epicurus or some other of the adversaries will deny it, and will contend rather that his own most expert fowler of pleasures is the wise man. Thence to the quarrel. Zeno shouts and that whole Porch is in an uproar, that man is born for nothing other than honorableness; that this by its own splendor draws minds to itself, with no advantage whatever placed on the outside and no pandering wage, as it were; and that that pleasure of Epicurus is shared among beasts alone, into whose society it is impious to thrust both man and the wise man.

On the other side, that one — having summoned to his aid from his little gardens a crowd of drunkards, as though a band of Bacchus, yet seeking someone whom, raving with unkempt nails and rough mouth, they might tear to pieces — presses on fiercely, exalting, with the people as witness, the name of pleasure, its sweetness, its repose, so that without these no one seems able to be happy. If the Academic runs into their brawl, he will hear both sides dragging him to their own parts; but if he goes over to these or to those, by those whom he deserts he will be cried out as mad, ignorant, and rash. And so, when he has diligently applied his ear this way and that, being asked what seems to him, he will say that he doubts. Now ask the Stoic which is the better man:

Epicurus, who cries out that he is raving, or the Academic, who declares that on so great a matter he must still deliberate? No one doubts that the Academic will be preferred. Again, turn to that one and ask whom he loves more: Zeno, by whom he is called a beast, or Arcesilas, from whom he hears: 'You perhaps speak the truth, but I will inquire more diligently.' Is it not plain that that whole Porch seems mad to Epicurus, but the Academics, in comparison with them, seem modest and cautious men?

Thus, quite evenly, concerning almost all the sects, Cicero most abundantly offers, as it were, a most delightful spectacle to his readers, showing as it were that there is none of them who, when he has given first place to himself — which is necessary — does not say that he gives second place to the one whom he has beheld not fighting back but doubting. In this I will offer no opposition, nor will I take away from them any glory. Let it indeed seem to whomever one pleases that this Cicero was not jesting, but wished to pursue and gather certain empty and windy things — which would be repugnant to the very frivolity of those little Greeks. For what hinders me, if I should wish to resist this vanity, from easily showing how much less an evil it is to be unlearned than to be unteachable?

Whence it comes about that, when that boastful little Academic has given himself as a disciple, as it were, to each one, and no one has been able to persuade him of what he thinks he knows, he is afterwards laughed at by the great consensus of them. For now each will judge that any other of his adversaries has learned nothing, but that this one can learn nothing. From which, thereupon, he will be thrown out from the schools of all — not with rods, which would be more disgraceful than troublesome, but with the keys and cudgels of those cloaked men. For it will be no great business, against the common pest, to demand, as it were, certain Herculean aids from the Cynics.

But if it should please us to contend with these for that most worthless glory — which must be granted with easier pardon to me who am already indeed philosophizing but not yet wise — what will they have that they can refute? For behold, let us suppose that I and an Academic have rushed into those quarrels of the philosophers; let all be present without exception, let them briefly set forth their opinions as time permits. Let inquiry be made of Carneades what he thinks. He will say that he doubts. And so each will prefer him to the rest — therefore all to all — a great and truly lofty glory, no doubt. Who would not wish to imitate him? And so I too, when asked, will answer the same; the praise will be equal. In that glory, then, the wise man rejoices, in which the fool is made his equal. What if he even easily surpasses him? Does shame accomplish nothing?

For I will hold that Academic as he is already withdrawing from the judgment; for folly is greedier of this kind of victory. Therefore, holding him back, I will betray to the judges what they do not know, and I will say: I, most excellent men, have this in common with him — that he doubts which of you follows the truth. But we have also our own opinions, on which I ask you to judge. For it is indeed uncertain to me, although I have heard your decrees, where the truth is — but for this reason: that I do not know who among us is the wise man. This man, however, denies that even the wise man himself knows anything — not even that very wisdom from which he is called wise. Who would not see whose the palm is? For if my adversary shall say this, I shall conquer in glory;

but if, blushing, he shall confess that the wise man knows wisdom, I shall conquer in judgment. But let us now withdraw from this litigious tribunal into some place where no crowd may trouble us — and would that it were into the very school of Plato, which is said to have received its name from this, that it was set apart from the people. Here let us now discourse, not about glory, which is a light and childish thing, but about life itself and about some hope of a blessed soul, as far as we can among ourselves. The Academics deny that anything can be known. Whence did this please you, most zealous and most learned men? 'The definition of Zeno,' they say, 'admonished us.' Why, I pray? For if it is true, he who knows even it knows something of the truth; but if false, it ought not to have moved men so constant.

But let us see what Zeno says: namely, that such an appearance can be comprehended and perceived as, when it is from a real thing, would not have signs in common with the false. Did this move you, O Platonic man, so that with all your strength you drew the studious back from the hope of learning, so that they should desert the whole business of philosophizing — with even a certain groaning torpor of mind aiding it? But how would it not move him, if both nothing such can be found and, unless it is such, it cannot be perceived? If this is so, it ought rather to have been said that wisdom cannot befall a man, than that the wise man does not know why he lives, does not know how he lives, does not know whether he lives, and finally — than which nothing can be called more perverse and more mad and insane — that he is at once both wise and ignorant of wisdom.

For which is harder to accept: that a man cannot be wise, or that the wise man does not know wisdom? Nothing is to be disputed on this point if the matter itself is not so posited as to be capable of judgment. But if perchance that were said, men would be utterly turned away from philosophizing; whereas now they must be enticed by the sweetest and holiest name of wisdom, so that, when they have learned nothing through a worn-out lifetime, they may afterwards pursue you with the direst curses — you whom, having at least left behind the pleasures of the body, they followed to the torments of the soul. But let us see through whom they are rather to be deterred from philosophy: through the one who has said, 'Hear, friend: philosophy is called not wisdom itself, but the study of wisdom;

and to which if you betake yourself, you will not indeed be wise while you live here — for wisdom is with God and cannot come to man — but when you have sufficiently exercised and cleansed yourself in such a study, your soul, after this life, that is, when you have ceased to be a man, will easily enjoy it to the full' — or through the one who has said: 'Come, mortals, to philosophy! Great is the fruit here; for what is dearer to a man than wisdom? Come, therefore, that you may be wise and yet not know wisdom!' 'It will not,' he says, 'be so put by me.' This is to deceive; for nothing else will be found in your case. And so it comes about that, if you say this, they flee as from a madman; if by some other means you lead them to it, you make them mad.

But let us grant that, on account of either opinion, men equally do not wish to philosophize. If Zeno's definition compelled him to say something pernicious to philosophy — my good man, was that to be said to a man from which he would grieve, or that from which he would deride you? Nevertheless, let us examine, so far as we fools can, what Zeno defined. He says that appearance can be comprehended which so appears that it could not appear false. It is manifest that nothing else comes into perception. 'This I too,' says Arcesilas, 'see, and by this very thing I teach that nothing is perceived. For no such thing can be found.' Perhaps by you and by other fools; but why can it not be found by the wise man?

Although I think that nothing can be answered even to the fool, if he should say to you: refute, with that memorable acumen of yours, this very definition of Zeno, and show that even the false can be comprehended; but if you cannot, then this very thing which you might perceive, you have. But if you refute it, you do not have that whereby you might be hindered from perceiving. I do not see that it can be refuted, and I judge it altogether most true. And so, when I know it, although I am a fool, I know something. But grant that it yields to your cunning. I will use a most secure dilemma. For it is either true or false. If true, I hold it well; if false, something can be perceived, even though it have signs in common with the false. 'Whence,' he says, 'can it?'

Most truly, therefore, did Zeno define, nor did anyone who agreed with him even in this err. Or shall we think it a definition of small praise and sincerity, which, against those who were going to say many things against perception, when it designated of what sort was that which could be perceived, showed that it itself was of that very sort? Thus of comprehensible things there is both a definition and an example. 'Whether,' he says, 'that very definition is itself true, I do not know; but because it is probable, therefore, following it, I show that there is nothing of that sort which it expressed could be comprehended.' You show, perhaps, besides it itself, and you see, I think, what follows. But if we are uncertain even of it, knowledge does not thus desert us. For we know that it is either true or false; therefore we do not know nothing.

Although it will never bring it about that I am ungrateful — I altogether judge that definition most true. For either even false things can be perceived, which the Academics fear too vehemently and which is truly absurd; or else not even those things can be perceived which are most like the false — whence that definition is true. But now let us see the rest. Although these things, unless I am mistaken, may be enough for victory, yet perhaps not for a surfeit of victory. There are two things said by the Academics against which, as we are able, we have determined to go: that nothing can be perceived, and that assent must be given to nothing. Of assenting, presently; now we will say a few other things about perception. Do you say that absolutely nothing can be comprehended?

Here Carneades awoke — for none of them slept less deeply than he — and looked around at the evidence of things. And so, I believe, speaking with himself, as happens, he said: 'Then, Carneades, are you going to say that you do not know whether you are a man or an ant? Or shall Chrysippus triumph over you? Let us say that we do not know those things which are inquired into among philosophers, and that the rest do not pertain to us — so that, if I stumble in the daily and common light, I may appeal to those shadows of the ignorant, where certain divine eyes alone see, which, even if they behold me quivering and falling, cannot betray me to the blind — especially the arrogant and those who are ashamed to be taught anything.'

Elegantly indeed, O Greek industry, girt up and prepared do you advance; but you do not look back at that definition, which was both the invention of a philosopher and fixed and founded in the very vestibule of philosophy. If you attempt to cut it down, the axe will rebound into your legs; for once it is overthrown, not only can something be perceived, but even that can be perceived which is most like the false — if you will not dare to overturn it. For it is your hiding-place, from which you burst out violently and leap upon the incautious who wish to pass by; some Hercules will strangle you in your own cave, as a half-man, and crush you with its own mass, teaching that there is something in philosophy which cannot be made uncertain by you as being like the false. Certainly I was hastening to other things;

whoever presses this affects you yourself, Carneades, with great insult, since he thinks that you can be overcome by me anywhere and from any quarter, even though dead. But if he does not think so, he is merciless, who compels me everywhere to desert my defenses and to contend with you on the field; and when I had begun to descend into it, terrified by your name alone, I drew back my foot and hurled from the higher ground I know not what — which, whether it reached you or what it did, let those see under whose scrutiny we do battle. But why do I, foolish, fear? If I remember well, you are dead, nor does Alypius any longer fight by right for your tomb; God will easily aid me against your shade.

You say that nothing in philosophy can be perceived, and, in order to spread your oration far and wide, you seize upon the brawls and dissensions of the philosophers, and you think they furnish you weapons against them. For how shall we judge the dispute between Democritus and the earlier physicists concerning one world and innumerable worlds, when between him and his heir Epicurus concord could not remain? For that luxurious fellow, since he permits his atoms — as though his little handmaids, that is, the little bodies which he joyfully embraces in the darkness — not to keep their own way but to swerve of their own accord here and there into others' boundaries, has squandered his whole patrimony, even through quarrels. But this indeed pertains nothing to me.

For if it pertains to wisdom to know any of these things, it cannot lie hidden from the wise man. But if it is something else, the wise man knows that wisdom of his, and despises these things. Nevertheless I, who am still far even from the neighborhood of the wise man, know something in these physical matters. For I hold it certain that either there is one world or not one; and if not one, then either of a finite number or of an infinite. Carneades will hold that this opinion is like the false.

Likewise I know that this world of ours is so arranged either by the nature of bodies or by some providence, and that it either always was and will be, or began to exist but will by no means cease, or does not have a beginning in time but will have an end, or both began to abide and will not abide perpetually — and I know innumerable physical things in this manner. For these disjunctions are true, nor can anyone confound them by any likeness of the false. But 'assume something,' says the Academic. I will not; for this is to say: 'Abandon what you know; say what you do not know.' 'But the statement is left hanging.' Certainly it is better that it hang than that it fall; surely it is complete; surely it can now be named either false or true. This I say that I know.

You, who both deny that these things pertain to philosophy and assert that nothing of them can be known, show me that I do not know these things; say that these disjunctions are either false or have something in common with the false, whereby they cannot be distinguished at all. 'Whence,' he says, 'do you know that this world exists, if the senses are deceived?' Never have your reasonings been able so to refute the force of the senses as to convince us that nothing seems to us, nor have you ever at all dared to attempt this, but you have labored vehemently to persuade us that a thing can be otherwise than it seems. And so I call this whole thing, whatever it is, which contains and nourishes us — this, I say, which appears to my eyes and is perceived by me to have earth and heaven, or as it were earth and as it were heaven — I call it the world.

If you say that nothing seems to me, I shall never err. For he errs who rashly approves what seems to him. For you say that the false can seem to those who perceive; you do not say that nothing seems. For the whole ground of every disputation will be taken away — where you like to reign — if we not only know nothing but even nothing seems to us. But if you deny that this which seems to me is the world, you are making a controversy about the name, since I said that it is by me called the world. 'Even so,' you will say, 'if you are asleep, is this which you see the world?' It has already been said that whatever seems to me such, I call the world.

But if it please you to call only that the world which is seen by those who are awake, or even by the sane, then maintain, if you can, that those who sleep and rave do not rave and sleep in the world. For this reason I say this: that this whole mass and machine of bodies, in which we are, whether sleeping or raving or waking or sane, either is one or is not one. Explain how that opinion can be false. For if I am asleep, it may be that I have said nothing; or if even from the mouth of a sleeper words have escaped, as is wont, it may be that I have not said it here, not sitting thus, not with these listeners; but that this should be false, it cannot be. Nor do I say that I have perceived it while I am awake.

For you can say that this could have seemed so to me even when asleep, and therefore this can be most like the false. But if there are one and six worlds, that there are seven worlds is manifest, in whatever state I am affected, and I affirm not impudently that I know it. Therefore teach that either this connection or those disjunctions above can be false through sleep or through madness or through the vanity of the senses; and if, when awakened, I shall remember these things, I will concede that I have been vanquished. For I believe it is now sufficiently clear which things seem false through sleep and dementia — namely, those which pertain to the bodily senses; for that thrice three is nine, and the square of intelligible numbers, must necessarily be true even while the human race is snoring.

Although I see that many things can also be said on behalf of the senses themselves, which we do not find reprehended by the Academics. For I believe the senses are not accused, either because the raving suffer false imaginations, or because we see false things in dreams. For if the senses have reported truly to those awake and sane, it is nothing to them what the mind of one sleeping or insane fashions for itself. It remains to be asked whether, when they report, they report the truth. Come, if some Epicurean should say: 'I have nothing to complain of concerning the senses; for it is unjust to demand from them more than they can; but whatever the eyes can see, they see truly' — is then that true which they see concerning the oar in the water? Absolutely true.

For, since a cause was present why it should so appear, if the oar submerged in the wave appeared straight, I would rather accuse my eyes of a false report. For they would not see what, such causes existing, had to be seen. What need of many words? This can be said of the movement of towers, this of the little feathers of birds, this of countless other things. 'Yet I am deceived, if I assent,' someone says. Do not assent to more than that you persuade yourself that it so appears to you, and there is no deception. For I do not see how the Academic refutes him who says: 'I know that this seems white to me; I know that this delights my hearing; I know that this smells pleasant to me; I know that this tastes sweet to me; I know that this is cold to me.'

Tell me rather whether the leaves of the wild olive, which the goat so persistently craves, are bitter in themselves. O shameless man! Is not the goat itself more moderate? I do not know how they may be to the flock; to me, however, they are bitter. What more do you ask? But perhaps there is even some man to whom they are not bitter. Are you straining after annoyance? Have I said anywhere that they are bitter to all? I said to myself, and even here I do not always affirm it. For what if at different times, from a different cause, now something sweet, now something bitter, be perceived in the mouth? This I say: that a man, when he tastes something, can in good faith swear that he knows it is sweet to his palate, or the contrary, nor can he be led away from this knowledge by any Greek cavil.

For who would be so shameless as to say to me, licking something with delight: 'Perhaps you are not tasting, but this is a dream'? Do I resist him? But that would still delight me even in a dream. Wherefore that which I said I know, no likeness of false things confounds; and the Epicurean or the Cyrenaics and many others may perhaps say things on behalf of the senses, against which I have received that nothing has been said by the Academics. But what is that to me? If they wish those things, and if they can, let them, even with my favor, cut them down. For whatever is disputed by them against the senses does not avail against all philosophers.

For there are those who confess that all these things which the mind receives through the bodily sense can beget opinion, but they deny knowledge — which nevertheless they wish to be contained in the understanding and, removed from the senses, to live in the mind. And perhaps in the number of these is that wise man whom we seek. But of this another time. Now let us proceed to the rest, which, on account of those things already said, we shall, unless I am mistaken, explain in few words. For what does the bodily sense either help or hinder one inquiring about morals?

Unless indeed nothing hinders those very men who have placed the highest true good of man in pleasure — neither the neck of a dove, nor an uncertain voice, nor a heavy weight for a man which is light for camels, nor six hundred other things — from saying that they know they are delighted by that in which they are delighted, or are offended by that in which they are offended; which I do not see can be refuted. Will these move him who embraces the end of good with the mind? Which of these do you choose? If you ask what seems to me, I judge that the highest good of man is in the mind. But now we are inquiring about knowledge. Therefore ask the wise man, who cannot be ignorant of wisdom;

but to me nonetheless, slow and foolish as I am, it is permitted meanwhile to know that the end of human good, in which the blessed life dwells, is either nothing, or is in the soul, or in the body, or in both. Convince me, if you can, that I do not know this — which those most famous reasonings of yours by no means accomplish. But if you cannot — for you will not find that to which it is like the false — shall I hesitate to conclude that it rightly seems to me that the wise man knows whatever is true in philosophy, since I myself have come to know from it so many true things? But perhaps he fears lest, while asleep, he should choose the highest good. There is no peril; when he has awakened, he will repudiate it if it displeases, will hold it if it pleases. For who will rightly blame him because he saw something false in dreams?

Or perhaps you will fear this: that while sleeping he may lose his wisdom, if he should approve falsehoods as true? Not even a sleeper would dare to dream up such a thing—to call a man wise while awake and deny him to be so if he sleeps. These same things may also be said concerning madness; but the discourse hastens on to other matters. Yet I do not leave these points without a most secure conclusion. For either wisdom is lost through madness, and he whom you cry out is ignorant of the truth will then no longer be wise; or his knowledge remains in his understanding, even though the remaining part of the soul imagines, as in dreams, whatever it has received from the senses. There remains dialectic, which the wise man certainly knows well, and no one can know a falsehood.

But if he does not know it, then the knowledge of that thing does not pertain to his wisdom—the thing without which he could still be wise—and it is superfluous for us to ask whether it is true or whether it can be perceived. Here perhaps someone may say to me: 'You are always giving yourself away, foolish man—did you know what you claim, or were you unable to know anything about dialectic?' I, in truth, know more about it than about any other part of philosophy. For, first, it was dialectic that taught me that all those propositions which I used above are true. Then, through it, I have come to know many other true things. But count them, if you can, how many there are: if there are four elements in the world, there are not five; if there is one sun, there are not two; one and the same soul cannot both die and be immortal; a man cannot be at once both happy and wretched; here it cannot be both that the sun shines and that it is night;

either we are now awake or we are asleep; either there is a body which I seem to myself to see, or there is not a body. These and many other things, which it would be exceedingly long to recount, I have learned through dialectic to be true—true in themselves, in whatever way our senses may be disposed. It taught me that, if the antecedent part of any of those things which I just now set forth by way of connection be assumed, that which is annexed necessarily follows; and that those things which I have stated by way of incompatibility or disjunction have this nature: that when the rest are removed, whether they be one or many, there remains something which is confirmed by their removal.

Dialectic also taught me that, when the matter about which words are spoken is agreed upon, one ought not to wrangle about the words; and that whoever does so, if he does it from ignorance, is to be instructed; if from malice, is to be abandoned; if he cannot be taught, is to be admonished to do something else rather than waste time and effort on superfluous things; and if he does not comply, is to be disregarded. And concerning captious and deceptive little arguments there is a brief precept: if they are drawn from an ill-made concession, one must return to what has been conceded; if truth and falsehood clash in a single conclusion, one must accept from it what is understood and leave aside what cannot be unraveled; but if the manner of some matters lies wholly hidden from a man, its knowledge is not to be sought.