Dialogues In Limbo

DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

BOOKS BT THE SAME AUTHOR

SCEPTICISM AND ANIMAL FAITH

SOLILOQUIES IN ENGLAND AND LATER

SOLILOQUIES.

CHARACTER AND OPINION IN THE

UNITED STATES With Reminiscences

of William James and Josiali Royce aj$c!

Academic Life in Ameuca

LITTLE ESSAYS DRAWN FROM THE
WRITINGS OF GEORGE SANTAYANA
Edited by LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

INTERPRETATIONS OF POETRY AND
RELIGION

THE LIFE OF REASON Five Volumes

THE SENSE OF BEAUTY.

POEMS-

DIALOGUES IN
LIMBO

by

GEORGE SANTAYANA

tntegros ace edere /antes.

LONDON

CONSTABLE AND CO. LTD.

1925

Pointed in Great Britain by R. R. R, CLARK, LiMrnn,

CONTENTS

PA.GE

I. THE SCENT OF PHILOSOPHIES i

II. VIVISECTION OF A MIND , . . . .21

III. NORMAL MADNESS ...... 36

IV. AuTOLcTbos . , .58

V, LOVERS OF ILLUSION ...... 70

VI. SELF-GOVERNMENT, FIRST DIALOGUE ... 89

VII. SELF-GOVERNMENT, SECOND DIALOGUE . .107

VIII. THE PHILANTHROPIST ...... 124

IX. HOMESICKNESS FOR THE WORLD . . 163

X. THE SECRET OF ARISTOTLE . , . 173

OF DIALOGUES

The Shades of
DEMOCRITUS,
ALCIBIADES,

ARISTIPPUS the Cyrenaic,

DIONYSIUS the Younger, once Tyrant of Syracuse,,
SOCKATES,
AVICENNA,

And the Spirit of

A STRANGER still living on Earth

THE SCENT OF

Democritus. Bring the Stranger ? bring the
Stranger. Let us see how he is put together. 1
smell one goodish ingredient, but the compound
is new-fangled, yes (sniffing) , and ill mixed.

Akibiades. You can't possibly scent him at
this distance. Not even a dog could. For a
Christian he is rather well washed,

Demcvtus. Before you contradict an old man,
my fair friend, you should endeavour to under-
stand him, The Stranger might be as clean as a
river-god , who cannot live out of running water ,
and I should not be prevented from discerning the
odour of his thoughts. Your barbarians, 1 know,
have no proper regimen, The few bathe too
often, out of luxury or fussiness, perhaps in steam
or in hot water ; and the many never bathe at all
Thus those who wash among them are quite
washed out, and yet the sodden smell of them is
perceptible and most unpleasant. But it was
not of their soft bodies that I was speaking, but
of their rotten minds, Did you never hear that
a philosophy can be smelt ?

AMnades. You are in your laughing mood.

B

2 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

Democntus. Impudence ! Am I a jester 01; a
sophist, like your pop-eyed Socrates ? Do I study
to tickle the fancy of young fops with midnight
drinking-bouts and myths and mock scepticism,
in order to confirm them in the end in all their
guard -room prejudices and ignorance ? Know
that I am a scientific observer. Philosophies
diffuse odours.

Alcibiades. It will take a long argument to
prove it.

Democritus. What has argument to do with
truth ? True knowledge is nothing but keen
sensation and faithful remembrance, penetrating
to that fine texture of nature which your fluent
talker cannot stop to see. The soul is a fluid,
finer and warmer than air, yet somewhat viscous,
and capable of retaining or renewing -the most
intricate and mighty motions. She continually
rushes forth from her hearth, as from a furnace,
through the veins and ventricles of the body,
vivifying all its parts, healing wounds, and har-
monizing motions ; and she also escapes, or
exudes her waste products, through the mouth and
nostrils in breath, through the eye in glances, and
in seed through the organs of generation. Parcels
of the soul issue thereby entire, like colonists from
their mother-town, ready to renew abroad her
complete life and economy. And just as the
parents of the new-born soul are two, one who
sheds the seed and one who receives and fosters
it, so in sensation and knowledge there is a
feminine as well as a masculine faculty ; for the

SCENT OF 3

thing perceived is the father of perception and the
soul perceiving is its fertile mother. Now you are
not* to suppose that man alone is animate, or only
beasts similar to man. Everything natural Is held
together by circling streams of magnetic atoms,
stronger th5n hoops of steel. These are Its soul ;
and the form which this soul Impresses on the
body, It Impresses also on the surrounding air,
radiating images of itself in all directions, and a
kindred influence . Light and aether , which fill the
heavens, are a great medium of propagation for
these seeds and effluvia of things, which the eye
and ear and nostrils and sensitive skin (being
feminine organs) receive and transform according
to their kind, sometimes bringing forth a genuine
action or thought, the legitimate heir and Image
of Its father, and sometimes a spurious changeling,
or fancy-child. Thus, after her marriage with
things external, the soul issues charged with a
new motion, appropriate to those external things,
and directed upon them ; so that a sensitive
observer, by the quality of that response, can
discern whether the soul has been healthfully
fertilized by her experience, or only dissolved and
corrupted. In the one case the reaction will be
firm and fit, in the other loose, tremulous, and
wasted. Almost always, in the sensitive life of
animals there is an element of true art and know-
ledge, together with an element of madness,
When the inner heat of the body Is excessive
(which heat is but rapid and disordered motion)
actions and thoughts are bred too hastily, without

4 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

attention to things ; then in the shaking hand and
rolling eye and words inapt and windy the physician
easily recognizes the symptoms of delirium. * So
even in health the look and (as we say aptly) the
air of a man will reveal his ruling passions , every
secret impulse causing some deviatiofi or special
crowding of the rays that flow from him in mov-
ing or looking or speaking. Now these rays, so
compacted and directed , are far from odourless.
The sweet scent of love is exciting and to one
himself amorous is irresistible ; and the scent of
anger is acrid, and that of sorrow musty and dank ;
the scent of every state of the soul, though name-
less, being perfectly distinct. So a soul vibrating
in harmony with the things that nourish and
solicit her has an aura which, without spreading
any sharp odour, refreshes every creature that
inhales it, causing the nostrils and the breast to
expand joyfully, as if drinking in the sea-breeze
or the breath of morning. When, on the contrary,
the soul issues from the eyes or lips turbid and
clotted $ by virtue of the distorted imprints which
she bears of all surrounding things, she also stinks ;
and she stinks diversely according to the various
errors which her rotten constitution has imposed
upon her. Hence, though it be a delicate matter
and not accomplished without training, it is
possible for a practised nose to distinguish the
precise quality of a philosopher by his peculiar
odour, just as a hound by the mere scent can tell
a fox from a boar. And when the hound of
philosophy is keen, this is a surer method of dis-

THE SCENT OF 5

cernlng the genuine opinions and true temper of
philosophers than are their own words ; for these
may be uttered by rote without self-knowledge,
or made timidly conformable to fashion or policy ;
whereas the trail which, without intention, a mind
leaves in passing through the air is a perfect index
to its constitution.

Akibiades. Since you despise argument, pray
prove your doctrine by experiment. Smell me,
and describe my philosophy.

Dentocritus, In your case 1 can perceive nothing
at this distance.

Akibiades (letting his curly head almost touch the
great white beard of Democritus). There ! is that
near enough ?

Democntus. Now I inhale a whole perfumer's
shopful o^ scents , but no intellect.

Akibiades. Has this sorry Stranger, then, a
stronger intellect than mine, that you smell It a
furlong off, while mine at three inches is im-
perceptible ? I discard your philosophy, vain
Sage, and pronounce it a delusion.

Democrittts. The million have already rejected
my discoveries for the same excellent reason.
Their conceit is offended, and they refuse to be
cured of madness by acknowledging themselves
mad. As for the Stranger, odoriferous virtue is
not proportional to the mass of the radiating
substance, and his intellect need not be greater
than yours merely because it carries further. A
single skunk, by emitting a little fluid, will qualify
space further than a herd of elephants, and one

6 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

he-goat browsing amid the crags of the acropolis
will neutralise from certain quarters the whole
agora full of voting democrats.

Alcibiades. Vain excuses. You are none the
less caught and convicted in pretending that you
smell ointments in my hair. False impostor, I
have not put on anything for two thousand years.

Democritus. What of that ? Had you distilled
all the pale laurel and asphodel that bloom in this
wilderness , sunned only by the mild phosphor-
escence of some wandering spirit, do you think
that such a weak disinfectant could have washed
out the traces of those rough young years when
you wallowed so recklessly in the mire ? Indeed,
you have not even taken that precaution, but
trusted to sheer time to erase every vestige of the
truth. What is time ? That which to your sleepy
sense seems a long lapse and empty is brief and
full in the economy of nature , who has other
measures than a fool may find by counting his
fingers. To a good eye you would appear still
dyed and spotted with every vile pigment and
nasty oil with which you have ever beautified
yourself, whether on skin or hair.

Dionysius. ? Tis fortunate that in granting us
immortality the gods have granted it also to all the
ornaments of our life, and that the fragrance of
youth envelops our spirits even in this twilight
world. Had fate, in making me a phantom, for-
bidden me to wear a phantom crown, and still to
wrap me in this semblance of the silks of Tartary,
I should have frankly declined to be immortal,

SCENT OF 7

and would have sunk by preference into the com-
mon dust ? like a man of no eminence. Happily,
the mind is not more stable than its possessions ,
and as our pleasures fade, life itself fades with
them into nothingness.

Aristippus* As for me ? I arn not aware of having
faded. A subtler influence is sufficient to stimu-
late a subtler organ, and I live as merrily here on
wind as I did in Sicily on cakes and onions.
There can be nothing more positive than a
pleasure, though it be felt by a ghost.

Alcibiades. And so you can actually smell the
old stuff ?

Democntus* Perfectly : and a very musty com-
bination of stale perfumes it is 5 and so powerful
that it would entirely overwhelm and smother the
sweet emanations of intellect, I will not say in you,
but evert in Empedocles or me or Leucippus, had
we ever defiled ourselves with such decoctions.

Alcibiades, You pretend to rail and to denounce
my former habits, which were more refined
than yours ; but 1 see by your smiling that you
are insidiously laying the flattery on me thicker
than any unguent, in the vain hope of converting
me to your extravagant opinions. For if you
could not smell my intellect what would follow ?
Surely not that I have none, since I am notori-
ously intelligent, but rather that my mighty
intellect is all of that purest sort which, as you
have explained, reacts with perfect propriety on
everything and is deliciously inodorous,

Democrittis. We shall see. Science has means

8 DIALOGUES IN

of penetrating to the most hidden things. Come
to me on another day, when there is a high wind
blowing ; it will drive the coarsely streaming
essences of your apothecary all in one direction,
which I will avoid ; but the effluvia of mind (if
any) are far more subtle than the air ^jid cannot
be swept aside by its currents , but continue to
radiate in all directions, even as the light, without
being deflected, cuts through any wind. Thus
the scent of your intellect will reach me to the
windward of you separate and unalloyed ; and
may destiny make it sweet. Then you shall know
yourself far more surely through my olfactory
sense than you ever could by ignorant reasoning
and quibbling, after the manner of Socrates.

Dionysius. By my royal authority, venerable
Democritus, I forbid you to abuse Socrates , whom
the divine Plato, my dear friend and "chief of
idealists, acknowledges for his master.

Democritus. By your royal leave, chief of dis-
semblers, I deny that you have any authority, or
.that Plato ever was your dear friend, or that the
doctrine of ideas which he purloined from Socrates
is at all precious to you, or more than a pretty
fable or play upon words. Not that I am an
enemy to idealists, though they be all sworn
enemies to me ; for I am a friend of nature s and
nature is not an enemy to anything that she
breeds. Vegetables, too, in so far as they think
at all, are dreamers and idealists, and neither
nature nor I have any quarrel with vegetables ,
What can be sweeter than the souls of flowers,

THE SCENT OF 9

which neither defend their own being nor assert
that of anything else ? There are human souls
als<3 of this innocent sort, which, though highly
scented, are far from offensive,, because like
flowers they diffuse their odours idly, not pre-
tending todescribe anything truly, and therefore
distorting nothing, but freely disseminating their
harmless fancies , like smoke curling in wreaths.
Such are the minds of poets and of our voltiptuous
friends here, Aristippus and Dionysius ; and it
would be a dull sense indeed that did not perceive
their aroma. But blooming is not knowing, and
roses and cabbages should not be founders of
sects. Your true idealist is rightly convinced
that he beholds nothing but specious and vanish-
ing objects, products of his own substance pro-
jected outwards by illusion ; and with every puff
of his humours his dream of a world is trans-
formed in his mind's eye.

Dionysius. Without intending it, you confirm
the doctrine of the divine Plato 3 that the liver is
the seat of inspiration,

Democritus. 1 rejoice in that agreement, all the
more that if that saying, as usual, was inspired,
it was not the politic Plato who uttered it in his
waking mind, but his honestly dreaming liver
that uttered it for him. Yet observe this circum-
stance : the proper secretion of the liver is bile,
fit only for internal consumption and bitter if
exuded ; and so it is also with that other product
of the liver, inspiration : a healthful and necessary
lubricant of the inner life, in fancy and poetry and

io DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

pleasant dreams , but poisonous if exuded in the
guise of action or pretended knowledge. You,
Dionysius and Aristippus, wisely abstain ffom
such an abuse of your flowering genius : you
detest action and laugh at science , and cultivate
only exquisite sensation and free discourse. For
this reason I find much pleasure in your merry
company, without cruelly investigating any opinion
which, in an unguarded moment, you may seem
to adopt. Would that your masters, Socrates and
Plato, had been as wise in this as their disciples !
An oracle admonished Socrates to know himself
and not to dabble in natural philosophy ; and in
so far as he obeyed that admonition I honour him.
For by self-knowledge he understood knowing
his own mind or thoroughly discerning what he
meant and what he loved ; whereby he framed
maxims excellent for the legislator, ancf fixed the
grammar or logic of words. But when, forgetting
the oracle , he averred that the sun and moon are
products of reason, and are intended for human
advantage, he blasphemed against those gods, as
if the blood and gall within him, proper to the
health of his little body, had burst their bounds
and filled the whole heaven. By this presumption
he turned his inspiration into sophistry, and what
should have been self-knowledge became mad-
ness and grotesque errors about the world ; and
incidentally he showed how unventilated an organ
his liver was, and when uncorked out of season
how ill-smelling ; so that when such a prophet
opens his mouth I must hold my nose.

THE SCENT OF n

Aldbiades. For that reason, probably , "yoti can
smell the Stranger so far off. He is a disciple
of Socrates.

Democritus (sniffing as before). Not altogether.
Oil and water are still being shaken up in that
cruet ; arfd no wonder, for he is still alive.

Dionysius. Still alive, and here ?

Democntus. There are evident symptoms in
him of that fever which is called life.

Aldbiades. Very true. At least he himself
says so, and professes to have some sort of an old
body still toddling on earth.

Afistippus* Why then notice him at all ? Those
who are now alive have lost the art of living.

Dionysius. Are there no barriers, no guards to
prevent such intrusions ? If such a thing is
allowed^ what becomes of our seclusion and of
our safety ? 1 appeal to Minos and Rhada-
manthus. You remember, Alcibiades, that even
purified as you and I were by death and the
funeral pyre ? we were admitted with difficulty,
The thing is incredible, and if true would be
scandalous ; and I think the act of spreading
such needless alarms should be punishable in our
commonwealth.

Democritus* Compose yourself, uneasy tyrant.
This visitor, though I can clearly perceive that
his substance is still earthly and mutable, comes
to us in the spirit only ; his flesh and bones will
not intrude here, to disturb the equilibrium of
our forms by their rude mass. Nor does alliance
with such gross matter render his spirit more

12 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

formidable : far otherwise. We are images of
bodies long since dispersed , which, being non-
existent, cannot send forth different and contrary
images to confuse or obliterate those early ones
which are our present substance : like a deed
done we are safe, and so long as we endure at all
we must retain our perfection. His flickering
mind, on the contrary. Is still receiving constantly
fresh effluvia from his earthly body, and lives In
a state of perpetual indecision and change. We
are like books long written and sealed : he is
still in the agonies of composition, and does not
know what he will become. His passage near us
In these inter-mundane spaces will not affect us ;
rather will our stable forms Impress some trembling
reflection of themselves upon his lapsing thoughts ,
as the huge immovable effigies of Egyptian
monarchs are mirrored brokenly In the flowing
Nile.

Dionysius. You forget that Heracles stole back
Alcestls from the Shades, and that Orpheus and
Odysseus and Theseus and other Intruders have
spread on earth false reports about our condition ,
much to our dishonour. Even if the impertinent
wight cannot Injure our persons here, he may
tarnish our reputations there. And who knows
If by some enchantment or by lying promises he
might not entice some one of us to relinquish
his fair place In eternity, and escape once more
into the living world ? Consider the disgrace of
that, as If a man by magic should be turned again
Into a crying and kicking child !

THE OF 13

Democntus. How many absurdities can pre-
judice pack into a few words ? You quote the
poets as if their fictions were science , you assume
that the opinions of mortals can honour or dis-
honour us, and you dread that life may call you
back, and that time may reverse and repeat itself,
as if it stammered. But indeed , you are a pupil
of the poets , and I must not grudge you the
thrills of your fantastic tragedy.

Alcibiades. Why may not Homer and the other
poets actually have visited these regions in spirit,
as the Stranger is doing to-day ? But not being
philosophers they shrank from eternity, and
depicted our state as shadowy and sad, whereas
it is neither sadder nor merrier than material
existence , but only safer , being but the truth of
that exigence, whatever it may have been. As
for this Stranger, far from disparaging our con-
dition, he professes to envy it, and slips in thus
among us whenever he is able, in order to assimi-
late his form of being as much as possible to ours.

Afistippus. In that he is wise. 1 always dwelt
in foreign republics, in order to escape the plagues
of citizenship ; and following my illustrious
example, the Stranger exiles himself from earth,
in the hope of finding elsewhere more peace and
better company. But good company requires a
sound wit to enjoy it ; and the only maxim for
pilgrims is to make merry on the way, for the
journey's end may prove disappointing. Is he
happy here ?

Alcibiades, He is civil enough to say so ; but

i 4 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

I suspect that In his heart he is a sort of poet or
idealist. The truth, though he may frigidly
assent to it, leaves him weary and cold ; and all
he asks of the world , be it here or in the realm of
mortals, is that it should suffer him to compose
a picture of what, to his mind, it ougRt to have
been.

Democritus. If that be the quality of the
Stranger's thoughts , let him approach no nearer.
Wave him away, Alcibiades, wave him away.

Alcibiades. See how when caught napping you
betray the hollowness of your pretences ! You
can smell his philosophy only when I report it to
you in audible words. You are a rank mytho-
legist, Democritus ; and your fabled scent for
philosophies is only a figure of speech, expressing
metaphorically those immaterial motions of the
thinking mind which only a thinking mind can
retrace, and which many words are needed to
convey. In saying this which I declare to be
a brief but unanswerable exposure of your
fallacies I have proved not only that I possess
an intellect much vaster than the Stranger's
(which goes without saying), but also though
before uttering this truth I will retreat to a safe
distance that my scent for philosophies is more
sagacious than yours.

Democritus (laughing). You hardly believe what
you are saying, and yet you are right, quite right.
The physician knows madness in one way ; he
collects the symptoms of it, the causes, and the
cure ; but the madman in his way knows it far

SCENT OF 15

better. The terror and glory of the illusion,
which, after all, are the madness itself, are open
only to the madman,, or to some sympathetic
spirit as prone to madness as he. Any madcap
may mimic a clown's antics, cleverly taking the
xnad words out of his mouth and telling him what
he might be fool enough to think before he has
been fool enough to think it. Such is the art of
sophists and demagogues and diviners ; an art
which perhaps Socrates has taught you, because
though he inveighs against it in others he is
eminent in it himself. Theirs is a sort of know-
ledge of illusion, a divination of waking dreams
like the player's art, which without penetrating to
the causes of appearance, plausibly represents its
forms and movement ; and in such aping and
guessing at human illusions your nimble wit,
Alcibiades, is probably quicker than mine, since
science has accustomed me to look away from
appearance and to consider only the causes of
appearance. Now in the sphere of causes illu-
sions and dreams are nothing but streams of
atoms ; words, too, and systems of philosophy, in
the realm of substance, are nothing else ; and
when a word or a dream or a system of philosophy,
having first taken shape in one soul, is by the
multiple currents in the aether transmitted to
another, this second soul repeats and mimics the
dream or word or philosophy native to the first,
and in the sphere of illusion may be said to under-
stand it ; but neither the soul first begetting that
fancy nor the soul repeating it knows anything of

16 DIALOGUES IN

that stream of motions which is its substance.
Only the sharp nose of science can follow that
aethereal trail. Thus every event in nature, being
a moving conjunction of atoms pregnant with
destiny, is but an obscure oracle to those who hear
in it only a rumble of words, or see it as a painted
image. In their ignorance of nature they must
piece out each shallow appearance with some
shallower presumption, and they are still dream-
ing when they interpret their dreams. In crowds
the poor busy lunatics run down daily to the agora
to gather rumours and gossip and to fortify their
madness with that of the majority : yet mean-
time, perhaps, in the solitude of the temple, some
silent augur scents the course of the atoms and
sees the intent of the gods. To him the scornful
smile of Apollo in its radiance brings a joy mixed
with terror ; he must laugh at the triumph of
nature, ever renewed and glorious in the midst
of human folly ; yet he must tremble at the ruin
of his country and of his soul.

Thus in the sphere of nature the whole life
of mind is a normal madness. Perception and
passion and painted thoughts are all illusions ;
and all human philosophy, except science reckon-
ing without images, is but madness systematic,
putting on a long face. Reason dawns upon
mortals only in the last thought of all, when seeing
that nothing is real save the atoms and the void
(not as fancy may picture them but as they truly
are), the mind crowns itself for the supreme
sacrifice, and lays down all its flowering illusions

THE SCENT OF 17

upon the altar of truth. Not that, so long as life
lasts 5 appearance can disappear , or that images and
sounding words can cease to flow as in a dream,
since these have their substance and perpetual
cause in the rhythmic dance and balance of the
atoms, which sing that song, like a chorus in 'a
comedy. If there were no appearance there could
be no opinion and no knowledge of truth ; and
true science in discounting appearance does not
dismiss appearance , but sees substance through
it ; for the face of truth cannot be unveiled to
mortals by any novelty or exchange of images , but
only when in some deep and contrite moment of
understanding the mask of ancient illusion be-
comes transparent altogether, loses its magic with-
out losing its form, and turns into disillusion*

Accordingly, if in calling me a mythologist
you 5 clever rascal, had a playful desire to vex me,
you missed your mark. It is not easy to vex a
lover of nature. He is already well aware of his
own inevitable frailty, and entirely expects that
young monkeys, naturally more foolish than
himself, should mock him in their wantonness.
Believe me, Alcibiades, I would rather have you
rail than lisp. Socrates was a bad master for you ;
by preaching virtue and abstinence he filled you
with admiration for his doctrine, but you went
on lisping, and were every day softer and more
corrupt. Cajolery and eloquence and argument
simply propagate prejudice, to which alone they
appeal, whereas the truth, if a man saw it, would
make him silent. I was indeed a mythologist in

c

1 8 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

saying that philosophies smell. Scent is only an
appearance to me : a philosophy is only an appear-
ance to the philosopher ; and neither can one
appearance be a quality of another, nor can any
appearance be a part of the substance which
produces it. There is a motion of atoms in the
sophist and a motion of atoms in me ; yet these
pure motions, dreamer that I am, I call and feel
to be a foul odour in him and a rising displeasure
in myself. What madness is this, that when a
plain reality is before me, I behold not that reality
but an appearance wholly unlike it ? Yet the
night was appointed for dreams, and myths are
the joy of children. Let us not quarrel with fate ;
but as the myths of Greek poets are truer to nature
and sweeter to a healthy mind than the myths of
the barbarians, so may the dreams of ooe philo-
sopher be sweeter and saner than those of another :
and with this wisdom I am content, to be sober
and frank in my folly.

Alcibiades. You have magnanimously rewarded
my gibes with a profound answer which they did
not deserve.

Dionysius. Democritus was not replying to you,
but like the great mythologist that he professes to
be, he was nobly carried away by his own afflatus ;
and without pretending to understand what he
said (which is probably not intelligible) we were
all charmed, I am sure, with the fragrance of his
words. There is one phrase in particular which
he let fall which I wish he might develop at
leisure, I mean normal madness, Plato has on

THE SCENT OF 19

that subject some wonderful and comforting
thoughts 5 showing us the divine wisdom of being
sometimes mad ; and Euripides in his Bacchae,
a rapturous and mystical tragedy, has expressed
the same truths in action. Let Democritus com-
plete the picture and prove to us on medical
grounds the necessity of a divine madness in all
men, and especially in himself. It will be a novel
discourse, in which comedy and tragedy will be
combined with science.

Democritus, Madness is a large subject ; it
would require a formal disquisition which would
weary you all, and especially Aristippus, who does
not find enough pleasure in knowledge to deem
it a good.

Aristippus. I am indeed indifferent to know-
ledge, wfeich in itself is neither pleasant not un-
pleasant, but 1 am far from indifferent to your
discourses , which are always agreeable ; and I
should have a particular pleasure in hearing you
speak about madness ; you would not fail to
illustrate the subject amusingly, both by describ-
ing the absurdities of others and by exhibiting
your own. So pungent and novel a confession
should not be missed.

Alcibiades. I join in urging you to consent*
for I believe you will show that madness, even if
common and inevitable, is not divine, but bestial,
and that if a divine inspiration sometimes descends
on us in madness, whether in prophecy or love,
it comes to dissipate that madness and to heal it ;
for Socrates says (and, I think 5 truly) that the best

20 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

Inspiration that can visit the soul Is reason ; and
he quotes Homer in support of his opinion , where
Hector cries :

" The best of omens is our country's good."

Democfitus. A truce to Homer and to Socrates !
I have already observed that in the sphere of
nature , where there is no better or worse , reason
itself is a form of madness , since it comes to
establish that vain distinction In obedience to
human passions and interests. But the under-
standing of this matter requires a fresh mind,, not
cloyed with disputation ; and we will defer it, If
you please , to another occasion.

11

VIVISECTION OF A MIND

AldUades. With some difficulty, Sage of
Abdera, I have led back the Stranger into your
presence, because he had overheard you express-
ing the intention of separating him into his
elements ; and although the vivisection is to be
of the spirit only, and will not kill him 5 he fears
it may hurt his feelings.

Demoffitus. He deserves to suffer, if he is not
willing to discover how he is composed. A
philosopher cannot wish to wear a mask in his
own eyes or in those of the world, nor can he be
ashamed of being what he is, since the scorn or
the praises of men are but unsubstantial opinions,
foolish and only important to themselves ; and
he knows that he too is a part of nature, entirely
explicable and necessary,

The Stranger. In this as in much else, venerable
Sage, I am your convinced disciple, and neither
ashamed to be what I am nor averse from knowing
it* Nevertheless, there are garments which those
who are not young or beautiful do well to wear,
not because they wish to deceive themselves or
others concerning their bodily form or infirmities.

21

22 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

but because it is not seemly to display without
necessity things not pleasing to the eye ; and I
fear that my thoughts, in this exalted society, may
not seem worthy of exposure.

Democritus. Be reassured. I know that Alcibi-
ades is already your friend ; and if Dionysius or
Aristippus, who are frivolous wits, should mock
you in an unmannerly fashion, they shall be
severely rebuked and restrained by me. To the
physician the diseases which the vulgar call loath-
some, and the animals which they call reptiles and
worms, are all worthy of attentive study ; and
even if you seemed a monster to human con-
vention, to the eye of science you would be neither
ridiculous nor unexpected.

The Stranger, No : but I might be common-
place and unimportant, and therefore better left
in the shade.

Democritus. You would not have found your
way into this placid heaven if you did not love
the light ; and if you love the light, why should
you fear it ? Let me observe at once, in order
to encourage you, that in one respect you are no
ordinary person, since you are my disciple.
Superstition is as rife in your time as it was in
mine. The vapours of vanity exuding from the
brain if blown away here must gather there into
some new phantom for fools to worship ; and it
requires courage to stand alone, smiling at those
inevitable follies, and recognizing the immense
disproportion between nature and man, and her
reptilian indifference to her creatures. They are

VIVISECTION OF A MIND 23

of her own substance, Indeed, which must return
to her undiminished : and meantime she spawns
them without remorse at their hard and ephemeral
fortunes. Even her favours are ironical ; and if
she lend anybody strength, unless it be the
strength erf reason, it serves only to prolong his
agony, and enable him to trample more cruelly
and obstinately on all the rest. The severity of
reason in disabusing us of these vain passions
shows true kindness to the soul ; nor is it a
morose severity, but paternal and indulgent
towards every amiable pleasure ; for nature Is
nothing but the sum of her creatures, and laughs
and rejoices In them mightily when they are
beautiful and strong. Of these triumphs of
nature in us true philosophy Is the greatest, by
which sjhe understands herself. You, in becom-
ing my disciple, have tasted something of that
purest joy ; and not only have become in that
measure excellent and unassailable, but any
morbid or rotten parts that may remain In you
by accident should be objects of Indifference and
cold observation to you, as not portions of your
free mind ; and if by my help you can disown
and extirpate them, you will never again have
cause to blush or to tremble, I will not say before
men, but before the gods and the decrees of fate.
Much less need you tremble before us here, who
are but shades and wraiths of the thinnest atoms.
We shall be grateful to you even for your vices ;
they will have the savour of the living world,
which the gods love to inhale ; and in you we

24 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

shall see a specimen of the fauna , curious if not
beautiful, that flourishes to-day.

The Stranger. I am afraid that even in that
capacity I am not worth dissecting. I have been
a stranger in all my dwelling-places , and I should
hardly have strayed into this sanctuary if I had
been a man of my own time.

Democritus, You are mistaken. Small differ-
ences , at close quarters, seem to you great ; in
reality you are but one leaf in the tree. That
you should turn for comfort to our pallid sun is
no wonder : all your souls are in the dark ; you
have bred a monstrous parasite that envelops
you, and cuts off your own sunlight. How
astonishing this tree of yours looks at a distance,
the giant of the ages, with its crown of unheard-of
tentacles, like streaming grasses, spreading far
into the aether ! But on inspection what a flimsy
marvel it all is, how sterile and unhappy ! These
far-reaching organs are but machines ; they drop
no seeds ; they have no proper life ; and the sad
stump on which they are grafted, your naked
human nature, must supply them all with sap,
else in one season they would shrivel and drop
to pieces, nor would the least plan or the least
love of them subsist anywhere in nature, whence
they might be reborn. Meantime the proper
fruits and seeds of your species are lost or stunted,
and it is doubtful whether mankind, smothered
under its inventions and tools, will not dry up at
the root and perish with them,

The Stranger. I do not think so. The tools

VIVISECTION OF A 25

and those pale men and nations that are the slaves of
tools will no doubt disappear in time ; such arts
have probably been invented and lost many times
before. But there is a lusty core in the human
animal that survives all revolutions ; and when the
conflagration is past, I seem to see the young hunters
with their dogs, camping among the ruins.

Democritus. Human wit is seldom to be trusted
in prophecy. The mind thinks in gaudy images
and nature moves in dark currents of molecular
change, careless whether those images repeat
themselves or not like rhymes. What is your
present plight ? Dispersion and impotence of
soul. Here a vein of true knowledge ; there a
vestige of prudent morality ; perhaps a secret
love ; idle political principles that alienate you
from poetics ; a few luxurious and vapid arts ;
and, poisoning the rest of your economy, the taint
of antique superstition, for which you have no
antidote. The wonder is that you exist at all,
for life demands some measure of harmony.

The Stranger. May there not be a kind of
harmony in non-interference, when each circle
in the state or each interest of the mind lives its
inner life apart, yet in things indifferent and
external they pull well enough together, like the
team of a four-horse chariot ?

Democritus* Four horses are by nature four
separate bodies, which only the reins and harness
have yoked together, whereas in a well-ordered
city or in a living mind all the parts form one
system by a vital necessity ; unless, indeed, as

26 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

seems to be the case with you, that mind or that
city is not a living unit at all, but a colony. You
think appearance pleasant and important, but
substance you think unimportant and unpleasant :
an accident which could not befall you if you had
a whole soul.

The Stranger. I wish I might find appearance
always pleasant and important ; but as to sub-
stance, since the better and the worse are a part
of appearance 5 is not substance necessarily in-
different ?

Democritus. There Is indeed no wisdom like
that of the atoms, which, being compelled to move
by fate, move without caring whither. But when
by this very motion life and will have arisen, and
the foolish heart must be set on something, It Is
the part of a relative wisdom to set it on jjie truth.
Such was my good fortune, and in some measure
that of my nation. Now circumstances have
condemned you to be all your lives students of
error, of sensation, fiction, fancy, and false philo-
sophies ; by all of which your spirits, If not
deceived, have been sadly bemused. You are
content at best to salute the truth from a distance,
with a facile gesture ; you have never delved In
her garden or eaten her wholesome fruits ; and
if ever she opens her divine lips and vouchsafes
to address you, you begin to mumble to your-
selves some old canticle till you fall asleep.

The Stranger. Is not the truth about error a
part of the truth ? Can the living, whose whole
life Is a dream, know any other part of it ?

VIVISECTION OF A MIND 27

Democritus. The dreamer can know no truth,
not even about his dream, except by awaking out
of it. If you spin one dream to explain another,
as do your talking philosophers, how will you
ever come out of the labyrinth ? The physician,
who is the only veritable soothsayer, will inquire
concerning your diet, and the causes of your
dream, and will perhaps dispel those vapours.
There is no other truth to be learned from dreams,
and the science of them is also a medicine.

Alcibiades* When I was a child and learned
Homer by heart, I became, so to speak, his pupil
in my dreams ; and that was a benefit to me,
because some dreams are better than others, and
Homer's are the best. The Stranger has had
many masters of that kind, and he may have
learned the truth about them merely by comparing
one with another and, all within the realm of
dreams, perceiving which was best. That is a
truth about them, as it seems to nie 5 more
important than their causes.

Democntus. Is the nature of truth known to
you, young man, that you can tell whether the
Stranger, in preferring one dream to another^
discerns a truth or not ? Are you not both of
you habitually employed in jesting and scoffing
and making fanciful speeches ? How many times,
for once that you mention the atoms and the void,
do you not mention beauty ?

Alcibiades. Beauty, as Socrates would prove to
you if you would listen, is the truest of things.

Democritus. Nonsense, Beauty is a fleeting

28 DIALOGUES IN

appearance ; and though the Stranger (wiser, I
admit 5 In this respect than either you or Socrates)
knows that it is an appearance, he nevertheless
cherishes it more than reality : such is the mixture
of waking and dreaming , of health and rottenness ,
in his composition.

The Stranger. Can the surgeon's knife , Demo-
critus, separate appearance from reality ?

Democritus. No, indeed : and I am far from
blaming you for seeing the beautiful, when the
atoms passing In clouds before your eyes or
through the ventricles of your body waft the
scent of beauty upon you : It Is not your fault
that they do so, I too must see colours In the
flowers and must hear the sweet warbling of the
fountain or the flute, But when I see them I
mock them, and when I hear them I remember
faithfully the true causes of sound : because
though I am alive and must behold appearances,
I am sane and can know reality. But you, my
friend, are too often delirious ; and though that
Is a frequent accident in fever and In dreams. It
Is a disgrace to a professed philosopher and a
nuisance to a man of sense,

The Stranger. I confess that sometimes the
fair vision intercepts my reason, and the passers-
by point at me In derision for standing amazed
at nothing in particular and seeing gods In the
commonest creatures. It Is as* if the light of
sense were a divine medium on which the moving
matter of things could make no other Impression
than to evoke their eternal forms.

VIVISECTION OF A 29

Democritus. I know, I know. Moonstruck In
the sunshine. It is a bad symptom.

Aldbiades. Is this circumstance of being sub-
ject to pleasant trances the only disease that you
discover In the Stranger ?

Democritus. Not at all : out of consideration to
a guest I have begun with the least obnoxious.
Sensation is In itself a symptom of health, coming
when the body passes from rest to some appro-
priate action ; and a trance is but the momentary
suspension of this action, the tension which
prepares it alone remaining : and in a lazy man,
whose actions in any case are slow and trivial,
such suspension makes no great difference. Yet
a philosopher cannot be subject to trances with
Impunity. Dwelling fondly on images, he very
likely "wHl say to himself that they are not only
lovelier than substance, but somehow surer and
more exalted ; and who knows what metaphysical
nonsense he will presently be talking about them,
as If inspired ? Is not the Stranger a disciple of
Plato as well as of me ?

The Stranger. Indeed I am, but without con-
tradiction. In respect to the substance and origin
of things I profess allegiance to you only : In such
matters Plato, knowing his own Ignorance, was
always playful s inventing or repeating such myths
as he thought edifying for children or for patriots.
Yet when he closed his eyes on this inconstant
world he was a great seer. I honour and follow
him for what then he saw, which was a heaven of
Ideas, rich in constellations ; I disregard the trick

3 o DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

of words or the superstitious impulse by which
he added something which he certainly could not
see 5 namely , that those ideas were substances and
powers ruling the world. Such a notion is not
only false to the facts but vapid in logic. Things
take what shapes they can, as a poet bubbles with
the words of his mother-tongue which his present
passion evokes : the words chosen cannot have
chosen him or created his passion. So without
deeming words sacred or ideas magical I am a
friend of both, and I wait for the flux of matter
to bring them to light as it will in its infinite
gyrations.

Alcibiades. Why are you displeased with a fair
answer ? Philosophers are as jealous as women ;
each wants a monopoly of praise.

Democritus. I am not jealous of Venus ;^ou may
praise the meretricious Muse of a Plato as much
as you please ; but 1 warn you as a physician
that these rapturous fancies are signs of a feeble
health : they comport effeminacy in action.

Dionysius (aside to Aristippus). Now that he
has touched on effeminacy he will soon be railing
at us also. Any refined nature seems effeminate
to the old savage.

Democritus. Yes, my royal friend, although I
cannot hear you plainly, I know what you are
murmuring. You may apply all that I am about
to say to your own person and regard yourself as
accused and convicted. Yet the Stranger's is the
worse case. You at least were a king, Aristippus
was an adventurer, Alcibiades was the equal of

VIVISECTION OF A MIND 31

kings and the seducer of queens. All three of
you could flaunt your effeminacy upon a public
stage, your masquerade became a sort of action,
you threw your all into the fray and made a gallant
pose of your treason. But a private and obscure
person like the Stranger has only Ms small heart
In which to display his inventions, and must be
more deeply and silently consumed by their
vanity. Man is a fighting animal, his thoughts
are his banners , and It is a failure of nerve In
him if they are only thoughts. A philosopher
especially, whatever his birth or station, Is com-
missioned by the gods. He may raise his voice
against folly ; In his own person he may be stern,
stripping himself bare of all human entanglements.
Ferocity becomes him, as It does the lion ; and
if no will be his companion In a life of virtue,
he can resolutely walk alone. His mere example
will be a power, or If not, at least his self-assertion
will be an action. But If he sits In his closet,
fancifully rebuilding the universe or reforming
the state, he is little better than a maniac ; or
if in sauntering through the market-place and
observing Its villainies, because his nook Is safe
and his liver Is in good order, he tolerates the
spectacle, he is like a woman In the theatre
shuddering at the tragedy and eating sweets.

Aristippw. Wise man too, if he does so. I
pronounce It worthier of a philosopher to eat
sweets than to count the number of the atoms,
and less foolish to smile or to shudder at the world
than to attempt to reform It. If in watching such

32 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

an inglorious tragedy and such a dull comedy as
the earth presents in Ms day, the Stranger can
still be merry and relish his small comforts , I beg
to be allowed to honour him for his good nature.
Do not think, excellent Traveller, that among the
Shades all philosophers are scolds, singly bent on
browbeating people into a meddlesome virtue
which is always half criminal. There is wisdom
here of another stripe, and if you bravely make
the best of a crazy world, eternity is full of
champions that will defend you.

The Stranger. Both of you, Democritus and
Aristippus, seem to me to have spoken justly : in
your censure and encouragement alike there is
good counsel, and I thank you both for your
words. Intrepid virtue, O Sage of Abdera, is a
gift of the gods 3 and how often do they b^tow it ?
You yourself were no Pythagoras, nor even a
Diogenes. As for me, disillusion was my earliest
friend, and never were chagrin and hope strong
enough to persuade me that anything was to be
gained by rebelling against fortune. Men may
sometimes destroy what they hate : that will be
a ferocious joy to them, although perhaps a sorrow
to others more reasonable than they. But never
by any possibility can men establish what they
love ; once there, the dreamt-of object is another
and a ghastly thing. Unless, then, they are to
fret away their lives in impotent hatred, the living
must find something amiable in things transitory
and imperfect, the fruits of circumstance and of
custom. We are such fruits ourselves, and our

VIVISECTION OF A 33

hearts have no prerogative in the large household
of nature. Each of us indeed has his animal
strength, and., if he has unravelled them, his
constant loves ; and the way always lies open to
adventure ^jid sometimes to art. Had there been
some wise prophet in my day, summoning man-
kind to an ordered and noble life, I should gladly
have followed him, not having myself the gift of
leadership. I should not have asked him for the
absolute truth nor for an earthly paradise ; I
should have been content with a placid monastery
dedicated to study or with a camp of comrades in
the desert. But I found no master. Those who
beat the drum or rang the church-bell in my time
were unhappy creatures, trying to deceive them-
selves. Better not be a hero than, work oneself
up intoTferoism by shouting lies. Green, quiet
places and boyish sports are more moralizing than
these moralists. I should honour heroic virtue if
it were sane and beneficent ; but I find satis-
faction also, and perhaps oftener, in little things.

Dionysim. Experience speaks through the
Stranger's mouth. In my varied life I ran the
whole gamut of human occupations and pleasures
and, among them all, I remember now with the
greatest satisfaction those which came unasked
and departed unregretted, like my kingly crown.
The beautiful is a wing&d essence, and a wise
Psyche does not seek to detain her lover.

AldUades. Democritus, who Is the wisest of
us here, nevertheless demands a bold spirit ; it
may be but a more impetuous vortex of atoms,

D

34 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

yet there is a hazard In it more glorious than
slackness. I think it a defect of nature in a man
with a clear mind not to have also an imperious
will : knowing his most secret and profound
desires and seeing his opportunities he should
leap to the goal. My conclusion is, then, that
to love the beautiful, even if it be only an appear-
ance, is no disease in the Stranger or in any other
creature, but it is indeed a disease not to love
glory and material dominion.

Democritus. Disease is a word employed con-
ventionally ; it has no meaning in nature. Neither
the Stranger nor a dead dog suffers any corrup-
tion, if his present state or immediate promise
be the standard for his perfection : happy they
if they relish their fate. I was speaking of a
philosopher whose perfection is set on feowledge
of the truth and on friendship with nature. The
Stranger admits that nothing is beautiful In itself,
yet he cultivates the illusion that many things are
beautiful ; he confesses that a barbarous life Is
an evil to his soul, yet lie condones the barbar-
ism of the world, and pleases himself In it. I
therefore conclude that his is a torpid organism,
disjointed, and Incapable of fighting its way
victoriously to the easement of Its own lusts. To
an eye that follows the multiform life of nature,
a whole lion Is nobler than half a man.

The Stranger, And for this pitiful lameness
In my soul, can you propose a remedy ?

Democritus. Yes s if you will allow me to
change your ancestors, your bodily complexion.

VIVISECTION OF A MIND 35

your breeding, and the time and place of your
existence. On that condition, I agree to obliterate
every trace of disease or sluggishness in your
constitution.

TJie Stranger. I salute that admirable being,
designed by Democritus, that should have borne
my name, and I wish him a glorious life, if ever
he arises. Meantime I beg leave to go and finish
on earth the allotted term of my present illness,
and I bid my incomparable doctor farewell, until
another visit.

Akibiades (aside to the Stranger, as the latter
prepares to depart). You see that you had nothing
to fear. The old man has cut you up without
hurting you.

The Stranger. The operation was unnecessary,
and has^iot been painless, but I might have fallen
into worse hands. It is a new form of health to
be inured to disease, and in that sense, like a true
wonder-worker, this physician has sent me away
cured.

Ill

NORMAL MADNESS

Democritm, You reappear In season, inquisitive
Pilgrim, and to-day you must take a seat beside
me. These young men are compelling my hoary
philosophy to disclose the cause of all the follies
that they perpetrated when alive. They still
wear, as you see, their youthful and lusty aspect ;
for when we enter these gates Minos and Rhada-
manthus restore to each of us the semblance of
that age at which his spirit on earth had been
most vivid and masterful and least bent by
tyrant circumstance out of its natural straightness.
Therefore Alcibiades and Dionysius and Aris-
tippus walk here in the flower of their youth, and
I sit crowned with all the snows and wisdom of
extreme old age ; because their souls, though
essentially noble, grew daily more distracted in
the press of the world and more polluted, but
mine by understanding the world grew daily
purer and stronger. They are still ready for every
folly, though luckily they lack the means ; and
the chronicle of vanity remains full of interest
for them 9 because they are confident of shining
in it. Yet the person whom this subject most

NORMAL 37

nearly touches Is you, since you are still living,,
and life is at once the quintessence and the sum
of madness. Here our spirits can be mad only
vicariously and at the second remove, as the
verses in v^hich Sophocles expresses the ravings
of Ajax are themselves sanely composed, and a
calm image of horror. But your thoughts, in the
confusion and welter of existence, are still re-
bellious to metre ; you cannot yet rehearse your
allotted part, as we do here, with the pause
and pomp of a posthumous self-knowledge. My
discourse on madness , therefore, will not only
celebrate your actions, but may open your eyes ;
and I assign to you on this occasion the place of
honour, as nearest of kin to the goddess Mania^
who to-day presides over our games,

There is little philosophy not contained in the
distinction between things as they exist in nature^
and things as they appear to opinion ; yet both
the substance and its appearance often bear the
same name, to the confusion of discourse. So it
is with the word madness, which sometimes desig-
nates a habit of action , sometimes an illusion of
the mind, and sometimes only the opprobrium
which a censorious bystander may wish to cast
upon either,

Moralists and ignorant philosophers like
Socrates of whom women and young men often
think so highly do not distinguish nature from
convention, and because madness is inconvenient
to society they call it contrary to nature. But
nothing can be contrary to nature ; and that a

38 DIALOGUES IN

man should shriek or see wild visions or talk to the
air, or to a guardian genius at his elbow, or should
kill his children and himself, when the thing
actually occurs, is not contrary to nature, but only
to the habit of the majority. The diseases which
destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts
which preserve him. Nature has no difficulty
in doing what she does, however wonderful or
horrible it may seem to a fancy furnished only
with a few loose images and incapable of tracing
the currents of substance ; and she has no hostility
to what she leaves undone and no longing to do
it. You will find her in a thousand ways un-
making what she makes, trying again where
failure is certain, and neglecting the fine feats
which she once easily accomplished, as if she had
forgotten their secret. How simple it was once
to be a Greek and ingenuously human ; yet
nature suffered that honest humanity to exist
only for a few doubtful years. It peeped once
into being, like a weed amid the crevices of those
Aegean mountains, and all the revolving aeons
will not bring it back. Nature is not love-sick ;
she will move on ; and if to the eye of passion
her works seem full of conflict, vanity, and horror,
these are not horrors, vanities, or conflicts to her,
She is no less willing that we should be mad than
that we should be sane. The fly that prefers
sweetness to a long life may drown in honey ;
nor is an agony of sweetness forbidden by nature
to those inclined to sing or to love.

Moral terms are caresses or insults and describe

NORMAL MADNESS 39

nothing ; but they have a meaning to the heart,
and are not forbidden. You may, therefore,

without scientific error, praise madness or deride

it. Your own disposition and habit will dictate
these judgements. A weak and delicate animal
like man could have arisen only in an equable
climate, in which at all seasons he might hunt
and play, and run naked or gaily clad according
to his pleasure : he therefore at first regards the
Hyperborean regions, where summer and winter
are sharply contrasted, as cruel and uninhabitable ;
yet if by accident or necessity he becomes hardened
to those changes, he begins to think his native
forests pestiferous and fit only for snakes and
monkeys. So it is also with the climates of the
mind. Every nation thinks its own madness
normal and requisite ; more passion and more
fancy it calls folly, less it calls imbecility. Of
course, according to nature, to possess no fancy
and no passion is not to possess too little, and a
stone is no imbecile ; while to have limitless
passion and fancy is not to have too much, and
a drone among bees or a poet among men is not
a fool for being all raptures. In the moralist
aspiration is free to look either way* If some
gymnosophist sincerely declares that to move or
to breathe or to think is vanity, and that to become
insensible is the highest good, in that it abolishes
illusion and all other evils, to him 1 object nothing ;
if starkness is his treasure, let him preserve it*
If on the other hand Orpheus or Pythagoras or
Plato, having a noble contempt for the body,

40 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

aspire to soar In a perpetual ecstasy, and If with
their eyes fixed on heaven they welcome any
accidental fall from a throne or from a housetop
as a precious liberation of their spirits , fluttering
to be free, again I oppose nothing to their satisfac-
tion : let them hug Icarian madness to their
bosoms, as being the acme of bliss and glory.

What, Aristlppus and DIonysius, are you so
soon asleep ? I confidently expected you at this
point to applaud my oration. But sleep on. If you
prefer dreams to an understanding of dreams.

Perhaps you others, whose wits are awake, may
ask me how, if in nature there be nothing but
atoms In motion, madness conies to exist at all.
I will not reply that motion and division are them-
selves Insanity, although wise men have said so ;
for if division and motion are the deepest nature
of things. Insanity would be rather the vain wish
to impose upon them unity and rest. For by
sanity I understand assurance and peace in being
what one Is, and In becoming what one must
become ; so that the void and the atoms, unruffled
and ever ready, are eminently sane. Not so ?
however, those closed systems which the atoms
often form by their cyclical motion : these systems
are automatic ; they complete and repeat them-
selves by an Inward virtue whenever circum-
stances permit ; yet even when circumstances do
not permit, they madly endeavour to do so* This
mad endeavour, when only partially defeated ,
may restore and propagate itself with but slight
variations, and it Is then called life. Of life

NORMAL 41

madness is an inseparable and sometimes a pre-
dominant part : every living body is mad in so far
as it is inwardly disposed to permanence when
things about it are unstable, or is inwardly dis-
posed to change when, the circumstances being
stable, there is no occasion for changing. That
which is virtue in season is madness out of season,
as when an old man makes love ; and Prometheus
or Alexander attempting incredible feats is a
miracle of sanity, if he attempts them at the right
moment.

So much for madness in action, inevitable
whenever the impulses of bodies run counter to
opportunity. But life, both in its virtue and in
its folly, is also expressed in fancy , creating the
world of appearance. In the eye of nature all
appearance is vain and a mere dream , since it adds
something to substance which substance is not ;
and it is no less idle to think what is true than to
think what is false. If ever appearance should
become ashamed of being so gratuitous and like
an old gossip should seek to excuse its garrulity
by alleging its truth, neither the void nor the atoms
would heed that excuse or accept it. Are they,
forsooth, insecure that they should call upon that
sleepy witness to give testimony to their being ?
Their being is indomitable substance and motion
and action, and to add thought, impalpable and
ghostly, is to add madness. Indeed fancy as if
aware of its vanity, makes holiday as long as it
can ; its joy is in fiction, and it would soon fade
and grow weary if it had to tell the truth. The

42 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

heroes in the Iliad, instead of doing a man's work
in silence, like honest atoms, love to recite their
past exploits and to threaten fresh deeds of blood :
had they respected reality they would have been
content to act, but they must prate and promise,
because they live by imagination. If their boasts
are lies, as is probable, they are all the more elated.
These fools might almost have perceived their own
idiocy, if they had merely described their true
actions, saying, " I am standing on two legs ; I
am hurling a spear, I am running away, I am lying
flat and dead on the ground. ?? The truth, my
friends, is not eloquent, except unspoken ; its
vast shadow lends eloquence to our sparks of
thought as they die into it. After all there was
some sense in that nonsense of Socrates about
the sun and moon being governed by reason, for
they go their rounds soberly, without talking or
thinking.

That the intoxication of life is the first cause
of appearance you have all observed and experi-
enced when you have danced in a chorus , or per-
formed your military exercises, stamping on the
ground in unison and striking your swords
together ; ordered motion being naturally fertile
in sound, in flashing light, and in gladness. Such
appearances, in the safe and liberal life of a god,
would not be deceptive, since a god need not be
concerned about his own existence, which is secure,
or that of other things, which is indifferent, and
he is not tempted to assert falsely, as men do ?
that sound and splendour and gladness are the

NORMAL 43

substance of those things or of himself. In him

the intoxication of life In creating appearance
would not create illusion, but only an innocent
and divine joy. Accordingly, when the voice of a

god traverses the air, the burden of It is neither
true nor false ; only the priest or the people,
anxiously interpreting that oracle according to
their fears and necessities, render false or true by
their presumption such scraps of It as they may
hear. The god, however, was not mindful of
them but was singing to himself his own song.
This divine simplicity of nature Is ill understood
by mortals, who address everything to their mean
uses and vain advantage ; whereby in the struggle
to lengthen their days a little they fill them with
distraction.

This is a third and most virulent form of mad-
ness ? In which the dreams of the vegetative soul
are turned Into animal error and animal fury.
For animals cannot wait for the slow mlnistra-
trations of earth and air, but as you see In birds
and kittens and young children, must be in a
fidget to move ; prying In all directions and
touching and gobbling everything within reach.
This is their only entertainment, for they have
lost all fine inner sensibility, and their feelings
and fancies arise only when their whole soul is
addressed to external things of which they are
necessarily Ignorant- -for what can a simpleton
know of the streams of atoms actually coursing
about him ? His mind Is furnished only with
feelings and Images generated within, but being

44 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

distracted by the urgency of his lusts and fears,
he takes those images and feelings for pleasant
lures or fantastic and stalking enemies. Thus
whereas locomotion by itself would be unconscious
and fancy by itself would be innocent and free
from error, fancy married with locomotion, as it
must be in the strife of animals, begets false
opinion and wraps the naked atoms in a veil of
dreams.

Such is the origin of opinion ; and as the chief
endeavour of the animal body is to defend and
propagate itself at all costs, so the chief and most
lasting illusion of the mind is the illusion of its
own importance. What madness to assert that
one collocation of atoms or one conjunction of
feelings is right or is better* and another is wrong
or is worse ! Yet this baseless opinion every
living organism emits in its madness, contradict-
ing the equal madness of ail its rivals. They say
the stars laugh at us for this, but what is their own
case ? The sun and the planets may seem to
gaping observation to lead a sane life, having
found paths of safety ; yet to the sharp eye of
science the ambush is visible into which they glide,
If they think themselves immortal gods, and feast
and laugh together as they revolve complacently,
they are mad, because a sudden surprise awaits
them, and the common doom. Had they been
wise, like philosophers who know themselves
mortal, they should have consented and made
ready to die, seeing that they are not pure atoms
or the pure void, and that in forming them nature

NORMAL MADNESS 45

was not In earnest but playing. They would have
done well to laugh. If they had laughed at them-
selves ; for those who will not laugh with nature
in her mockery and playfulness , turn her sport
first into delusion and then Into anguish.

Such being the nature and causes of madness ,
Is there no remedy for it ? In answering this
question I broach the second and kindlier part of
my discourse, when having described the disease
I bring hope of health and prescribe the cure. A
radical cure, though It exists, 1 will not propose
to you, for you are young and Inquisitive and
not ready to renounce all life and all knowledge.
Only some great and heroic sage can begin by
disowning madness altogether and felling the tree
of opinion at the root ; nor would he, by leaping
Into total salvation, attain to any understanding
of his former distress. In abolishing illusion he
would have forgotten Its existence and virtually
denied It ; so that for the blatant errors of his
lusty years he would have substituted one great
mute and perpetual error : the total Ignorance
which besets the atoms regarding the patterns
and the dreams which In fact they generate.
Suddenly to renounce all madness Is accordingly
to miss the truth about madness, together with
the whole comic rout of this world, which Is
marvellously fertile In comedy.

My physic accordingly will be more gentle ;
1 will not prescribe instant death as the only
medicine. Wisdom Is an evanescent madness,
when the dream still continues but no longer

46 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

deceives. In all Illusions there is some truth ,
since being products of nature they all have some
relation to nature , and a prudent mind by lifting
their masks may discover their true occasions.
Doubtless the number and swiftness of the atoms ,
even in a little space, must always elude human
discernment ; but the more foolish images of
sense may be disallowed in favour of others more
faithful to the true rhythms and divisions of nature.
Thus to the Innocent eye the six stout spokes of a
chariot-wheel revolving rapidly are merged and
blurred In one whirling disc ; but the philosopher,
though no less subject than other men to this
illusions, on seeing the disc will remember the
spokes, and in all his fevers and griefs will be
mindful of the atoms ; his forced illusions will
not deceive him altogether, since he knows their
cause, and It is in his power, if the worst befall,
by a draught of atoms artfully mingled , to dispel
all his griefs and fevers for ever. Meantime, In
the Interests of human life, without inquiring into
Its ultimate vanity, a conventional distinction may
be drawn between madness and sanity. Belief In
the imaginary and desire for the impossible will
justly be called madness ; but those habits and
Ideas will be conventionally called sane which are
sanctioned by tradition and which, when followed,
do not lead directly to the destruction of oneself
or of one's country. Such conventional sanity Is
a normal madness like that of Images In sense,
love In youth, and religion among nations.

Two protecting deities^ indeed, like two sober

NORMAL MADNESS 47

friends supporting a drunkard , flank human folly
and keep it within bounds. One of these deities
is Punishment, and the other Agreement. The
very mad man chokes , starves , runs into the sea,
or having committed some fearful rape or murder
is sentenced to death by the magistrate. Even
if harmless, he is tied with a chain, and dies like
a dog in his kennel. Punishment thus daily
removes the maddest from the midst of mankind.
The remnant, though their thoughts be in their
homely way still dull or fantastic , then plod on
in relative safety 5 while the unhappy souls whom
Punishment has overtaken rest from their troubles.
For no sooner has the system of atoms forming
an animal body lost its equilibrium and been
dispersed in death, than no pain or fancy or
haggard hope subsists in that system any longer*
and the peace of indifference and justice returns
to the world ; and if here or in. the memory of
men some echo of that life reverberates, it rings
without anguish, the note once sounded repeating
itself perpetually, pure and undisturbed. This
is the good work which Punishment does daily,
healing and harmonizing the worst of follies.

Yet before dying in the arms of Punishment
madness may be mitigated and tamed by Agree-
ment, like a young colt broken in and trained to
gallop in harness. The automatism of life, which
is necessarily spontaneous and blind, may by
adjustment with its occasions become a principle
of health and genius, the parent of noble actions
and beautiful works* Fancy, too, ia creating

48 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

Images which have no originals in nature since
in nature there is nothing but atoms and the void
may by union with the times and order of
natural events become the mother of names ,
pleasant and familiar, by which those events are
called in the language of sense. Thus the most
diverse imaginations in various species of animals
may be rendered compatible with sagacity and
with a prosperous life. Migratory fowl do not
record their voyages in books, like human geo-
graphers, yet they have appointed dreams and
secret sensations which warn them of the season
for flight, and they are well informed about Egypt
without consulting Herodotus. If omens were
observed scientifically and not superstitiously
interpreted, augury might be a true art of sub-
stitution, like language. There are many false
tales told both by Greeks and barbarians which
at times are useful to the state , because by an
artful disposition of signs and sounds they dispose
the inner parts of men favourably for breasting
labour or war. Thus the most deed-dyed illusion ,
if it be interwoven with good habits, may flourish
in long amity with things, naming and saluting
them, as we do the stars, or the gods ? without
understanding their nature.

Such amity can the god Agreement establish
even between aliens, but between brothers he
weaves a subtler and a sweeter bond* For when
kindred bodies have the same habitat and the
same arts they also have the same illusions ; and
their common madness gives to each a perfect

NORMAL 49

knowledge of the other's mind. Whereas the
Images In the eye or the thoughts of the heart can
agree but loosely and, as It were, politically with
material things , they may agree exactly with the
Images In another eye ? and the thoughts of
another heart. This free unanimity was called
friendship by the Greeks , who alone of all nations
have understood the nature of friendship. Bar-
barians of course may fight faithfully In bands ,
and may live In tribes and In cities , hugging their
wives and children to their bosom ; but such
Instinctive love, which all animals manifest, is not
friendship. It moves In the realm of nature, and
concerns only action and fate, whereas friendship
Is agreement in madness, when the same free
thoughts and the same fraternal joys visit two
kindred spirits. It was not for fighting loyally
side by side that the Spartan phalanx or the
Theban band were incomparable in the annals
of war, but for fighting side by side for the sake
of the beautiful, and In order that the liberal
madness of their friendship might not end y unless
It ended in death. All the glories of Greece are
the fruits of this friendship and belong to the
realm of madness tempered by Agreement ; for
out of the very fountain of madness Apollo and
the Muses drew that Intoxication which they
taught to flow In the paths of health and of
harmony. The Greeks in the Intervals between
their wars , Instead of sinking Into luxury and
sloth, or Into a vain Industry, Instituted games,
in which peace was made keen and glorious by a

E

50 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

beautiful image of war. Actual war is a conflict
of matter with matter, as blind as it is inevitable ;
but the images which it breeds survive in peace,
as we survive in these removed spaces after the
battle of existence. So even the wisest when
alive play with images and interests, and the
glitter of many rival opinions hides the deep
harmony with nature by which these opinions
live. There is sweetness and quaint reason in
these frail thoughts of our after-life, as in the
wisdom of children. What could be madder
than a ghost ? Yet by the harmony which each
of us has long since attained with himself, and by
the freedom and peace which we gladly grant to
one another, we immortalize the life of friendship
and share it with the gods.

Let such, then, be my discourse upon madness.
Philosophers are unjust to the madness of the
vulgar, and the vulgar to that of madmen and
philosophers, not seeing how plausible a sub-
stitute it is for their own, because everybody
thinks himself sane ; wherein precisely shines his
blinding illusion. I have wished in a manner to
remove the mystery and the odium from this
universal predicament of mortals, and to show it
to be no anomaly. Madness is natural and, like
all things natural, it loves itself, and often, by its
innocence or by its signification, it lives in harmony
with the rest of nature ; otherwise, by the action
it comports, it finds its quietus in punishment
and death.

Alcibiades. Your discourse, indomitable Sage ?

NORMAL MADNESS 51

has filled us all with wonder, and left us without
the wish to speak. The Stranger,, if he had dared,
should have broken this silence rather than I,
for you tell us that madness comes of being alive,
and very likely he thinks that such an opinion
comes of being dead.

Democritus* Very likely, but let him speak for
himself.

The Stranger. I should not hesitate to do so
If I had anything to object to so persuasive a
discourse, but words on my part are superfluous,
since I recognize the truth of every part of It.
To show you, however, that the living are not
always unwilling to confess their plight 3 I will
repeat an old story of the sort which we compose
for children. It seems curiously to confirm all
that the noble Democritus has taught us.

Once upon a time, so the story runs, the whole
world was a garden In which a tender fair-haired
child, whose name was Autologos, played and
babbled alone. There was, indeed, an old woman
who tended the garden, a goddess in disguise ;
but she lived In a cave and came out only at night
when the child was asleep, for like the bat and the
astronomer she could see better In the dark. She
had a sharp pruning-hook on a very long pole,
with which she silently pruned every tree and
shrub In the garden, even the highest branches,
cutting off the dead twigs and shaking down the
yellow leaves In showers ; aad often, muttering
surly words to herself which were not intelligible,
she would cut off some flower or some bud as

52 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

weli ? so that when the child awoke he missed
them and could not imagine what had become
of them. Now the child In his play gave names
to everything that he liked or disliked ; and the
rose he called Beauty , and the jasmin Pleasure ,
and the hyacinth Sweetness, and the violet Sad-
ness,, and the thistle Pain, and the olive Merit ,
and the laurel Triumph, and the vine Inspiration.
He was highly pleased with all these names, and
they made those flowers and plants so much more
Interesting to him, that he thought those names
were their souls. But one day, having pricked
himself with the thorns of a rose, he changed her
name to Love ; and this caused him to wonder
why he had given those particular names to every-
thing rather than quite different names ; and the
child began to feel older. As he sat brooding
on this question, for he had stopped playing, a
man in a black gown came into the garden who
was a botanist, and said : "It matters little what
names you give to flowers because they already
have scientific names which Indicate their true
genera and species ; the rose Is only a rose, and
is neither Beauty nor Love ; and so with all
the other flowers. They are flowers and plants
merely, and they have no souls/' Hearing this
the child began to cry, very much to the botanist's
annoyance, for being a busy man he disliked
emotion. " After all," he added, " those aames
of yours will do no harm, and you may go on
using them if you please ; for they are prettier
than those which truly describe the flowers, and

NORMAL 53

much shorter ; and if the word soul Is particularly
precious to you, you may even say that plants
and flowers have souls : only, if you wish to be
a man and not always a child , you must under-
stand that the soul of each flower is only a name
for its way of life, indicating how it spreads its
petals in the morning and perhaps closes them
at night , as you do your eyes. You must never
suppose , because the flower has a soul, that this
soul does anything but what you find the flower
actually doing." But the child was not com-
forted, and when the wind had dried his tears ,
he answered : " If I cannot give beautiful names
to the plants and flowers which shall be really
their souls , and if 1 cannot tell myself true tales
about them, I will not play in the garden any
more. You may have it all to yourself and
botanize in it, but 1 hate you." And the child
went to sleep that night quite flushed and angry.
Then, as silently as the creeping moonlight, the
old woman came out of her cave and went directly
to the place where the child was sleeping, and
with a great stroke of her pruning-knife cut off
his head ; and she took him into her cave and
buried him under the leaves which had fallen on
that same night, which were many. When the
botanist returned in the morning and found the
child gone he was much perplexed. " To whom/'
said he to himself, " shall I now teach botany ?
There is nobody now to care for flowers , for I
am only a professor, and if 1 can't teach any-
body the right names for flowers, of what use are

54 DIALOGUES IN

flowers to me ? n This thought oppressed the
poor man so much that he entirely collapsed , and
as he was rather wizened to begin with, he was
soon reduced to a few stiff tendons and bones,
like the ribs of a dry leaf ; and even these shreds
soon crumbled, and he evaporated altogether.
Only his black gown remained to delight the rag-
picker. But the goddess in guise of that old
woman went on pruning the garden, and it
seemed to make no difference In her habits that
the child and the botanist were dead.

1 think we may surmise that the true name of
this goddess must have been Dike, the same that
the wise Democritus was calling Punishment ;
and the botanist's name must have been Nomos ?
whom he was calling Agreement ; and of course
the child Autologos was that Innocent Illusion
which was the theme of his whole discourse.

Aristippus. If this be the nature of madness,
I propose that we Immediately raise an altar to
that deity, and worship him hereafter as the only
beneficent god ; and In order to avoid the protests
of the vulgar, who think madness an evil, we will
disguise our deity under the name of Autologos,
borrowed from the Stranger's tale ; and we will
not Identify him with the Furies or Harpies, but
with Pan, Apollo, Orpheus, and Dionysus,

Dionysius. Agreed : and since my name is
derived from that of Dionysus, who must have
been my ancestor, 1 proclaim myself high priest
of the new temple.

Democritus. You pay my speech a great tribute.

NORMAL MADNESS 55

I have celebrated the mad god so fitly that I have
filled his votaries with a new frenzy of worship,

Alcibiades* Aristippus and Dionysius are enemies
of science, and you, Democritus^ are a believer in
it. Being no judge in the matter 3 I will not pro-
nounce between you, but I can conceive that
a man who has spent his whole long life dis-
tilling herbs and grinding stones into powder
should believe that he knows something of their
substance. Nevertheless, intense study ? too s is
hypnotic , and might not the lucid theory of nature
which you think partly awakens you out of the
dream of life, be but a dream within a dream and
the deepest of your illusions ? My whole career
seems a myth to me now in memory ; yet when
1 interpret it in terms of your philosophy and
imagine instead nothing but clouds of atoms drift-
ing through a black sky, 1 seem to be descending
into an even deeper cavern of reverie. Suppose
1 was dreaming of a chariot-race, hearing the
shouting crowds 5 blushing to be myself the victor,
and reining in my quivering steeds to receive the
crown, and suppose that suddenly my dream was
transformed, and Olympia and the sunshine and
myself and my horses and my joy and the praises
of the Athenians turned to atoms fatally com-
bined I am afraid that, like the child in the
Stranger's tale, 1 should burst into tears at that
change of dreams.

Democritus. Do you think I should blame
you ? Is the sublimity of truth impatient of
error ? I know well the shock that comes to

56 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

innocence on discovering that the beautiful Is
unsubstantial. The soul, too, has her virginity
and must bleed a little before bearing fruit. You
misconceive my philosophy if you suppose that I
deny the beautiful or would madly forbid it to
appear. Has not my whole discourse been an
apology for Illusion and a proof of its necessity ?
When I discover that the substance of the beautiful
is a certain rhythm and harmony In motion, as the
atoms dance In circles through the void (and what
else should the substance of the beautiful be If it
has a substance at all ?) far from destroying the
beautiful in the realm of appearance my discovery
raises its presence there to a double dignity ; for
Its witchery, being a magic birth, Is witchery
Indeed ; and In It its parent nature, whose joy It
Is, proves her fertility. I deny nothing* Your
Olympian victory and your trembling steeds ,
spattered with foam, and your strong lithe hand
detaining them before the altar of Apollo , while
you receive the crown how should science delete
these verses from the book of experience or prove
that they were never sung ? But where Is their
music now ? What was It when passing ? A
waking dream. Yes, and grief also Is a dream,
which if It leaves a trace leaves not one of its own
quality, but a transmuted and serene Image of
sorrow in this realm of memory and truth. As
the grief of Priam in Homer and the grief of
Achilles, springing from the dreadful madness of
love and pride in their two bosoms, united in the
divine ecstasy of the poet, so all the joys and griefs

NORMAL MADNESS 57

of illusion unite and become a strange ecstasy in
a sane mind. What would you ask of philosophy ?
To feed you on sweets and lull you in your errors
in the hope that death may overtake you before
you understand anything ? Ah, wisdom is sharper
than death and only the brave can love her. When
in the thick of passion the veil suddenly falls, it
leaves us bereft of all we thought ours, smitten
and consecrated to an unearthly revelation, walk-
ing dead among the living, not knowing what we
seem to know, not loving what we seem to love,
but already translated into an invisible paradise
where none of these things are, but one only
companion, smiling and silent , who by day and
night stands beside us and shakes Ms head gently,
bidding us say Nay, nay, to all our madness. Did
you think, because I would not spare you, that 1
never felt the cold steel ? Has not my own heart
been pierced ? Shed your tears, my son ? shed
your tears. The young man who has not wept is
a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is
a fool.

IV
AUTOLOGOS

Aldbiades. Receive us with honour, noble Be-
mocritus, for we are heralds of a god. The divine
Autologos, patron of madness, now has his temple
in our midst, and is about to deliver oracles ; but
we are in doubt whether to invoke him as the god
of all madness or of sublime madness only ; and
since your wisdom first disclosed to us (perhaps
against your intention) that the god of madness
is the most human of deities and the only one
truly beneficent, we come to inquire of you with
what rites we should approach him, and what
words duly pronounced will render him propitious.

Democritiis. If you have your god, inquire of
him, and let him prescribe his own mummeries.
For the cult of health I might give you some
precepts, but who can foretell the whims of
delirium ?

Dionysius. Ah, you have not divined the simple
profundity of our new religion. We have a
shrine, small, rustic, and mysterious ; it is but a
great urn which we have erected upside down in
a rocky grotto, over a huge cleft stone ; and
through this cleft each of us in turn will creep

58

AUTOLOGOS 59

and ? crouching within the hollow vessel like a
child In the womb, will whisper to himself his own
oracles. For the great Autologos is no mannikin

of wood or stone, the object of a degraded Idolatry ;
he Is the speaking Spirit in all of us, whenever it
speaks ; and the reverberating urn will give back
our words with an impressive echo and an In-
crement of meaning, which will be the divine
revelation of ourselves to our own thoughts.

Democfitus. Excellent. You come to ask me
what words to utter In your automatic capacity,
so that when they are sublimated by the rumble
of a concave stone, you may revere them as your
own Inspiration !

Aristippus. Being without prejudice , we en-
large our pleasures In every quarter and from any
source ; and if your words should please us we
will gladly repeat them, as we do the verses of
Homer, without taking the useless trouble of
composing others that might not flow so har-
moniously or ring so true.

Alcibiades. Yes, venerable Sage, we beg you to
compose the liturgy of our god Autologos*

Democntus. The task is new for a philosopher.
In my time 1 have been asked to devise laws for
the state, and precepts for shipbuilding, mining,
and weaving, and many a new Instrument have I
contrived In these and in other crafts ; and 1 have
mixed herbs for purging many diseases, and
established a holy regimen for the cure of rage :
but now I am bidden to Institute a cult of madness
and babble some litany fit for a foolish god. So

60 DIALOGUES IN

be It : there Is leisure for everything in eternity.
But I warn you that my Invocations may be so
potent that the god himself may be transformed
and spirited away ; so that when you crawl down
from your mystic tripod you may find yourselves
sane,

Dionysius. Sweet madness will not be driven
from, me by any Incantation.

Aristippus. If health be as pleasant as disease
I will allow you to heal me.

Alcibiades. We sometimes beseech a god to
spare us, sometimes to descend and fill us with
Ms spirit ; and since there seems to be a cruel
and a kindly madness, your rites should ward off
the one and attract the other.

Democriius. Truly there is a madness that men
dread and another that they love, for to dance,
laugh, love 5 and sing Is a happy madness, but to
sit mumbling and whining with one's face to the
wall, or to rage with a drawn sword calling oneself
Medea is, according to human opinion, a dreadful
fate. Since I am employed for the moment in
honouring your god, I will feign to bow to this
convention: as when I framed laws or admin-
istered medicine I allowed myself to serve p
human prejudice, although my heart knew well
that according to nature health was not better
than disease, nor a city than a desert. Your first
invocation of Autologos must accordingly be an
acceptance of his gift, which Is illusion. But if
your worship Is to be pleasing to him and ulti-
mately healthful to yourselves you must not grudge

AUTOLOGOS 61

him, as common votaries do, his kingly freedom
In bestowing his favours ; you must not prescribe
the particular madness which he shall Infuse Into
you. If you are oppressed like Orestes by some
fancied guilt, or by some irrational love or in-
veterate sorrow, prepare your hearts to renounce
It and to put It away, not of course In exchange
for sanity and knowledge of the truth these are
not gifts for Autologos to give but In exchange
for a different madness : make ready to welcome
the Inspiration of the god If he should suddenly
turn your remorse to complacency, your love to
sneers, your sorrow to the hunter's Joy. This
deity Is the Impartial patron of every error, and
those who devoutly approach his shrine must be
eager to cultivate them all in turn,, and to be mad
daily In some new and wonderful manner. Such
a surrender of any pet folly, such an openness to
folly of every kind, Is essential to the neophyte :
let it be the first and preliminary purification of
your souls In approaching these mysteries. For
lack of such initiation much anguish has been
prolonged In the world without necessity. The
jesters and the dull-witted, the dwarfs and the
giants, the deaf-mutes and the blind have all
Insulted one another, and felt uneasy and guilty
in their own hearts. What a blessing If they had
known that they were all equally the children of
Autologos, and not one of them saner or more
perfect than the other ! If the dwarfs or the deaf-
mutes were left to breed by themselves, far from
impertinent censors, they would think they had a

62 DIALOGUES IN

civil quota of wit and virtue, such as we thought
we had in Athens or in Abdera ; and they would
be as proud of their divine beauty as are chatter-
ing monkeys or blind moles or any other sort of
creature capable of forming habits and expecta-
tions. All living souls welcome whatsoever they
are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or
pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny
to be possible. So the mother of the first tailless
child for men formerly had tails wept bitterly
and consulted the soothsayers , elders conspicuous
for their long and honourable tails, who gave out
oracles from the hollow of ancient trees ; and she
asked what unwitting impiety she or her husband
could have committed, that the just gods should
condemn their innocent child to such eternal
disgrace. When, however, other tailless births
began to occur, at first the legislators had the little
monsters put rigorously to death ; but soon, as
the parents began to offer resistance, they suffered
a scapegoat to be sacrificed instead ; and persons
without a tail were merely condemned to pass
their lives in slavery, or at least without the rights
of citizenship ; because the philosophers, who all
belonged to the elder generation with ample tails,
declared that without a tail no man was really
human or could be admitted after death into the
company of the gods. Yet later, when that hinder
ornament had become rare, opinion was reversed,
until the priests, legislators, and sages gathered in
council and decreed, by a majority vote, that a
tail in man was unnatural, and that the tradition

AUTOLOGOS 63

that such things had existed was an Invention of
ignorant poets, and absurd. When, however, by
a casual reversion, and sport of nature, a child with
a tail was born here and there,, not only was the
infant instantly despatched, but the mother was
burned alive for having had commerce with a devil.

Thus among those who know not Autologos
the greatest odium attaches to being as the vulgar
are not, or to lacking some usual organ or instinct ,
however useless ; and the exceptions are reduced
to lead a pitiable existence, not so much by any
actual defect in their constitution as by the con-
tempt and cruelty of the majority, always a tribe
of intolerant coxcombs.

Nor will it suffice 5 in the pure and acceptable
worship of Autologos, to dismiss all passionate
and exclusive attachment to any one form of
madness ; you should not suffer the remnants of
one dream to survive and confuse the next, but
allow deep sleep to intervene between, vision and
vision. Though three tragedies and one comedy
be played in one day in the same theatre, the
stage is thoroughly cleared in the intervals, and
the masks and straggling chorus of one are
not allowed to disfigure the other, disturbing its
harmony and dishonouring their own function ;
for the elements of illusion become ghastly when
the rush and glamour of action no longer vivifies
them. Cleanse the cup perfectly , therefore, before
each libation, that every draught may be pure,
the illusion unqualified, and the peace after it
profound.

64 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

Remember also that you are votaries of mad-
ness and not mad unwittingly. It was a disgrace
to the barbarians , and sometimes to the Bacchic
orgies which Phrygia had lent us, that diseased
and unseemly madmen mingled there with those
who were mad only devotionally and in the spirit
of the festival. The actor must not fall from the
stage or rant out of metre ; he must not linger
beyond his time or lengthen his speeches. The
very plasticity of his art, which makes him ready
to be now a man, now a woman, now a clown,
and now a prophet, requires a substance in its
Protean changes , so that each part may be learned
and recited faithfully, In due order and on the
right occasions. The divers inspirations of the
god would not be received worthily unless the
soul was stable in her docility and invincibly
herself., even as the winds would raise no storm
and never manifest their vehemence If the water
of the sea which they drive violently heavenward
had not Its inalienable weight and did not fall
back with an equal violence, perpetually returning
to its ancient level. Remember* accordingly, in
all your slashing madness that this is madness
which you enact : bend to the Inspiration of the
god, and wait for It to pass. The void is no less
real than the atoms, and larger : it does not resist
them, and while by their sport they diversify It,
It does not change. So let your ship have an
anchor laid deep In nothingness : on that anchor
you may ride any storm without too much
anxiety. In your loves be devoted, not agonized

AUTOLOGOS 65

or frenzied . The consciousness of vanity is a
great disinfectant : it fills religion , as it fills life,
with fortitude, dignity ? and kindness.

Let the liturgy of Autologos therefore be as
followSj and whenever you enter your sacred urn ?
chant to yourselves these words :

Worf , O work within me^ divine Autologos 3 the
miracle of madness^ that what exists not in nature
may arise in thought.

From the abyss of nothingness draw what dream
thou wilt,

May it be a pure dream^ perfect and entire. Why
should one nothing devour another nothing in fear
and hate ?

Suffer each day's sun to set in peace: slowly,
after the pause of night, another will rise to lighten
the morrow.

As all sum pass before the face of darkness, and
hide it awhile with their splendour, so on many-
coloured wings thought flies through the silence^ but
the silence endures.

Blessed be thy coining^ Autologos, and more
blessed thy going.

Dionysius. Our best thanks, excellent hiero-
phant. The archaic flavour of our liturgy and its
metaphysical depth are all we could desire ; and
I believe we may account it veritably an ancient
mystery, which after being disused for ages, has
been restored by your inspiration ; so that we
may celebrate at once the antiquity of our ritual
and our originality in re-establishing it to-day.

Alcibiades (after glancing at Aristippus). We

66 IN

also thank you 5 and are charmed more than ever
with the new worship we are adopting. Now
without delay we will return to the fane and
begin to rehearse our festival. (He places one
hand on the shoulder of Aristippus and the other
on that of Dionysius, and the three glide away
obliquely, first to the right and then to the left, in
a measured dance.}

Democritus. You, silent Stranger , do not follow
the others on their festive errand , and have not
to-day opened your lips . Perhaps you are offended
at our enlightened religion.

The Stranger. Not offended, but helpless and
envious, like a boy admiring from afar the feats
of an athlete or the gleaming armour of soldiers
on the march. It is rash to intrude upon the
piety of others : both the depth and the grace of
it elude the stranger.

Democritus. Religion is indeed a convention
which a man must be bred in to endure with
any patience ; and yet religion, for all its poetic
motley, comes closer than work-a-day opinion to
the heart of things. In invoking the aid of the
gods and in attributing all things to their pro-
vidence and power, each of us shatters his greatest
illusion and heals his most radical madness.
What madness, you will ask, and what illusion ?
This : that his thoughts produce one another or
produce his actions : the very illusion of Auto-
logos. These young fops, dancing away to their
mock mysteries, are ingenious sophists and pleasant
companions, but they are utterly without religion ;

AUTOLOGOS 67

and If your heart held you back as if from sacrilege
from following in their train , it did not deceive
you. Autologos is the one perfect atheist : he
is persuaded that he rules and creates him-
self. What madness ! And yet how irresistible
is the voice of sensation, and will, and thought s at
every moment of animate existence ! The open-
mouthed rabble shouting in the agora suppose
that nothing controls them but their pert feelings
and imaginations , by miracle unanimous ; and
even the demagogue who is pulling the strings
of their ignorance and cupidity fancies that he is
freely ruling the world , and forgets the cupidity
and ignorance " in his own soul which have put
those empty catch-words into his bawling mouth.
Miserable puppets ! the most visionary of mystics
is wise in comparison. He knows how invisibly
ly the shafts of Apollo : let but the lightest of
them cut the knot of the heart , and suddenly
there is an end of eloquence and policy and
mighty determination. He knows that it suffices
for the wind to change and all the fleets of thought
will forget their errand and sail for another haven.
Religion in its humility restores man to his only
dignity, the courage to live by grace. Admonished
by religion , he gives thanks, acknowledging his
utter dependence on the unseen, in the past and
in the present ; and he prays, acknowledging his
utter dependence on the unseen for the future,
He sees that the issue of nothing is in his hands,
seeing that he knows not whether at the next
moment he will still be alive : nor what ambushed

68 IN

powers will traverse his path, or subtly undo the
strength and the loves In his own bosom. But
looking up at the broad heaven^ at returning day
and the revolving year, he humbly trusts the
mute promises of the gods, and because of the
favour they may have shown him, he may trust
even himself. For what Is the truth of the
matter ? That the atoms In their fatal courses
bring all things about by necessity, and that men's
thoughts and efforts and tears are but signs and
omens of the march of fate, prophetic here, and
there deceptive, but always vain and Impotent In
themselves , never therefore wise save In con-
fessing their own weakness, and In little things
as in great, in their own motions as In those of
heaven^ saluting and honouring the gods.

The Stranger. But can the atoms be called
gods ?

Democritus. As the sun Is called Phoebus and
the sea Poseidon, and the heart's warmth Love,
and as this bundle of atoms is called Democritus.
The name Is a name, and the image Imaginary,
yet the truth of it is true.

The Stranger. But In this bundle of atoms
called Democritus Autologos just now was speak-
ing, and thought In you was alive ; and the poets
feign Autologos to be speaking also in the sun
and In the sea. Does living Illusion then haunt
all the atoms in their flight, and is the whole
universe the body of Autologos ?

Democritus. Fancy can conceive only a kindred
fancy, such as might spring from organs similar

AUTOLOGOS 69

to Its own ; but if life Is lavish in illusion here 3,
why not also there ? A prudent man will not
blaspheme against any god.

The Stranger, Then Autoiogos Is truly a great ?
a boundless , an Irrepressible spirit ?

Democritus. He Is Indeed^ else even In jest I
should not have sung his praises.

LOVERS OF ILLUSION

Democritus. What means this rout ? Why this
rush and clamour in eternity ? Have you been
celebrating the rites of your new god of madness,
that you come breathless, dragging the unhappy
Stranger as If he were a prisoner of war ? And
why these ridiculous crowns of thistle and burrs ,
as if you had turned a funeral into an orgy ?

AlciUades, We should have preferred laurel
and roses, but we took what we found,

Dionysius. We had long since taken counsel*
venerable Sage, how to destroy your philosophy.
We come to refute, as we utterly disown, your
preference for truth over illusion. We have
restrained ourselves with difficulty until to-day ;
but we know that you, now being immortal^
cannot change your mind even if thrice refuted ;
and we had decided to wait until the Stranger
should reappear, for the wretch is your disciple,
and a witness to our former disputes ; but being
alive, he can be compelled to recant, and we are
determined that his conversion shall mark your
defeat and our triumph. Therefore we no sooner
spied the rash mortal than we seized him as a

70

OF 71

hostage, and we mean to hold him down until
he has made amends for you both ; and the sooner
he forswears your errors , the sooner he shall be
suffered to depart .

Democritus. If you use force, you will not seem
confident of exercising persuasion, and will never
know whether you have done so. Leave the
poor Stranger in peace ; he is pestered enough,
I fancy , in his own world. And let me at once
hear your refutation, and if your tumult subsides
you may be able to hear my answer* even if not
to understand it.

Alcibiades. Tremble, discredited Sage ; we
bring against you not one refutation but three,
because while united in attacking you, we have
by no means agreed to defend one another. Nor
will our three spears pierce the same point in
your shield ; for my shaft will transfix your
allegation that reason is a form of madness ,
whereas Dionysius will destroy your assertion
that science is better than illusion, and Aristippus
will abolish the difference which you have made
between them in respect to truth and will prove
that at most they differ only in duration and
pleasantness.

Democntus. At least you are pleasant assailants^
who exhibit your wooden weapons before the
fight, so that my panoplied philosophy need not
fear the slightest wound. Come on, then, young
braggarts, and let me endure your first assault.

Dionysius. I deliver it, and under good auspices:
for I come as priest of Autologos, our new divinity,

72 IN

to whom in scorn of ancient superstition, we have
vowed perpetual worship ; and I speak also in
the name of the divine Plato, master of mystics ,
initiates, and madmen, and of all who in derision
of cold reports, science, or calculation, behold
the absolute truth face to face In an inward vision.
Madness, I declare In my name and In theirs ? Is
a divine gift. Prophets, poets, and priests, who
are notoriously mad, are nevertheless held in the
highest esteem by all well-ordered nations ; and
any rebellion against their dogmas in the name of
reason is well known to be Ill-bred, pert, super-
ficial, and destructive of morality and of the
state. A touch of madness, even in the dullest
of us, Is a saving grace, and it is well that In feasts,
mysteries, and tragedies we should enact the
various cries and obsessions of madmen as vividly
as possible, and as religiously. In order to relax
a little the punctilious sanity, or rather the weary
and mean artificialities, which the vulgar world
imposes upon us. Far above your science, O
wise and mad Democritus, I prize the mystic
vision of those souls who, inverting the cup of
reason, pour their spirits out In a rapturous
libation to my ancestor Dionysus, and go to
rejoin the deep soul of the earth. You possess,
no doubt, much curious knowledge of herbs, and
atoms, and the disgusting inner organs of the
body knowledge of no importance to monarchs
or to liberal minds ; but in the higher things of
the spirit you are not versed. The value of mad-
ness Is not such as you attribute to the normal

OF 73

Illusions of sense or opinion , which Punishment
and Agreement bring into a blind and external
harmony with nature. On the contrary , such
madness is almost sane, and quite uninspired ;
but divine madness wafts the soul away altogether
from the sad circumstances of earth , and bids it
live like a young god only among its own chosen
creations. Had we not licence to be mad ? we
should not be our own masters,, but the ignoble
product of other things ; and to be mad is simply,
in spite of gods and men, to be indomitably free*
In one respect , Democritus 5 1 admit that you
separate yourself from the vulgar and denounce
their prejudice, for you deny that illusion is an
evil in itself since nothing, according to you, is
good or evil in the eye of nature. But you soon
seem to forget your own precept , and talk as if to
discover things actual and material , which you
say are clouds of dust whirling in the air, were
better than to dwell on things dreamt and in-
vented : an opinion that I should have expected
to hear only from some man of no cultivation.
Of course, I am not deceived by your gruff airs,
and pretended scorn of human illusions : when
was there a human illusion more admirably un-
substantial than your philosophy ? In the art
with which you sustain your fancy at that pre-
carious height , 1 recognize your scientific genius.
Your condemnation of other species of madness
is but a part of your playful imposture, and fat
from offending me, makes me your friend ;
because illusion would lose half its charm if there

74 DIALOGUES IN

were not variety in it. So in you, Aristippus ? I
prize the affectation of simplicity. The genuine
simplicity of the boor would be insufferably
tedious ; but in you it is the pose of a subtle wit,
and exquisite in its unreality. No less charming
was the express rusticity of my Sicilian Theocritus ,
the artifice of an accomplished man, to whom
the rough comedy of country manners is a remote
memory or satirical jest; although I do not say
that here and there his own tears or enchantments
may not have pulsed in these rustic measures .
Fancy is not a falsification of nature, because
nothing in nature is worth noting, or even possible
to note y save for the fancy which overlays it. I
have known many a masquerade in rny time,
royal splendour, love, friendship, philosophy,
treachery, and exile ; but in all I have loved only
the image, so that here, where images are all, I
enjoy my life again more truly than when I was
distractedly undergoing it in that other un-
mannerly world. Each phase of experience has
left me a theme for reflection, each tiresome farce
some song pleasant to remember. Had I had,
among my royal and other cares, leisure for the
poet's art, I might have composed an epic out of
my life while I was still living it, and entirely
eclipsed Homer and his Odyssey. For I should
have described not material monsters or obvious
charmers, like Calypso and Nausicaa, but the
subtle mixture of light and shadow, of force and
impotence in my own soul. I should have set
forth the first virgin glow and all the false after-

OF 75

fustian of patriotism, of prophecy 3, and of science.
I should have shown that there is nothing worth
having in kingship but what a penniless dreamer
may enjoy in conceiving it, and that the illusion
in love, in wisdom, and in enthusiasm is the true
and only virtue in them. To have a clean and
scentless intellect, my noble Democritus, that
should merely report things as they are, would
be almost like not existing ; so clear and trans-
parent a medium would hardly be a soul. Happily
mine was like a grain of incense that, thrown by
some deity into the embers of a mortal body,
rose in a voluminous and sweet-smelling cloud :
and the god that let my spirit fall from heaven
unawares, as he scattered the seeds of a myriad
other lives, now breathes it in again with voluptu-
ous surprise ; for he perceives that it was a part
of his own substance, having the divine gift of
creation.

You observe that my onslaught, O Sage of
Abdera, has not been malicious. In showing the
falseness of your doctrine 1 have not denied its
magnificence : on the contrary, its very falseness
makes all its charm in my eyes, and 1 have no
murderous intent in my refutation. Only a child
drives a sword through a painted monster* I
have ever loved philosophers, overlooking and
pardoning the foolish doctrines which they chose
to profess, since necessity and custom compelled
them to profess something. All philosophers, if
they were eloquent and original, were equally
welcome at my court ; and now that I have

76 IN

become in turn a courtier of Pluto, I rejoice that
he has added you ? with your mocking wisdom^ to
the famous circle of my intimates,

Democritus (who has drawn his cloak over his
head). Tell me, Alcibiades, has Dionyslus finished
his bawdy speech ?

Alcibiades. So it seems. Why do you cover
your face ?

Democritus. The Incense of this sacrifice may
be sweet to your god Autologos, but It sticks in
my throat.

Aldbiades. I am sure he has finished. He Is
adjusting his mantle.

Democritus. Then I may lift my head. Glorious
monarch happily dethroned, 1 have listened to
your words with averted face, for fear of being
blinded by their splendour ; my thin unpoetlcal
soul could not have interposed a veil thick enough
to obscure them. 1 am well aware that the truth
is not pleasant to everybody. Children are natural
mythologlsts : they beg to be told tales , and love
not only to invent but to enact falsehoods. Young
and old agree in finding it irksome to see things
as they are ; even in husbandry and brutal war
(In which facts have to be faced) they play and
lie to themselves as much as they dare ; and they
turn from their work at the first opportunity to
pursue their true good In gaming, drinking, kiss-
Ing, singing, witnessing endless tragedies and
comedies, and shotiting for revolution In the
public assembly ; for they are men of imagination.
So were you ; and 1 should be far from hinting

OF 77

that you ought to have been otherwise, if 1 did
not remember that you were a monarch. Your
philosophy would be perfect, If Instead of being
a king you had been a cabbage. The cabbage
cannot move ; it therefore matters nothing If its
soul ignores the motions and positions of outer
things , or fails to distinguish them according to
their natures ; It Is enough that, fostered by
ambient influences which It cannot modify, its
soul should circulate inwardly and flower as It will.
But a cabbage cannot give direction to others ; It
makes a poor king. So, Dionyslus ? did you, for
circumstances escaped you. Ah, If you had only
been born a cabbage, how entirely your atten-
tion might have been devoted to that more than
Homeric epic about yourself ! There Is no diffi-
culty In dreaming ; the heart of nature Is full of
dreams ; and I daresay there is a poet In every
nut and In every berry. But the soul of animals
must be watchful ; they cannot live on mere hope^
fortitude,, and endurance ; they must hasten to
meet perils and opportunities, and dreams are
fatal to them when, action being necessary, true
perception Is Indispensable, Thus a creature
endowed with locomotion lies under a mighty
compulsion to discover the truth. Hence 1 and
the Stranger, who have both been observant
travellers, have discovered so much more of It
than you. When a flea, enticed from a distance
by the wafted warmth and fragrance of your body,
jumps from a beggar's rags and lodges snugly in
some fold of your royal flesh* It is a wise flea,

78 IN

not only according to Socrates and Aristippus, in
that it prefers the better to the worse, but also
according to me, in that it has a keen scent and
true knowledge of nature. But when presently
sated and swollen with your rich blood, this same
flea begins to have poetic visions , such as your
philosophy approves , and dreams he is a god in a
red heaven, then from this ecstatic flea wisdom
jumps back to you ; for you awake at the prick of
its snout from your epic slumber and begin search-
ing for that flea with all a poor man's sagacity , until
you catch it, torpid as it has become, and crush it
between your two thumb-nails. If you envy that
sated flea or that poetic cabbage , their fate will not
be denied you ; but I, being in the alert state of
a waking animal , prefer knowing and jumping.

Dionysius* Democritus is pleased to rail, like
the Cynics of old in my palace, to whom I never
denied an alms for having perhaps abused me ;
and he reminds me of what I always said in those
days, that you philosophers agree in nothing
except in taking yourselves too seriously. The
graceful Plato, at his best, is an exception ; and
therefore I follow him.

AMMades, Let us admit that pleasure in
illusion is perilous and brief. But is not mortal
life in any case brief and perilous, especially when
it is boldly lived ? Here in eternity all durations
of existence become equal, but all its qualities
remain unlike. Now we see clearly that true
happiness is once to have touched perfection, and
not to have jogged on for ever in mediocrity*

OF 79

Afistippus* Courage, Alcibiades, If Demo-
critus attacks you for that noble sally, rely on me.

Dionysius. I too will sustain you.

Aldbiades, Like a hero in Homer I defy you
with taunts, O anatomist of nature. I am In-
vincible. A dethroned monarch and a reprobate
moralist support me on either hand,

Aristippus. Why reprobate ? Because I meas-
ure goods by their goodness and not by their
origin ? What, I pray, lends dignity to one
source of pleasure rather than to another, save that
pleasure flows from it more pure and abundant ?
If a drug can stir up my brain or my kidney, and
out of particles caught up from those worthy
substances can create lovely forms and curious
motions which I trace in a dream , why is that
worse than if nature had caught up atoms from
the slime of the earth or from the air and outside
my body had composed flowers or animals that
I could gaze upon and love ? Both beauties are
delightful and both are transitory, and to have
pleasure in both, while they last, is the part of
wisdom.

Democntus* Wisdom, if you had it, would
enable you to discern what lies in your fancy from
what lies in the outer world.

Afistippm. Vain discernment, since the better
and the worse are not concerned in it. You pro-
fess, I know, to ignore moral distinctions and to
describe reality without fondness or displeasure ;
but in fact you are full of scorn for the dreamer,
even if he is willing to admit frankly that he merely

8o IN

dreams. You are secretly convinced that to per-
ceive facts is a blessed privilege, and to create
imaginary beauties a disgraceful self-delusion.
You wouldj I think, express your moral judge-
ments better if you acknowledged them to be
vapours of your private soul, and not implications
of your alleged science* It is perfectly indifferent
to me whether what gives me pleasure is a solid
body or an airy illusion. Whichever object is the
more delightful seems to me the better, and I no
more care whether it exists within or without my
skull, than I ask whether the zephyr that refreshes
me blows from the east or the west.

Alcibiades. Sailors and augurs, Aristippus, are
alive only to that ; their skin is hardy and their
eye sharp, and they are not without joy in their
keen perceptions. There's no fancy like a fact.

Aristippus. I admit that material objects usually
produce a more violent pleasure than imaginary
ones ; whereas, on the contrary, the worst plagues
and torments are fantastic, turning as they do on
fear, shame, and love, all three of which are un-
necessary. Why let present pleasure be spoilt by
such spectres of fancy ? Your poet is by nature
a melancholy booby and a ridiculous weakling;
whereas your jolly huntsman and wine-bibber,
your lusty rogue, and your laughing homely
philosopher are brave and cheery souls. On that
ground I might share the preference of Demo-
critus for external perception and, as he calls it,
an elastic intellect ; but I prize the rough breezes
of nature only because they blow health and

OF ILLUSION 81

pleasure upon me ; while he seems somehow to
think that not to be deceived Is an absolute good.

Dionysius* Democritus Is too wise to take up
such a position. He does not assert that Illusion
Is an evil for nothing, according to him, Is evil
in nature but only that illusion Is not true know-
ledge : and so much should be granted him on all
hands. Whether true knowledge Is beautiful or
whether illusion Is beautiful remains in any case
a matter of opinion ; and If our loves differ, every
man Is free to lead his own bride home.

Aldbiades. As for me, If ever 1 was wedded to
Illusion, I hereby repudiate and divorce her ; and
though people may call me a traitor, I renounce
all alliance with Arlstippus and Dionysius and
pass over to the camp of the valiant Democritus.
Illusion may be truly pleasing while we think it
true ; but to cling to it knowing it to be Illusion
is ignominious and wellnigh Impossible. A dream
exists by playing upon some disposition of the
soul which would have been better satisfied in
action, because, as Democritus says ? man is an
animal addressed to action and adventure ; he
will never be content to cheat his instincts with
Images unless he is a cripple or a coward. If you
prefer illusions to realities, It is only because all
decent realities have eluded you and left you In
the lurch ; or else your contempt for the world Is
mere hypocrisy and funk, as when a boy says that
swimming Is unworthy of a man and fit only for
fishes, because he is afraid of the cold water. Not
that there Is anything effeminate In fine fancies

G

82 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

when they come honestly. I like a youngster who
falls In love or who makes verses because he can't
help It the thing has happened to me more than
oncebut if he cultivates and fondles his emotions
on purpose, he is a coxcomb. You two dis-
reputable sluggards have never willingly moved
except from the bed-chamber to the baths and
from the baths to the banquet-hall, and to relieve
the tedium and stuffiness of your existence you
have summoned the poets or your own sickly
philosophy to flatter you in your sloth. But
imagination, even that of Homer, is pale and
sterile compared with the lightnings of fortune.
How should it be otherwise when fancy is itself
but a cryptic part of nature ? It flickers in the
dark, like a lamp in the inmost chamber of an
Egyptian temple ; whereas under the sun stretch
all the zones and all the nations, filled with an
undreamt-of variety of goods and evils, beauties
and absurdities. All these an intrepid philo-
sopher might scour and pillage, if he did not shut
himself up, as most philosophers do, within the
walls of his native city, to a petty legal life and
trite disputations. My own life, I allow, was but
ill-conducted ; it passed among storms and ended
in shipwreck ; yet I account it better than dream-
ing or beating time to the syllables of some verse.
I would rather be the soldier I was, even with my
mottled fortunes, than Imagine myself a meta-
physical hero, like Dlonysius in the epic which
he never composed. The fruit of my experience
is that I despise rhetoricians and demagogues and

OF ILLUSION 83

moralizers and comedians , and respect rather the
rough arts and passions of mariners and soldiers ,
the patience of ploughmen, and the shrewdness of
merchants or of the masters In any craft ; all
people acquainted with danger and hardship and
knowing something well, though it be a small
matter, and each striking out bravely, like an
honest blind creature, to have his will in the world,

Aristippus, I congratulate Democritus on this
accession to his strength. Alcibiades Is a moralist
who cannot divide good from evil.

Democritus. That Is a division which all men
are constrained to make, whether they be called
moralists or not. All nature falls for every living
creature Into two strands, the friendly and the
hostile, the beloved and the detested. There is
not a young glutton or an old woman but has a
moral philosophy, Aristippus, as genuine as yours.
The question is only by how noble a nature the
division Is made, and with how much knowledge
of the world ; and all your effrontery will not
persuade you, or any one else, that you know the
world better than Alcibiades, or have a nobler
nature.

Aristippus. He Is taller and 1 am fatter : but
I have yet to learn that on that account he is the
better man. His length came to him without his
doing ; my breadth is the fruit of wisdom.

Democritus. Now that by this conspicuous de-
fection your cohort is dispersed and your attack
upon me turned to derision, It remains only to
discover whether you have persuaded the Stranger ;

84 DIALOGUES IN

and as numbers are now equal in our two camps ,
the Intimidation which you would have practised
upon him Is also rendered abortive. He may
speak his mind without fear of ill-usage,

The Stranger. Nothing I have heard to-day
has shaken in the least my old allegiance and
much has confirmed It. Nevertheless, I am not
without a certain sympathy with Dionysius and
Aristippus when they extoll the pleasures of the
simple mind and cling passionately to Immediate
experience. After all 1 am a child of my time ;
our very anarchy has driven us to a kind of pro-
fundity, by convincing us that the farther we travel
from appearance the more we expose ourselves to
illusion. Your hypothesis, Democritus, may be
absolutely right ; but what assurance can you
have of its truth ? Your scientific imagination
draws a picture of minute geometrical solids
swimming in space : this picture did not exist
until your genius composed It ; it is a thing of
yesterday and Abdera gave it birth, utterly remote,
then 3 in time and existence from the atoms, the
motion, and the void which may have formed
the substance of nature from all eternity* As the
words substance and atoms are audible signs by
which our groping discourse names and designates
that ancient reality, so your bright images of cubes,
pyramids, and spheres, and your dark image of an
infinite void, are graphic signs for that same reality,
Doubtless they are the best symbols for it calli-
graphically for what can be cleaner than the
clean or clearer than the clear ? and also, as

OF ILLUSION 85

experience has shown , the best In calculation and
practice ; but still in their visionary aspect signs
only and symbols, products of the human eye and
Imagination. If all this be admitted as obvious
and as corresponding with your constant Intention
in your doctrine of atoms , I accept the latter ; and
all the mathematical veils which my contem-
poraries have spun between crude appearances
and the notion of atoms only remove its applica-
tion to a deeper level of nature ; for somehow the
place where a thing Is to be found must in the
end differ substantially from the surrounding
places. But If you meant that by a sort of revela-
tion the eternal atoms and void and motions,
exactly as they are, have appeared In your mind's
eye, and that there never was and never can be
anything In nature save what your scientific
imagination at this moment conceives , then I
should agree with Dionysius that you are making
idols of your Ideas and forgetting that reason* as
you yourself maintain , is a form of madness,
checked only by Punishment and Agreement.
Never was a theory of nature more chastened than
yours or more harmonious with the practice of the
arts ; but can any thought kindled In a human
brain burn with a light so Infinitely powerful and
pure as to reveal the whole universe In Its utter-
most reaches and exact constitution ?

Dionysius. Stranger, we thank you : not that
what you urge is particularly Intelligible to us or
of ultimate consequence ; yet It serves to remind
our headstrong system-builders of their humanity

86 IN

and to show them how much wiser they would
be If they remembered that they are mad.

Democritus. You thank the Stranger for an
ill service , when he repeats the sophistry of his
contemporaries who, wallowing In sensation and
having little understanding, think that under-
standing Is a form of sense , and science but an
exchange of Images. Such is the pleasant fallacy
of Idlers to whom the plough Is only the picture
of a plough s because they never have followed It.
When my dog smells a rat and busily digs up the
ground to dislodge the beast from Its hiding, what
Images, think you, do the dog's senses, for all
their keenness, supply to his mind ? A faint scent
only. Yet on occasion of that scent, understand-
ing In the dog leads him to dig and watch, because
a living rat is there of which he has a great lust
but no imagination. So Leucippus and 1, being
keen hounds, have been warned by smell, sight,
touch, and all the senses that there Is a substance
at hand ; lying In wait for it, we have traced
Its motions and divided Its parts, following and
measuring and counting all the transformations
of bodies ; and the atoms we have unearthed are
not images to the eye or syllables sounding in
the ear, but bits of the substance for which we
hungered ; and by our patient digging we have
caught the rat. Certainly our true knowledge,
since we were dreaming mortals, was still con-
veyed or accompanied by words and Images, even
as the dog In devouring the rat might receive new
and confused sensations ; but these our under-

OF ILLUSION 87

standing traversed and overlooked., and far from
Imposing the likeness of any Image on substance ,
disowned all images and saluted the substance In
Its natural seat and effective motion. No man
has seen the atoms ; nor do the forms which, for
excellent reasons , we believe them to possess ever
appear in any dream to the eye or to the fancy.
How are the Egyptians assured that their Pyramids
are pyramids ? Is It by scent or by touch, or by
sight which can never present anything of a
pyramid but some vague triangle or rhomboid or
square ? No ; that assurance comes to them by
cutting and counting and measuring the stones,
and by much pacing and exploration ; above all
it comes to them by building, for art and science
are a single gift, called science inasmuch as art
refashions the mind, and called art inasmuch as
by science the world is refashioned. No doubt
the art of the Egyptians was madness to heap up
so many stones to no purpose ; and It was madness
In me and in Leucippus to sweat after vain know-
ledge ; yet that art of theirs was true art, as their
monuments attest by still standing, and our know-
ledge is true knowledge, and nature for ever will
give It proof.

As for you ? you are all lovers of illusion and
banded against me In your hearts. Dionyslus
and Aristlppus are like children in arms, most
royal In their Impotence, demanding that sub-
stance shall bear them aloft always prosperously
by no contrivance of theirs, while they live cooing
and crooning between sleep and wake. Alciblades

38 IN

Is a little man in comparison, and can run about
on his own legs, but only to chase the bubbles of
adventure and perils and command for the sake
of commanding ; and this folly let loose puts him
in marvellous conceit of his own prowess. As for
the Stranger , having a paler soul, If he salutes
the atoms from a distance , it Is only in con-
descension to the exigences of art or calculation ,
which he knows are not obedient to magic ; but
he honours reality only for illusion's sake, and
studies In nature only pageants and perspectives ,
and the frail enchantments which are the food of
love. I bid you Immediately liberate him on
your own terms, as having recanted and disowned
my philosophy, which will not tolerate that
substance, the master, should be received only
that It may minister to appearance, the slave,
I therefore stand alone and am content to do so,
The universe Is my sufficient companion. Who
was ever more faithful than that silent friend ?
I will dismiss and expel every remnant of Illusion
even in myself, in order that nothing of me may
remain save the atoms that compose me, and to
them 1 will transfer all my fond being, placing
my treasure where my substance has ever been ;
so that dwelling wholly there, when you who are
all vanity have perished and the part of me which
Is vain has also dissolved, my glad strength shall
be the force that destroys me ? and while the
atoms are I shall be.

1
ON SELF-GOVERNMENT

FIRST DIALOGUE

Socrates. Whom do 1 see approaching with
downcast looks ? My friend the Stranger ? Have
you come to-day to remain with us for good^ or
is this but another brief excursion into the realm
of sanity ? from which you hope to return presently
to your crazy world ?

The Stranger. I can hardly hope 5 Socrates ? to
dwell in your distinguished company after I am
dead. Therefore I take every opportunity to visit
you now while I may,

Socrates, Tis at rare intervals. Probably you
think you are better employed in the sunlight^ or
can see better in it. My own eyes are more like
the owl's than like the eagle y s ? and 1 can see
farther in this twilight than ever in the glare of
the Athenian day, I was always an ignorant man*
depending on my disciples for sure first principles
and for irrefragable facts, knowledge of which
they seemed to possess by nature, although my
dullness, or some divine impediment, had pre-
vented me from discovering all those certain
truths when 1 was of their age. That old blind-

89

90 DIALOGUES IN

ness of mine is now redoubled in respect to the
living world ; for whereas liberation from the
body has opened to me a large prospect towards
the past and the future, it has cut off my old
channels of dubious communication with material
things ; and it is only the truth of them before
they arise or after they perish that lies spread out
before me for direct inspection. In their transit
through existence they are eclipsed in these
heavens, and I can know them only by report of
travellers such as you from the antipodes. My
information about your affairs is accordingly most
incomplete, and worst of all is brought to me by
unphilosophical messengers ; for only whimsical
and ill-bred spirits now seem to reach this place.
I have heard , for instance , of an obscure oracle
which you may be able to interpret for me. The
god must have delivered it in some barbarous
tongue, and perhaps in verse s which has been ill
translated : but the monumental inscription which
my informant had seen seems to have read as

follows :

RIGHT GOVERNMENT

RESTS ON THE WILL

OF THE GOVERNED

The Stranger. We need no god and no oracle
to tell us that. It is a commonplace^ and the
foundation of all our politics.

Socrates. I rejoice to hear it ; for if the maxim
is always on your lips, you will probably be able
to tell me what it means* Does right govern-
ment, I pray, mean good government ? And

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 91

does the will of the governed mean their wishes
for the moment, or their habitual ruling passion ,
or their true and ultimate good ?

The Stranger. I am hardly able, Socrates, to
answer all these questions at once ; and even If
you put them to me singly, I am afraid 1 should
not be ready with glib replies, unless it were half
In jest, without expecting that they would bear
inspection. Nowadays I place less reliance than
ever upon exact words and (although you will
rebuke me for it) I feel that there Is a current in
things that carries all our thoughts away : not
only that oracle, as you call it, about right govern-
ment, but also any wiser maxims that we might
substitute for it. In my youth my ears were
deafened by a variety of shrill cries , Liberty,
Progress, Science, Culture ; but time, and
especially this last revolution in our affairs, has
taught me how little It mattered what we thought
the cries meant , since events In the long run will
falsify any policy, and render obsolete any con-
viction ; and the only significance 1 can still
attach to those watchwords is no definable sig-
nificance, but only a vague association of each of
them with some shift In our manners or politics
or industrial arts. But why should I trouble you
in your immortal serenity with these squabbles
and delusions of living men ? It was not to talk
about them that I came into your presence, but
rather to escape from them Into your surer wisdom.

Socrates. You will not escape them, my friend,
unless you learn to understand them. You know

92 IN

well that my wisdom lies only In asking questions,
What you come to take refuge In Is not my
philosophy , but yours , which you think 1 may
help you to discover and to put Into words ; and
if this occurs , It will not be wonderful that you
should approve the answers to my questions ,
since It is you who will give them. But to-day
you may be disappointed, for there Is evidently
something new on your conscience, and you may
not know your own mind. Formerly, if I In-
quired of you concerning the affairs of your
provisional world, you stinted your answers, and
changed the subject ; apparently you hardly
followed the events of your own day more closely
than we can follow them here by report, as If
they were things long past ; and you seemed to
feel an Indifference (premature on your part) to
mortal things, and an early Immunity from care,
But now the wasp of actuality seems to have stung
you, and you bring with you a heavier scent of
earth and of new-shed blood. 1 am not surprised
at your distress. Under the blue sky society Is
like Zeus, who is lord over It ; It expresses Its will
less by law-giving than by nods and thunder-
bolts. Strange that In the light of day there
should be so much blindness, and here where
Pluto In comparative darkness rules over far vaster
multitudes there should be never a murmur nor
a rumble, but a just estimation of all things, and
a place for all. Let us not miss the opportunity,
then, while we are together, I to hear your tragedy,
and you to ponder its moral

ON 93

The Stranger. Our tragedy Is an old one, of

which you drew the moral long ago ; it is the

tragedy of those who do as they wish, but do not
get what they want. It is the tragedy of self-
government.

Socrates. It would be a terrible tragedy indeed
if such an excellent thing as self-government came
to a bad end. But I cannot credit the report ,
because a people who had learned self-government
would be a race of philosophers, each governing
himself and himself only, and inwardly safe from
any real misfortune. I rejoice that the republic
of the living, contrary to expectation , should have
become in my absence so similar to this happy
commonwealth of immortals , where no spirit
molests any other , or needs another's support.

The Stranger, Irony, Socrates , cannot shame
the facts, which have an irony of their own. Of
course by self-government, we do not mean the
government of self. We mean that people col-
lectively issue the orders which they must obey
individually.

Socrates. How surprising ! Am I to under-
stand that under self-government, as you prac-
tise it, no man governs himself in anything, but
that each is governed in everything by all the
others ?

The Stranger. It would come to that, if our
system were perfect.

Socrates. Then your democracy, which I sup-
pose intends to express the autonomy of the indi-
vidual, in effect entirely abolishes that autonomy ?

94 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

The Stranger. Yes, but without violence. There
is an unwritten and plastic law in the modern
world which we call fashion ; and the more
thoroughly we conform to it the freer and the
finer we think ourselves. Fashion without magis-
trates rules by the will of the governed : it is
pleasant to go where everybody goes, to think
what everybody thinks, and to dance as every-
body dances. In fashion I might find an answer
to that nestful of questions which you were putting
just now : for the will of the governed, by which
fashion rules, on the surface is a passing caprice ;
but this caprice is grafted upon an habitual passion,
namely, on a rooted instinct to lead, to follow, or
somehow to lose oneself in a common enjoyment
of life with one's fellow-men, especially those of
one's age and class ; and finally this ruling passion
leads to the ultimate good, as the followers of
fashion conceive it ; for they think the ultimate
good is life itself, in its pervasive immediacy,
made as intense and vigorous as possible by
continual novelty and emulation, not for the sake
of any prize or result, but just for the mailing's
sake. Thus fashion governs us with our hearty
consent, not only in our manners and appoint-
ments, but in our religion and science, and above
all in our politics. There is nothing that recom-
mends any opinion or custom to us more than
to hear that it is the latest thing, that everybody
is adopting it, and that it is universal nowadays
in the leading circles. Even our philosophers
have their ear to the ground, and tell us with

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 95

unction how the world Is marching. Their con-
science would reproach them, and they would
wish to hang themselves , if they were not on the
winning side. The event, they say, is always the
judgement of God,

Socrates. Long ago Heraclitus said so ; but
the sentence which divine justice passes on each
new birth Is severe ; It is always death.

The Stranger. Yes ? but a natural death, followed
by some natural resurrection . Why be afraid of
revolution ?

Socrates. Why indeed. If you mean the revolu-
tion of the heavens or of the seasons or the descent
of each generation In Its turn to the grave ? That
which I fear no longer for myself but for you
Is that you should not govern yourselves well
while you live, and should thereby condemn
yourselves here to an eternal bitterness. Are all
fashions equally good ? Are all transitions equally
happy ? Are youth and age ? In their appointed
round, always beautiful and perfect ? Have you
learned how to live ? Do you know how to
die ? If you neglected these questions your self-
government would not be an art, but a blind
experiment. Art, which is action guided by
knowledge, Is the principle of benefit , and without
art the freer a man is the more miserable he must
become.

The Stranger. Government among us Is cer-
tainly not an art, but a fatality. In so far as
it Is not a matter of mere tradition and routine ,
It results from contrary purposes and parties

96 IN

pulling against each other In a tug~of~war, for
the sake of office or of some Immediate reform
or relief. Whether the effects of government are
beneficent in the end nobody can tell, because
nobody can foresee the Infinite radiations of those
effects in the future ; nor even in the present
have we any clear or authoritative notion of the
uses of government, or any criterion by which
to measure the various goods that various people
might regard as ultimate , such as health, friend-
ship, knowledge, laughter, or heaven. And so
far is government among us from regarding any
ultimate good, that many are Inclined to look
In other directions for true guidance In their
allegiances, and for the means to happiness ; and
they regard politics with aversion, and politicians
with contempt, thinking that government, at best,
Is a nuisance,

Socrates. And Is that, pray, your own opinion ?

The Stranger, I will not venture to make It
mine before you have examined It. I remember
the fate of all those innocents who have fallen Into
your hands and have had to eat their own words,

Socrates. Very well ; let me ask you this other
question Instead : If government Is not an art,
how can you or your friends ever determine what
measures to approve or what magistrates to raise
to office ?

The Stranger. Nothing easier. We support
such as express our Ideas or share our desires*

Socrates. And your Ideas and desires are formed
on what principle ?

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 97

The Stranger. On none> of course. They come
to us gaily , like song to the lark, If we had to
find a reason for liking what we like, we should
never be able to like anything.

Socrates. Your politics is a matter of taste ?

The Stranger. Certainly ; but taste is some-
times modified by indigestion,

Socrates. I see : you simply obey your whim
or inclination, until perhaps you sicken and are
in danger of death. Your rulers are physicians
summoned in your extremity : you have no
trainers in your youth. We Greeks held our
trainers and legislators in greater honour than our
physicians : for no doctor could save us from
death, but a trainer might render us fit for an
Olympian victory. Perhaps your doctors promise
to make you immortal ; which I should not think
a benefit if you were never to be well. Art cannot
be improvised under pressure. The man with a
hole in his shoe is not forthwith a cobbler ; much
less does a landsman become a pilot whenever
he is seasick. Imagine yourself (who I suspect
are no sailor) appointed to command a trireme
in a storm or in a fog or in the thick of the battle
of Salamis, not knowing the draught of your
vessel, or the position of the rocks , or the tactics
of the enemy, or even the words of command or
with which hand to steer, but asking yourself
what death to expect, while all hands waited on
you for direction ; and I think your anxiety and
suspense in such a nightmare, and the confusion
and agony with which you would implore every

H

9 3 DIALOGUES IN

god ? or the most humble fellow-creature , to
relieve you of that task, though the fate of only
one trireme was at stake , would be as nothing to
the anguish which must assail the heart of an
ignorant man voting in a moment of danger upon
the government of his country.

The Stranger, No ignorant man among us,
where the leaders are often ignorant, feels the
least compunction in such a case, but only irrita-
tion and ill-will towards every other land-lubber
who 3 in equal ignorance, insists on giving different
orders ; and each attributes the general con-
fusion to the fact that his own voice was not
heeded in time. Nevertheless we exist ; and life
among us is in many ways safer, freer, more
comfortable, and more entertaining than it was
in your model cities, with their divine founders
and law-givers. There is an automatism in
nature, Socrates, more fruitful than reason.
Human beings, in all their dynamic relations, are
bodies, although when they talk to themselves
they may think they are minds. All their vital
organs are unconscious and hereditary, and by
instinct and imitation, without understanding,
they learn to eat, to breed, to talk, and to govern.
Every sturdy race stews its home-made dishes,
to which its stomach is hardened and which it
fondly relishes as incomparably the best. Few
cooks anywhere are inventive a fact which
saves many lives ; and our traditional govern-
ment, like our home religion, though there is
no science in it, is not too poisonous. The

ON 99

sun rises In spite of it, and our children have
red cheeks.

Socrates. The wild beasts , too ? thrive on that
principle. Nature has supplied them with all
sorts of curious and complicated organs which
mature in their season and insist on performing
their unintended functions. Your institutions
seem to be organs of that sort, for in following
fashion or in trying private experiments you
apparently obey some spontaneous instinct, or
some balance of secret forces, and leave the issue
to fortune. But the privilege of human reason ,
where reason exists^ is to turn us into philo-
sophers by teaching us to survey our destiny and
to institute, within its bounds , the pursuit of
perfection,

The Sir anger. Perhaps the spirit in us 5 like
that of some half-tamed beast, is not quite recon-
ciled with its humanity. We prefer not to know
our destiny and not to have any perfection set
before us which we are not free to elude. Beneath
what may seem to you our blind expedients in
government that we count heads as if we paid
out money by weight, without asking whether it
was gold or silver -1 think there is a profound
instinct of freedom. Society itself is an accident
to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms
is to be justified morally it must be justified at
the bar of the individual conscience. In putting
everything to a vote we are not so much supposing
that the majority must be right as we are acknow-
ledging, even at the risk of material disaster* the

ioo DIALOGUES IN

indefeasible right of each soul to determine its
allegiances.

Socrates. Eloquence, by venting the feelings,
sometimes clears the mind. Would you now
be able, I wonder, to answer a simple question
which I asked you at the beginning ? Does right
government mean good government ?

The Stranger. No : I see now that there is a
difference. Legitimacy in a government depends
on the origin of its authority : excellence depends
on its fruits.

Socrates. Then right government, resting* as
your oracle has it, on the will of the governed,
may be bad government ?

The Stranger. Of course; nothing is commoner,
especially when passions run high and nations or
individuals attempt the impossible.

Socrates. You mean, for instance, that if an
assembly with a great shout voted that every citizen
should receive a large dole from the public treasury,
that measure would accurately express their living
desires, and the free choice of every bosom ; yet
it might bring no good, if at that moment the
treasury was empty.

The Stranger. Evidently ; but in that case at
least the illusion would be short - lived. The
bubbles we pursue in love or ambition often take
longer to burst.

Socrates. And would you say that these bubbles,
even when they lead you so long astray, are the
right principles of action, and that you ought to
follow them ?

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 101

The Stranger, I am at a loss how to reply. If
I say no, 1 condemn all life ; if I say yes, I sanction
every folly.

Socrates. Life, my good friend. Is hard for you
to understand because you are still living. Here
we understand It. Not every passion pursues a
bubble ; not every treasury is empty. But living
impulse , borne as it needs must be on Its own
wings , cannot distinguish ; It cannot foresee the
end, so as to push on where success Is promised,
and halt In time where it is denied. Experience
arrives too late for each of us, and the young ,
though more or less fortunate in disposition are
never born any wiser. But by Instruction experi-
ence may be transmitted ; a father may train his
son ; the gods too are merciful and send down
precepts and Inspirations ; and the legislator. If
we live in a civilized state, has instituted games
and festivals and exercises by which youth can be
moulded and turned towards such ambitions as
may be satisfied with innocence. Life to this
extent becomes an art and wisdom a tradition.
The living cannot live well unless the dead govern
them. Ah, If the Athenians, after dismissing me
from their midst In a manner which, whether a
benefit to them or not s was certainly a great
advantage to me, had wisely decided to dis-
enfranchise themselves In a body and, at every
election, to ask the Shade of Socrates alone to
decide and had counted only my single vote,
Athens, 1 say, would still be standing, more
beautiful In her simplicity than Pericles ever made

102 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

her with his brand new marbles , and richer in true
poets and true philosophers than she ever was in
sophists and comedians. But the living, twitter-
ing on the green bough, despise the wisdom of
the dead which might insinuate something im-
mortal into them and keep them from wholly
dying.

The Stranger. Immortality, Socrates, although
people often declaim about it, is a thing for which
the truly living do not care. They wish, indeed,
to go on living , because they are wound up to go,
and any accident which threatens to stop them
short is odious to them ; but that all their habits
and thoughts should lapse successively and yield
to something new, or to a timely silence which,
being absolute, will never be perceived, does not
disturb them ; such, they know by instinct , is the
nature of existence. For this reason they allow
only living desires to count in action, however
frivolous or fatal those desires may be ; they wish
to live and not merely not to die. Your Shade
in its wisdom, annulling their wills and stopping
their bawling mouths, would have seemed to them
the most horrible of ghostly tyrants, and worse
than the laws of the Medes and Persians or an
infallible pope ; and you would have preserved
your austere Athens to no purpose by your eternal
decrees, because the living would have fled from
it and left it empty. It is not right to impose old
loves on a young soul or ancient justice on a new
society. No tyranny is worse than that of a
belated or fanatical conscience, oppressing a world

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 103

It does not understand In the name of another
world which Is non-existent.

Socrates. How often have I heard speeches like
that from the clever men who filled the living
Athens or 5 since living and dying seem to be
Identical the dying Athens of my day ! A small
question, however^ troubled me in the midst of
your eloquence. Imagine, as a mere hypothesis,
that the Great King or my Shade interrupted the
orgies or the star-gazing In which (as they say)
we are habitually plunged , and that we commanded
a useful bridge to be built, or unjust tax-gatherers
to be punished, or temples and groves to be re-
newed and beautified, or that by resisting the
desire of the people for largesses in their holiday
moods, we were actually able to distribute doles
to them In some year of famine, or by our fore-
sight in fostering agriculture had prevented their
distress, would all these acts of ours have been
wrong and tyrannical because done on our own
Initiative, and not at the people's bidding ?

The Stranger. 1 confess that practically It would
make little difference who exercised the right of
legislation, If In any case the laws and the spirit
of the government were to be the same ; but
experience has taught us that the Great King and
the assembled people would not pass the same
laws or govern In the same interests.

Socrates. Your prejudice against the Great
King or against my Shade as perpetual archon Is
then not absolute. You might consent to be
governed by us If you thought us likely to govern

104 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO ,

well, but you fear that our thoughts might be too
kingly or too ghostly, and might divert your
energies to royal or fantastic ends, despising your
homely needs ?

The Stranger. Yes, that is what we fear.

Socrates. In such measure , however, as we
actually governed well, would you not think us
tyrants or our government illegitimate ?

The Stranger. No doubt in that case you would
be accepted without credentials ; in fact, if your
government was half decent, people would soon
overflow with loyalty to you, and would build
statues or altars in your honour,

Socrates. Then good government is always
right government ?

The Stranger. That seems to follow from your
argument, but I am not convinced. Compulsion
is degrading in itself, and there is an intrinsic
dignity in freedom,

Socrates. Is there an intrinsic dignity in the
freedom of a blind man when the degrading
restraint exercised by the dog or the child leading
him is removed, and he walks over a precipice ?

The Stranger. Yes, if he is weary of being
blind and of being led, and prefers to commit
suicide.

Socrates, The dignity which you attribute to
suicide would disappear, I suppose, if the moment
the man felt himself falling through the void, he
repented and gave a shriek of terror and despair ?

The Stranger, I assume, of course, that he
knows his own mind.

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 105

Socrates. Ah, that Is an important conditioti,
a most important condition. And there are other
things that perhaps he would need to know, if
the dignity of his freedom was to be preserved.
Suppose that at the very time of his suicide,
Asclepius or some other healer of men was
approaching with a salve which applied to the
eyes would have restored them to sight ; in kill-
ing himself just then would he not be a victim
of tragic ignorance, acting contrary to his true
desires ?

The Stranger. How can you expect any one to
adjust his action to what lies beyond his ken ?

Socrates. How indeed ? What freedom can
there be in the helpless solitude of ignorance ?
What autonomy in being driven this way and that
by wishes without self-knowledge ? It is know-
ledge and knowledge only that may rule by divine
right, no matter who possesses that knowledge
and, possessing it, gives the word of command.
Without knowledge there is no authority in the
will, either over itself or over others, but only
violence and madness. And this knowledge neces-
sary to virtue and to the right to will looks in
two directions, first into the soul, to disentangle
her true nature and discern the pursuits in which
her innate powers might be liberated and de-
veloped ; and then again into the world, to dis-
cover the opportunities, the aids, and the dangers
which the soul must count upon in the exercise
of her freedom. And with this, in consequence
of your patient explanations, 1 think I may venture

io6 DIALOGUES IN

to Interpret that oracle which at first seemed so
obscure. If the god had spoken in prose , without
wishing to be oracular,, he would have said that
there is no right government except good govern-
ment ; that good government is that which benefits
the governed ; that the good of the governed is
determined not by their topmost wishes or their
ruling passions, but by their hidden nature and
their real opportunities ; and that only knowledge ,
discovering this hidden nature and these real
opportunities, and speaking in their name, has a
right to rule in the state or in the private conscience.
I will not ask you to-day whether you agree
with these conclusions, for I perceive that your
mind is agitated, and you may prefer to reserve
your decision. Another day we will renew the
argument.

VII
ON SELF-GOVERNMENT

SECOND DIALOGUE

The Stranger, When 1 saw again 5 after our last
conversation, the blue vault under which we
mortals think that we live, though It is but our
optical illusion, your doctrine itself assumed a new
perspective in my memory, IE these uiiframed
spaces every spirit shines by its own light : but
there an oblique external illumination casts every-
thing into violent light and shadow, making a
painted patchwork of the world , and hiding the
profound labour going on patiently beneath.
Why should nature have endowed her creatures
with senses so strangely caricaturing and fore-
shortening the facts ? Doubtless because there
is not time or strength in the soul, while yet alive ?
to conceive all things justly, but only to catch such
glimpses of them as may suffice to lend a name to
her pleasures and sorrows, and help her to sketch
the outlines of her destiny* That which happens
to the eye in the presence of bodies, happens on
earth to the understanding in the presence of alien
thoughts* These we must distort, if we do not
altogether neglect them : yet this very neglect or

107

io8 DIALOGUES IN

distortion is a speaking picture of our condition :
we are militant souls, fighting in the stifling
armour of the body, stunned and bleeding by
many a wound. How should we do more than
occasionally spy an enemy, or whisper to a friend ?
In you, Socrates , I have always recognized the
truest and greatest of friends , though you knew
nothing of it ; but the best physician is not always
able to cure, nor the most merciful deity to save :
the disease is rooted in nature. So on this occa-
sion you had plainly shown that government was
right only when beneficent , and that good self-
government must rest on self-knowledge ; but it
seemed to me 5 looking at things again in the violent
light of day, that in discovering his own nature and
his opportunities , a man was himself the best
explorer, and each nation the best judge of its own
case : so that the control of action by personal
impulse or by popular vote might be the wisest
after all. Any external authority would be sure
to rule in some abstract interest , and to sail by an
obsolete chart. All precepts inspired by past
experience are, in one sense, impertinent : they
assume that in the virgin rock of futurity there
are no veins unworked and no glint of anything
perhaps more precious than gold.

Socrates, You confirm a story I once heard
concerning the firmament of your world , that it
was an egg-shell within which the soul, already
quickened, was not yet hatched : her true life
would begin when that shell was shattered and
she found herself in the open. That warm close

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 109

universe, with its flashes of phosphorescence which
you call day, has been the womb of all of us : let
us preserve a grateful piety towards our uncon-
scious parent. You enjoy the singular privilege
of partly anticipating your birth , by putting your
callow head now and then out of the shell and
taking a peep at eternity ; but you do well to
draw back again quickly, in order to go on growing
in the dreamful safety of your nest, and blindly
strengthening your eyes and feathers : you are
not ready yet for the air. And this last embryonic
interval of yours seems to have been particularly
fruitful ; you come back in a flutter of rich im-
pulses and divinations, such as embryos should
have. But you know the laws of my Republic in
regard to every new birth, no matter how exalted
its parentage. It must be submitted to the magis-
trate for inspection, and unless found healthy and
perfect it must be unflinchingly put out of the way.
It would not be merciful to a monster to allow it
to live, or merciful to the commonwealth to suffer
monsters to dwell in it. Let us then examine your
offspring together : and may it stand the test.

The Stranger. You need not hesitate on my
account to condemn it, I feel no great affection
or even pity for this doctrine of democracy, which
came to me not as my own child, nor even as a
foundling left at my door* but as a sort of figment
of words or obsession in a dream : and if you blow
on the phantom and prove it a gas-baby, you will
leave me no poorer and more at ease.

Socrates, Let us inspect it without prejudice.

no DIALOGUES IN

Sometimes the greatest discoveries wear at first a
disquieting or nebulous form. Did not people
call me a sophist, and was It not out of sophistry
that I plucked the unshakable humility of my
wisdom ? You say, then, that external authority
is ill fitted to discern the good 5 which Is more
likely to be revealed by the voice of personal
impulse, or of the whole people casting their votes.
In respect to Impulse you might point, for Instance,
to the young of man and the other mammals, who
Instinctively save their lives by taking the breast
which the mother^ in a smiling torpor, Is happy
to give them : whereas If a conclave of astrologers,
never having noticed such lowly things, had been
summoned to devise the right food for Infants, not
one of those learned men would ever have suggested
a method so strangely elaborate and (as they would
have said) so disgusting as being suckled at the
breast ; but If one of them was a follower of
Thales, he might have urged that water, being the
substance of all things, was undoubtedly in Its
pure state the most Invigorating and the safest
nourishment for a tender life ; and another might
have suggested that a little wine, the gift of the
Infant, Bacchus, is the surest cause of warmth and
movement in the system, and of Inspiration In the
mind ; a third might have argued that, life being
something divine and supernatural, It Is best sus-
tained If the wine is mixed with honey, because
then It is called nectar and Is the drink of the gods ;
another might have prescribed a diet of fresh grass,
saying that grass Is the stay of every strong aad

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT in

blameless animal , such as the horse and the cow s
and that all other foods are the mad contrivance
of luxury or of ferocity and a sure cause of disease ;
yet another a logician, might have proved that
only solids can enlarge solids, so that for the right
growth of a child's body body being a solid by
definition all liquids were superfluous ; while a
rival member of the same school of thought ,
admitting that only like can produce like, might
have declared it absurd to expect that life should
be sustained upon dead substances , and would
have commanded all infants to be fed on nothing
but gnats, flies, worms, beetles, and caterpillars,
to be swallowed alive. Meantime, after all these
sages, and those who listened to them, had died
childless, the vulgar who had ignorant ly followed
their instinct would have preserved mankind from
extinction and repeopled the earth,

The Stranger. How comes it, Socrates, that
you are found to-day making merry at the expense
of knowledge ?

Socrates. Is it knowledge not to know that
milk is for babes ? The childish instinct to cry
disconsolately until given suck is a philosophical
instinct* It demands something which is probably
obtainable, and which, when obtained, will prove
pleasant and wholesome* Philosophy could do
no better. Now ? may I presume that the instincts
which you regard as safe guides in government are
all instincts of this wise kind, playing into the
hands of nature, finding what they seek, and
thriving upon it ?

ii2 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

The Stranger. The natural sanction of instinct
is seldom Immediate, What I mean Is only that
an Impulse at least points to some satisfaction,
whether obtainable or not, so that every impulse
has an initial right to be given a trial, and every
vote a right to be counted.

Socrates, Each of those astrologers in council,
for instance, would have a right to make trial of
his method, at least on his own children ?

The Stranger. Your example Is grotesque,
because everybody knows what young children
require : but if the case were novel, and experi-
ence had not proved the point ad nauseam. It would
be right for every man to try the method which
seemed to him best.

Socrates. So long as men are ignorant, their
conduct, according to your principles, is always
right, and they must have their way ? Their
folly becomes folly only when they discover It to
be so ; and only death or disaster can rightly
prevent them from continuing In the courses
which up to that fatal moment have been perfectly
right ?

The Stranger, No doubt when a man Is dis-
appointed at the result of his action, he may say
he has made a mistake, and may call that action
wrong ; but it hardly follows that It was wrong to
have made the experiment, or even to make It
again, if the circumstances seem more favourable ;
and In any case he remains the judge of his own
error, and the corrected course which he should
steer in future is always that which his private

ON 113

instinct, enlightened by his experience, now
prompts him to choose,

Socrates, And meanwhile, In those political
actions which men can execute only in common ,
how Is the right course determined ? For Instance,
If there was only one child, the king's son and
heir, to be nursed by all those astrologers,, how
would you decide on which of their scientific foods
the young prince should be fed ?

The Stranger, There would be a ballot, In
which each doctor, after recommending his own
nostrum, would Indicate his second choice ; and
the voting would be continued until every one
being exhausted by fatigue and sleeplessness, a
majority was obtained in despair for no matter
what compromise ; and on that expert recipe the
hope of the nation would be brought up.

Socrates, 1 am lost In admiration at the wisdom
of your procedure. In Hellas we made trial of
many forms of government of all, as we fondly
thought, that human Ingenuity could devise ; but
we underestimated the fertility of time. How
1 regret that before framing my Ideal Republic
I could not have seen your system at work ! For
there are occasions on which, IE my Ignorance,
I cannot Imagine how you would apply your
principles. If, for Instance, some monster for
time breeds monsters too should be born among
you, and if one day Briareus should enter your
assembly and raise his hundred hands at once,
or if Hydra should shriek a thousand discordant
opinions out of her thousand mouths, would he

I

ii4 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

or she count for one citizen according to your
laws, or for a hundred or a thousand ?

The Stranger. The case Is less mythical than
It sounds, and we actually have something of the
sort In our press and our political parties ; but
no practical difficulty arises, because our monsters
are not separate beings, but are composed of men
and women packed closely together and compelled
to move In unison ; and each of these Trojan
horses, as It were, which fight all our battles for
us, counts for as many votes as It carries indi-
viduals tucked under Its hide.

Socrates. Ah, yes ; your citizen is your only
sovereign, and all his thoughts and motions are
dictated to him by some Impersonal organism,
to which he Is subject he knows not why. But
what are the limits of your citizenship ? Does
good husbandry, according to your traditions,
consider the interests of all the ants in the ant-
hills of your country, lest your husbandmen,
certainly far fewer than the ants in number,
should unjustly drive the plough through those
ant-hills, trampling on the Interests and passions
of the majority ? Do not reply too hastily ; for
on second thoughts I am confident you would
not allow the small stature or the black colour of
ants to prejudice you against their rights as living
creatures ; and the accident that they are too
busy at home to come and vote in the agora
ought not to count against them ; for I suppose
the Interests of children and sick people and old
men, who are not able to jostle their way to the

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 115

voting-booths , are not neglected in your just
democracy 5 but your chief magistrate or high
priest or some vestal virgin especially appointed
doubtless rises solemnly in your assembly ? amid
a general hush, and casts a vote in their name.

The Stranger. We are not pious. Nothing of
the sort ever enters our heads.

Socrates. That seems very strange to me, when
I consider the principle which you say governs
your politics. But there is another class, so very
numerous and important,, that I am sure your
legislators must have found a means of counting
their votes, although there may be some material
difficulty in doing so : 1 mean the dead. For
who can have a greater stake in a country than
its founders , whose whole soul and single hope
was devoted to establishing it, that it might last
and be true to their thought for ever ; or than
the soldiers who in many wars have successively
given their lives to preserve it ? Surely at every
meeting of your assembly their votes are counted
first, which they once cast so solemnly and
sincerely, and at so great a sacrifice to themselves
for your sake ; and their veto is interposed
beforehand against any rash measure that might
undo their labours, stultify their hopes, and
banish their spirit from the house which they
built and loved.

The Stranger. No ; the dead have no vote
among us. On the contrary, we think they have
too much influence as it is without voting, because
they have bequeathed institutions to us which

ii6 DIALOGUES IN

encumber our playground and are not to our
liking ; and the inertia which these institutions
oppose to our fresh desires seems to us a hateful
force, which we call the dead hand.

Socrates. Do you mean that every young rascal,
who knows nothing of the origin and laws of his
country, and has never done anything in it but
be born, may cast a vote, or that foreigners fleeing
from famine or seeking by trade to enrich them-
selves privately , although in their hearts they may
be sworn enemies to the land that receives them,
may cast a vote also, but that the founders and
defenders of it are not suffered to make their
voices heard, because they happen to be dead ?
I, who am dead myself, see a great injustice in
that. But let us return to the living. I suppose
when the inhabitants of some town or quarter
wish to rebuild their temple, or to found a aew
one, they gather together to draw up the plans ;
and when, in response to their living desires, or
to those of a majority, they have chosen the site,
selected the materials, designed the structure, and
estimated the cost, they depute one of their own
number, as nearly an average man as possible,
to carry out the project. After six months or a
year they do not forget to come together again,
to revise the plans and make sure that the site
first chosen is still convenient, and the work done
so far is still expressive of the popular taste ; and
lest the architect formerly appointed may have
been too much absorbed in his official function,
and may have acquired autocratic habits, and

ON 117

notions of architectural art not drawn from
popular feeling^ they hasten to revoke his com-
mission and to appoint a new architect, more in
sympathy with the life of the moment, and not
tempted to execute any work which the assembled
people, by a divine inspiration, have not first
conceived in idea.

The Stranger. If the architect was not more
fertile in invention and resourceful in methods
than is the average citizen, why should he be
distinguished by that title at all ?

Socrates. That is a question 1 meant to ask
you, and I expected you to reply, in the name of
your friends, that they were all equally skilful
architects and physicians and generals, and that
each took on each of these titles when he happened
to be exercising that particular art ; moreover,
that special masters in any art were required only
in ill-governed states , where the people were not
perfectly educated, but that in a model state all
human undertakings would be executed as the
ants and the bees build their cities ; for all, or
nearly all, of them are builders, unanimous without
control, and a common impulse joins them in
labours which prove providentially to be har-
monious. So I seem to see the artists in your
happy society adding each his niche to the sculp-
tured hive, and making it rich by a divine and
unconscious co-operation. The spirit in them
marshals them without words. Alas, we poor
Athenians could practise the arts only through,
rare and exceptional masters, aot being inspired,

n8 DIALOGUES IN

as you all are to-day, to execute the most diffi-
cult works spontaneously and without instruction.
But I am letting my enthusiasm run away with
me, when I ought rather to be asking you to
describe your principles in practice. If, for
instance , some enemy attacks you and you find
yourselves at war, I suppose you seize the weapons
which you have at hand, provided by your private
love of contrivances or of the chase, and rush
with one accord upon that enemy, routing him
easily at the first onset by your common ardour
and instinctive tactics.

The Stranger. No. That is the method of
wolves or of savage tribes. In our states, which
are of enormous extent and population, the
generals and other officers are designated before-
hand, and trained by long study and exercises in
time of peace ; and our arsenals are provided with
all kinds of engines of war, with artisans skilful
in making and managing them ; and even our
common soldiers, if they are not to go like sheep
to the slaughter, must undergo a long discipline
at home before they are ever sent into the battle,
in which they must endure all sorts of dangers
and hardships blindly, not seeing the enemy, and
trusting to the word and art of their superiors for
every movement and every hope,

Socrates. I am astonished. How can it be
that, having such excellent methods of govern-
ment, you do not apply them to the principal
function of your government, which is the pro-
tection of your lives ? But perhaps war is too

ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 119

rough a business for such noble principles to
work in ; they may apply only to higher things.
If s for example , you are not merely building a
temple, but giving a name to the god that is to
be worshipped there, I suppose your people gather
in an assembly and elect their god, and by a
common inspiration compose the fable that is to
be religiously associated with his name, as well
as the rites with which , on pain of disaster , he
shall be honoured, and the form the sculptor
shall give to his image ; and when all this has been
settled by vote, I suppose you vote on a still more
important question, and decide it by a majority :
I mean, what benefits this god shall bestow on
you, and whether he shall protect you from
drought or from pestilence, or shall inspire you
with martial ardour or with ravishing music, or
shall make you rich, or beautiful, or immortal,
or whatever it be that you, or the majority of you,
happen most to desire.

The Stranger. 1 suspect you are laughing at
us ; but in all seriousness that is very much how
we proceed in matters of religion. For deities of
the earth and sea, for stories of wonders, for local
shrines or images black with age whose origin is
lost in antiquity, we have scant respect ; but our
prophets and philosophers discuss angrily what
ought to be the nature of God, whom each defines
according to his own preferences ; and few of
them hesitate to demolish old temples and old
notions of the gods, or even to deny their existence,
and to substitute the idea which most flatters the

120 DIALOGUES IN

mood of the age, and call this new idea the only
true God. And even if we do not vote openly
for one god or another to preside over us, yet
by an insensible movement of public opinion we
abandon the gods we dislike for others that we
like better, and we never rest until we have
adopted one that lays on us no commandment
not to our own mind, and promises us all we
wish.

Socrates. And when you have found such an
amiable god, and abolished all those who were
dangerous, I suppose calamities cease among you>
passion and madness no longer distract any mind ?
there are no more floods , earthquakes, pestilences,
or wars, and a serene happiness reigns in your
hearts and in your cities,

The Stranger. Not at all. Human destiny
remains precisely as before, save that religion has
a smaller part in it, turns to private doubts or
fancies, or vanishes altogether,

Socrates. Those who worship the statues of
the gods, rather than the gods themselves, are
called idolaters, are they not ?

The Stranger. Yes.

Socrates. And if a man worshipped an image
of some god in his own mind, rather than the
power which actually controls his destiny^ he
would be worshipping an idol ?

The Stranger. The principle would be the
same ; but usage among us applies the word
idol to the products of sculpture, not to those of
poetry.

ON 121

Socrates, Then 5 In principle, your prophets
and philosophers are sheer Idolaters ?

The Stranger. They would be ? if they took
their religion seriously, as you did yours in the
old days ; but their religion has nothing to do
with their business or politics, or with their
practical estimation of good and evil fortune ; it
Is merely the solace of their dreamful hours.
People now are hardly aware that the object of
continual piety and studious reverence In the
most ancient religions was the power that actually
and hourly rules over men, whatever may be its
nature or Its contempt for human Interests, the
very power that still rules the world without
human suffrage. This real power we make the
object of science and of profitable art, but not of
what we now call religion.

Socrates. But at least In respect to that other
luxurious religion of theirs, which you think Is
in principle mere Idolatry, your friends apply
their fine theory of government by the will of
the governed, deputing some chosen god to
legislate for them according to their own wishes.
Do they apply the same theory, I wonder, In that
humbler region to which religion was addressed
of old, the region of our daily and national
fortunes ? Do they apply it, for Instance, to the
household ? Do your little boys and girls, after
playing In the street together, vote to become
brothers and sisters , and elect a father and
mother ? You smile, as if my question were
ironical, but 1 assure you I am in earnest* and

122 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

think it a momentous question. For if the father
and the mother do not hold their office by the
consent of their children, and have not become
their father and mother in obedience to the
children's will, then according to your principles
of government all parental authority is usurped,
and no parent's command or control is legitimate ;
and it was an act of selfish and outrageous tyranny
on the part of the father and mother to beget a
helpless child, and bring him up by force in their
own family, when very likely, had he been con-
sulted, he would have chosen different parents
and a finer home. I hardly know what to admire
most, whether the simplicity of your principles,
or the excellence of the society that would arise
if they could be thoroughly applied. After abolish-
ing the old gods (which can be done with a
breath) you will doubtless abolish the ridiculous
old methods of animal generation, and establish
something more decent ; and by a majority vote
you will reform the configuration and climate of
the earth, and decide what shall have been 4 the
history of your country, and what shall be its
future language and arts ; and you will begin,
I hope, by voting yourselves a much greater
intelligence than that with which chance has
endowed you.

The Stranger. 1 blush, Socrates, at the foolish-
ness and impiety of the views which I might
almost have adopted, if your voice of warning
had not reached me in time.

Socrates. There is nothing surprising to me

ON SELF-GQYERNMENX 123

In the Influence exercised over mankind by those
who flatter It with eloquence. There were sophists
in my day too, But I suspect that the funda-
mental order of human life is settled for you
now, as it was for us then, independently of pert
opinion^ by nature and fortune and divine decrees,
sophistry itself being but headiness in Ill-bred
mortals, when Apollo has withdrawn to another
part of the heavens. 1 think, too, that right
conscience in a natural creature can be nothing
but self-knowledge , by which the man discovers
his own nature and the good on which It Is set ;
so that the margin of free choice and initiative
for a man of understanding is exceedingly narrow,
and grows narrower as the field of his competence
grows wider and his science clearer, all art being
but nature enlightened and directed upon Its
natural good. But doubtless your friends on
earth are masters of magic, and are Inspired with
an Infused wisdom which was always denied me.
You will do well to return to them with my
doubts fresh in mind ; and after listening to the
weighty considerations which they will doubtless
invoke In support of their opinions you will be
able to form your own at leisure ; for it would be
of little profit to have been saved from one error
If, under my blind guidance^ you fell into another.

VIII
THE PHILANTHROPIST

Socrates. According to your reports , inveterate
Wanderer, you come from an unhomely world ;
but you are hardened to living without a home
or country , and perhaps you relish unhomeliness.
I was never in my own person an emulator of
Odysseus or given to travel There are, I know,
no end of creatures and commonwealths , animal
or divine, which nature can produce in her exuber-
ance ; but they are not models for Athens or
for me, I therefore dismiss them with respect,
and relinquish the study of them to the young
Carnbyses you know the story that son of the
Great King who spent his youth observing the
wild beasts kept in cages and pits in his fathers
park. Such study ? the king had said to him,
would prepare him for understanding and taming
his future subjects, all whose passions he might
see unfeigned and pure in the brutes. This
prince was to rale over barbarians , and his educa-
tion was doubtless well fitted to his destiny ? and
the historians do not inform us whether at the
same time he learned to imitate the beasts himself.
As for me, my guardian genius never allowed me

to study zoology except in man* and condemned

124

THE 125

me to be a narrow philanthropist, so enamoured
of mere man that nothing not human could hold
my serious attention. Yet in the home park of
the human soul I found a perfect replica of that
king 3 s preserves ; for it was full of growling and
fluttering passions , which 1 endeavoured to trap
in a net of words and to train to abandon their
ferocity and live together in peace. I fondly
hoped that the voice of reason might have no less
magic in it than the songs of Orpheus , and might
render a man ashamed and unwilling to contradict
himself . Nor was I always disappointed , and my
single love of man was confirmed on finding him
a tamable monster. What can be more virile and
noble than a pack of wild instincts halting to be
just ? In my day, to my sorrow, the passions of
the many were bursting from their cages and
returning to the jungle , as they seem to be doing
among you now ; but a few tempered spirits
survived , especially among the well-born youths
who frequented my society ; and even the wildest
of them, like Alcibiades, paid to reason at least
the homage of shame, and some pure image of
honour still shone in the midst of their vices, like
a patch of blue sky reflected in a well. That part
of them I still could love ; else 1 might have been
reduced, like Diogenes (who had not the art of
friendship), to carrying a lamp by day and looking
for an honest man in the gutter ; and I might have
fallen to hating all men for disfiguring humanity
instead of loving them, as 1 did, for that vestige of
humanity which was still in them.

126 DIALOGUES IN

The Stranger, What other standard of human
nature, Socrates, can you propose except the
nature of actual man ? If you are a friend of
humanity should you not cultivate all mankind ,
accept all their types , share all their pleasures, and
be pleased with all their oddities ? Else it might
seem that what you loved was not mankind but
only your own pets or your own fancies. I know
that by nature you are a true lover and that the
good and the beautiful deeply engage your allegi-
ances wherever they are found ; but the blind
bigots who in my day call themselves philan-
thropists and are always Invoking humanity are
the least human of men, utterly intolerant of that
natural freedom which sometimes renders life
glorious In spite of its sadness, be it in religion,
patriotism, sport, or fancy. They are tender only
to the vermin In the lion's skin, and their philan-
thropy Is sheer hatred of everything that might
make men worth loving.

Socrates. You attack me boldly, well knowing
that I am helpless against eloquence and invective.
I could not defend myself before my judges In
Athens* who were plain men, when a false accusa-
tion was brought against me ; and how shall I
defend myself now against you, who say you are
a philosopher and who, therefore, are bringing
charges which are probably true ? However, you
are but one accuser, and I need not address you
in a set speech, as if you were a crowd ; and
perhaps, If you will answer a few questions that
trouble my own mind, I may agree that I am

THE PHILANTHROPIST 127

guilty or you that I am innocent. You say s do
you not 5 that I am no philanthropist, because
a philanthropist should love men as they are,
whereas I, falsely calling myself a lover of men,
love only my notion of what men should be ?

The Stranger, Yes 3 some such feeling was in
my mind.

Socrates. Now would you say that the love
which a man has for himself is genuine or feigned
and hypocritical ?

The Stranger. Unmistakably genuine,

Socrates. And does he love himself as he
actually is or rather as he would wish to be ?

The Stranger, That is a hard question.

Socrates. Suppose 1 have two friends, one who
knows and loves me exactly as 1 am ? describing me
with gusto as an old, pot-bellied, bald, mechanical
rogue, useless and tiresome , and another friend
(perhaps you yourself) who knows and loves me
as I should like to have been, calling me the
daylight conscience of Athens or a discerner and
companion of all that is beautiful : which of these
two friends do you think I should regard as truly
sympathetic and as sharing with me the genuine
love which I have for myself ?

The Stranger. In this case certainly the flatterer
would be the better critic and would describe the
deeper truth. -

Socrates. Is not, then, the true philanthropist a
flatterer of mankind , not, of course , like a politician
for his own advancement, but as the self-love of
mankind is itself a flatterer, seeing their better

128 DIALOGUES IN

side and their missed possibilities , and loving
them as they would wish to be rather than as
they are ?

The Stranger. I suppose that our wishes and
ideals are a part of our present selves, and that a
true lover of men would not love them apart from
that idealism in them which keeps them alive and
human.

Socrates. If a boy has been reading the Odyssey
and wishes to be wrecked on a desert island and to
become king over it, that day-dream is a part of
the boy ; and if you truly love the boy, you must
love that day-dream in him. Is that your
meaning ?

The Stranger. I should not wish him, at his
age, to be without something of the sort ; and I
certainly should like a boy the better for being
fond of the Odyssey.

Socrates, And if the boy attempted to set sail
alone in a small boat, hoping to be actually
wrecked, would you wish the same thing for him
in consequence of your affection ?

The Stranger, Of course, he must be prevented.

Socrates. How, then, does the argument stand ?
Men, you say, love themselves as they wish to be,
but the philanthropist loves them as they are and
is ready, in some cases, to prevent them by force
from realizing their desires ; and yet he wishes
them, at least if they are boys, to cultivate those
desires without realizing them ? Is that the
position ?

The Stranger. So it would seem.

129

Socrates. Perhaps our supposition was un-
natural ? because boys, even when fond of the
Odyssey and of gloating over imaginary adven-
tures, are in fact little cowards^ and would be
terrified at finding themselves adrift, 1 will not
say at sea, but in a duck-pond. Let us suppose
that our young hero was rendered so exceptionally
brave not simply by reading the Odyssey, but by
falling into a fever after reading it, and becoming
delirious ; and let us suppose that in his lucid
intervals he did not wish to be wrecked, but to
get well. Now if you were a true friend to that
boy would you share his wish in this instance ,
actually assisting him ? to the best of your know-
ledge and power, to recover his health as soon as
possible, or would you still, as in the other instance,,
love him and wish him to remain just as he was s
intermittently feverish and entertaining at intervals
the warm ideals proper to a fever, without, of
course, ever reducing them to act ?

The Stranger, You are bringing ridicule upon
me> but not conviction.

Socrates, All the ridicule 1 may bring upon
you will not hurt you, if you bring no ridicule
upon yourself. But let us coldly consider the
facts. Suppose some one is found so entirely
devoted to your interests that he never exercises
his own judgement but labours to carry out
instantly your every wish : would you think him
the best of friends ?

The Stranger. 1 should think him a good
servant. A friend may do an occasional service,

K

130 DIALOGUES IN

and a servant , in his feelings , may be sometimes
a friend ; but service is not true friendship. A
good servant follows my directions , a bad one
studies my character in order to profit by my
foibles 3 as a demagogue studies public opinion .
A friend would rather communicate to me his own
pleasures and insights,

Socrates, Partners in vice are not true friends ?

The Stranger. No, they are accomplices. All
your boon-companions , adulterous lovers, fellow-
conspirators, bandits , and partisans may imagine
that they are friends pursuing a common interest,
but in reality each obeys a private impulse and
cares only for his own dream. The others are
but his chance instruments in debauch. Presently
they will fall out over the spoils or take to railing
at one another for failure or treachery.

Socrates. But what of those who, as the phrase
is 5 are in love ?

The Stranger. Each of them, too, is moved by
a private mysterious passion- At first they are in
a flutter, or love-sick and full of dreams ; later
they pursue each other with sensitive claims,
exactions, and jealousies. Sometimes, for a while,
they are wildly happy ; then they begin to feel
imprisoned, and perhaps grow bitter and quarrel-
some, even to the point of violence and murder.

Socrates. Is there not often a lifelong and
tender affection between husband and wife, parents
and children, brothers and sisters ?

The Stranger. There is : sometimes sugary,
sometimes seasoned with a little sarcasm.

THE 131

Socrates. At least young children^ red-cheeked
and vigorous, running and romping about with
shrill cries, must be a perfect delight to you ?

The Stranger, Yes ? for half an hour.

Socrates, You find more peace s no doubt,
among wrinkled white-bearded elders sitting in
the sun or tottering on knotted staves, well pleased
with themselves and their old saws ?

The Stranger. They 3 too, are picturesque, but
at their best in the background. Otherwise such
old men are a danger to philanthropy.

Socrates. I see that your preference, like mine 5
is decidedly for the plastic and generous temper
of young men ? who embody human health and
freedom to perfection.

The Stranger. Yes 3 but our preference in this
matter is three-quarters illusion. In reality , what
is a youth but a tadpole ? And what can be
more odious than their conceit when they have
some cleverness and transgress their sphere ?

Socrates. What ? Are you entirely weaned from
the love of images ? Do you now prize nothing
in man save his active virtues* such as can be
exercised in their fullness only in middle life ?

The Stranger. Active virtues ? Say rather
active vices* Men in middle life are for the most
part immersed in affairs to which they give too
much importance, having sold their souls to some
sardonic passion and become dangerous and
repulsive beasts.

Socrates. What , then , is your con elusion? That
the one great obstacle to philanthropy is man ?

132 DIALOGUES IN

The Stranger. You forget woman.

Socrates. Alas 5 shade of Xanthippe, It Is not
easy to forget her. Woman Is the eternal im-
pediment,,

The Stranger, Being incomplete she wishes
man to be so, and her ascendancy is a wile of
nature that keeps the race jogging along In spite
of all the philosophers. Nowadays the manly
heart Is entirely dominated by the sentiments she
Inspires or by those she approves. Nor does he
think this woman-worship degrading ; integrity
Is out of date ; and In woman he seems to find
concentrated all the beauty and fineness , all the
ardour and religion, that still remain in the world.

Socrates. Can It be so bad as that ? You are
Indulging^ I know, your spleen or your fancy ;
yet after painting such a picture of mankind, can
you still maintain that true philanthropy must
be love of men and women as they are ? If you
care for them at all, must It not be your constant
endeavour entirely to transform them ?

The Stranger. I begin to see your drift and
the refutation which you Intend me to supply to
my own opinion. Let me then expedite my fate,
and confess at once that the philanthropist should
strive to secure the true good of mankind, a good
predetermined for them by their nature and
faculties without their knowledge, and by no
means realized In their actual condition nor
expressed in their loose wishes , nor always
furthered by their political maxims and supersti-
tious morality. This was what I had in mind,

THE 133

though I expressed myself badly, when I said
that the true philanthropist loves men as they
are : for their true nature Is not adequately
manifested In their condition at any moment, or
In their words and thoughts vapidly flowing, or
even In their prevalent habits. Their real nature
is what they would discover themselves to be If
they possessed self-knowledge or, as the Indian
scripture has it, If they became what they are.
This admission, Socrates, does not remove the
objection which I have to meddlesome censors
calling themselves philanthropists , but abounding
only In their own conceit , and wedded to their
nostrums. Let them help me, as you so gener-
ously help me, to know myself ; but let them not
browbeat me In the name of virtue, seeking to
palm off their prejudices upon me as moral first
principles, which would turn my whole life, if I
followed them, Into a slow and miserable suicide,

Socrates. You go faster and farther than is
safe. But let us agree that the philanthropist Is
a diviner. The scars and deformities of men do
not beguile him : would they be deformities
or scars If there were no whole and beautiful
humanity beneath which they could disfigure ?
The lover's eye when, most open is most full of
dreams ; It pierces through the Incrustations of
fortune, or does not perceive them, and sees only
the naked image of the god beneath.

The Stranger. My doubts, as I listen, return
upon me. If this divine pattern In man became
all In all, would the creature be still any man In

i 3 4 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

particular, or a man at all ? Would he not cease
to exist and to live, being sublimated into the
mere idea of himself in an unchanging mind ?
And the so-called philanthropist who loved him
would not be loving a man, but rather a picture
and a detail in the mind of God.

Socrates. Perhaps. But let me ask you a
question, since you are so familiar with these high
mysteries. Would the divine spirit, as you con-
ceive it, entertain many thoughts ?

The Stranger. Yes : all possible thoughts, or
at least all good thoughts.

Socrates. And when, in your opinion, is a
thought good ? When it sets before the mind
the round or the square, the odd or the even, the
one or the many ?

The Stranger. No : when there is some living
creature to whom that thought, if realized, would
be happiness.

Socrates. Then, if I understand you, the
thoughts which, when habitually expressed in
man's life, would make his happiness would also
be the idea of humanity in the divine mind ?

The Stranger. Exactly.

Socrates. But in the divine mind, according to
your theory, there would be many other ideas as
well?

The Stranger. Of course ,

Socrates, Then consider my case. The other
good thoughts which, according to you, fill the
divine mind, I respectfully leave out of my
investigation and concern, because they form no

THE PHILANTHROPIST 135

part of a perfect humanity* If nevertheless you
inform me that in loving human perfection I love
a divine idea, I am content to have it so. Very
likely all good thoughts , as you say, are divine
ideas. But I am no theologian, and I prize this
particular idea, and know it to be good, not
because you tell me that it is one of the ideas in
the divine intellect, but because there is a living
creature familiar to me to whom the realization
of that idea is happiness ; so that my exclusive
attachment to this particular divine idea marks
me out as a lover of man rather than of God.

The Stranger. Your demonstration is cogent,
and I gladly acknowledge that you are a pure
philanthropist. You may well prefer to suspend
judgement on all questions concerning the cosmos
and the gods, considered as alleged facts, the
objects of science or of fear ; for what are the
gods, to a moralist or a true mystic, save that
which he prizes in his own nature, raised in fancy
to perfection and immortality ? I think, Socrates,
that as usual you are subtly ironical when you
say that you are a lover of man and not of God ;
for at heart you are a mystic and a hermit whose
wilderness is human society ; and it is impossible
for you, in spite of your banter, to love man
otherwise than religiously, as an idea in God*
Yet what is any idea but an eternal essence ?
So that, unless men had enacted it in time and
in the world of matter, expressing it piece-meal
in their blundering careers, mankind never would
have existed ; there could have been no trepida-

136 DIALOGUES IN

tion in love, and no fraternal fondness of man
for man ? such as prompts them to assist, to
embrace, or to forgive one another, 1 am far
from forgetting that in your admonitions , too,
there is infinite kindness, because you do not
prescribe our natures for us, but ask us, and
before we find words to tell you, your sympathy
anticipates our confession, and reveals to us our
secret heart. But for all that 1 am somehow
dissatisfied. You are the friend of youth, of the
soul flushed with brave hopes, and you teach us
to disentangle and understand our loves, and so
to train ourselves in art and government that
life in our cities may be both free and beautiful.
You are the prophet of success. But how much
success is there or has there ever been on earth ?
Who shall be the prophet of old age, of sorrow,
of servitude ? What god shall help us where we
have failed ?

Socrates, Can even a god help you there ?

The Stranger. That is the mystery.

Socrates. Then let us pass it by. The initiated,
who alone understand mysteries, have sworn not
to reveal them.

The Stranger, In the religion which the Greeks
adopted after your time, mysteries are public;
in the midst of them is sung a hymn : " Publish,
tongue, the mystery," and though I am but a
lame mystic and hardly initiated, I should under-
take to publish it, if you did not forbid. ,

Socrates. Publish it by all means.

The Stranger. The sum of it is this : that we

THE 137

must leave glory to God and be content with
failure for ourselves.

Socrates. Is your God, then, an enemy to man,
that lie finds his glory in the ruin of his creatures ?

The Stranger. Their ruin is a part of their
mode of existence, as the silence which follows
upon speech is part of its eloquence. The founder
of our spiritual city saw in God, whom he called
his Father , a great lover of life, as you, too, once
called him : but not a lover of human life only,
or of any life only in its perfection. His hand
had scattered bountifully throughout the chaos of
matter the seeds of all sorts of perfections, setting
the love and the need of a special perfection in
each creature's heart ; but the path of any in-
carnate spirit, buried as it must be in matter and
beset by accidents, is necessarily long and perilous;
and few there are who ever reach the goal. Yet
the perfections of all those who fall by the way
and never attain perfection are none the less
present for ever to the mind of God, and a part
of his glory : and such of us as have no glory here
may be content with our glory there* As to our
life on earth, whether it ever touch perfection, as
yours seemed to do for a moment in Greece, or be
utterly distracted, as ours has been since, it must
in any case presently perish ; the torrent is too
mighty for any swimmer. You may laugh at me,
if you will, and call me a theologian ; yet we must
somehow speak of nature and the gods ? and how
shall we ever speak of them except in parables ?
Did you not yourself repeat a tale about the birth

138 DIALOGUES IN

of Love, that he was the child of Plenty and Want ?
Let me then enlarge upon your apologue and say
that the satisfaction which God finds eternally In
the Idea of human perfection, and in all other good
Ideas, is not properly called love, because there is
no want and no sorrow in it ; It Is but a part of
his joy In the fullness of his own being . The true
seat of love is matter, when its Inner yearning and
absolute want are, by chance, directed towards the
Idea of humanity, or towards any other divine
Idea. Now there have been prophets In India and
even In Greece who have soared altogether above
this painful love and have studied to become Im-
passible and utterly blissful, even like God ; but
the Prophet of Nazareth, who said he was the Son
of God but also the son of man, taught and
practised the love of man superhumanly, In a
spirit that has never animated any other prophet ;
so that his philanthropy bears a special name and
Is called charity.

Socrates. Anything you may tell me about
your Prophet will not be without Interest for me,
because I have already heard sundry comparisons
and couplings of his name with mine, and perhaps
If his maxims were repeated to me by some
rational person (which was never yet the case),
they might teach me to correct or extend my own
suppositions. What, for Instance, Is this charity
of his, of which you speak so darkly ?

The Stranger. Definition Is not my art ; yet
perhaps if you will define philanthropy I may be
able to add some qualification to mark the differ-

THE 139

ence which I vaguely feel to exist between phil-
anthropy and charity.

Socrates. Have we not defined philanthropy
already ? Is it not love of that beauty and good-
ness in man which if realized would make his
happiness ? In what, pray, is your charity more
or less than that ?

The Stranger. I will venture to improvise an
answer, although I may soon have cause to retract
it. Charity is less than philanthropy in that it
expects the defeat of man's natural desires and
accepts that defeat ; and it is more than phil-
anthropy in that, in the face of defeat, it brings
consolation.

Socrates. But what, may I ask ? are natural
desires ?

The Stranger. I don't mean mere whims or
follies, whether in children or nations,, which may
be naturally inevitable but which a good regimen
would weed out or allow to blow over. I mean
profound aspirations, seated in our unregenerate
nature, which fate nevertheless forbids us to
realize, such as the desire to understand every-
thing (which you, Socrates, have wisely renounced)
or to be beautiful, or the first or free or immortal.
The spirit in most of us has but a poor prospect,
From, the beginning we are compelled to put up
with our parents, our country, our times, and the
relentless approach of old age and death ; and
on the wa^ we are lucky if we escape disease,
deformity, crossed hopes, or desperate poverty.
You may paint a picture of the Golden Age or of

140 DIALOGUES IN

an ideal republic in which these evils are softened ,
or are forgotten ; but meantime we must endure
them, and live and die in a far exile from our
natural good. Charity is the friendship of one
exile for another.

Socrates. You must excuse my dull wits s but
I have not yet gathered from your eloquence
whether the natural good from which you are
banished is the happiness proper to man at home,
or is perhaps the life of the gods in Olympus, to
which you think yourself entitled and fitted by
nature. Is a part of what troubles you, for
instance, the fatality of having hands instead of
wings ? And might a bird, on the same principle ?
deeply suffer for the lack of hands , and require
the ministrations of charity to reconcile him to
being covered with feathers ?

The Stranger. 1 confess that the life of birds ,
too s seems rather pitiful,, and that even feasting
for ever on nectar and ambrosia might be a dull
business and cloying. Must not any incarnate
spirit renounce beforehand almost everything that
a free spirit might have desired ?

Socrates. If there is an immortal spirit in every
creature which chafes at its limitations, does it not
also, at death, escape those limitations, and does
it not live many another life in many another
creature ? Let us leave the fortunes of spirit to
the hidden justice which probably rules the world
and whose decrees, at any rate, we cannot alter.
But in so far as spirit is incarnate in man and ad-
dressed to human happiness, it is not hampered by

THE 141

the conditions of this human life but Is supported
by them, Man presupposes nature. Nature
sets before him Ms proper virtue , as a child , as a
soldier, as a father, as a cultivator of divine grace ;
and he is happy If that grace descends upon him
In all the offices of his humanity and renders him
as nearly perfect as ? amid the accidents of fortune,
it Is possible for a man to be. A man content to
fail in his proper virtue would show himself a
scorner of humanity and a misanthrope. If your
Prophet, as I seem to have heard, despised in men
all their proper virtue, their beauty 5 valour, enter-
prise , and science, and loved them only for being
halt, blind, poor, and diseased in both mind and
body, I do not understand In what respect I can
be compared with him, or how his charity has any
touch of philanthropy In It.

The Stranger. I think that our Prophet, If he
had been man only, would have shared your
philanthropy to the full, and that Initially his
heart would have longed with an even greater
Intensity than yours for all the beauty and splen-
dour of existence. He was no coward^ he was no
eunuch ; but he was not sent (as he was wont to
say) to speak for himself, to give voice to his own
nature ; he was sent to speak In God's name, and
to teach mankind to judge themselves as God
judged them. Now God, being their creator,
could not hate the soul which he had kindled In
their dust ; &nd a man filled with the divine spirit
could not bemoan the creation, or condemn the
warmth and beauty which, at the word of God,

i 4 2 DIALOGUES IN

had turned that dust into flesh. Yet as the Father
was not the creator of man alone , so the Son could
not confine his sympathy to the human soul, but
extended it to every creature, and also to that
tragic economy by which the fortunes of each are
determined according to the divine will. Thus
in love for created things, when it is divinely
inspired, there is perforce an element of im-
partiality, a conditioned allegiance, and a tender-
ness swallowed up in resignation, the love of God
always dominating the love of man and being at
bottom the only ground for it. For why should
a religious mind foster the human will or share its
aspirations at all, except because God has breathed
that human will into some parcels of matter, being
pleased that they should live after that human
fashion ? Hence the celestial colour of charity,
which has passed through the presence and
through the love of God as through an infinite fire,
before reaching either the beauty or the suffering
of any creature. Our Prophet did not look upon
the world with the eyes of a mortal ; he was
deeply disenchanted with all the glories of which
human life is capable. He ignored, with a com-
passionate indulgence, all liberal arts, sciences and
ambitions : not one hint of comforts or sports or
manly adventure, not one thought of political
institutions to be built up laboriously or defended
rationally or handed down as a heritage* The end
of the world was at hand, as, indeed, it is for each
of us in turn ; and charity, knowing that events
are in other hands, sees in mankind nothing but a

THE 143

swarm of moths fluttering round the flame , each
with Its separate sorrow and Its dazzled spirit,
needing to be saved . His maxims were not those
of a combatant, or a ranting moralist, or the founder
of a prosperous state. He considered rather the
lilies of the field, the little children, the sparrows ;
even the tares among the wheat , though destined
for the burning, and the hairs of a man's head
were God's creatures ; the harlots and the
publicans were also his children. Without ex-
pecting to extirpate evil so long as this world
lasted, he went about healing and forgiving. In
the midst of trouble the redeemed soul might be
joyful, and even the body might often be restored
In sympathy with the soul. A dissolving Insight ,
a great renunciation, might bring peace suddenly
to all who accepted It. All men, all creatures,
might abandon their wilfulness, disclaim their
possessions, and love one another. The saints
might form, even on earth, a new society without
war, greed, competition, or anxiety. Poverty or
disgrace might be sweet to them in its sharpness,
and they might thank God for their little sister,
the death of the body. If smitten on one cheek
they might turn the other, and when robbed
of their cloak they might offer their tunic
also. Leaving their nets upon the shore and
their plough in mid-furrow, they might beg
food and lodging from strangers ; and when
these werS refused, they might sit down
starving by the wayside and praise God with
a loud voice.

i 4 4 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

Socrates. Were such, madmen and gymnoso-
phists the men whom your Prophet loved ?

The Stranger. No, as a matter of fact, his heart
went out rather to children, to frank young men,
to women who themselves had loved, and to the
common folk in fishing hamlets and in the streets
of cities.

Socrates, Then his love of mankind might have
been strangely chilled if mankind had followed his
precepts ?

The Stranger. Such is the irony of reform. I
can imagine the cold words that our saints will
hear at the Last Day. And would you yourself,
Socrates, have loved Alcibiades if he had re-
sembled you, or Athens if it had been like Sparta ?

Socrates. Athens and Alcibiades were constant
irritants to me, cruelly reminding me of what
they ought to have been. How should I not have
loved even the worst vehicle of so great a revela-
tion ? There would be no irony in reform, my
friend, if reform were guided by knowledge of
human nature, and not by a captious imagination.
Man is a natural being ; if he is ill at ease in the
world, it is only because he is ignorant of the
world and of his own good ; and the discord
between man and nature would be wholly resolved
if man would practise the true arts of medicine
and politics. But your Prophet seems to have
delivered precepts which, if ever his disciples
had obeyed them, would have turned!" them into
sanctified idiots, contemptible in his own eyes.
He set before them as models other creatures, or

THE PHILANTHROPIST 145

the gods, or the ways of the universe , thereby
counselling them to destroy themselves ; and I
see no benefit which he conf erred , or even wished
to confer, upon mankind.

The Stranger. Metamorphosis, I suppose, is
never strictly a benefit, because It changes the
standard of values and alienates the heart from
Its old pursuits. It Is such a metamorphosis of
the spirit that our religion proposes to us, although
of course none occurs In most of us, and our
society remains perfectly animal and heathen.
Yet the other note has sounded, and Is sometimes
heard. If you asked me for my own opinion, I
should say that there is one great gift which our
Prophet has bestowed on us 3 and that is himself.
After all , Is not that the best gift which a lover
has to bestow, and the only one which a lover
would much care to receive ? That he should
have walked among us ; that he should have spoken
those golden words, composed those parables so
rich in simplicity, tenderness, and wisdom ; that
he should have done those works of mercy In
which the material miracle was but the spark
for the new flame of charity which It kindled;
that he should have dismissed with a divine scorn
and a perfect disillusion all the busy vanities of
this world the Pharisees with their orthodoxy,
the Sadducees with their liberalism, the scribes
with their scriptures ; that he should have re-
nounced family and nation and party and riches ,
and any other hope or notion of paradise than this
very liberation and self-surrender of the soul

L

146 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

that Is his gift to mankind . Alone among dream-
ing mortals he seemed to be awake, because he
knew that he was dreaming ; the images and
passions which bring illusion to others, although
he felt them, brought no illusion to him. He
had enough sympathy with blind life to under-
stand it, to forgive it, to heal its wounds, to cover
its shames, and even to foster it when innocent ;
yet that very understanding compelled him to
renounce it all in his heart, continually draining
his chalice to the dregs, and foreknowing the
solitude of the cross. Thus the indwelling deity
entirely transfigured without shattering his
humanity, and the flame of love in him, though
it rose and fell humanly as the miseries or the
beauties of the world passed before his eyes, yet
never had the least taint in it of impurity, moodi-
ness 5 or favour. It was divine love, free from
craving or decay. The saint and the blackguard
alike were known to him at their true worth ;
in both he could see something disfigured or un-
attained, perhaps hidden from their own eyes,
and yet the sole reason and root of their being,
something simple and worthy of love beneath all
their weakness or perversity ; and the assurance
of this divine love, so surprising and inexplicable,
became to many the only warrant of their worth,
and lent them, courage not wholly to despise
themselves, but to seek and to cleanse the pure
pearl in their dung-hill, on which fiis own eye
rested, and not without reason to call him the
saviour of their souls.

THE 147

Socrates, In all your words you are implying,

if I understand you, that your Prophet was a god
in the form of man ?

The Stranger. Yes.

Socrates. That is a point of difference between
him and me which may justify the difference in
our maxims, A god, even if for a moment he
condescends to play the mortal, holds his im-
mortality in reserve ; it is one thing to live and
die in an assumed character, and another thing
to live and die in the only character one has. We
may presume, I suppose, that a god taking human
shape is born freely, after having considered what
form he should take and chosen his parents and
the places he should haunt ? He would forecast
and approve all the circumstances and actions
likely to make up his earthly career ?

The Stranger, Of course ; that is precisely
what we mean by saying that he is a god become
man a form of words to which unspeculative
people might possibly take exception.

Socrates, But a mortal is born fatally and, as
it were , against his will ; he finds himself, he knows
not why or how, a man or a woman, a Greek or a
barbarian, whole or maimed, happy or unhappy.

The Stranger. Such is the blind throw of
existence. By that token the spirit knows that
it was created and is not its own master.

Socrates. Nevertheless, would you not admit
that during Ms mortal life a god in human form
might *at times forget the choice he had freely
made, and the clear purpose of it, and might share

148 DIALOGUES IN

with mortals their surprise at events or their fears
for the future ?

The Stranger. Yes ? he would then actually
have become a man ? and not merely have appeared
in the semblance of man in some walking vision,
like a ghost in the sunshine . In such moments
of obscured deity, he might taste anguish and
death, and he might need to exercise faith and
courage like any mortal , to whom his own true
nature and that of the world are profoundly
unknown,

Socrates. And yet would he have ceased to be
a god ? Or would his substantial divinity be
proved and vindicated if on awaking from his
mortal confusion he remembered the choice of
such an incarnation which he had freely made in
the beginning, and all his immortal reasons for
making it ?

The Stranger. The unity of his divine person
would then be evident, because spirit is not
divided by the differences in its objects, or by
their sequence : on the contrary, in noting that
sequence or those differences it manifests its scope
and its intellectual essence.

Socrates. And for what reason can you con-
ceive such a god to select the sort of mortal life
through which he shall pass, or to remember it
with pleasure after he has passed through it ?

The Stranger. 1 am at a loss to^ suggest any
reason.

Socrates. Yet you have heard that the
Egyptians, who were wise men and free from

THE 149

vulgar prejudice , believed that one god affected
the form of a cat, and another that of a monkey
or a bull or an ibis ; and on the same principle,
I suppose, some gods, whom we might call divine
philanthropists, may have affected the form of
man : and these are doubtless the gods whom
we preferred to worship In Hellas.

The Stranger. I sympathize with your taste,
and with that of your gods also.

Socrates. But not, I suppose, to the extent of
rashly denying the wisdom of the Egyptians or
the impartiality of the divine principle animating
all the gods, no matter of what living function
or form they may choose to be patrons. Now,
leaving for a moment the Egyptians to their
wisdom, 1 would ask you this : If some god is
by temperament a philanthropist and meditates
taking the human form, would you expect him to
assimilate himself to all sorts of men equally, to
become both man and woman, both white and
black, both good and wicked ?

The Stranger. Evidently the same arbitrary
choice, which you have just called temperament,
leading him to choose a human life at all must
lead him. to choose some human life In particular*

Socrates. Might he then, as well as not, in
order to show his friendship for man, be born
a hunchback or an Imbecile, or would he thirst
to commit all the crimes and to catch all the
Infections of which human nature Is capable ?

The Stranger. We have already dismissed that
morbid romanticism.

150 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

Socrates. Would you at least expect him to
plough and fish and dig for Iron and quarry
stone ? Would he marry and build himself a
house and supervise his domestic economy and
the education of his children ? Would he go
down daily to bargain and argue and spit and vote
In the agora ?

The Stranger. All that sort of thing is certainly
very human, and seems honourable enough In a
man or, at least. Inevitable : but somehow It Is
absurdly contrary to the nature of a god even if
he was dwelling in disguise among men, and when
seen In that light, as occupation for a god, It all
becomes pitiful and ridiculous.

Socrates. Is It perhaps easier for you to im-
agine a god In human shape tending flocks
or taming horses or dancing at a harvest feast,
or wrestling with the young men In the
palaestra and causing astonishment that one
apparently so young and slender should throw
the strongest and most skilful of them at the
first encounter ?

The Stranger. Yes, such theophanles are dear
to the poets.

Socrates. And while you refuse to admit that
a god could become a general and plan a battle
and perhaps lose it, would you think it credible
that he should swoop down Into the fray to rescue
some hero whom he especially favoured, or should
transfix some other hero with an Invisible arrow or
with a glance, or should, by a word or a touch,
bring a dead man to life ?

PHILANTHROPIST 151

The Stranger. Oh yes ; such actions seem
more congruous with a god In disguise.

Socrates, And without allowing him to become
a husband and a householder, would you suffer
Mm to woo some nymph, or perhaps to appear In
the midst of a wedding feast and to carry off the
bride, leaving the bridegroom open-mouthed and
the whole company in confusion ? *

The Stranger, I am afraid, if we may trust
popular tales , that he might do so without my
permission.

Socrates. Is It even conceivable that he might
secretly substitute himself for a woman's husband,
or carry her away in a cloud to his own haunts ,
In order that by that gentle rape she might become
the mother of a young hero ?

The Stranger. That, too, Is told of Zeus, and
of other fabulous interlopers ; but what Is the
purpose of all these examples ?

Socrates. To discover, if possible, what elements
of human life a spirit that freely chose to be human
would admit into Its experience* The poets who
compose fables about the gods and I suppose the
same is true of those who report the apparitions
of your Prophet were moralists in poetic guise ;
they may have been rustics and their pleasures
rude* but they were regaling themselves and their
hearers with pictures of such lordly actions as they
would have performed gladly, had their souls been
freed from labour and restraint. It will be easy
to preserve the principle of their morality while
refining the illustration. You can conceive, for

i S 2 DIALOGUES IN

instance , that Apollo or one of the Muses , If they
loved mankind^ might whisper perfect music or
perfect truth Into our ears ?

The Stranger. That would be true philanthropy
on their part.

Socrates. Now pray tell me which were the
pleasures and arts, comparable with those we have
mentioned, that seemed to your Prophet and to
the poets who composed Ms story to be arts and
pleasures so liberal and so proper to human nature
as not to be unworthy of a god wearing the form
of man ? You are silent. Can you possibly be
asking yourself whether such sublime spirits could
be haters of human nature rather than lovers
of it?

The Stranger, Is human nature one and In-
variable ? Of course In any man at any moment
human nature will tend to some specific attain-
ment , and according to our way of speaking that
coveted perfection will be enshrined eternally in
a divine Idea. But the expression of that Idea on
earth will remain precarious, and human nature
In actual men Is an unstable compound. The
next man, the next generation, the neighbouring
nation, will tend to a different perfection. This,
too, will be enshrined In a divine Idea ; but there
Is no saying that one divine idea is better than
another, or that the humanity of to-day Is less or
more human than that of yesterday. Each posture
of life has Its apposite perfection, whteh Is truly
divine inasmuch as labouring existence some-
where actually worships and pursues It. Why

THE 153

call down Imprecations on another creature for
not being or not wishing to be like ourselves ?
The flux of matter brings now one Idea and now
another to the surface ; and It Is matter in us, and
not reason or spirit 5 that struggles to bring one
form into existence here and another there , or to
defend and preserve it. A mighty pother It all
makes , with much thunder and lightning from
above , which Zeus sends down In sport or In
derision. The sweetness and the terror of it are
alike ephemeral. Meantime only two principles
endure perpetually in the universe ; the flux of
matter in which every life Is formed and dis-
solved, and the pure spirit which, chained to the
mast like Odysseus among the Sirens, looks out
upon the strange scene, as it has looked out from
many another vessel on many another scene, both
before and after. Now these two principles, being
present everywhere and everlasting, are more akin
than any passing perfection to the unknown God
whom no man has chosen, the creator of man as
of all other things ; and our Prophet who was not
one of those pleasant philanthropists, the gods of
Greece,, but was the Word of universal deity,
spoke only for pure spirit In the throes of destiny,
and not at all for human thrift or human vanity*
You, Socrates, having a civilized soul, have firmly
chosen to spend your days In the citadel of
morality and to cultivate only those deities who
are patrons** of civil justice aad the kindly arts ;
but In us "barbarians there Is still something un-
reclaimed and akin to the elements , a spirit as of

154 DIALOGUES IN

the hunter or the hermit or the wild poet, who is
not happy in towns. The fields, the mountains,
the sea, the life of plants and animals, the marvel
of the stars or of intricate friendly forests In which
to range alone, all seem to liberate In us some-
thing deeper than humanity , something untamable
which we share with all God s s creatures and
possibly with God himself. 1 confess that my
own spirit is not very romantic , and yet at times
it would gladly dehumanize Itself and be merged
now In infinitely fertile matter, now in clear and
unruffled mind ; and I am inclined to Identify my
being even now with these elements. In which I
shall soon be lost, rather than with that odd
creature which I call man, or that odder one which
I call myself. Nothing can reconcile me to my
personality save the knowledge that It Is an absurd
accident,, that things pleasanter to think of exist
In plenty, and that I may always retire from It
Into pure spirit with Its impartial smile.

Socrates. Your pleasures, then, are not In man
but in some faculty which you think you have of
escaping from humanity ?

The Stranger. Neither matter nor spirit Is
foreign to human nature ; they run through it
and pass beyond ; but the special human form
which they take on for a moment Is something to
be accepted arid dismissed without any passionate
attachment,

Socrates. And if matter and spirit elsewhere
should assume some other shape, would that non-
human life please you better ?

THE 155

The Stranger. Why should It please me better ?
It would be subject to the same contingency ?
torment, and decay, I have no particular pre-
judice against the nest in which I was hatched,
as If I were a reformer ; human ways please me ;
I can laugh and shudder with the crowd. But
any adoration of mankind is mere sentimentality,
killed by contact with actual men and women.
Towards actual people a doting love signifies
silliness In the lover and Injury to the beloved ,
until that love Is chastened Into charity a sober
and profound compassion , not counting alleged
deserts , but succouring distress everywhere and
helping all to endure their humanity and to
renounce It.

Socrates. When a man gathers food, begets
children^ or defends himself and his country ? Is his
love of life mere sentimentality ?

The Stranger. Of course not,

Socrates. Yet what Is he pursuing In all those
struggles save the continued existence of his
humanity ?

The Stranger. I admit that the love of an idea
Is not sentimental when It Inspires labour and art.

Socrates. Then have you not solved your
original difficulty ?

The Stranger. What difficulty ?

Socrates, Your disinclination to believe that
philanthropy is the love of an idea ? and not of
actual men^nd women ?

The Stranger, And have 1 overcome that
disinclination ?

156 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

Socrates. Apparently, since you now admit
that the love of life is itself love of an idea, and
that philanthropy, in setting that idea more clearly
before men's eyes and helping them to embody it
more perfectly, is simply reinforcing their natural
virtue,

The Stranger, I think this solution, as usual,
has been found by you and not by me.

Socrates. You are too curious : but, at any rate,
you have explained another matter which, as it
touches the special tenets of your religion, you
will not accuse me of having interpolated,

The Stranger. And what is that ?

Socrates. That a god cannot be a philanthropist,
even if he chooses to take a human form. His
divine mind can never give an exclusive import-
ance to perfection in one kind of animal ; he may
amiably foster humanity on occasion, but he will
ultimately invite it to dissolve and to pass into
something different. Therefore, a philanthropist,
who is wedded to a human love, if he is inspired
by a god at all, can be inspired only by some small
whispering daemon peculiar to himself, whom
perhaps he calls Reason. Will you wickedly
pretend that this, too, is an invention of mine ?
Never mind who first said it, if we both agree
that it is true.

The Stranger, I certainly agree.

Socrates. In that case we may now describe
both my philanthropy and your charity by saying
that philanthropy is a sentiment proper to man in
view of his desired perfection, and charity a senti-

THE 157

ment proper to a god ? or to a man Inspired by a
god s In view of the necessary Imperfection of all
living creatures.

The Stranger. Yes, If this god, or man taught
by a god, is not scornful of Imperfection, or In-
different, or even given to gloating over it, on the
ground that it keeps the ball rolling. He must be
a spirit made flesh , who himself suffers. This
suffering cannot be stilled by establishing any
tribe of animals, or any one soul, in Its natural
happiness. Such animal perfection In one quarter
would be bought by mutilation and suffering
elsewhere In other animals hunted and devoured ,
In slavery, in all the rebellious instincts necessarily
suppressed ; and what is even worse, something
In the human spirit (which Is not merely human)
would be stifled by that happiness and would
hate that perfection. The only cure for suffering
which true wisdom and charity can seek Is not
perfect embodiment but complete emancipation.

Socrates. 1 am not surprised to hear It from
your lips. In early Hellas men were growing
whole and naturally cherished wholeness ; but
later s when the bonds that bound our cities were
relaxed, we ? too, began to love dissolution. Now
the discord in your soul has become hopeless,
and you yearn to be dissolved into your elements*
Far be It from me to blame your preference if
sincere : a scotched worm when cut quite in two
may lead* its two lives more conveniently In
separation. So in you matter and spirit ; but
I ask myself whether you are a Christian because

158 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

you are dying, or are longing to die because you
are a Christian.

The Stranger. I am not so much a Christian
as that ; yet when change Is Inevitable, why
should we not live by changing ? They say that
there are poisons to which an organism may
accustom itself, so that they may become elements
of defence within It against other evils, perhaps
more deadly. Christianity among us is one of
these domesticated evils or tonic poisons, like the
army, the government, the family, and the school ;
all of them traditional crutches with which, though
limping, we manage to walk. From despair, at
certain crises, comes a last spurt of courage ; and
after your day, when manly virtue had long dis-
appeared, before quite dying of Its sins, the world
awoke to a fresh life by beginning to do penance.

Socrates. Better the cup of hemlock in time,
Why nurse disease or deformity ? Death Is not
an evil, but vileness Is ; and when vileness Is
cultivated for the sake of life It renders life vile
also. I thanked the gods when I was alive for
having been born a Greek and not a barbarian,
and now that I am dead I thank them that I died
in time, lest I should have become a Christian.

The Stranger. Is not even a Christian a man,
with his transfigured type of perfection ? In a
later age you might have cultivated sanctity, as
in your day you praised and defined the perfect
rational animal. After all, were you not yourself
constrained to turn away from this world and
lay up your treasure in heaven ?

THE 159

Socrates, No, no : how should a plain man
like me, plodding and carnal, desire the life of a
god or dream of ever enjoying It ? Was I a
Heracles or a Ganymede ? To heaven I never
looked for a refuge from the earth , or a second
native land : I saw there an eternal pattern to
which men always might point , and after which
they might religiously fashion their earthly lives
and their human republic. You are mistaken if
you think that 1 was ever comforted by dreams
or satisfied with contemplating an idea. Poor
craftsman that I was, what was the finest of ideas
to me except a principle of art ? Of what use
could rule or compass be to me without a work-
shop, or the lodestar without a helm ? Images in
the fancy never enamoured me ; even in stone
or marble I held them cheap, and had no heart
to cheat myself with that semblance, while living
beauty remained absent from the flesh and from
the soul of my countrymen. So little did the
idea unrealized appease my hunger, that rather
than starve on it 1 was content to love, or to
pretend to love, naughty creatures like Athens or
like Alcibiades ; they were the best 1 could find,
little as they satisfied my heart. Ah, if you could
only guide me to some fair country, no matter
how remote, where men actually live happy and
are perfect after their kind, I would instantly
disown Athens, Hellas, and even the placid
immortality* which Pluto has granted me here, in
order to go and live among those creatures and
learn their ways. No dislike of travel will stop

i6o DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

me s If once the good realized beckons me away.
With what joy should I find that little city shining
upon its hill, girt with impregnable walls that
never held a traitor ; hours appointed for rising
and exercising and feasting and singing ; words
approved and words forbidden; prescribed gar-
ments or prescribed nakedness ; sacred festivals
coming round with the sun, and pleasures set
apart for youth and for age, for men and for
women ; for to such musical paces the spirit of
man must move If It would be beautiful and holy.

The Stranger. The men of my time would not
relish your regimen.

Socrates. Nor did those of my time relish It.
They loved anything and everything better than
a perfect humanity. They had their way :
abandoning their cities to ruin, neglecting to breed
noble children, and to train them nobly, they
became troops of ranging animals, with a homeless
and dreaming mind. Those who now dwell on
earth are not men but anthropoids ; and when
their race, too, is extinct for it will soon destroy
Itself If your friendly spirit happily survives,
pray bring me the pleasant tidings ; for humanity
Is immortal, and although matter for a season
may lapse from that form, and the race may seem
to be extinguished, the forgotten pattern is still
inviolate in heaven, inviting and summoning that
wayward substance to resume its possible beauty ;
nor can such divine magic be resisted for ever.
If then some day the news should reach me that
humanity Is returning to the earth, I will humbly

beg Pluto 5 who is a kindly monarch over these
Shades , to grant me leave for an hour to revisit
the sun, in case Theseus or the children of
Heracles might be coming down again from the
snows of Haemus, and I might hear the Dorian
trumpet resounding through the valleys and
incorrigible philanthropist that I am I might
feast my eyes at last upon the sight of A MAN.

M

IX
HOMESICKNESS FOR THE WORLD

Avicenna (soliloquizing). Great is Allah : even
I, alas ? could not deceive him. By every promise
of faith and canon of the law, I should now find
myself in The Paradise of the Prophet, reclining
on silken cushions and sipping delicious sherbets ;
the fresh sweet sound of bubbling fountains should
comfort me ; I should be soothed by the scent of
great sleeping flowers, their petals like amethysts
and rubies and sapphires and liquid opals. I
should be charmed by the sight of peacocks
spreading their fans ; and the nightingales in the
thicket of ilex should sing to me like my own
heart. Some tender young maid, wide-eyed and
nimble as a gazelle, should be not far from me ;
her hair should be lightly touching my cheek;
my hand should be wandering over her bosom.
From the impregnable safety of my happiness I
should be looking abroad through all the heavens
and surveying the earth ; the maxims of the wise
should be on my lips and in my soul the joy of
understanding. Walking upon th bastions of
Paradise, my arm linked in that of a friend, of
him that my soul trusts utterly, I should be

162

FOR THE 163

repeating the words of the poets, and he In
answer, without haste or error, should be com-
posing for me tenderer and more beautiful verses
of Ms own ; and we should be marvelling and
sighing together at the ineffable greatness of God
and the teeming splendour of the earth. Yes 3
legally, I should have been saved. Was I not
exactitude Itself In every religious duty ? Did 1
ever allow myself the least licence , on the ground
that I was a philosopher unless I had a text to
justify me ? Did I blasphemously lay my assur-
ance of salvation in my own merits or In the
letter of the law, rather than In the complacency
of the Compassionate and the Merciful One, who
having made us can forgive and understand ?
Ah, if ever Allah could be deceived, certainly 1
should have deceived him. But the Omniscient
looked Into my secret heart, and perceived that
1 was no believer, and that whilst my lips Invoked
his name and that of the Prophet, my trust was
all in Aristotle and In myself. Sharpening there-
fore In silence the sword of his wrath, he over-
ruled my legal rights by a higher exercise of
equity and reduced me for ever to the miserable
condition of a pure spirit. Here among heathen
ghosts I pine and loiter eternally^ a shadow
reflecting life and no longer living, vainly revolving
my thoughts, because In my thoughts 1 trusted,
and missing all the warm and solid pleasures of
Paradise, because 1 had hoped to win them
without blinding my intellect, or suffering old
fables to delude me.

164 DIALOGUES IN

The Stranger (who has approached unobserved),
Is it not some consolation to consider that If you
were not able to deceive Allah, Allah was not able
to deceive you ?

Avicenna. Small consolation. Pride of intellect
Is the sour refuge of those who have nothing else
to be proud of. Strong as my soul was In other
virtues , and generous my blood , intellect prevailed
too much in me, dashed my respect for my vital
powers, and killed the confidence they should have
bred ; It overcame the Illusions necessary to a
creature, and caused me to see all things too much
as God sees them,

The Stranger. A rare fault in a philosopher.

Avicenna. May Allah impute it to me for
humility and not for blasphemy, but I never
wished to resemble him- Yes, I know what you
are about to say. The divine part In us, though
small. Is the most precious, and we should live as
far as we may In the eternal. Far be it from me
to deny that, or any other maxim of Aristotle ;
especially now, when that exiguous element in
myself is all that is left of me. But, frankly, I
pine for the rest. Are not even the souls of your
friends the Christians, wretchedly as they are
accustomed to live, waiting now In their forlorn
heaven for the last day, when they shall return to
their bodies, and feel again that they are men and
not angels ? Intellect, being divine, comes into
our tents through the door ; It Is a *guest and a
stranger to our blood. Its language Is foreign to
us, and painfully as we may try to learn it, we

HOMESICKNESS FOR WORLD 165

always speak It ill. How often have 1 laughed
at Arabs pluming themselves in Persian, and at
Persians blasphemously corrupting the syllables
of the Koran which they thought to recite ; for
few, like me, are perfect masters of both tongues.
And do you suppose Allah does not smile at our
rustic accent when we venture to think ? But
there are other tricks of ours which he does not
laugh at, because he cannot imitate them. May
we not pride ourselves a little on our illusions, on
our sports, on our surprises, and on our childish
laughter, so much fresher and sweeter than his
solemnity ? Rather than be eternal, who would
not choose to be young ? Do not the Pagans and
Christians (who have never understood the great-
ness of Allah) confess as much, when in their fables
they relate how the gods have become men for a
season, shepherds, lovers of women, wanderers,
even wonder-workers and beggars ; or how they
have prayed, fasted, wept, and died ? Of course,
such tales are impious ; Allah can never be
deceived or diminished ; and to live in time, to
dwell in a body, to thirst, to love, and to grieve
are forms of impotence and self-deception. If we
knew all, we could not live. But it is precisely
this sweet cajolery, this vivid and terrible blind-
ness of life, which Allah cannot share, in which
his creatures shine. In order to know the truth,
Allah alone sufficed ; he did not create us to
supplement his intelligence. He created us rather
that by our incorrigible ignorance we might
diversify existence and surround his godhead with

166 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

beings able to die and to kill, able to dream, able
to look for the truth and to tell themselves lies,
able above all to love, to feel the life quickened
suddenly within them at the sight of some other
lovely and winsome creature, until they could
contain it no longer, and too great, too mad, too
sweet to be endured it should leap from them Into
that other being, there to create a third. If this
madness was not worth having, as well as intellect,
why did Allah create the world ? Ah, he was
solitary, he was cold, he shone like the stars In
the wilderness on a frosty night ; and when he
bethought himself of his coldness and shuddered
at his solitude, that pang of Itself begat the com-
panion with which his Oneness was pregnant, the
Soul of the World ; In order that the Intellect
Itself might grow warm In the eyes of the Soul
that loved It, and be the star of her dark voyage,
and that his solitude might turn to glory, because
of the Life that flowed from him Into the bosom
of that loneliness and quickened it to all forms of
love. Now this divine Soul of the World had in
turn flowed into my soul more copiously than Into
that of other mortals . I had health, riches, arts,
rare adventures, fame, and the choicest pleasures
of both body and mind ; but happiness I never
had* So long as I still lived, sailing before the
wind of my prosperity , I hardly perceived the
division and misery of my being, or fancied that
with my next triumph they would ceale ; but now
I perceive them. I might have been happy, if I
had not been a philosopher, or If I had been

FOR THE 167

nothing else. As It was, too much intellect made
brackish the sweet and impetuous current of my
days. Philosophy in me was not a harmony of
my whole nature, but one of its passions, and the
most inordinate , because I craved and struggled
to know everything ; and this passion in me availed
only to mock and embitter the others, without
subduing them. I renounced nothings I rejected
nothing ; being but a man, I lived like a god, and
my pride blasted my human nature. All actions
worked themselves out in me without illusion , in
the ghastly light of truth and of foreknowledge.
Horror was never far from my pleasures. The
fever of my ambitions must needs be perpetually
accelerated, lest the too clear intellect in me should
look upon them and they should die* 1 scorned
the modesty of the sages who made of intelligence
a second and a sundered life ; and as for lack of
faith 1 missed the Paradise of the Prophet, even
so, for lack of measure and renunciation, 1 missed
the peace of the philosopher. I was wedded to
existence as to a favourite wife, whom 1 knew to
be faithless, but could not cease to love. Before
the flight of time, before death, before Allah, I
clasped my hands and wept and prayed, like a
woman before her dying child or her estranged
lover* Master in every cunning art, I was the
slave of fate and of nature ; all 1 enjoyed 1 did not
enjoy, because 1 craved to enjoy it for ever I
sighed fof constancy in mortal things > in which
constancy is not, I strove to command fortune
and futurity, which will not be commanded.

168 DIALOGUES IN

I married a wife, and then another, and each was a
burden more weary than the last. I became the
father of children, and they died, or turned against
me in their hearts. 1 made myself lord over
science and over great estates , and I found myself
the slave and steward of my possessions, and a vain
babbler before the vulgar whom I knew I deceived,
And yet, so long as the soul of nature fed the
fountain of my being, It could not give over gush-
ing and spreading and filling every cleft and hollow
of opportunity. Even now, when the fountain is
cut off ? 1 yearn for that existence which was my
torment ; and my unhappiness has outlived Its
cause, and become eternal.

The Stranger. Since Spirit is not attached to
one form of life rather than to another, may It not
consent to dismiss each in turn ? If we do not
renounce the world , we must expect the world to
forsake us. The union of spirit with nature Is like
the sporting friendships of youth which time dis-
solves naturally ? without any quarrel. It was a
happy union, and In a life like yours, full of great
feats, there Is more satisfaction In having lived
than regret that life Is over. But you know all
this better than I ; and if you choose playfully to
lament your eclipse on earth (while you shine
immortally here) I suspect you do so merely to
rebuke me gently for playing the truant while I
am still at school, and troubling you here pre-
maturely by my illicit presence, when 1 ought to
be living lustily, as you did, while yet I may.

Avicenna. You ? If I had been condemned to

FOR WORLD 169

live In your skin, and In the world as it appears to
be now, when there is nothing but meanness in it,
I should not lament my present condition, because
sad as It is, at least It Is not ignoble. The only
good thing remaining In your world Is the memory
of what It was in nay day, and before : so that I
am far from chiding you for spending your life,
as far as possible, in our society, by rehearsing the
memorials which remain of us, and which enable
you, even In your day, to employ your time
humanly, in the study of wisdom. 1 did that,
too, with Intense zeal ; but the earth was then
propitious, and my soul was mighty, and every
other art and virtue was open to me, as well as
the wisdom of the ancients. You do well to water
your little flower-pot, as J ranged over my wide
preserves. Life is not a book to read twice : and
you cannot exchange the volume fortune puts In
your hand for another on a nobler theme or by a
better poet. In reading It you should not look
ahead, or you will skip too much. It Is not the
ending that matters* This story has no moral ;
It stops short. The ending Is not there, It is here ;
It is the truth of that life seen as a whole. Brave
men ? like me, who skip nothing, are not dis-
appointed ; at every turn they come upon some-
thing unforeseen, and do something bold. In the
market of fortune I bought my apples without
weighing them. If one had a worm in It, I threw
it away laughing, my eye already on the next.
Reason is like a dog that explores the road and all
the by-ways when we walk abroad ; but he cannot

170 DIALOGUES IN

choose a direction or supply a motive for the
journey, and we must whistle to him when we
take a new turn.

The Stranger. Ah, you lived in an age of free-
dom. You were not ashamed of human nature ,
and if life was full of dangers, you were full of
resource. Had we that strength, life would yield
matter enough even in our day ; but no wealth of
instruments can enrich a mind that has not eleva-
tion for commanding them. You prize the world
because you were its master. Had you ever been
the slave of business and love and opinion, as men
are in my time, you would not regret being rid of
them. You praise them because you made sport
of them intellectually ; and destiny has done no
injustice to your true nature in relegating you to
this land of unconquerable mind. Mind in you
was always supreme. Mere life and mere love
have no memory ; the present dazzles them with
its immediate promise, which the next moment
denies or transforms. They roll on, and the flux
of nature sucks them up altogether. But when
intellect, as in you, comes to dominate life and
love, these acquire a human splendour. The
stream becomes the picture of a stream, the passion
an ideal. As the privilege of matter is to beget
life, so the joy of life is to beget intellect ; if it
fails in that, it fails in being anything but a vain
torment .

Awcenna. Certainly I was a man^ and not a
beast. I gloried in my actions, because I under-
stood and controlled them ; they were my re-

FOR WORLD 171

tainers, standing with swords drawn before my
gates, my servants spreading the feast before me,
my damsels singing and dancing before my ravished
eyes* Now, alas, 1 am a monarch without sub-
jects ; reason in me has nothing to rule, and craft
nothing to play with. Dear warm plastic flesh of
my body and marrow of my bones, once so swiftly
responsive to every heavenly ray, where are you
scattered now ? To what cold thin dust are you
turned ? What wind whirls you about In vain
revolutions amid the sands of the desert ? Never,
alas, never (since Allah denies you the hope of
resurrection) will you be gathered again Into a
mirror without a flaw. Into a jewel of a thousand
rays, in order that the potency of life, which never
ceases to radiate from the Most High, might be
gathered and reflected in you, to your joy and to
his glory. Barren you shall ever be of intelli-
gence ; and barren my intelligence must remain
in me here, impotcntly pining for the flesh in
which it grew.

The Stranger. Is not sterility In ultimate things
a sign of supremacy ? We disciples of Aristotle
know that there Is something ultimate and supreme
In the flux of nature, even the concomitant form
or truth which It embodies, and the Intellect which
arrests that form and that truth. This Intellect
ought to be sterile, because it is an end and not a
means. The lyre has performed Its task when it
has givcif forth the harmony, and the harmony,
being divine, has no task to perform. In sound-
ing and In floating Into eternal silence, it has lent

172 DIALOGUES IN

life and beauty to its parent world. Therefore 1
account you happy, renowned Avicenna, in spite
of your humorous regrets ; for what survives of
you here is the very happiness of your life, realized
in the intellect, as alone happiness can be realized ;
and if this happiness is imperfect, that is not
because it is past, but because its elements were
too impetuous to be reduced to harmony. This
imperfect happiness of yours is all the more in-
telligible and comforting to me on account of its
discords unresolved ; they bring you nearer to
my day and to its troubles. You have all that we
can hope for. Your frank lamentations trail the
splendour of your existence ; they seem to me
pure music in contrast to the optimism which
simpers daily in a wretched world.

X
THE OF ARISTOTLE

The Stranger, To-day you smile, renowned
Avicenna, Do you encourage me to approach ?
Or am 1 warned that 1 should be disturbing the
sweeter society of your thoughts ?

Avicenna. Neither, yet both. I was smiling
at those old feats of lustiness and prowess which
1 was recounting and with rare pleasure when
you were last here, 1

The Stranger, It was a rare pleasure to listen.

Avicenna. Doubtless a purer pleasure to listen
to such exploits than to remember them, 1 pine
for my splendid past, and you seemed hardly to
envy It*

The Stranger. I envy you your intelligence
and moral sanity ? because the shy beginnings of
something of the sort are innate in me also. But
how should I envy you your adventures ? The
flight of eagles and the swimming of porpoises
are admirable to me in the realm of truth ; 1
rejoice that there are such things in the world,
but 1 am* not tempted to experiment In those
directions. So I relish your conversation here,

1 The allusion is to a conversation not reported in this volume.

i 7 4 DIALOGUES IN

though I should have made the lamest of com-
panions for you in the world.

Avicenna. You could not relish my virtue even
in idea, had you no spurs to brandish in your
particular cock-pit. These very escapades of yours
among the Shades, in search of pure understand-
ing, are but the last gasp of a sporting spirit.
Therefore I tell you, Live while you may. The
truth of your life is Allah's. He will preserve it.

The Stranger. Undoubtedly. If time bred
nothing, eternity would have nothing to embalm.
Of all men I am the last to belittle the world of
matter or to condemn it. I feel towards it the
most unfeigned reverence and piety, as to Hestia,
Aphrodite, Prometheus, and all the gods of
generation and art ; for I know that matter > the
oldest of beings, is the most fertile, the most pro-
found, the most mysterious ; it begets everything,
and cannot be begotten ; but it is proper to spirit
to be begotten of all other things by their har-
monies, and to beget nothing in its turn.

Avicenna. What are you saying ? Who taught
you that ?

The Stranger. Aristotle and reflection ; and I
am pfoud to think that this conclusion is not very
remote from that which your great intellect has
drawn from the same sources.

Avicenna. But who can have revealed to you
a secret which the Philosopher intentionally dis-
guised, and which I too, following his example,
never proclaimed openly ?

The Stranger. Many voyages have been made

OF ARISTOTLE 175

since your day, and many discoveries ; and the
ruin of empires and religions has repeatedly
admonished mankind , If they have any wit at all,
to distinguish fact from fable.

Avicenna. That is indeed the distinction which
I learned privately to make, and to discover
concealed in the prudent doctrine of the Philo-
sopher ; but it was not at first blush, nor without
a special revelation, that my great intellect dis-
covered the truth.

The Stranger. Perhaps you learned the doc-
trines of Aristotle when you were too young to
discount their language and freely to confront
them with the facts of nature. 1 remember a
story probably there is no truth In it that you
had long found the Metaphysics unintelligible
until you came by chance upon a stray commentary
which solved the riddle.

Amcenna. The tale Is true : not, of course,
that having read the fourteen books of the Meta-
physics no less than forty times, and knowing
them perfectly by heart, both forwards and back-
wards , 1 failed to understand anywhere the
meaning of the words, or how one part supported
or seemed to contradict another, or what was
writterf first and what added as a comment later,
or In fine all that pedants call understanding a
book ; but 1 had the soul of a philosopher, and
such understanding was not understanding to
me. Whfit escaped me, and what I longed to
discover, was how the doctrine of the book could
be true. For I too had eyes In my head, the

176 DIALOGUES IN

earth shone clear In the sunlight before me ; I
knew only too well the hang of this naughty
world ; and I marvelled how a philosopher whose
authority was unquestionable could give an account
of things which so completely inverted their true
order. The more commentaries I read and the
more learned men I consulted, the less satisfaction
I found ; for not one of them had an eye for the
truth, or any keen interest in real things, but all
were absorbed in considering how words should
be put together ; and their philosophy was no-
thing but the grammar of an artificial tongue,
a system of hieroglyphics with which to inscribe
the prison- walls of their blindness and ignorance.
Sunk In this conviction, and sullenly reconciled to
It, I was walking one day In the souk of Bokhara,
saluting the merchants, viewing and praising the
rarities they displayed before me, buying or ex-
changing some jewel, questioning the strangers
newly arrived concerning the disasters and the
marvels they had witnessed In all the Islands of
the sea and In all the cities beyond the desert,
when 1 perceived a venerable and courtly man
who appeared to be following me ; and turning
to him I said : " Reverend Sir, didst thou wish
anything of me ? * ? Whereupon he plated his
hand on his breast, and raised It thence to his
forehead, and replied ; " Young master. It Is
known to me that thou art the hope of the old
and the despair of the young ; and Pbrlng thee
a book of commentaries on the Metaphysics of
Aristotle, a rarity hitherto unknown and a morsel

THE OF 177

for a fine palate : name thy price and It is thine."

" Not for me/ 5 I replied ; " pray, offer thy book
to another. Have I not read the fourteen books
of the Metaphysics full forty times, and do I not
know them by heart, forwards and backwards^
without understanding them ? What can thy
commentary avail ? A truce to the riddles of
the learned ! Away with the gibberish of ancient
fools ! Give me a book of love s if thou hast one,
or a tale of some far country, or the wild verse of
a poet inspired by wine ! " But the stranger was
not discouraged. He smiled a little in his beard
and spoke again : " Take it then for the calli-
graphy of the scribe ; for it is fairly penned in
black and red, with scrolls in gold and green and
purple and silver." " That is nothing/ 5 I re-
torted ; "I have gold and silver and green and
purple in plenty, and many a book in red and
black script , choice thoughts of the poets , or
maxims of ancient sages, wise men without
books."" Take it then/' he persisted, " for the
crimson damask it is wrapped in, and the silver
clasp, with its black opal, with which it is clasped."
And 1 said : "I have richer tissues and more
beautiful clasps." Then his face was darkened ;
and bending towards me, that no one might over-
hear, he said sorrowfully : " Take it then for
charity's sake : I am bereft and old, and in need
of comfort. It is thine for a silver penny/ 5 Then
1 took a silver penny from my purse and gave it
him, saying : " Keep thy rare book for thy
comfort, and take this for thy need," But he

N

178 DIALOGUES IN

refused. " Accept it," he said once more ? " for
the love of Allah, as for the love of Allah I offer
it : it is not worth a penny of silver nor a shekel
of gold, but ten thousand talents." And he left
the book in my hands, and with a quick step
departed. Pondering then in myself how this
was perhaps no commentary on the Metaphysics ,
nor an old scribe's treasure, but some message of
love or secret gift from a princess, I opened the
clasp, and sitting on the doorstep of a saddler's
shop ^ I began to read ; and all day I read, and
when evening came on, without raising my eyes
from the page, I made sign to the saddler to
fetch me a lamp ; and all night I continued, and
all the following day ; thrice I finished, and thrice
began again. And the eyes of my soul were
opened, and the true mind of the Philosopher
descended on me, and I understood at last all
that he wrote and all that he left unwritten.

Awaking at length to the outer world, I
questioned the saddler and the merchants and
the strangers and every passer-by ? as to who that
old man might be ; but none knew him, except
that in the darkest corner of some mosque perhaps
I might find him praying. I sped accordingly
like the wind from one mosque to another , burst-
ing in here and vanishing there, my feet scarce
touching the ground and my garments flying
behind me ; so that the faithful standing at
intervals upon their carpets felt the Swiftness of
some influence that had passed near them, and
said : " What is this that has flown by ? Was

THE OF ARISTOTLE 179

It a blast with the scent of lilacs from the garden ?
Was It a ray of sunlight between two cypresses
severed by the breeze ? Was It an angel gathering
up our prayers and bearing them swiftly before
the Lord ? " At last in the farthest and smallest
mosque of the city, beside the burial-ground of
the poor, I spied my lost benefactor ; and embrac-
ing him with a tender and a long embrace , I cried :
" O most venerable sage and my father in God,
what a blessing have I received at thy hands !
All I possess Is as nothing to what I owe thee,
and for the gift of knowledge all the riches of the
earth would be a small return ; but what I can
I will. Come with me Into the presence of the
Emir : he shall know that thou art the Solomon
of the age- for it is not hidden from me that the
author of this divine commentary Is none other
but thou and the Emir shall bestow on thee a
robe of honour, and thou shalt sit in the seat of
authority amongst his scribes and alchemists and
physicians and poets ; and all shall be silent when
thou openest thy lips, and deem It a signal favour
from Allah to be corrected by thee ; and I shall
be the first to come before thee in the morning
and the last to depart from thee at night ; because
the fotfntalns of Ararat are not sweeter to me
than the purity of the truth, nor are the caresses
of monarchs or the cozenings of princes of any
worth In my eyes compared with the smile of
wisdom." But he gently disengaged himself, and
said : " It is too much. I am more than rewarded.
Long had the secrets thou hast read In this book

N2

i8o DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

lain upon my heart. They were not for this age.
Opinion amongst mortals is like the song of a
drunkard , merry and loud and exceedingly foolish
and ravishing in its hollow sound ; and the cold
light of truth Is hateful to them as sunrise to the
reveller. Therefore I had resigned myself to
silence and to suffering my discoveries to go
down with me to the grave. The truth is In no
haste to be known ; it will be published at the
last day. Thereupon a report reached me of thy
free nature and thy keen mind, and having myself
seen and heard thee, I said In my heart : i This
young man will understand, and in him my mind
shall survive me. 5 Diligently therefore I com-
mitted my commentary to writing, Inditing It
scrupulously with my own hand, folding it in
precious silks, and binding it with a magic and a
jewelled clasp ; and the rest thou knowest. But
since thy understanding has been quick beyond
all expectation and thy thanks generous beyond
my desert, and since In thee my soul has Indeed
come to a second life, far from accepting any
other recompense, let me complete my gift as Is
fitting : for who would bestow the precious stone
and withhold the setting ? Let us then hasten
together to the cadi. In order that In a formal
writing and before witnesses I may Institute thee
heir to all 1 possess ; for I have chosen a life of
poverty for the love of wisdom, not from necessity*
I have other fair books and other jewels, and my
camels' saddle-bags are heavy with gold. But
for the journey I shall soon make, gold and silver

THE OF 181

are useless, and before many days all shall be
thine."" May Allah lengthen those days into
many years/ 3 I replied ; " and be they many or
few they shall be spent in my house ; for If in
mind I am thy heir. In heart let me be thy child/ 5
And from that hour we were as a father who has
chosen his son, and a son who has chosen his
father, until death, the divider of loves and the
extinguisher of delights, separated us for ever.

The Stranger. And what if it is not too much
to ask may have been the gloss made by this
sage, which so wonderfully clarified the doctrine
of Aristotle ?

Avicenna. You will not find it in my writings ,
because it does some violence to the conceit of
mankind, who feeling within them some part of
the energy of nature wish to attribute that energy
to the fancies which it breeds ; and I have always
made it a law to bow to custom in science as in
manners. To rebel against comfortable errors
is to give them too much importance. You will
never enlighten mankind by offending them ;
and even if by force or by chance you caused
them verbally to recognize the truth, you would
gain nothing in the end, for in their heads your
accurate dogmas would turn at once into new
fables. The better way is to coax and soften
their imagination by a gentle eloquence, rendering
it more harmonious with those secret forces which
rale their destiny ; so that as by the tropes and
hyperboles of poets , they may not be seriously
deceived by your scientific shams. The very

1 82 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

currency and triteness of the He will wear away
its venom. Accordingly in my published treatises
I made no effort to pierce the illusion which
custom has wedded with the words of the Philo-
sopher ; but here , alas, illusions have no place ,
and if you wish to hear the unmentionable truth ,
in a few words I will repeat it.

My benefactor had entitled his profound work
The Wheel of Ignorance and the Lamp of Know-
ledge ; because, he said, the Philosopher having
distinguished four principles in the understanding
of nature, the ignorant conceive these principles
as if they were the four quadrants of a wheel , on
any one of which in turn the revolving edifice of
nature may be supported ; whereas wisdom would
rather have likened those principles to the four
rays of a lamp suspended in the midst of the
universe from the finger of Allah, and turning on
its chain now to the right and now to the left ;
whereby its four rays, which are of divers colours ,
lend to all things first one hue and then another
without confusing or displacing anything. The
ignorant, on the contrary, pushing their wheel
like the blind Samson, imagine that the four
principles (which they call causes) are all equally
forces producing change, and co-operative sources
of natural things. Thus if a chicken is hatched,
they say the efficient cause is the warmth of the
brooding hen ; yet this heat would not have
hatched a chicken from a stone ; so that a second
condition, which they call the formal cause, must
be invoked as well, namely, the nature of an egg ;

THE SECRET OF ARISTOTLE 183

the essence of eggness being precisely a capacity
to be hatched when warmed gently because, as
they wisely observe, boiling would drive away all
potentiality of hatching. Yet, as they further
remark 5 gentle heat-in-general joined with the
essence-of-eggness would produce only hatching-
as-such, and not the hatching of a chicken ; so
that a third influence, which they call the final
cause, or the end in view, must operate as well ;
and this guiding influence is the divine idea of a
perfect cock or of a perfect hen, presiding over
the hatching, and causing the mere eggness in
that egg to assume the likeness of the animals
from which it came. Nor, finally, do they find
these three influences sufficient to produce here
and now this particular chicken, but are com-
pelled to add a fourth, the material cause ; namely,
a particular yolk and a particular shell and a
particular farmyard, on which and in which the
other three causes may work, and laboriously
hatch an individual chicken, probably lame and
ridiculous despite so many sponsors, Thus these
learned babblers would put nature together out
of words, and would regard the four principles
of interpretation as forces mutually supple-
mentary, combining to produce natural things ;
as if perfection could be one of the sources of
imperfection, or as if the form which things
happen to have could be one of the causes of
their having it.

Far differently do these four principles clarify
the world when discretion conceives them as four

184 DIALOGUES IN

rays shed by the light of an observing spirit. One
ray which, as the lamp revolves , sweeps space in
a spiral fan, like the tail of a comet, is able to
Illuminate the receding past, and bears the name
of memory. Memory only can observe change or
disclose when and where and under what auspices
one thing has been transformed Into another,
whether in nature or in the spirit's dream ; and
memory only, if its ray could spread to the depths
of the infinite, would reveal the entire efficient
principle, the only proper cause y In the world ;
namely, the radical instability in existence by
which everything Is compelled to produce some-
thing else without respite. The other three
principles, made visible by the three other rays,
have nothing to do with genesis or change, but
distinguish various properties of accomplished
being ; namely, existence, essence, and harmony.
The rays by which these are revealed also have
separate names. Thus the faculty that discerns
existence is called sense, since It Is sense that brings
instant assurance of material things and of our own
actuality in the midst of them* The faculty that
discerns essence is called logic or contemplation,
which notes and defines the characters found In
existence and (in so far as may be opportune or
possible) the Innumerable characters also which
are not found there. The faculty which discerns
harmony is called pleasure or desire or (when
chastened by experience and made explicit In
words) moral philosophy. In themselves things
are always harmonious, since they exist together,

OF ARISTOTLE 185

and always discordant , since they are always
lapsing inwardly and destroying one another ;
but the poignant desire to be and to be happy,
which burns in the heart of every living creature ,
turns these simple co-existences and changes into
the travail of creation, in one juxtaposition of
things finding life, happiness, and beauty , and in
another juxtaposition, no less unstable, finding
ugliness, misery, and death. Thus as the Lamp
of Knowledge revolves, the red ray of sense and
the white ray of contemplation and the blue ray
of memory and the green ray of love (for green, as
the Prophet teaches, is the colour of the beautiful)
slowly sweep the whole heaven ; and the wise
heart, glowing in silence, is consumed with wonder
and joy at the greatness of Allah.

The Stranger. Allegory has its charm when we
know the facts it symbolizes, but as a guide to
unknown facts it is perplexing ; and I am rather
lost in your beautiful imagery. Am I to under-
stand that matter alone is substantial, and that the
other three principles are merely aspects which
matter presents when viewed in one light or
another ?

Avicenna. Matter ? If by that word you under-
stand an essence, the essence of materiality, matter
would be something incapable of existing by itself,
much less could it be the ground of its own form
or of its own impulses or transformations : like
pure Being it would be everywhere the same, and
could neither contain nor produce any distinctions.
But the matter which exists and works is matter

186 DIALOGUES IN

formed and unequally distributed, the body of
nature in all its variety and motion. So taken ,
matter is alive , since It has bred every living thing
and our own spirit ; and the soul which animates
this matter Is spontaneous there ; it Is simply
the native plasticity by which matter continually
changes Its forms. This Impulse in matter now
towards one form and now towards another is
what common superstition calls the attraction or
power of the ideal. But why did not a different
ideal attract this matter, and turn this hen's egg
into a duckling, save that here and now matter
was predisposed to express the first idea and not
the second ? And why was either Idea powerful
over the fresh-laid egg, but powerless over the
same egg boiled, except that boiling had modified
the arrangement of its matter ? Therefore my
benefactor boldly concluded that this habit in
matter , which Is the soul of the world, Is the only
principle of genesis anywhere and the one true
cause.

The Stranger. I see ; ? Tis love that makes the
world go round, and not, as Idolatrous people
imagine, the object of love. The object of love
Is passive and perhaps imaginary ; it Is whatever
love happens to choose, prompted by an nnner
disposition in its organ. You are a believer In
automatism, and not in magic.

Avicenna. Excellent. If the final cause, or the
object of love, bears by courtesy the title of the
good, believe me when I tell you that the efficient
cause, the native impulse in matter, by moving

OF ARISTOTLE 187

towards that object, bestows that title upon It.
Who that has any self-knowledge has not dis-
covered by experience In his own bosom ? as well
as by observation of the heavens, and of animals
and men, that the native impulse In each of us
chooses Its goal, and changes it as we change , and
that nothing Is pursued by us or sensible to us
save what we have the organ to discern, or the
Innate compulsion and the fatal will to love ?

The Stranger, There Indeed you touch the
heart-strings of nature ; and I well conceive your
enthusiasm at finding at last a philosophy that
vibrates with so much truth. But as for Aristotle,
does not such an Interpretation entirely reverse
his doctrine ? Did he not blame his predecessors
for having regarded living matter as the only
principle of the world ?

Avicenna, And most justly. Wisdom is not
confined to the knowledge of origins or of this
living body of nature things Important only for
the sake of the good or evil which they Involve.
The forms of things are nobler than their sub-
stance, and worthier of study ; and the types which
discourse or estimation distinguishes in things are
more important than the things themselves. A
philosopher is a man, and his first and last care
should be the ordering of his soul : from that
centre only can he survey the world. Naturalists
are often betrayed by their understanding of
origins Into a sort of Inhumanity ; conscious of
necessity, they grow callous to good and evil.
Moreover, those early naturalists were at fault In

1 88 DIALOGUES IN

their own science, because they identified matter
with some single kind of matter, like water or air,
and made that substance the sole principle of
genesis ; whereas the distribution, movement^
habits, and fertility of all sorts of matter must be
taken into account if nature and the soul of nature
are to be described rightly. But the Philosopher
never blamed the naturalists for being naturalists
in season, and he was the greatest of naturalists
himself. Doubtless in his popular works he
accommodated himself to the exigences of current
piety and of human conceit, seeming to make
nature a product of morals, which is absurd ; and
the converse is evidently the truth.

The Stranger. I agree that the converse is the
truth ; but is this truth to be found in Aristotle ?

Avicenna, If it is the truth, it must have been
his doctrine. Do you imagine that the wisest of
men, living at the place and hour when human
reason reached its noon, could be blind to so great
a truth, when it is obvious to me and even to you ?

The Stranger. Admirable principle of exegesis y
which assigns all truth to Aristotle and absolves
us from consulting Ms works !

Avicenna. On the contrary, for that very reason^
we need to consult and to ponder them unceas-
ingly. Why else read a philosopher ? To count
the places where his pen has slipped ? To note
his inconsistencies ? To haggle over his words
and make his name a synonym for his limitations ?
Even, if with some fleck or some crack, he Is a
mirror reflecting nature and truth, and for their

THE OF 189

sake only do we look Into him ; because without
this mirror, in the dungeon in which we lie s we
might be cut off from all sight of the heavens.

The Stranger, Was it a slip of the pen or a
limitation to assert that the divine life has no
material principle ? Must we not be wrong, then^
in asserting that matter is the one principle of
existence ?

Avicenna. Not at all. When the plectrum, in
the hand of an imperfect player, strikes the strings
of the lute, the hard dull blow is sometimes heard,
as well as the pure music. In this way the material
principle, when not fully vivified and harmonized,
can disturb and alloy the spirit, in a life that is
not divine. In the mind of God no such material
accident intrudes, and all is pure music. But
would this music have been purer, or could it have
sounded at all, if there had been no plectrum, no
player, no strings, and no lute ? You have studied
the Philosopher to little purpose, if you suppose
that it is by accident only that the deity is the final
cause of the world, and that without any revolution
of the spheres the divine intellect would con-
template itself no less blissfully than it now does.
That is but a sickly fancy, utterly divorced from
science. The divine intellect is the perfect music
which the world makes ? the perfect music which
it hears. Hermes and Pan and Orpheus drew
from reeds or conches, or from their own throats
such music as these instruments were competent
to make ; all other sorts of harmony, music-
ally no less melodious, they suffered to remain

igo DIALOGUES IN LIMBO

engulfed in primeval silence. So the soul of this
world draws from its vast body the harmonies it can
yield , and no others. For it was not the essence
of the sounds which conches and throats and reeds
might produce that created these reeds and throats
and conches, but contrariwise. These sources of
sound, having arisen spontaneously, the sounds
they naturally make were chosen out of all other
sounds to be the music of that particular Arcadia :
even so the divine intellect is the music of this
particular world. It contemplates such forms as
nature embodies. The Philosopher would never
have so much as mentioned a divine intellect the
inevitable note, eternally sustained , emitted by all
nature and the rolling heavens if the rolling
heavens and nature had not existed.

The Stranger. I admit that such is the heart of
his doctrine, and if he was never false to it, he was
a much purer naturalist than his disciples have
suspected. The eternity he attributed to the
world, and its fixed constitution, support this
interpretation : nature was the organ of deity,
and deity was the spirit of nature. Yet this con-
firmation creates a difficulty for you in another
quarter, since a Moslem must deny the eternity
of the world.

Avicenna. Not if we distinguish, as we should,
eternity from endless time. The world is eternal,
under the form of truth, as the divine intellect
apprehends it ; but, measured by its own measure
of days and years, the world had a beginning and
will have an end. So revelation teaches, and it is

OF ARISTOTLE 191

not by a feigned conformity that I accept this
dogma. My own time is over ; I have passed
into the eternal world ; and something within me
tells me that universal nature also is growing
weary of its cycles 9 and will expire at last.

The Stranger. And when nature is no more,
will God have ceased to be ?

Avicenna. Have you read the Philosopher and
do you ask such a question ? The vulgar imagine
that when change ceases, empty time will continue
after ; or, that before change began empty time
had preceded ; and it is a marvel to them how one
moment of that vacant infinity could have been
chosen rather than another for the dawn of creation.
All this is but childish fancy and the false speech
of poets. Eternity is not empty or tedious, nor
does time occupy one part of it, leaving the rest
blank. Eternity is but the synthesis of all changes ,
be they few or many ; and truth, with the divine
intellect which beholds the truth, can neither arise
nor lapse. They are immutable, though the
flux they tell of is fugitive, and themselves not
anchored in time, though the first and the last
syllable of time are graven on them as on a
monument.

Thf Stranger. Is eternity the tomb of time, and
does intellect resemble those Egyptian monarchs
who went to dwell in their sepulchres before they
died ? Ah, we Christians and artists have a secret
hidden from the children of this world, the secret
of a happy death. Sometimes life, by a rapturous
suicide, likes to embalm itself in a work of art, or

i 9 2 DIALOGUES IN

In a silent sacrifice . The breathlessness of thought
also is a kind of death, the happiest death of all,
for spirit Is never keener than in the unflicker-

Ing intellect of God, or in that of a philosopher
like you or even like me, who can raise the whole
or a part of the flux of nature Into the vision of
truth.

Avicenna. Tombs, indeed, and visions, and
death, and eternity why harp on them now, when
you are still alive ? Leave us while yet you may.
We have no need of you here, or you of us there.
Soon enough you must join us, whether you will
or no. Hasten, before It Is too late, to your thrift-
less brothers In the earth ; or if they will not listen,
admonish your own heart, and be not deceived
by the language which philosophers must needs
borrow from the poets, since the poets are the
fathers of speech. When they tell you that Allah
made the world, and that Its life and love are an
emanation from him, and that quitting this life
you may still live more joyfully elsewhere, they
speak in inevitable parables ; for in truth it Is the
pulse of nature that creates the spirit and chooses
a few thoughts (among many thoughts unchosen)
and a few perfections (among all the perfections
unsought) to which it shall aspire ; and the Special
harmony which this vast Instrument, the revolving
world, makes as it spins is the joy and the life of
God. Dishonour not then, the transitive virtue
within you, be It feeble or great ; for itis a portion
of that yearning which fills the world with thought
and with deity, as with a hum of bees. Love

THE SECRET OF ARISTOTLE 193

peoples even these regions with us melancholy
phantoms ; and had my body not moved and
worked mightily on earth, you would never have
found among the Shades even this wraith of my
wisdom.

THE ENH