Part I

But Isaiah is very bold and saith: I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.

      - Rom. 10:20 (Isa. 65:1)

SANCTA SUPERBIA

     In deep antiquity the Greek philosophers already sought to penetrate the final riddle of life. Almost immediately they felt that the problem which they had raised could be resolved only on one condition: if it be found that life is subject to a stable, immutable order. One might think that polytheism excluded the possibility of such an assumption. The gods of the Greeks were many and diverse. And these gods, like men, were unstable, capricious, impulsive beings who allowed themselves to be dominated by passions and never stopped arguing among themselves. How could one speak of a stable order, susceptible to knowledge, under these conditions? But already in Herodotus we find a thought which obviously expressed the ancient Greeks' conception of the universe: tên peprôrenên moirên adunata esti apofugeein kai theôi, that is, even a god cannot escape the decrees of fate. The ancient Greeks were already obviously afraid to leave the universe to the sole will of the gods, for this would have been equivalent to admitting absolute arbitrariness as the fundamental principle of life. Every fixed order, whatever it may be, is better than arbitrariness. "Fate," in Herodotus, assuredly serves to designate such an eternal and perhaps irrational order, but Herodotus, it seems, is completely satisfied with it. It suffices for him that the gods, like men, should be bound by something, by anything whatsoever. For what man fears above all else is that his fate, or even the fate of the universe, should be the plaything of chance.

     But later philosophy could not long be content with the ancient Moira, fate. It transformed Moira little by little into logos, reason. I shall not concern myself here with the progressive development of the idea of logos. Instead I shall pass immediately to Socrates, for the work of Socrates attained, it seems, the limit of human possibilities. Up to the present day, in any case, every attempt to get rid of the Socratic heritage has always been considered by mankind as an attack on its most sacred treasures.

     In one of Plato's early dialogues the question that concerns us is formulated by Socrates in this way: Is what is holy so because it is beloved of the gods or, on the contrary, is it beloved of the gods because it is holy? It is readily seen that Socrates' fundamental thought is identical with Herodotus'. Socrates naturally declares that the gods are not at all free to love what they wish, that the gods - like men - are subject to the law, which excludes all arbitrariness. The good is, as it is expressed today, autonomous. Mortals and immortals equally obey the commandments of the good.

     We see that the years of spiritual work which elapsed between the epoch in which the conception formulated by Herodotus arose and that in which Socrates' philosophy developed did not pass in vain. For Socrates, blind faith was replaced by the good that sees perfectly well. Herodotus, who subordinates both the gods and himself to an eternal law, bows down before a painful alternative: a law, no matter how puzzling and heavy it may be, is - as I have said - always better than arbitrariness. But Socrates' attitude toward his law, the law of the good, is completely different. He accepts this law not because it is imposed upon him by force but freely and willingly; Moira is transformed in Socrates into logos, fate becomes the reason that is common to gods and men. He no longer submits to an ineluctable destiny, and destiny no longer destroys his life with its inexorable prescriptions. On the contrary, reason gives him wings; reason is the chief and only source of his powers. Whatever man has, whatever he does, has in and of itself no value so long as it lacks the sanction of reason. Reason, to employ a comparison of Nietzsche's, is the swollen udder which man sucks to obtain milk for his nourishment. Reason is the source of the good and it is only the good that makes the life of mortal men and immortal gods worth living. Plato remained faithful to his teacher when he later hypostatized the good by making it the supreme idea, which is absolutely autonomous and exists independently of everything, and which is our spiritual bread, the sole nourishment that gives us true life.

     One recalls the famous discussion between Socrates and Callicles in Plato's Gorgias. The question is to determine which is better: to do injustice or to suffer injustice. Socrates affirms without any hesitation that, if one had to choose, it would certainly be better to suffer injustice than to commit it oneself. This restriction, "if one had to choose," of course puzzles the attentive reader a bit. But for the moment, let us pass over it. However that may be, Socrates definitely prefers to suffer injustice himself than to be unjust toward anyone. Callicles delivers a violent and impassioned speech in which he expresses his indignation that Socrates should be ready, in the name of an illusory "good," to surrender slavishly before force. Callicles will not admit that a weak, conquered man can find any feeling of satisfaction. The conquered man is miserable, and there is no talisman in the world that can transform the ugliness of a conquered, crushed person into beauty. A popular Russian fable tells of a certain miraculous elixir with the mysterious power of reuniting the parts of a body that has been cut into bits and restoring life to it. But Callicles does not believe in fables and scornfully rejects the "babblings" of Socrates about justice as a source of great power. Despite all the cleverness of Socrates' demonstrations, Callicles does not allow himself to be persuaded. He believes that man's goal on earth consists in finding the means of realizing his own will. Precisely like Nietzsche in our time, he wishes to obtain the high prerogative of proclaiming what pleases him as good and what displeases him as bad. Not only for the gods but for men and for himself he demands complete freedom: he wishes to be free of every previously established law, free - as we see - not only of blind Moira but also of the moral law that Socrates proclaims. Freedom for Callicles is incompatible with obedience. He consents to depend neither on a general law nor on the will of any other man. He wishes to be himself law-giver in all domains, he wishes his own words and commandments to be engraved on the tablets of the law.

     But ardent and daring as Callicles was, history did not recognize him as the conqueror. Only once in his dialogues, in the Gorgias, did Plato give complete and definitive expression to the conception of life which Callicles represents. In his other works he leaves the field free to Socrates. None of his interlocutors ever succeeds in saying anything even slightly significant in defense of Callicles' ideas. Socrates seizes Plato's undivided attention as well as that of all of his future readers. And this is quite understandable. Socrates set himself a tremendous goal that was unique of its kind. It is not correct to see in Socrates chiefly the ancestor and master of dialectic and the creator of general ideas. His lifework consisted in searching out for himself and for mankind (perhaps only for mankind?) a new source of the elixir of life. Socrates wished to accomplish the greatest of miracles and succeeded in doing so.

     The task Callicles set himself was certainly difficult: to develop all his mental and physical powers to such a point that it would be possible for him to harm and do injustice to others without himself running the risk of suffering any injustice. But, first of all, Callicles did not succeed in accomplishing this task. At most he, like his disciples, succeeded in avoiding defeats for a certain time. Moreover, his own powers were not sufficient for this. No matter what he says, no matter how great his eloquence, it is certain that without the help of chance, without a concurrence of favorable circumstances, man is incapable of always succeeding and of protecting himself against defeats. It is very probable that toward the end of his life Callicles, following the example of the Asiatic despot, had occasion sorrowfully to remember Solon. Furthermore, it must be said that Callicles built with materials already prepared. To attain his goals he used what men already possessed, with the difference only that he acted more daringly and cleverly.

     Quite different was the work of Socrates. Socrates set himself the goal of creating something out of nothing. He went where everything had previously been destroyed without leaving a trace. Even more: if he found some traces or vestiges of an ancient reality, before beginning to build he first finished destroying and threw down what was still standing. He sought a "good" in which there would no longer be a single atom of the human values that Callicles glorified and in which the latter saw the content of his life. All that troubled Callicles, made him joyous or sad, left Socrates completely indifferent; it simply did not exist for him.

     In Oscar Wilde's Salome the pagans, speaking of the Jews, say: "These people believe in what they do not see and do not believe in what they see." The same thing could be said of Socrates. In Socrates' "good" Plato's ideas, as well as their hypostatized character, are already completely found. Socrates, if we may so express ourselves, drinks his "good" as ordinary men drink water. He sees it with spiritual eyes, he touches it with spiritual hands. It has for him, as have the things of the external world for us, real existence. If you asked him what would be better - to suffer hunger and cold, to be imprisoned, etc., but to be just, that is, to participate in the good, or, on the contrary, to be separated from this life-giving source and possess all the riches of the earth - he would answer without hesitation that it is better to be just. And his power did not consist in the cleverness with which he forced people, by means of his dialectical method, to give to the questions he had posed precisely the answers he himself believed correct. It is told of Socrates that he once remained immobile for twenty-four hours in the same place, reflecting on a question that was not clear to him. We should grossly deceive ourselves were we to imagine that during that time Socrates "was speaking to himself." It is much more probable that during these twenty-four hours he was inwardly silent, just as he was outwardly. He was not inventing speeches or objections against possible adversaries. He needed this long, absolute silence and this inward tension in order to invoke and call into existence a new reality that had never yet appeared in the world. If he spoke any words during this time they were certainly incantations: let the new reality, the world of the good, be born, let the old sensible world disappear forever! And it is certain that he was more than once inwardly silent while the people who surrounded him imagined that he was speaking to himself. He would never have been able to see anything of what he did see if he had not himself first created what he needed.

     And, indeed, from Socrates' hands there came into the world a completely new reality which had not existed before, and its creator, Socrates, himself gave it a name which men before him did not know. Or, if you prefer, the name already existed; Socrates was unwilling for men to think that he introduced into the world something new, something which not only had no one ever seen before but which did not even exist before. Nevertheless, the name for it was found. It is not astonishing that young people of brilliance like Plato and Alcibiades listened so eagerly to Socrates' teachings and sought to catch every one of his words with such awe. They adored in him the creator. It is also not astonishing that hoi polloi (the mob) felt such animosity toward the wise man whom the oracle had praised; they perceived and hated in him the terrible destroyer. For in declaring that the good is everything he was at the same time saying that everything outside the good is only illusion. Plato's doctrine of ideas is merely the brilliant development or, to put it better, the admirably executed translation of Socrates' work. If Plato had not lived mankind would never have known that, in addition to matter and other essences once created one knows not by whom, there is still another essence more real than all that previously existed - the good; and that all other realities are finally illusory and that the good alone is real.

     It is in this that the immense, incomparable value of Socrates' work, which was later attributed to all of Hellenism, consists. Socrates wished to become like God, indeed to transcend God. God created the universe, Socrates created the good which is more valuable than the whole universe. And ever since Socrates all reasonable beings, mortal or immortal, have been seeking the sources of the real in the good. The universe is transitory, the good is eternal.

     Plato was obviously wrong when, replying to Diogenes, he said to him, "You have eyes to see the horse but you have no organ to see 'horse-ness' (the idea of the horse, the horse in itself)." It is not a question of an organ. To see the world of ideas, to penetrate - in other words - into the kingdom of the good, it is not at all necessary to obtain a new organ. Plato was likewise wrong when he argued that all men before their appearance in the world already contemplated the ideas in all their purity, and that man need only make an effort to re-establish the past in his memory. No one had ever seen the good in his past life because before Socrates the good did not exist anywhere in the universe. Socrates and Plato themselves showed that the only way which leads to the good is katharsis, purification.

     To enter the universe created by Socrates it is necessary to renounce the universe created by God. One must find in himself the power to do without everything, to feel no need of anything. It may be that in this respect the Stoics, and especially the Cynics, showed more rigor in developing Socrates' thought than did Plato and Aristotle. The Cynics and the Stoics sought only the good; for them all of life was identified with the good. In Plato Socrates, as I have noted above, says that if it is impossible to do otherwise he would prefer suffering injustice to committing it. In his opinion, then, it would be better still not to suffer injustice. Injustice is, all the same, painful for him to bear. But in the Cynics the fear of suffering and outrage completely disappeared; they were afraid only of joy. Antisthenes says that he would prefer losing his reason to experiencing pleasure - maneiên mallon ê hêstheiên. It was among the Cynics that the theme which was later the delight of the medieval monks resounded for the first time. St. Theresa's Pati, Domine, aut mori is only a free translation of the Greek saying of the father of the Cynic school.

     To be sure, mankind could not decide to accept Socrates' good in all its fullness and with its exclusive character. Plato, who established a compromise between God and Socrates, suited men's taste better. The ancients called Diogenes a Socrates gone mad, and they were certainly right. Is there any greater madness than the desire to surpass God himself? The desire to become like God is already daring enough! But men could no longer renounce Socrates. Only at rare intervals in history do we find attempts to rebel against the power of Socrates.

     What strange creatures men are. Once the mob saw in Socrates, precisely because he tried to create a new world, an extremely dangerous person, and it was not afraid to poison him as mad dogs are poisoned. But a very short time passed and Socrates was elevated to the rank of saint. Those who later rose against Socrates always called down upon themselves anger and indignation. Indeed, the "good" that Socrates created appears to men more lovable and even more real than all other values.

     When in our time Nietzsche introduced the formula "beyond good and evil" he aroused general horror at the first moment. Even more: for Nietzsche himself the most terrible and saddest thing was to renounce Socrates' world. He felt then what the first man must have felt when God drove him out of paradise. Nietzsche thought that he had to renounce Christianity, but this was hardly so; he had to renounce the Hellenistic elements of Christianity, that is, what had been introduced into the doctrine derived from the Orient by Greek philosophy, which had already at the time attained its full flowering. Nietzsche was far from being the first who tried to free himself from the enchantment of Greek thought. Even in the bosom of Catholicism such attempts were many times made and occasionally even achieved very resounding success. It is sufficient, for example, to recall the controversy between Pelagius and St. Augustine. Though Catholicism took the side of St. Augustine, it did not repudiate Socrates. Catholicism venerated St. Paul but lived according to Socrates as the most moderate of his disciples, Aristotle, expounded him. Indeed, can men renounce the idea of the good? Unlike the world created by God, in which the possibilities for realizing human desires are so limited, in Socrates' world all desires are fulfilled. Man needs only to penetrate into this world, that is, be ready to renounce God's world, and he immediately finds himself free to possess the innumerable riches of which Plato speaks so eloquently in his dialogues. This world knows no limits; it gives shelter to millions of individuals and with its spiritual nourishment will satisfy them completely. All who wish to enter it are received as welcome guests. All will find a place there - slaves and kings, the strong and the weak, persons of genius and those who lack all talent. There miraculous transformations take place: the weak become powerful, workmen become philosophers, the ugly become beautiful. How could mankind be deprived of such a world? Is it not thanks to Socrates, indeed, that a miserable day-laborer can become the master of the world? The tyrant can be unjust to the slave; he can take away from him his last ewe, but it is impossible for him to take away his virtue. The tyrant will be wicked; his victim will remain, despite everything, virtuous. And not only a tyrant but the gods themselves can do no evil to a simple and weak mortal. Fate itself, which rules over the gods, must bow down before the good. The righteous man can look to the future with courage, pride and assurance; he has no need of anything other than his virtue. But virtue - that is indispensable to him and he will not give it up to anyone.

     It is not for nothing that Mill said that men must never forget that among them there once lived a being such as Socrates - Socrates, who was himself righteous and who taught men to be righteous also; who, while only a man, created a universe more valuable than God's. Man will never renounce Socrates and the world that he created! Never? We speak decisive words too readily, we are inclined to believe that we can predict not only the near but even the most distant future. It is so tempting to imagine that we already know everything and that nothing of the unexpected can come to us any more. But apparently Nietzsche was only the precursor of coming events. It seems likely that the reign of Socrates is approaching its end and that mankind will renounce the truth and the good of the Greek world and return to the God whom it has forgotten.

DESTROYING AND BUILDING

     Everyone knows that the final goal of man is to build and that destruction is in itself a terrible thing that can be justified only if it is a temporary step leading to new building. Why is everyone so sure of this? The rationalist philosophers - and where is one to find a philosopher who is not a rationalist? - believe that this absolute truth, like all absolute truths, is furnished us directly by reason and is self-evident. I am almost in agreement with this. In truth destruction is hateful and construction beautiful. But it is necessary to add a restrictive clause and say "as far as we know." And this restriction leads to unexpected results.

     First of all, once we admit it, our statement forfeits its right to residence in the domain of philosophy. We are obliged to drive it out of philosophy and banish it to ethics or sociology or even political economy. There it will gladly be accepted, but philosophy is philosophy precisely because it will not admit conditional truths into its domain. Common sense, which rules autocratically in the positive sciences, declares with assurance: one of the most monstrous of crimes is the crime of Herostratus. Without any reason this man destroyed the Temple of Diana, one of the great marvels of art. People like Herostratus must be put into chains in order not to be able to destroy. Ethics, sociology, political economy all echo, "put into chains." And the philosopher? The philosopher is silent. He remembers: did not Gogol throw the second volume of Dead Souls, which was also a marvelous work of art and worth more than the Temple of Diana, into the flame? Must we also chain this writer? Indeed, not Gogol alone! Look at what nature does - with what carelessness, what ease, it deforms or destroys the most beautiful of works, its own as well as those of man. Did Mount Vesuvius take pity on Herculaneum and Pompeii? Was the fire afraid to destroy the library of Alexandria? Far more: nature systematically destroys everything that it creates. Alexander the Great and Plato, Pushkin and Gogol, and so many others who could have built so many beautiful temples - all these it has pitilessly annihilated. Did it make d'Anthès' hand tremble when he coldly directed his pistol against Pushkin in the duel? Why did it not then intervene? Why does it systematically destroy everything that it creates and everything that men create? Why must it send men old age, which transforms the most wondrous beauty into ugliness, weakens the minds of the most intelligent, and ruins the most active will? Why death, which puts an end to the most daring enterprises? Destruction, death - this is the inevitable end of all nature's works. The moralist and sociologist can forget this. But the philosopher does not forget it. He can not and, if you wish, must not forget it.

     Do you know how the philosopher defines the problem of philosophy, not for the mob but for himself and for the initiates? If you wish to know, do not open one of the numerous introductions to philosophy that offer you in two or three pages a list of customary definitions but look into the works of the divine Plato. There you will read these doubly mysterious words: for the non-initiate this is a secret, but philosophy is a preparation for death and a gradual dying. This is almost a literal translation; here is the original: kinduneuousi gar hosoi tynchanousin orthôs haptomenoi philosophias lelêthenai tous allous hoti ouden allo autoi epitêdeuousin hê apothnêskein te kai tethnanai.

     As you see, it is clearly said that philosophy is an apprenticeship for and anticipation of death, and that for the non-initiate this is a secret. And the most extraordinary thing is that the secret has remained a secret to this day, even though it was revealed to men twenty-five hundred years ago and even though the Phaedo (64A), where the quoted words appear, is one of the best known and most admired of Plato's dialogues. And even today, do you think that if these words of Plato were traced in letters a meter high on all walls this would in any way change the situation? Not in the least. Nothing would be changed, and the manuals of philosophy would continue to explain that philosophy is a science, etc., that before beginning to philosophize it is necessary to provide prolegomena to every future metaphysics, etc. It is well known what the introductions to philosophy cover. Even in works especially devoted to Plato the definition I have just quoted is passed over in silence or even not noticed at all. Resolve this great enigma, O you wise Oedipuses! How did it happen that the mystery revealed to Plato remained a mystery? And it will always remain such - this I declare in all certainty.

     Man needs what has positive value or, to put it differently, what can be immediately utilized. He does not need truth. Error and illusion can be quite as useful to man as truth. Plato with his dying and preparation for death, however, does not build up but destroys. Even for himself his definition was not always useful. Most of the time he was obliged to have recourse to other definitions, definitions that were later introduced into the manuals of philosophy for the use of those beginning and ending their studies. Since I have gone thus far, I shall go to the end. Even Plato himself was not always capable of understanding the secret he had revealed. But of this he tells us nothing. It was a very simple man, the shoemaker Jacob Boehme, who told us this two thousand years later. He did not hold any social position; he could permit himself the luxury of being frank. In a fit of frankness he admitted that he himself did not always understand what he had once said. When God withdrew his hand from him, his own works appeared incomprehensible to him. Plato naturally could not say this. Aristotle had already found too much confusion and too many contradictions in his writings. Can there be any knowledge whatsoever if not only do men fail to understand each other but if I myself cannot understand today what I said yesterday? But we know that the task of men consists in building, in constructing positive works. Yes, obviously, positive - as the pupils of Plato and even the faithful disciples of Jacob Boehme demand.

     It seems to me that the preceding sufficiently clarifies the question. However, if these clarifications are insufficient, it is no great misfortune. We must believe that it is the fate of philosophy to begin and not finish, to raise questions to which there is not and can not be any answer. This is precisely what apothnêskein te kai tethnanai means [to die or to be dead].

THE CLASSICAL ARGUMENT

     Since the most ancient times philosophers have been divided into two quantitatively unequal groups. The first - and these always form the large majority - wished to believe and did believe that they knew a great deal. The others believed that they knew very little. It will be recalled that Socrates declared that he knew nothing. But this was only a pretence on his part, a methodological trick similar to Descartes' de omnibus dubitandum, a pretext to establish the propositions destined forever to deliver us from all doubts. In any case, it is precisely from Socrates on that the philosophers began to claim the capacity of omniscience. Even the skeptics, as becomes evident when we carefully examine the problems they raised, never renounced knowledge entirely. They said only that our knowledge was probable, not certain. But they were nevertheless convinced that they possessed criteria permitting them to distinguish the probable from the improbable. Further, if we examine the matter more closely, skepticism with its probable judgments does not differ so very much from dogmatism with its certain judgments. When it is a question of choosing between two probable judgments that are opposed to each other, the skeptic relies on a determinate criterion. But from where did he take it? Does not the totality of his criteria finally form a certain system of knowledge that is very little distinguished from the systems of the dogmatists? We could establish a series of judgments as acceptable to skeptics as to dogmatists, but it seems hardly necessary. In the domain of empirical knowledge you will not find any more profound divergences between the representatives of two points of view as different as those of the skeptics and the dogmatists than between the diverse representatives of one and the same point of view. The certain judgments of the dogmatists will be accepted by the skeptics, but qualified by the latter as probable. And then there is this also: the dogmatist, having attained certitude, feels calm and declares that he has achieved the supreme goal, for tranquility of mind is the highest goal of every reasonable being in general and of the philosopher in particular. But the skeptic will not make any different use of his probable knowledge. He celebrates his ataraksia which, if one does not show a philological scrupulousness that would be here inappropriate, can be translated by the term "tranquility of mind." In brief, certain knowledge and probable knowledge are hardly distinguishable from one another.

     But when it is a question of ignorance, it is quite different. When the dogmatists attacked the skeptics, they set out from the supposition that their adversaries did not admit any knowledge. And then they pushed forward their classical argument like a destructive battering ram: he who says that knowledge is impossible contradicts himself, for he knows that he does not know; therefore, knowledge is possible. And he arrives at his knowledge that knowledge is impossible by employing the same methods of judgment that everyone else employs. Why, then, does this man who recognizes the methods of searching for truth acknowledged by all, after arriving at a certain limit, suddenly renounce and reject them as useless? Why can not the method which served to obtain the knowledge that one can not know furnish the knowledge that one can know? These arguments, as you see, are irresistible. As the dogmatists have loved to put it since the most ancient times, they silence the most obstinate of opponents. The dogmatists have always triumphed over their opponents, for an opponent reduced to silence is no longer dangerous, no longer an opponent.

     This naturally holds only so long as we set ourselves the modest aim of getting rid of an opponent. But what if we admit the possibility of other aims? What if we aim not at confusing our opponent in the eyes of the mob but at convincing him? Or what if we trust our opponent, respect him, and do not assume that he involves himself in contradictions because he is foolish or blind or - what is still worse - because, unlike us, he is indifferent to the truth and sets for himself only "practical" or "finite" goals - what, I say, if we admit this? The opponent is as intelligent, clear-headed, sincere and conscientious as we or - horribile dictu - even surpasses us in all these respects; and if he expresses judgments whose contradictory character he himself perceives, it is because they impose themselves upon him with that necessity which, according to our own judgment, is inherent in truth. Yes, it was and still is so. In the reality of the everyday contradictions are absent, or they are less conspicuous. A is always equal to A, the whole is greater than its parts, there is no action without a cause, each of us sees what the others see, Deus impossibile non jubet [God does not command the impossible.], etc. One can employ general methods that are obligatory upon all, and these methods yield excellent results. And our opponent himself, as has been said, uses these methods so long as, together with other men, he stands in full light. But there are places where the light of the sun does not penetrate - under the earth, at the bottom of the sea. There, there is no light, there darkness rules, but are life and the truth of life impossible there? May it not be that our opponent, who has lived in those regions where few beings have ever descended, tries to reveal to us the deepest, most unknown secrets? And that it is precisely because that rigorous logic to which we have become accustomed here is unknown there, in those obscure regions, that he embroils himself in contradictions and his tongue stammers? We can certainly force him to silence. We can, like Aristotle, say that he is only pronouncing empty words that have no sense even for him. This will surely give us peace, the supreme good, or ataraksia (tranquility) which is also the supreme good. For shall we not thus be certain of possessing the final truth?

     In this respect the classical argument is above all praise. But what if our curiosity awakens, what if life shakes in us the Aristotelian assurance, and we ask ourselves: may not this man who contradicts himself be in communion with some mysterious reality? May not this confusion, this mass of inextricable contradictions hide in themselves that precisely which is indispensable, most significant, and most meaningful for us? Will it not then occur to us that the pride of the conqueror is less desirable than the humility of the conquered? And that our classical argument, like all mechanical means of constraint, is not at all as seductive as it seems to us? All the more so since those who have perceived the contradictory nature of reality are not ordinarily very disputatious. There is no need to force them to silence by means of the classical argument, for they do not generally attach any very great importance to the triumph of their "truths." If you wish them to be silent and not contradict you, you need not demonstrate anything to them. Tell them simply that you do not wish to listen to them and that you wish to be conquerors. This will act on them as effectively as your arguments. They will of themselves be silent, depart and leave you a free field.