THE POWER OF THE GOOD IN PLATO

     Meletus did a great wrong to Socrates, accused him falsely before the judges, and had him condemned. And Socrates answered with only one word: he called him "unrighteous." If Plato is to be believed, of the two adversaries confronting each other the loser was not Socrates but Meletus. If one accepts the judgment of the crowd, tôn pollôn, Meletus did not suffer at all and it was Socrates who was overcome. And then the question arises: which is the stronger - the hemlock that poisoned Socrates, or the word "unrighteous" with which Socrates struck Meletus and Anytus?

     When we today, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Socrates and his enemies, read the Apology or the Phaedo we see clearly that the moral condemnation is more powerful than the hemlock. Anytus and Meletus are quite as dead as Socrates, they survived him by only a few years. If he had not been condemned to death, Socrates would in any case have died several years later and nothing would be changed today: we would say that he died twenty-five hundred years ago. But Anytus and Meletus are forever nailed to the pillory, while the image of Socrates is surrounded with a halo. Is moral condemnation therefore stronger than poison? And is Plato right when he declares that the idea of the good is the most powerful force that exists in the universe? Did Anytus and Meletus therefore miscalculate and were they, like short-sighted and weak minds, deceived?

     Let us now go further. Two thousand years more will elapse, or even twenty-five thousand years. It may be that a day will come when the earth will no longer exist or even our solar system, when time itself will no longer be. Eternity will then engulf the pillory on which Plato and history nailed Anytus and Meletus. What will then happen to the power of the good? It will be said that Socrates counted on the immortality of the soul. But he declared that even if death were complete destruction, he would nevertheless remain as he was. Was he right? It is fortunate, indeed, that the inspired Plato took up his defense and that the tribunal of history condemned Anytus and Meletus. But, in millions of cases, a legal action between the good and the wicked in no way attracts the attention of history. The wicked harms the good, he does him wrong, and that is the end of the matter. For his part the good man will, in a weak voice, call his offender "wicked": but his voice will be smothered by the loud voices of the offender's friends and flatterers and his word of condemnation will never even reach his enemy's ears. The good and its verdicts do not always have the power Plato wished to see in them. In Socrates' "case" it was history that conquered and not the good, which triumphed only accidentally. But Plato and his readers imagined that the good must always, by its very nature, triumph. No, "by nature," victory can be given to anything whatsoever - to physical force, to talent, to intelligence, to science - but not to the good.

     Why do I say this? First, because it is the truth, that is, because it corresponds to reality. And secondly - but I would answer this question with another: Why must it not be spoken of, why must it be passed over in silence? To save Plato's reputation? Not to offend his disciples? Do you perhaps believe that it would be "better" to be silent? But then you believe many things. And what kind of "better" is it that may have misled you? Contemporary science is much too sure of itself, and it would do no harm to take away some of its pride.

AUREA MEDIOCRITAS

THE GODS

     Since the most ancient times it has been believed that the principal advantage the gods have over human beings lies in the fact that the gods lack absolutely nothing. They have everything and therefore need nothing. That is why they do not know change, while men - those wretched beings - suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, etc.

     Surely there is a great error here. First of all, if mortals are wretched, it is not because they experience cold, hunger, fatigue. I even think that it would be a great pity if men did not know what fatigue is. And I am very sorry for the gods if it is true that they never know fatigue, heat, cold, etc. I certainly do not mean to say by this that men are happy. Oh no! Even if I said it, who would believe me? But they are not unhappy because they happen at times to be fatigued or to suffer hunger. If a tired person can rest, if a starving person can eat, what more does he need? What is distressing among men is that often one who is tired cannot rest, one who is cold does not find means of warming himself, and one who is hungry does not have anything to eat. I am even inclined to believe that the pagan gods did know fatigue, hunger, cold; their superiority over men came from the fact that they could in good time rest, eat, warm themselves, so that they did not perish from lack of heat or nourishment.

     I will say even more: I think that what is terrible in our existence is not that we sometimes happen to fall into despair. We have every reason to believe that the man who has once known despair would not wish not to have had this experience. It is true that he would perhaps not willingly agree to repeat it, but he would no longer wish never to have had it. Why have men refused so positively to grant to the gods what they themselves have prized so highly? I believe they had no reason for this refusal. I believe that to represent the existence of the gods as perfect is not to understand them. But to understand the gods is necessary - though impossible. It is necessary for us to know that we do not at all know what perfection is.

ON THE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT BEING

     We speak glibly of the perfect being and are so accustomed to the idea that we sincerely believe it has a determinate meaning, identical for all. But is this really so? Try to define the idea of the absolutely perfect being. Its first predicate is obviously omniscience, its second omnipotence.

     For the moment this suffices. But is omniscience really a predicate of the absolutely perfect being? I say no. Omniscience is a misfortune, a downright misfortune, and one, furthermore, that is shameful and offensive. To know everything in advance, to understand everything - what could be more tiresome and more disgusting? For one who knows everything there can be no other end than to fire a bullet into his head. There are men who know everything, even on earth. To be sure, they do not really know everything and finally even know nothing or almost nothing and only simulate omniscience; but this suffices for an atmosphere of ennui to prevail about them that is so painful and so distressing that one can endure them only with great difficulty and in very small doses. No! The absolutely perfect being must not be so Omniscient. To know much - that is very good, but to know everything is dreadful.

     It is the same with omnipotence. He who can do everything has no need of anything. And we can verify this on earth: millionaires perish and go crazy, in the strict sense of the word, with boredom; their wealth is for them only a painful burden.

     And now the third predicate of the absolutely perfect being: he is always at rest. Good Lord! One would not wish such a fate on one's worst enemy. I could enumerate all the other predicates ordinarily ascribed to the absolutely perfect being; they will not prove themselves the least bit better than those that I have discussed. I shall be told perhaps that it is because of my human limitations that I cannot understand the sublime beauty of omniscience, of omnipotence, and of the eternal rest that nothing can disturb. But are not those who admire these sublime things also men and are they not limited beings? Can it not be objected against them that it is precisely because they are limited that they have contrived their absolutely perfect being and rejoice in their work? I am even inclined to believe that it is precisely human limitation that has inculcated in us the conviction that the via superlationis vel eminentiae, as the Catholic theologians say, is the way that leads to an understanding of perfection. Among us men on earth knowledge, power, and rest are prized very highly; if we raise all these to the superlative degree, which we likewise esteem, we obtain perfection. But this is pure childishness. It is good to have large eyes, but eyes the size of a saucer or even of a silver dollar would make the most beautiful face frightful. But the most important thing is that, in attributing to the perfect being this or that quality, men do not think of the interests of the perfect being but of their own. It is necessary for them that the absolutely perfect being be omniscient, for then they can deliver their fate into his hands without fear. And it is also necessary for them that he be omnipotent, so that he may be able to help them out of all difficulties. Furthermore, it is necessary that he be impassive, unchangeable, etc.

     But what would happen to this being if he remained such as he comes out of the hands of men? No one thinks of this. And do not think of it! I hope that he is at least powerful enough to be what he wishes to be, and not such as human wisdom would make him if its words could transform themselves into deeds.

THE LAST JUDGMENT

     Esse potest justitia Dei sine voluntate tua, sed in te esse non potest praeter voluntatem tuam... Qui ergo fecit te sine te, non te justificat sine te. Ergo fecit nescientem, justificat volentem. [The justification of God can exist without your will, but it cannot exist in you without your willing it. Therefore he who made you without yourself does not justify you without yourself. He made you without your knowledge, but he justifies you only if you wish it.](Augustine, sermo 169).

     If, in establishing this thesis, St. Augustine had based himself on the clear meaning of Scripture, one leaving no place for any other interpretation, we could dispute with him only by citing other passages of Scripture. But St. Augustine proceeds otherwise: he affirms that even for one who has not read Scripture it must be completely obvious that God can create man without asking his consent but, as for saving him against his will, this God cannot do. For St. Augustine this is as obvious as the truth, to use Spinoza's favorite comparison, that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. According to St. Augustine, salvation must, at least in some fashion, be earned. Hence, facienti quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam [God does not deny grace to one who cooperates as he can]. Hence, also, the question of St. Thomas Aquinas: utrum fides meritoria est? [whether faith is meritorious] - a question to which he can answer only in the affirmative. What St. Augustine says is so like the truth that at first blush it seems that no one could think otherwise and that he who says that he does think otherwise is only making believe. So, then, if there can be error here, we must believe that man has no possibility of distinguishing truth from error. Then it would be possible that two times two equal five, that a kilogram be lighter than a gram, that there be golden iron, hot ice, etc. All this is correct, and nevertheless one is obliged to admit that St. Augustine was in error and that consequently it sometimes happens that error is so like truth that it cannot even enter anyone's mind to imagine that it is error.

     What to do? Descartes repeated stubbornly that God does not wish and is not able to lie. But if error is so like truth that, despite all our desire never to be deceived in anything, we nevertheless fall into error, whose fault is it? I raise this question not to reproach God. If God deceives men, this does not mean that God does wrong. It is men who do wrong. And this not in letting themselves be deceived - could man outwit God, his Creator? - but in having limited their Creator by imposing laws on the manifestations of His will. If man is subject to certain limitations, it must then be, men think, that God is also subject to certain limitations. Notice, furthermore, that it is not always forbidden men to lie. On the first of April one not only may but even must deceive, even if only in jest. And on other days also lies are permitted, if they do not pursue an interested goal. Legal medicine raises lying to the rank of principle or method - in the case, for example, where it is necessary to outwit a malingerer. To God everything is permitted; He may also deceive. And God does deceive us constantly. The chief source of our errors lies precisely in the fact that God does not wish to reveal His secrets to Us. Man is obviously not equal to knowing the truth. We must only be surprised that the logicians and theorists of knowledge have until now still not recognized this elementary truth.

     So it is in our case also. St. Thomas is convinced that fides meritoria est [faith is meritorious]. St. Augustine, the St. Augustine who fought so passionately against Pelagius, is also certain that God can create man without his consent but that He cannot save him against his will. He is convinced of this, and he convinced others of a thing that has nothing in common with truth even though it resembles truth as one drop of water resembles another. However, St. Augustine himself felt at moments that man could do as little for his own salvation as for his entry into the world. But he did not believe this truth. He believed an error, and the whole world repeats it after him: fecit nescientem, justificat volentem [he made you without your knowledge, but he justifies you only if you wish it]. It requires a special experience - like that which Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Shakespeare, or Luther lived through - to rid oneself of the Augustinian "truth." Do you think that Luther or Nietzsche always saw the real truth? No, not always, far from it. Quite like St. Augustine, they often took the opposite of the truth for the truth itself. And do you think that I, who tell you all this, see the truth whenever I wish? I see it when it wishes, but this does not happen often. Ordinarily it is error that attracts me more, and that is why I think it was entirely in vain that Descartes tried so hard to limit the rights of the Creator. The Creator deceives us by offering us errors that it is impossible to distinguish from truths and, in so doing, He probably does what is necessary for us.

     I recall at this moment the words of Cardinal Petrucci, which were naturally condemned by the catholic Church in the person of Pope Innocent XI: il niente è exemplare dell' anima mistica. Come stava egli prima che Dio creasse il mondo? Pensava egli a se stesso e aveva cura di se? Certo, che no. [Nothingness is the exemplar of the mystic soul. How was it before God created the world? Did it think about itself and did it have any care for itself? Certainly not.] Do you understand what this means? God created the world out of nothing and He could obviously not ask "nothing" if it wished to become a world. And He will raise man to a new existence which will perhaps be as far removed from that of today as the latter is from non-existence, and He will do this without asking permission of man. For what can man say to God? As little as the "nothing" which never reflected on itself and could not do so. You do not believe in the possibility of such a metamorphosis? Well, that is no great misfortune! You share the conviction of St. Thomas that fides meritoria est? No, fides possesses no merit, just as the consent or non-consent of "nothing" played no role when God created the world out of it. If you wish to act, then act, but you are not helping God, you are only spoiling things. Indeed, you will be incapable of doing even this: how can one think of mixing in the affairs of God? You cannot even change the direction of the wind, you cannot even force a river to change its course, and you pretend to come to God's aid!

     But my words had a completely different object. Plato in his Gorgias relates that in the other world the souls present themselves before their judges completely naked, without bodies even, in order that the judges, the children of Zeus, may judge by the appearance of the souls, their conduct on earth. And only pure, stainless souls are received into the Elysian Fields; the others are plunged into Hell. Well, there is a large element of truth here, but Plato concealed certain things or, more correctly, he did not know everything. He believed that there are certain souls that are covered with repugnant sores and others that are completely pure. But it has become authentically known that there are no completely pure souls, that all are marked with stains and sores.

     And it has also become known that no action, no matter how beautiful it may be, no exercitia spiritualia, no elixir can make the stains disappear. Worse yet - and this is the most terrible thing - man does not wish to efface them, and this not through obstinacy, pride, or the inveterate habit of evil. At the Last Judgment all this will disappear of itself: there man will judge himself, and with a severity and pitiless rigor of which one cannot form the least idea here on earth. And that is why man does not wish to efface his stains.

     You do not believe this? You are wrong. Man cannot wish this, just as Petrucci's il niente could not give birth to being. If you continue not to believe, I shall not try to persuade you. Your time will come; you will know and understand. In the meantime, have faith in St. Augustine! We stand here before a problem which terrifies mankind, for it appears insoluble both to our intelligence and our conscience: can one save the soul which was created out of nothing and which, filled with horror at its own ugliness, has condemned itself to return to nothing? How God does this, I do not know. But I feel at times that He does.

THE TOWER OF BABEL

     Men have always racked their brains about the "meaning of war," particularly the historians and philosophers. There have already been so many wars; all of history is an uninterrupted chain of wars. And it is necessary to explain all this so that it becomes understandable. Wars have indeed been explained, and the explanations were quite understandable. When I was still in school I already understood why Alexander of Macedon undertook the conquest of India, why Caesar massacred a million Gauls and led an equal number into captivity, why the barbarians invaded Europe, why Napoleon marched into Russia, etc. And today, likewise, the present war is being explained, even though it has still not ended. But the more it is explained and the more understandable the explanations are, the more disgusted one feels. This is especially so when it is a question of explanations that in the last analysis invoke the "interests of nations." Germany needed the Berlin-Baghdad Railroad; England, open seas; France, Alsace-Lorraine. And Greece, Rumania, Montenegro - all of them needed something and sought to obtain some advantage. The contemporary historians know very well why people are fighting, that is, for what understandable, tangible interests. But they forget that no railroad, no sea, nor anything similar can pay for the fantastic expenditures that the war has cost Europe. I do not even speak of the millions of human lives sacrificed, of the crippled, the tortured, the impoverished. And then the ideals! How many people who protested that they cherished ideals above everything else in the world were obliged to throw their dearest hopes on the altar of the insatiable god of war!

     If the superhuman efforts and the material means which this war has already cost had been employed for the real defense of "interests," by the end of the three years that the war has now lasted all of Europe would have been transformed into a veritable paradise, into a tremendous, flourishing garden, and no one would have had any need of railroads or seas, for everyone would have had everything in abundance. To become convinced of this it is enough to have eyes and to know how to add. But even though everyone has eyes and knows how to add, no one wishes to profit from this knowledge, but everyone instead goes on repeating as a refrain: interests, interests, interests, we understand, we understand, we understand. But all this is self-deception: it is not at all a question of interests, and those who imagine that to understand the war means to understand interests, understand nothing. It is necessary to say it straightforwardly: from the point of view of human interests the present war, whatever may be its end, makes no sense. It has sense perhaps only from the point of view of the Americans and Japanese who, without any risk, have pumped all the gold out of Europe. Some Japanese philosopher may think that the meaning of this war lies in the development of the might of the Empire of the Rising Sun, which is destined to bring about the rejuvenation of old Europe by inculcating in it the new Oriental wisdom. Or perhaps an American banker, who before the war was only a millionaire and hopes by the end of it to have become a billionaire, sees the meaning of the war in his millions and in his office implores the devil to make it last as long as possible. If such people exist - and why should they not? - they are quite as right as those Europeans who do not stop talking about open seas and the Baghdad railroad.

     To understand the war, one must tell himself that it has absolutely no sense, that it is a crying absurdity. This statement is - to employ solemn language - the beginning of wisdom: the use of solemn language is, indeed, permissible not only for those who love to cry and blow trumpets to proclaim banalities and commonplaces. If I say this, moreover, it is not because I have any need of their throats and trumpet fanfares. I desire only that they not think that where people cry the loudest, there is the truth. A loud voice presupposes only strong vocal cords, powerful lungs, and the desire to shout.

     The war, then, is a complete absurdity: it has no interest in view but, on the contrary, ruins all interests. If this be so, the way is opened wide to suppositions that have at least the great advantage over the customary reasonings, that if they do not correspond to reality, no one can prove it, for it is impossible to verify them. A famous Greek poet once said, "Those whom the gods love die young." At certain periods there live multitudes of young people on earth who are more lovable and necessary to the gods than we. And then great wars break out, like the one we are now undergoing. Death cuts down millions of young people who leave us for the other world whose inhabitants know better how to appreciate them than we here. In this lies the meaning of the war, not in the fact that the United States will have more gold and the Germans fewer colonies. You do not agree? That is your affair, but you have in any case no answer to me. Will you invoke interests again? But I am not the only one, I think, to whom these interminable discussions have become loathsome. They will end by driving everyone to extremity, and then people will become convinced that the meaning of the war does not lie in wealth, colonies, or commerce.

     O divine Plato! You loved myths and knew how to use them so skillfully! Permit us to say what comes to our minds and so redeem your great sin: for it was you who invented dialectic and you who wished that the philosopher should manage the affairs of state. Fortunately the latter wish was not fulfilled, but dialectic rules over men, and you have been punished as you deserved. Formerly banality was simply banality but today, following your example, it is demonstrated and called truth!

METAPHYSICAL CONSOLATION

     May I hope that sooner or later the truth that I now express will be recognized as truth by all reasonable beings? I raise this question in view of the fact that many philosophers have openly declared that they would not be satisfied with less. But it is clear that one cannot count on this. Let us be more modest and ask: may I hope that all men will recognize my truth? No, people will certainly answer me, I cannot count on this either. Finally, can I at least be sure that I myself will never renounce my truths as long as I live? I am very much afraid of losing all authority in the eyes of my readers, but nevertheless I answer: no, I do not have this assurance. And when people will thereupon reproach me, as ordinarily happens, that I am depriving men of their best consolation, I shall break out into laughter in the face of my accusers. Poor, foolish, ridiculous men: they imagine that they have already understood everything! And they are afraid lest there still be something in the universe that they do not even suspect! They are always afraid, they are always trembling. They should follow the example of non-rational beings. Look at the moth that throws itself fearlessly into the flame without asking anyone whomsoever, without asking itself, what will happen to it and what awaits it. You also, sooner or later, will have to throw yourselves into the flame where all your eternal truths will be consumed in a trice like the wings of the moth.