By Zeus, said he, I am far from thinking that I know the
cause of any of these things, I who do not even dare to say, when one is added
to one, whether the one to which the addition was made has become two, or the
one which was added, or the one which was added and
the one to which it was added
became two by the addition of each to the other. I think it is wonderful that
when each of them was separate from the other, each was one and they were not
then two, and when they were brought near each other this juxtaposition was the
cause of their becoming two. And I cannot yet believe that if one is divided,
the division causes it to become two; for this is the opposite of
the cause which produced two in the former case; for
then two arose because one was brought near and added to another one, and now
because one is removed and separated from other. And I no longer believe that I
know by this method even how one is generated or, in a word, how anything is
generated or is destroyed or exists, and I no longer admit this method, but have
another confused way of my own.Then one
day I heard a man reading from a book, as he said, by Anaxagoras,
that it is the mind that arranges and causes all
things. I was pleased with this theory of cause, and it seemed to me to be
somehow right that the mind should be the cause of all things, and I thought,
If this is so, the mind in arranging things arranges everything and establishes
each thing as it is best for it to be. So if anyone wishes to find the cause of
the generation or destruction or existence of a particular thing, he must find
out what sort of existence, or passive state of any kind, or activity is best
for it. And therefore in respect to
that
particular thing, and other things too, a man need examine nothing but what is
best and most excellent; for then he will necessarily know also what is
inferior, since the science of both is the same. As I considered these things I
was delighted to think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the cause of
things quite to my mind, and I thought he would tell me whether the earth is
flat or round, and when
he had told me that,
would go on to explain the cause and the necessity of it, and would tell me the
nature of the best and why it is best for the earth to be as it is; and if he
said the earth was in the center, he would proceed to show that it is best for
it to be in the center; and I had made up my mind that
if he made those things clear to
me, I would no longer yearn for any other kind of cause.
And I had determined
that I would find out in the same way about the sun and the moon and the other
stars, their relative speed, their revolutions, and their other changes, and why
the active or passive condition of each of them is for the best. For I never
imagined that, when he said they were ordered by intelligence, he would
introduce any other cause for these things than that it it is best for them to
be as they are.
So I thought when he assigned
the cause of each thing and of all things in common he would go on and explain
what is best for each and what is good for all in common. I prized my hopes very
highly, and I seized the books very eagerly and read them as fast as I could,
that I might know as fast as I could about the best and the worst.
My glorious hope, my friend, was quickly snatched
away from me. As I went on with my reading I saw that the man made no use of
intelligence,
and did not assign any real
causes for the ordering of things, but mentioned as causes air and ether and
water and many other absurdities. And it seemed to me it was very much as if one
should say that Socrates does with intelligence whatever he does, and then, in
trying to give the causes of the particular thing I do, should say first that I
am now sitting here because my body is composed of bones and sinews, and the
bones are hard and have joints which divide them and the sinews
can be contracted and relaxed and, with the flesh
and the skin which contains them all, are laid about the bones; and so, as the
bones are hung loose in their ligaments, the sinews, by relaxing and
contracting, make me able to bend my limbs now, and that is the cause of my
sitting here with my legs bent. Or as if in the same way he should give voice
and air and hearing and countless other things of the sort as causes for our
talking with each other,
and should fail to
mention the real causes, which are, that the Athenians decided that it was best
to condemn me, and therefore I have decided that it was best for me to sit here
and that it is right for me to stay and undergo whatever penalty they order.
For, by
Dog, I fancy these bones and sinews of mine would have been in Megara or Boeotia long ago, carried thither by an opinion of what was
best, if I did not think it was better and nobler to endure any penalty the city
may inflict rather than to escape and run away.