Transcript

{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

(Side Two. Thursday, December 6, 1956. Reel number 19.)

Obviously in the -- in the New Testament, when the Apostle Paul speaks of the -- we have our -- on this earth no permanent stand, but the eternal we are looking for, the future we are looking for -- he ha- -- who had gone to a place like Dartmouth College in Tarsus, of course, tried to inherit, or to supersede this Platonic utopia.

You -- we all live in the same predicament. At this moment, we are American citizens, and we know very well that God did not create America directly. He created man, and certain- -- obviously the -- the -- the destiny of man is not to be Americans, gentlemen. It's to be a man. And therefore, we have to admit that we are in a temporary stage of the affairs of the world, whether we like it or not. This is the eternal question of philosophy. This you have to -- therefore to use -- my tools which I have offered you are the three tools of logos, ethos, and physis. And therefore, these are the two demands made on you, to use these tools, so that you can make understandable the -- the drive behind any one of these schools. These are not luxuries. These are attempts which you all make, knowingly or unknowingly.

The other day, a man came back from Cairo, Egypt, and said to me, "Most American businessmen are Moslem. They think they are Christians, but in fact, Moslem is the most simple religion for men. It's -- of course doesn't take care of the women. Women have no place in Moslem life. But the American businessman, if he isn't under the thumb of his wife at home, and escapes into the dis- -- business district, and to Rotary clubs, and he -- and Dartmouth colleges -- I mean, we are no women ad- -- where no women are admitted, he immediately arranges a world of mind which is very simple: a mixture of Moslem -- Islam and Stoicism. Most of you are Stoics, gentlemen. In America, you find practically no Epicureans. Everybody's here a Stoicist, and -- or an idealist, or what he thinks, a materialist. Epicureans are -- you find them in France. That's an Epicurean country. The hope of the world is that they -- I think the French Epicureans and the American Isl- -- Moslem get together. Both are horrid in their insulation. The French, they have no government. And the Americans have no mind. They are -- go from one craze to another here. They are -- because they have not this center of the inner beatitudes, which is the gospel of Epicure, you see, that the city of man, politics should not influence your -- your salvation.

Well, in -- in any case, there are minimum demands. A representation of what these people really were doing in -- with the tools of logos, ethos, and

physis as the eternal reason for philosophy. And I would take it as a complete bankruptcy of your paper if you would not give to me to understand that you understand why philosophy is in every grownup person a necessity. He cannot escape it. Philosophy is not a course you can take, gentlemen, as you can take zoology, you see -- or leave it -- or chemistry. It is -- you philosophize either poorly, or you philosophize well. But whether you li- -- most of you -- philosophize in imitation of some overhanging prejudice which is in the air of your time.

More I cannot say, because every one of you of course is left to his own devices to go to his -- to these philosophers -- himself. I will -- may add, however, today, one more problem. Yes- -- last time, as you know, I tried to clear you up on the { } -- ethics, and I tried to make you understand that in ethics, we deal not with a naturalistic code. And that your idea that ethics is a course, which you can take in a school as you can take mathematics, is of the devil. It's the Anglo-Saxon diabolical devil -- temptation to think that the rules of behavior, of moral behavior can be learned by heart, and you can learn the penal code, or as you can learn the families of {phylloxera} or of -- of lizards.

In the -- in the city of man, gentlemen, this is the -- this is the Latin word "civitas," and this is the Greek word -- and here, I put the Greek word, that's the Latin word. And you see, the Latin -- Anglo-Saxon word in this case would be "world," and in this case, we have no -- no English word for the political entity, because the Christian -- the tribes were Christianized so early that we say at best "city," you see, or "state." These are all words of Latin origin. There is no AngloSaxon term for the community. I don't know of any. Does -- do you know of any? Comu- -- "community" is Latin. You see, comes from "communis" in Latin. So it's very strange. Anglo-Saxons have no native term for the political order. Ja?

(What about "town"?)

What?

("Town"?)

If you feel that it works -- I'm very glad. Very nice. "Town." Sure, good. Yes. "People," you see, doesn't work, because it comes from "populus," Latin, again. So "town," very good idea. Thank you. I -- do you know the -- the root of "town"? Not sure, but I think it is --.

(French.)

It's not German, at all. It's perhaps -- Celtic. I -- I'm not sure at this

moment. Wie?

(French.)

No, it's not French. But the -- the ending, d- -- u-n, in -- in {hautun} and so, that may be contained in it. You see, that's a Celtic ending. Most -- in -- in Gaul under Caesar, most cities ended in "-dhunum," with the ending "- dhunum." And I don't know if "town" had anything to do with that.

(I think it was originally "ton," or something, with t-o-n, which was a division of a hundred, which was a division of a shire in England.)

Well -- in any case, it's useful. Let's use it. Ton -- town. You can say "ton." And it's quite important, because -- in this connection, I cannot deal with it explicitly. But you may take this down as a rule, gentlemen. Any word in our civilized language--in French, German, English, Italian--has three forms: Greek, Latin, and native. And it is only digested when you have it in all three forms. That's very strange. Why that is so, is a long story. I've written a whole book on this topic, that to digest a -- a process in the world outside, it takes the native approach, which is the homely one, you see, the familiar one, the -- the lowbrow one; and it takes the high-brow, the religious one, which comes from the Christian Church, through the ages usually in Latin like "nature"; and then we found a special science like physics, and -- when we use a Greek term. So the -- the theologian speaks of "natura," nature, you see. We speak of "the world" in our -- in our native tongue. And the -- the specialist speaks of physics, or physiology. And so he makes out of this natura something -- something Greek.

Well, that's -- leads us too far. But only to make you feel that it isn't quite wanton if I draw your attention to the fact that there are three terms for the same thing under a different aspect. When you philosophize, you use a Greek term. When you theologize, you use a Latin term. When you speak idiomatically at home, you use the Anglo-Saxon term. That's a good rule for you, you see. The religious language has come to us as Latin. We say "religion," "religio," you see. But if you have the Greek term, "theology," you see, you are in the learned bracket of the divinity school. "Theology" is Greek. You have this strange relation -- you see. Here is "religio," Latin. The Greeks had a -- quite a different word for that.

Now to come back, however, to the main problem today. The main problem today is the question of the appearance of the logos with regard to things and the appearance of the logos between people. I have tried to show you that -- ethics comes to people through action. You know what a man is morally worth, not from what he says, because he can be a hypocrite. And most people are

hypocrites, because they have some standardized, ethical phrase in their mouth. And I don't care in the least what they say. Many will say, "Lord, Lord," and will go to hell. But you have to see what the man is doing. And I have tried to give you some examples last time of what ethical action is. The creation of a free, non-natural situation, gentlemen: that's ethical. If you treat your neighbor as a new person every day, and find yourself free to change, with regard for him, you see, then he is free.

I -- in the -- in my Christian Future, I have expressed it in a similar -- simple way: God re-thinks His creation every day in the light of the fate of His children. And when we make terrible mistakes, He allows us to find a new way. That's called "the remission of sins." And after your parents have seen that you can't go to college -- for example, they allow you to become a carpenter, because they rethink their prejudices -- the world -- from love of you. The same is done by God. Our creator always has still a way out. Here, we haven't made peace for 10 years, but that He will not perhaps find a way in which He will allow us to come to terms with the world. At this moment, that's in the making, as you know, in the most circumstantial way. With landing in Suez and such things, we are finally forced into taking seriously the fact that we must make peace. We never have made peace.

So will you take this down, gentlemen: that the word, in -- in the respect of the ethics of our town, has to be rethought every day because of the mistakes man makes, and how could we ever mend the mistakes if our maker would not then give us new opportunities? So because we do not do as our Father in Heaven likes us to do, He has to rethink His creation. Otherwise there could be no government of the world.

Then rethinking, gentlemen, is the essence of the logos. The logos is more free, still, than you and me. You -- we are handicapped by our mistakes. Today, the -- mistakes made in our foreign policy cry to Heaven. If Heaven responds, it means that He allows us once more to start -- although we have made this mistake. But they haven't been legal, so to speak. There is still a time of grace given to us. But the plan of God obviously was not to do the things. You just look at the Orozco frescoes, when God each time throws up His hands in despair and says, "This world has to come to an end. It's just impossible." Three times in these frescoes, God, you see, says, "Finished." But there is a new start. And you wonder how long it can go on, how long He can find a new way of -- of letting this continent be peopled by idiots.

Now gentlemen, the logos is the power with which we speak to each other, and it is the power -- which we come to know the universe, the objects. And these are two different ways. And I want to tell you how to understand

these--the eternal conflict between my dealing with the forest, or the stars, and my dealing with you. The stars I must first see. That is, the first thing is an impression made on me by -- through my senses. { }. Preferably the sight, the eye. But I can also hear a sound. I can smell a flower. I can touch a stone. Therefore, gentlemen, the first impressions on -- of the physis go through the senses. Now the materialist says to you, "All first impressions go through the senses." However, gentlemen, I tell you and I remind you of the fact: your first impressions as a baby in the cradle do not go to your five senses at all. They go through your parents' words, and their manners. That -- you are sat down at a dinner table and see suddenly that you don't have to grab for food, but that it's coming to you, that your mother distributes it, you lose all animal fear that you might be curtailed in your dealings. Think, that -- this is not natural for an animal. An animal -- if you have five chickens and you feed them, all the chicks, as you well know, try to get the food at the same time. It's no -- not possible to stop the other four, you see, be- -- because they have experience that they all get something; they will not wait. We do.

That is, gentlemen, we can understand in the city, our first impressions come through meaning. It makes sense to us that our mother should treat us -- our five -- her five children as equals. And should therefore not, you see -- quiet their fears, and they immediately understand that the mother is in -- in charge, and that they don't have to watch out for themselves. Somebody else does.

Now therefore, our first impressions here comes through sense. It makes sense to us. And we are told this; that is, our first impressions in the city come through speech, and through being addressed. Now you do not deal with stones by addressing them. That's witchcraft. It doesn't work by magic. Stones have to be lifted out of the way, or you will stumble over them. The five senses tell us what to do with things, gentlemen. First impressions of things go through the senses. But first impressions of people, gentlemen, they go through functions. They go through speech. Because you have -- al- -- are -- hear from your mother that you are "Johnny" and she is your mother, you distribute the universe outside between your mother and you. What you can- -- she can- -- you cannot do, she will do. And so you disarm. All speech, gentlemen, leads to disarmament. And all sensuous experience leads to armament. That's why the term "Moral Dis- -- Re-Armament" is an idiotic term, of the {Cole} group, of the Buchmanites, of the Oxford Group. It is not -- you have to disarm between people. Not arm.

(What do you mean by "disarm"?)

Well, you are disarming, Sir. So that's why we can talk to -- each other. You -- now at this moment confess that you do not understand me. That's a disarming question. A -- a blusterer, a vain person would say, "I know every-

thing; you see. You can't tell me anything." That's the relation of object and object in the universe. They try to remain impenetrable; they try to defend each other. If I try to -- to behave as an individual, you see, and you as an individual, we can never understand each other. It takes always an amount of humility, of disarmament in the sense that you can get under my skin and I under your skin, because otherwise we wouldn't talk to { }.

You must accept my word as a part of your truth. And I must accept your word as a part of my truth. You understand? This osmosis is a condition of speech, because every speech, you remember, takes -- you need the listener as well as the speaker. And speech is only complete if a speaker has made another person listen. Therefore, since the listening process is part of the word, speech, you see, it -- we can only get together by disarmament. You take two suspicious people, take now the Russians and we, we cannot speak to each other, because you always find ulterior motives. {While we} haven't disarmed, therefore we can talk, and talk, and talk, and every word is just inter- -- misinterpreted.

This is very serious, gentlemen. The -- nature is armed to the teeth, you see, and man is, in the city, disarmed. In your na‹vet‚, you have a kidnaper and you go to the telephone and telephone the police, because you trust the police. They come in, armed to the teeth, but they won't use the arms against you, so -- because you trust them. You can also say, Sir, mutual trust leads to disarmament. However you put it, it's literally true that frigid women--that's a problem for all of you, you see--cannot disarm. Frigidity is the impotency of disarming. They have their willpower always {in} and they want to dominate, and the -- the frigid woman cannot love, because love is disarmament.

(We learned that the same is true { } our parents; we learned a thing, we learned to say, now "This is a stone, this is a book, and this is a light.)

Well, that's -- that's pitiful. Objects of nature you should learn by touch, by the senses. It would be better if you wirst -- first experience the objects, you see, the object of the world through your five senses.

(Yes, but the point is though that we learned to -- to -- to name them through speech, and speech is a disarming ex- -- disarming process. Therefore already through speech are we not disarming --?)

But you don't talk to the stone, here, Stone. But you say to your mother, "This is a stone," because you trust your mother. She has put this idea that this is a stone into you and you accept it. So she can get under your skin and enrich your whole inner life, because what she has, you see, is like an ocean penetrating your shore, your dry shore, you see. The flood of the spirit is then -- welling

up in her and in you. She has of course accepted this on good faith. And she imparts it to you. It's like waves of the spirit moving through you and her. Or light waves, you can compare it to this, you see. That's what the mind is. The mind is the community of people, you see, taking place in every newborn citizen, entering him.

(Well, why should we learn about the physis through our senses from the first, place, since we need this -- since we need this union from -- from a parent also?)

Well, because the meaning, of course, of -- of the nat- -- world outside, the physical world can only be complete if it -- includes the fact that the stone is something that must be known by contact. I mean, I name "rock," a "cliff," a "mountain" something that I can only learn in its conden- -- density through --.

(Define education, then. You're not really implying anything, except just the fact that this becomes real when you -- when I touch it and not until I touch it. And --.)

Yes, well. I -- I don't quite see your argument. I would like { }.

(I'm a little confused, myself. This -- this business of having to experience the -- the physis through the senses is really only for the sake of -- of education, then -- then --.)

Ja, ja. And in danger of misunderstanding, if you only get the word, which you must understand. The mother has experienced the stone and knows what is called "stone." If you -- she only lear- -- if you o- -- you only learn by rote the term "stone," you might apply it to something that isn't a stone. Isn't that right, you see?

Well, gentlemen, you learn that in -- in all philosophy today, which is all only natural philosophy in this country mostly, and not -- not at all moved by considerations of -- of the ethos and the logos--it's all glorified physis, is philosophy--you learn that first something is in the senses, and later it is in the concept. That is, the thing is, here at the blackboard. Now you try to form a concept of a blackboard. First, you see it. And then you may even grab it with your hands, and feel its consistency, and then you say, "I call this a table," and you call this "define your terms." And you are very proud when a speaker gets up and says, "I shall first define my terms." Gentlemen, that's only reasonable with regard to objects.

Terms can only be defined before speech with regard to physical objects.

Take -- take this down. It's very important. You don't believe it. It is perfectly hopeless for a man who speaks with -- to somebody else to define his terms. You cannot say, you see, "Sir, I consider you a gentleman as far as it goes in my terminology. Because I know gentlemen who are scoundrels." You just -- if you say "gentleman," you must mean it. Otherwise you are lost. And so -- on it goes. With any word you say to any audience, by addressing them, you cannot insult them by defining their terms and saying, "As far as it goes," or "You know what I mean." I mean, then they will say, "He calls us gentlemen, but he means we are scoundrels." That's innuendo.

You can only define objects which are neither the speaker nor the listener. The speaker and the listener must always trust each other. And if you define the terms of your -- your listener in -- in any of your own terms, you insult him. You insult him. You cannot define your listeners as -- well, "These are Americans, therefore they don't have the intelligence of Frenchmen, therefore they don't have the beauty of Italians, they don't -- they don't have the grandeza of Spaniards." My dear man, this -- American from New Mexico will stand up and say, "I have as much Spanish grandeza, and as much Italian singing capacity, and -- as -- as any -- man in Italy. I have just made a point to develop my human qualities beyond what you -- range of what you call 100-percent Americanism."

Gentlemen, the -- you have always this tripartite situation. You speak to somebody about something. You can define something. You can never define somebody. Somebody to you must be as myste- -- mysterious, and as dangerous as your wife. Don't define your wife. If you do, you are divorced.

(Well, isn't it that the logos -- the essence of logos is rethinking, you said Plato's logos is that -- that's the essence of Plato's logos is rethinking?)

No. He tried to avoid it by this memory {idea}, you see. That's his lack. That's his -- his flaw. But that's why he finally avoided the word "logos," you see. He had {news} for the brain, and he had -- ideas. That's not the same as logos. The ideas don't talk, you see. They don't speak. Th- -- the weak point of all Greek philosophy is the idea that speech, you see, was something natural, like an object. If you want to know more about it, read The Cratylus, the poorest dialogue of Plato; it's on language. And you -- even you can -- radilly -- readily understand by reading it that he just didn't succeed in -- in -- in knowing what -- what language was. Modern linguistics can do absolutely nothing with the Greek standpoint on language. -- It's just dropped -- superseded.

Here. Gentlemen, all speech in the combi- -- between real people, between the speaker and the listener of any description, mother and child, father and fa- -- and brother, soldier and captain, councilor and mayor, judge and

police--wherever you have social relations in a community, what- -- whatever their relation be, boss and worker, slave and -- and slave owner, whatever it is, where there are human relations -- what they call today "human relations"--the way is from reciprocal address, gentlemen, from reciprocal address to rescue the other from loneliness and despair, to agreement. The way from here is -- from the senses to the concept.

You must take this down, gentlemen. You find this unfortunately in no textbook, because, as I said, all Americans are quite one-sided conceptualists. They believe in concepts as the only way of human understanding. They think that if you haven't a concept for a thing, you haven't understood it. Now my dear man, you understand very well the United States, but you will never have a concept of the United States. You must love it. { } way -- you must be a part of it. You can say, gentlemen, the community, or the town -- to Our Town of Wilder -- of -- of -- of Mr. -- ja, Wilder is his name, isn't it? Thornton Wilder. You know this. Who knows Our Town? Good. Well. Well, that's a -- you see, today the unfortunate thing is that the best things are only in literatu- -- in poetry, or plays, and not in philosophy. -- Thornton Wilder is an -- essential contribution to -- the philosophy of reality, you see, because Our Town means that the people in this town are not objects for each other, and that's why they call it -- we call it Our Town. Wherever you have the word "our," you see, all philosophy about things stops. There are no things. There are only brothers. "This happy band of brothers," as in Shakespeare's famous prologue of the -- is it not Henry V, or where is this? "This happy" -- wie? What? Don't you know it? Well Our Town is an -- similar attempt to bring you to your senses that between people in a town -- in our town, there are no objects which we can define. Not one of the persons in the town can define the other person, because they talk to each other.

Will you take this down, gentlemen? People to whom we talk, or whom we want to talk to us, cannot be defined, because we -- expecting them to say something beyond their definition. In as far as you can define a person, you know already what he has said. But since you meet him on the street, you hope he will say to you a friendly word. Now, you -- delivered a speech yesterday. If you meet a neighbor on the street and says, "That was a fine speech," if you could define a man in -- beforehand, the -- the value of his utterance would be nil, because he would just be a machine-object, and so out like -- in automation, there would come -- he would stutter out these empty phrases, "This was a nice speech." You mean, however, when you hear this about yourself, that it was really a fine speech. And you can only believe this one sentence if this is in addition to everything you have known by him before. If it comes as a wonderful surprise that even this old fox now says something nice about you, you will not devalue it -- value it at all, his praise, if he -- you treat him as a dead man. And if you say, "Oh, he says this to everybody," then you would already demiss

-- dismiss his -- his word, you see, as not really living word. And there are of course such people who -- use these stock phrases. But we despise them. We say they have died, you see, long ago. They only can repeat these empty phrases. They are either hypocrites, or they are, you see, gone to seed.

So you see the more a person is alive, the more it is impossible and harmful for you to try to define him. You cannot elect the president of the United States for everything he has done before. You must expect from him that he will do something that you couldn't do. That's therefore something beyond your comprehension. Therefore, I -- { } anybody with whom you live must remain beyond your comprehension. Because otherwise it wouldn't be worth living with them. The difference, gentlemen, between the wife of the president of a corporation and his workers is that from the workers he expects things he knows very well -- they -- what they consist, because he { } the labor { }, and he expects them to do exactly what he prescribes. But his wife, he cannot marry by prescription. He cannot put on a chart, "My dear wife, I expect orange juice every morning," because the first thing his wife will do -- {well,} she just tear up this recipe, and go off with the dandy, because she can't stand it. She is not with -- to be lived with by prescription. She is a surprise every morning.

So please, the greatest heresy is all -- in all your minds, gentlemen, is that it is meritorious to begin a speech by saying, "I am -- shall define my terms." On no important thing can you do anything but speak English. And English is much richer than the definitions which you can give any term. You just look up the dictionary; every word is a poetical word, and it has 10,000 shades of meaning. And it is your business to use the word so that the other person gets all the shades of meaning which you wish to stress. It's no business of yours to define it beforehand; that's making the speech {all trite}.

It's -- it -- but it is deep in you, gentlemen. And that's why you are very unhappy people. You are fed up. You are slaves of your concepts. Because you carry over the idea of conceptual living into marriage, into friendship, into politics, where they don't belong. And the Catholic Church I think is right when it thinks that -- that in marriage, this whole business of conception, and anticonception is of the central order of your relation to the spirit. If a man thinks that he can live by conception -- concepts, he will also think that he can prescribe when to have a child. I don't believe that. That's not within your or my power, this -- this -- that's also defining your terms, the terms under which you wish to live, gentlemen. You can have this in -- in -- in certain limited things, as an hour of work. I don't think that in your marriage relations, you can -- you can do this without running the danger that when a child is born, just the same, to treat this child as a mere mischief. It isn't. The child that is born without plan is certainly more your child than the plan that is bo- -- born under -- according to

plan. It's obvious. It fulfills much more the purpose of marriage that we should be self-forgetful there, to be allowed to forget self -- ourselves and all our plans. That's the meaning of marriage, the plunge.

These are very serious things, gentlemen. It all centers around the word "concept." If a man is thinking that he always must define his terms -- he may be a lawyer, a good lawyer, because what is a lawyer? A lawyer is a man who treats part of the community -- the other party in law, as nature, as ob- -- an object whom we wants to -- conquer, to vin- -- to vanquish. Therefore, a lawyer must speak in concepts in the town, inside the town, you see. But if you go to Thornton Wilder's play, the town crier, and the -- the -- the man on the cemetery there, and -- as I recall it, you -- they -- they don't talk legally. Gentlemen, to speak legally means to speak inside the city in concepts. And concepts are for objects, for things against which we must arm. And you can see, the lawyer is moral rearmament inside the city. There is a break of law. There is a criminal, there is a complaint, there is a defendant. You see, there is an accusation. There is a condemnation. There is a demand. There is a claim. For all these things you need concepts, because one goes against the other, you see. Where we stand against the world, gentlemen, we need concepts, because we want to define our terms against the world, and against people whom we treat as world. The lawyer must treat his opponent as a part of the outside world. And knows, you see, nothing but that this other man here abused him. Therefore he must arm to the teeth. His legal brief is armed to the teeth. So {conceptual} that he can't understand him.

So gentlemen: the road of the -- of the nature is through the senses to the concept. Please. The road of nature is through the senses to a concept. The road of the community is through reciprocity to agreement. Because we -- if the mother says, "Son," and the son says, "Mother," they can agree. If the son says, "Do I love my mother?" there's enmity. She's an object then of psychoanalysis. Very important, gentlemen. As long as you give the -- the -- other fellow in the community the name he wants to be addressed with, and he grants you your name, you see, you are in -- at peace; you are in agreement.

So gentlemen, the communal logos is mutual address. The physis -- logos -- or for the nature is not mutual address, but conceptual interpretation of sense reaction. Something totally different. I cannot understand you, and you cannot understand me by any concept, you see. You're just Donald Prensner. Stop it. Period. As soon as I go behind you, begin to analyze you, you -- I -- you become an object, you see. And we are estranged, because you must be afraid of me. I may now, you see--like the Nazis, or the Fascists, or the Communists--I may now look for all your weaknesses, and I may try to exploit them, you see. I may play on any one of your, you see, objective, natural qualities. And you -- we have

ceased to trust each other.

If you only could learn this, gentlemen, it would be the great boon for the birth of philosophy in this country. There is no American philosophy today. It doesn't exist, because people have made the logos one-sidedly nothing but the definition of terms. That's only one-half of the story. All the semanticists do this nonsense, you see. But you always ask them: how can they express what they do, if they don't speak anymore? Speech is mutual before it is definable.

All these people must first learn poetry, and prayer, and song, and -- and drama, and -- and literature, before they can then legally, suspiciously, you see, put those things that are pure objects of sense observation into their place. Why do we have to deal with nature by concept, gentlemen? For the simple reason that the natural objects cannot talk back. But you can talk back. My -- your response is correct if you feel addressed, if this has an appeal on you. If I can say to this man, "Richard," and he comes, that's all we can -- can want. Then my word is -- "Richard," his name, is a better word than any concept I have of the man. Because the concept of the man is not between you -- him and me. It's -- just in my mind, you see. {Doesn't show us} anything. But his name is something I use, and he complies with.

Gentlemen, that's very fundamental. And you see, the logos then is broken up into two roads -- two ways -- two highways on which it travels. The logos travels through names of mutual and reciprocal validity into the human community, into Our Town. And it travels with regard to the chemicals, and the elements of the universe on the -- on the wings of concepts. If you take an atom, if you take a Faraday, if you take an volt, if you take an ohm, if you take all the terms of our modern physics, they, as you know, are defined terms by the Congress of Physicists every year. And you have ampere -- you know what an ampere -- you know volt. Well, who is Mr. -- who is Volt? What is Volt? That's just the name of the man who discovered, you see, volts -- voltage. -- Who -- what was his name?

(Volta.)

Volta. An Italian, yes. And Ampere was a Frenchman, you see. And Gauss was a German. And on it goes.

So there are -- you have clear definitions. Why? Only for the sad fact that atoms cannot talk. They cannot respond when we name them.

I have a friend at Harvard, in the political -- government department, who always harps on this simple fact that he says the natural science is much

worse off than we. We can talk to the people, and by their response, they say if they have un- -- we have understood them, you see. But these poor people have to weigh the -- the things and measure, because they have no way ever to know whether the goal is satisfied. They can never get the vote of the things in nature.

This is true. I have tried all the time to tell you that the real history of philosophy is from the city into the world. And you are all obsessed by the devil, because you think that nature is first, and man is second, and society is second. Communism, Marx, for example, is on my side. He rediscovered the great { } truth that the city is before the nature in our lives, that we first must talk to each other before we can deal with third things.

(I -- Plato mentioned that when he was developing the city in The Republic, that men got together in the city, because they needed food and -- and physical comforts. Well, I was wondering if he wasn't intimating in that sentence -- .)

Yes, { }. Yes, that's the Greek tyranny, although it -- it -- the real story is that the Greek city first -- contained people who could speak to each other. And he -- in Plato is already this lack of linguistic understanding. You see, all Greek philosophy is hampered, and Thomas Aquinas still is -- handicapped by the fact that they think speech is natural. And I say speech is political. All speech is ethical. And as long as you say speech is natural, then it is a tool of any individual's whim. But it is reciprocal, gentlemen. Any word of the human language is based on the assumption that I must say "Father," so that he may say "Son."

Don't you see that as -- if I, the boy's father, had -- makes any sense, it is only on the basis of the fact that somebody is the son. This we have lost sight of, because we are dealing with third objects. You see, in our town, my father must speak to his son. In general, however, in nature, there are chickens who have, you see, a rooster as their -- as their begetter. So it is not -- the rooster cannot say, "My children." We can say, "my child," because we speak. This word "mine," and "our," and "your," you see, is the difference of ethics and physis. In physis, gentlemen, there are no possessive pronouns. There are no secrets. There are no inner and outer, you see, worlds. But there is only the outer world. Physis only deals with an outer world. And in outer worlds, there are no possessive pronouns. And nothing in the outer world has any name to its- -- by its- -- to itself. Therefore Ohm -- Volt describes things by human names, because these are nameless electronics. They have no s- -- no names of their own. Arbitrary. They can't understand them. We domesticate animals and then give their names from our -- inside our own community to attract them to our town -- into our town. If you -- if you take Our Town, by Mr. Thornton Wilder seriously, and if you stop smoking, then you will understand that our town underlies opposite rules from

nature. In nature, you can always smoke, because the tree will not prom- -- protest. I protest, you see.

Now gentlemen, the logos then comes to us through concepts and names. And the -- both processes are equally original. And you don't believe this. And this is why this country for the last 150 years has not seen thinking, straight thinking, because it has not observed the facts of life. In a pioneer country, where a -- one man has to brace himself against the Rocky Mountains, you may easily understand that nature was so overwhelmingly strong, that you saw the objects in nature, you see, as the only thing that needed explanation. You can't understand it. Men were out -- so much on their own, they were so lonely, that they thought if they had a picture of, you see, of the outer world, of the cosmos and the physis, that was all that mattered. And the city of man, so to speak, came after that.

We must now turn around and see that every child of man becomes a human being only after it has been spoken to. Even these pioneers, of course, had been brought up in a foreign land from a mother, you see, and a father. But this was not, so to speak, made the basis of their investigation, of their thinking.

Reciprocal naming, gentlemen, and sensuous conceiving: these are the two roads on which the logos travels. One into physis of general objects; and one into the city of my own--you have really to add this-- of our own members. Where I am a member, you see, of a community, these are my people, you see. This word pro- -- this possessive pronoun is totally lacking in the universe. In the universe, nobody owns a s- -- a farthing. Nobody owns anything. He's just himself an object in this vast universe.

So your mind is very troubled, gentlemen, because you start with the universe. Fortunately our Father in Heaven didn't mean it that way. He says, "Grow up in a community with brothers and sisters, and mothers, and pare- -- fathers, and children. And then you can -- together go out and look into nature. That's why I've tried to tell you, gentlemen: nature is the common impression made on the family of man. That's very fortunate. Nature is not the impression the world makes on you alone, you see. But you are only an ear and an eye for all men living together as a family of nations, or as a family of man, or as a human family, or as our town, or however you call this -- this inner world in which we can talk to each other.

The inner order of life, gentlemen, means that we speak to each other. And fortunately we -- every one of us is inside. And after we have spoken to each other, we are strong enough to arm against the universe, and a sea of plagues, and to look out of the window of this community and to observe the

facts of nature. Ohm, volt, gentlemen, they are all common observations of any man who uses his reason. They are valid for all men. That's the essence of natural science, is it not?

So gentlemen, in politics everybody is placed in a different position. In nature, everybody is placed in the same position. Natural facts are facts that appear to everybody alike. Political facts, or ethical facts, or moral facts, or historical facts, or however you call these facts, are facts that appear to everybody differently. That's the result of these two roads on which we travel. The logos, gentlemen, gives you the power to have a different point of view on everything human, and to have an identical point of view on everything worldly. What a -- what electricity is, we can all agree on, you see. But what -- what Mr. Nixon is, nobody can agree totally with anybody else, you see. That goes from vice-president to SOB. And we'll never agree.

You -- if you could only see this, the im- -- tremendous act of liberation that co- -- should befall you, gentlemen, that these two worl- -- realities can be now labeled the "inner world" and the "outer world." Nature is the outer world, in which everything appears alike to everybody inside the community of man. And the secrets of the inner society are those experiences, gentlemen, which must strike every living member differently, because he -- as a member, he holds a different position in this community.

It is not obvious, gentlemen, that if -- that my ear and my toe, as members of my body, receive the same impression in a different manner. Isn't that right? And that cannot be changed. And obviously, you and I react to the news from the outside world differently than -- as Mr. -- than Mr. Dulles, you see. He must see the dif- -- a different position in this body politic. But you don't see this. You have still this same terrible idea that in political life, we all also should see everything identically. There would be no life left. We would not form a real body of men. The real body politic, gentlemen, allows everybody to have a different reaction. That's so wonderful about real life, gentlemen, that your child has a very different response to the same event as you have. Don't ask it to have the same reaction.

So -- ja, please?

(Is that the -- is that the { } of all Plato's { }?)

That's where he falls down, you see.

({ } group.)

Because -- now comes the Greek -- the Greek one-sidedness. With -- Heraclitus had insisted on this very fact. He had said time and again that the logos appeared to everyone in the opposite manner, you see. One would swim up the river, and the other would swim down the river. The meaning however, was the double movement, and not the single movement, for example. He would always say, you see, that all opposites only are the way in which we respond to the same universe. Plato has wrested with Heraclitus. But in the -- in the dialogue Cratylus, which is not, unfortunately, in this selection, he deals with a Heraclitean, and dismisses the whole problem. It's negative, the solution. That's the last dialogue in which we feel a trace of Heraclitus in Plato. Cratylus is a disciple of Heraclitus, and he was so disgusted at the end with the world, that he would only nod his head, and move his little finger, because he said, "Everything is misunderstanding." Quite a man. He probably was right. I very often have this feeling here at Dartmouth College. And I leave -- shall leave you, gentlemen, after this term -- this year with the firm conviction that it has made no difference that I have been here or not, that the misunderstandings are just as numerous as the understanding. And so the -- the equation is zero.

Cratylus is right. Today the basis of understanding is lost, because you do not expect understanding in the city of man. You live in nature. And bo- -- nature boys, gentlemen, cannot be spoken to. You want to have definitions. You get what you want. Anybody gets what he wants, because he will not accept anything else. Gentlemen, you cannot give anything to anybody who doesn't want it. And since you do not expect living truth, but only dead truth, you get dead truth. This cannot -- that has been my fate here for 20 years in this college. Most of you expect, gentlemen, facts. You expect objects. You expect definitions. You expect something to learn by heart. You expect assignments, to read three pages a day. And that you think is intellect and mental life. You end up with these mechanic- -- mechanized examinations with "yes" and "no." Well, gentlemen, that's good for donkeys, and for horses. It is not good for men. I mean, you remain on the -- on the -- on the level of a trained animal, because the world of objects is for trained animals, because man is there alone with the world of objects. But we live -- the higher order of life, gentlemen, is to come to an agreement, although we do not see the same objects. We'll -- one lives in Colorado, and the other lives in China. If we can agree, you see, although all the objects outside are different, you see, then we have the same religion; then we believe in the same god. That's the question of mankind. That's the logos.

What's the differ- -- why do -- you see, you insist that -- I -- I spoke to a student, and you know this story. It's always repeated. "I must marry young," he said, "because I want to play football with my son." That's not a good reason to get married. He wants to have the same object, the same ball in the hands of his boy. He has given up all hopes that he might give him the same religion, you

see. An agreement, despite the differences of age -- of -- of objects and natural environments: that would be a father. He only wants to be the boy -- his boy's playboy -- playmate. That's a very poor logic. But that's -- here, today the best a -- a boy will -- will think of his son, somebody to play with, on equal terms. That's the -- the natural world, where the ball is everything. "Carry the ball."

But speech means agreement at the heart, and at bottom, although the -- the scene daily changes. And in a changing scene, one in Europe, and the other in America, and the third in Russia, and the fourth in Africa, there to be of the same faith, and the same love, and the same ethics: that's something. That's difficult. And your forefathers did it. They remained Christians in this -- foreign country. And if there is a greatness in America at this moment, it is that it is the one country in which the other countries find some eternity, you see, some eternal things, still. But don't throw it away, gentlemen. Don't get lost in objects. Don't get lost in concepts.

Gentlemen, the logos appears in Plato in great models, because the one thing that can be expressed through -- in any language is the name of the hero. And the myth in Plato, for example, plays this part, that it brings in some figures like Zeus or the gods...

[tape interruption]

...what you call something superhuman. The logos can only be imparted to you and me, gentlemen, as superhuman and as supernatural. And there are two roads then to -- to the logos: the supernatural, that is, it must be not simply objects of nature. "Supernatural" simply means "not an object." Don't be frightened by the word. I don't like it myself, but in this moment it's a useful thing. "Supernatural" means it consists not of objects which can be explained by concept. And it must be superhuman, gentlemen. You have heard of the many jokes that have been made up about Nietzsche's superman. Gentlemen, don't laugh it off. Superman is the most natural experience of the logos. Nietzsche meant simply that a man can be the carrier of enthusiasm, of logos, of divinity. And so he is a superman. Of course, he is. How can you deny that an- -- if you all are supermen, in all your light moments, better moments? When you summon a criminal to court, gentlemen, you are superhuman, gentlemen, because you are not just a human being, but you know what's right. And you have to say this.

It is terrible that this country has fallen -- I mean, below Benjamin Franklin even, and his practicality, and his utilitarianism, by saying that superman is funny; "Nietzsche was crazy because he spoke of superman." Gentlemen, anybody who speaks is supernatural and is superhuman. As human beings, we

don't have to say anything with authority. But the whole human society is based on authority. Somebody has to say at this moment, "This is a crime," and "This judge is in authority." And I had to dismiss yesterday a boy for forgery, for plagiarism, and so I was in authority. It was very disagreeable, but there I was, saddled with this responsibility. And he will leave college, and I say so. And it is done. And that is superhuman.

If you don't see that this is superhuman, you do not understand what is human, you see. As a human, I have only one of you, you see. But as superhuman, I can put a human being outside the city. I can excommunicate him, you see. And that I do not do in my own right. I do it as bearer of an authority, you see, which is superhuman. It goes through my mouth. The logos streams through me, but I am not interested in it as a -- as a party. I am an officeholder. It is my office to do that. President Dickey is only interesting as president of Dartmouth College for us, you see. Not as a personal friend, not as another human being, you see, but for his superhuman authority, that what he says goes.

It is high time for you, gentlemen, to recapture your -- the sense of the divine in the very modest way that you say, "The divine is first of all not natural, because it is not an object." And it is secondly not human, because it has authority to change the order of things, to change the { }, to close the door, and say this { } to capitulate, for example. The man who can surrender a city and say, "Emerge," like Sam Houston when he -- when Texas was made a part of the Union, you see. God spoke through him, and so he couldn't go back on his word. In 1861, this same Sam Houston, as you know, resisted in the South as the only man -- governor in the whole South, he resisted Secession. And it will always be a point of -- my greatest admiration, that this old fox, and scoundrel, and drunkard, that he was -- divinely enough inspired that he said, "I brought Texas into the Union in 1800-" -- when? When?

('45.)

Yes. Sure. And -- "after nine years of independence. And now I cannot 15 years later say I secede from this same Union." That's divine, gentlemen, to bear the cross of one's own word, and to acknowledge that this word was not set by himself as a whim, as a -- from a salesman, as an empty promise. But that -- he meant it, that he felt he was in authority to have the -- Texas, you see, enter the United States. He couldn't go against the divine authority that had spoken out of him in 1845. And he went to pieces, and he perished ignominiously in 1861. But I'm glad to see that there is still a city called "Houston" in his memory.

And this is the relation, gentlemen, to the logos. You know of -- use of the

logos that founded the state of Texas as a part of the Union through the name "Houston." And in this sense, you have, because without this one name, "Houston," you see, Texas would have no history. Texas would just be an accident.

So gentlemen, the logos remains in evidence, you see, through the names of the people through whom the spirit has spoken. Very simple definition, through whom the logos has spoken. The logos cannot remain by -- with us through definitions. And therefore, gentlemen, the logos of Greek philosophy speaks to us through the name of Plato. Plato is the Houston, you see, of the Greek realm which corresponds to Texas here. Can you see this? You have to remember the -- the -- Plato and Plato's l- -- name and life in order to know what the logos is. Logos -- Plato is -- sacrificed his allegiance to Athens. Therefore, we don't know him as a member of the city of Athens, but as a member of the Academy, of a -- that is, as a person who left the city of man, you see, and left the natural world, and became a -- a representative of the logos in his own right.

What I am -- have tried today, gentlemen, to show you, why it is true that even with men like Plato, whom you would tap on the shoulder, and say, "Well, Mr. Plato, one more cup of coffee?" that Plato represents in this world of ours that what is not common, because it doesn't belong to nature, and it doesn't belong to this community. The trans- -- the word, gentlemen, by which the philosophers have always tried to ex- -- express this strange situation is "transcendence." We had the Transcendentalists in Concord. You have heard this word. That is, gentlemen, a man climbs higher than nature, and than his own city, if he wants to speak through the ages. The logos is that power which makes a man superhuman and supernatural. And perhaps for the first time in your life it may dawn on you why my division of ethics and -- and physis is still very modern, because you always keep apart "superhuman" and "supernatural." But these are two sides of the triangle on which we move, you see. You must -- when you s- -- speak with authority, gentlemen, in founding the United States, in writing of the Declaration of Independence, these founders, these signers were inspired. They said something for the first time. So they were not in agreement with anybody of an existing city. The British loathed them, you see. And it wasn't natural what they said. You can see this.

And therefore, I plead with you, gentlemen -- you are such modest men, and such kind people that you say, "I'm just a human being," and so you decline to admit that -- that a man ever is superhuman. It just strikes you as silly. And also if I say something is supernatural, it strikes you as even more silly. You say, "I'm just natural." Gentlemen, by saying, "I'm just natural," you are supernatural, you see. And by saying, "I'm just a human being," you are superhuman. It is not a part of a human being to say, "I'm just a human being." This little word "just" is a humility of the God in your heart, of the divine. And if you would only dis-

cover that you all plead to be -- here, vessels of the divinity by saying "just." This -- these four little words -- letters: j-u-s-t, are a great arrogance, because it means you know. It means that you can judge your own place in life. Who can this? Does the elephant know, you see? Most people don't know. You can. But that is superhuman, and that's supernatural.

If a man in the community only wants to keep up with the Joneses, he gets his judgment from everybody else. He doesn't say, "I'm just a human being." If I am -- judge the people in the Easter parade on Fifth Avenue right, you see, they want to be seen as one of the crowd, as one of the gang. They don't want to be told, "I'm just a human being." They want to be told that they had the best diamond necklace on the whole street. They want to be seen for what they are worth, and that they are on the Social Register, and that they are pious people and what-not.

And therefore, gentlemen, human beings add tremendously to their stature when they say, "I am just a human being." That's much more than the usual human being wants to be told. The usual human being wants to say, "I can be- -- may become president of the United States." That's a human being. Or "I want to --" you see, "I -- I -- I shall have an income of a million dollars a year," or what- -- whatever your ambition is. That you are, as "just a human being." But to say "I'm just a human being," that means to sit on a throne on which -- from which you can authoritar- -- -itatively, look down on your own humanity, and on your own nature, you see. And you all do it. And therefore you believe in some kind of divinity or devil. Whatever it is. Certainly in something higher than yourself. As a mere self. As self, gentlemen, and as member of -- as an American, you are on the level of humanity and nature. As speakers and judges, you are always sharing God's authority, the logos.

Sorry -- but this is, after all, as you see, very important. Now, I have -- allow me. I didn't make an inter- -- have an intermission. And I'm sorry for this. I -- intended to. But will you allow me simply to carry through? Perhaps you get up for a minute and get down again, if you stretch your legs.

[tape interruption]

We, as the historians of Greek philosophy, we have a great privilege. Plato had to speak of physis. He had to speak of ethics, of the city in general. And he had to speak of the philosopher. We are privileged to -- be specific. And I say to you, we have been talking of Athens, of Plato, and of the universe. That is, we have replaced the abstract philosopher, gentlemen, by the name of Plato, by which he -- we can talk to him, and he can talk to us. And we have -- replaced the word "polis" or "town" by "Athens" for his Greek word. Here, we

should, of course, write the word -- the unspo- -- word "pan." The -- the {ord}, the whole, the word "universe," being the Latin word. And those who write on Stoicism, as Mr. {Pitzner}--where is he? ja--know that they are pantheists, because they worship the "pan," you see, as god, as the universe. In the word "pantheism," you see, the "pan" is the god. "Pan" is the Greek word for universe. And that's important for you to introduce this word "pan" perhaps into your vocabulary.

Well, gentlemen, by a stroke of genius, Plato himself has seen the -- solved the quandary between the city and Plato. There is a quandary, because Plato is the logos. The city is that part of the logos in which people speak to each other. The universe is that part of the -- of the -- reality, you see, of the universe in which we speak about things, where they don't talk back. You understand that when Plato is logos, the city is ethos, and the pan is physis. Now Plato, in his modesty and humility, and in his wish to impart the best city to all other men, and to make him--Plato, you see--only the first good citizen of the best state, by talking other people, so to speak, by persuading them into it, you see, by his eloquence, Plato had a stro- -- a very profound insight which is today still used, and is with us. And it is the greatest, so to speak, heritage, or legacy of -- of Plato to us. He said, "The city of man is organized like the human being. And the human being is organized like the city." If so, he could say Plato is the city, and Athens is Plato. And how did he do it? He said the city and Plato consist of mind, heart, and stomach. And the city of man, therefore, must also consist of mind, heart, and stomach. And there he obliterated the distinctions between the logos and the ethos, between Plato and the city.

It is very dangerous, gentlemen, to say that the city is simply nothing but man written large. But that's what Plato, and later Aristotle, did. Plato said, the mind or the head. He said in the Timaeus, the head; in The Republic, he said the mind. There are two terms for him. The heart in The Repu- -- no, here, pardon me. The -- in the Timaeus the heart, here the -- the courage. This would be reason, you see. And in The Republic, he says the passions, and in the Timaeus, he says the belly are in you and me. We all must eat. These are the -- the liver, and the bladder, and the genitals, we -- these are the passions. We must feel, we must have cour- -- take courage. We must breathe. That is the region between the neck and the diaphragm, the lungs and the heart. And we must think. And that's the head. And as you know, all Greek philosophy thinks that the head should be master of the heart and the passions. I think it's a very wrong philosophy, but all Greek philosophy has the idea that the mind is the head, because it's -- up here, is superior to the heart. Now the Du- -- Duchess of Windsor, as you know, doesn't think so. And I don't think so. And no Christian can think so.

Gentlemen, the -- the error of Greek philosophy is to think that because the high -- heavens are up, and the sky is up, and the head is the highest, that's why the head must be better than the heart. If you, however, analyze your own existence a little bit more carefully, you will understand why our -- our brains and the cells of our brain are the roots of the matter, we are rooted in the sky through -- it is as though we were standing on our heads, so to speak. We are not standing on our feet mentally, intellectually, and in our existence as being. But we are hanging through our reason in -- in a -- in an -- in an earth, in a soil. Because here is the nourishment which we receive, you see, in these brain cells. But we are free with our limbs, and our whole body to go into the world and create something new.

And therefore, it is very dangerous to use the Greek idea that the head is higher -- as high as Heaven over the earth, and therefore better. That's the Greek idea, however. And now look what it did. The equation of the individual, in The Republic, and The Timaeus, the individual's three great qualities, with the qualities any c- -- good city should have, enabled Plato to disappear behind the city, and to say, "The philosopher is nothing but the small edition of the city." And therefore, as you know, he organized the city with the head on top, with the heart in the middle, and with the passions below. That is, he said, "There must be always three parties," as in India today in the caste system. There must be the priests, that are the philosophers; there must be the warriors who have courage, you see. And there must be the craftsmen, and the peasants, and the artisans, who must take care of the passions, of the skills, of the body, of the merely physical talents and endowments of our physical nature.

Now this is then the most deep-seated legacy of the Greek political mind, gentlemen, and the Greek natural mind, that the individual is built as the city, and the city is built as the individual. I would say that even in the tripartition of the judiciary, the executive, and the legislative branch of the government, you probably still have a reminder of the three things. The executive, the military is for courage, you see; the -- the legislation is for the economic interests; and the judiciary is for the reason, for the jus- -- for -- for justice. And so you have still in Montesquieu, and in our Constitution, an echo of Plato's idea of government having to follow the lines of our individual human endowment. The individual for Plato is consisting of head, heart, and belly. And therefore, the state must organize itself in such a way that on top are the guardians. On top is reason, you see. Then come the soldiers, and below come the farmers and artisans, and the people who deal with the material world.

This is the thing that later already by Aristotle was a little transmuted. Who is -- works on Aristotle? Well, what's the theory, my dear man? He does not follow Plato so simply, but he says that the -- that the great empires, the Egyp-

tians, and the Persians, they cultivate the skill in their temple building, in their medicines, and in their { }, and in all their arts, and they serve the belly. Because the individual is not free there, but it -- it works as in Hindu -- as a Hindu craftsman would work today. And then the tribesmen of the North, they are the courageous people. They are warriors. You have warriors, then Aristotle. And he says, the -- the Greek compromises between the two. He puts--as he always does with his happy mean--Aristotle puts the Greeks in the middle of the story.

Now this however in Plato is not the case. In Plato, the wild tribes are the courageous people. The great empires are the belly people. And the Greeks are the head people, the reasonable people, you see, the people who think, who can, so to speak, tower above the passions, and above the generosity, the movements of the heart, the -- the courage, generous -- -osity, what else would you say is -- is business of the heart, faith, loyalty, all the emotions of the nobler nature?

But I think the exciting thing is that now for 2,000 years, gentlemen, every human being in the West has believed in this authority of Plato with regard to politics. That's quite a story. And there you -- I thought I should s- -- tell you this. Whether you read Plato yourself or not, you live in a constitution that is Platonized, that in a certain manner has tried to be- -- make us believe that head, heart, and belly must be organized in a city in three layers. The government must be reasonable, you see; the economic interests must follow passionately their self-interest, you see; and you must have an army that's courageous. And we haven't changed that much. Can unde- -- see this, you see. The secular society of today is still thought of very much in the Platon- -- Platonic pattern.

(Did you want the { } the people at the top of government { }.)

Well, you are right.

({ }.)

Well, since he tries to persuade other people to found this city, and to make the philosopher king, therefore Plato, if he's the head of -- the -- the city, he himself is the best man, is he not? Then he represents the logos in the city.

({ }.)

You see, because the logos is connected with the city through him. That is, through Plato the logos would enter the next city, and it would therefore be the best. Can't you see this? He couldn't get out of this quandary. We all want,

of course, to have children of our own spirit. And I have no objections against this, you see, that a man should -- should be the model. And I think he was a very noble, certainly, and generous soul. For Heav- -- Heaven forbid that I, you see, would -- would -- would belittle him. I only don't believe that the city of man can ever be -- be governed, you see, by philosophers. I -- we talked about this before, why that shouldn't be, because you have to wait until the last child can agree. And that's not the business of philosophers, but of servants of the public, I mean. It takes quite a bit of character to -- to be patient with people, you see. A -- a philosopher doesn't have to be patient with people; he has to think the truth. That's a certain different quality.

Well, I think this is a very great scheme which is -- has then been carried over into all form { }. The secret is, gentlemen: if you have -- ethos, you have a community; if you have physis, you have millions of objects, what you call "nature," you see; and you already really say more than we can prove that this is one world. You can { }, who say there are many worlds. Plato had already the idea of one universe, because to all members of one community, we can talk sense about the universe through mathematics. That was his great dream that nature was general, the same to all, you see. Not to the Hindus; that's not true. But to the Greeks it was. One universe for the citizens of the human family.

Now the logos, gentlemen, is, so to speak, saved in the Platonic philosophy by saying that the qualities of the individual, perfect man are the same as the qualities of the perfect city. But I don't think we have any reason to believe that. I mean, I do not see this -- this -- this identity, that because I have a head, and a belly, and a heart, I have to believe that the city of man must have a head, and a belly, and a heart. I mean, it's the government of a city made -- be made of quite different { }. If I want to -- a compromise between citizens, you have still to prove to me that I myself, as a compromiser between the two, have to consist of the -- of the parts of the citizen himself. I think it's very arbitrary.

And so I have never been struck by the truth of this thing, but by the genius which, through this identification, gentlemen, you get the power of philosophy over the city. Only if the individual philosopher has in himself the same order as the city can he claim authority to rule the city. That was Plato's discovery, so to speak, or saving grace, you see. Seeing his city goes to ruin, he said, the best man, you see, is the model for the city. The city is man written large; man is the city written small.

Therefore, gentlemen, you should never use the word for the Greek philosophy, as you always read, that man is a microcosmos. That's a very silly word, it should be buried. Man is the micropolis; he is the small city. And the polis is the macroanthropos. The city of man is man written large, macroanthro-

pos. And man is the micropolis. He is the city of man written small. But he is not a microcosmos. That's -- some other philosophers have believed this. But that is not true of the bulk of -- Greek philosophy. The real Greek philosophy is a little more profound. It says man is the city written small. And the city is man written large. Please take -- keep this. This is a very important thing.

Most -- to most people one cannot talk today, because they -- they take these slogans like "microcosm," and they have never thought it through what it could mean. Since we do to know the principles which -- which join the world, the cosmos, it -- nothing is said if you say, "man is a microcosm," you see, you would have to know the cosmos a little better for this. Today it would boil down to the fact that we have some electrons inside ourselves. And the cosmos has some electrons inside ourselves. You will admit that this doesn't make us into a microcosm, because you -- we function like the whole {cosmos}. But the city is a different story. If you say you function like the United States of America, then the United States of America functions as you, you can talk, you see, back and forth.

So, let's stop here.