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

...way into all human wisdom, Parmenides and Heraclitus. If we had not these two men, we would not understand what Thales of Miletus, Anaximenes, and Anaximander really were after, as we have only fragments. And I -- showed you on page 19 of this book here, which you pe- -- kindly will open now, that there is very little. We can only wonder that a life of a man was remembered for these very sayings. Obviously their attempt today would be ridiculed, because today people write an article per diem, for money. You can buy the modern philos- -- there is a famous pamphlet written by an Italian in French, which I recommend to your attention. It is called "Les Philosophes Salari‚s," the philosophers which one can buy. It's the average idea of the American businessman that one can buy college professors. Everybo- -- -thing in this country is for sale if you only offer enough. Bernard Shaw has said in his play -- one of his plays, in Major -- Major Barbara -- who knows the play? -- that everybody has his price. You remember?

Now gentlemen, it is very hard for you to believe -- there is no place in this country really where -- which gives you reason to believe that wisdom is not for money. The whole problem of these men, which always strikes us today with great -- wonder on the one-hand side, even doubt on the other, is: how come that these men, for their -- for their devotion or for their integrity, and for their singleheartedness, and their purposiveness, were able, with one sentence, with a few doctrines, to get the attention of centuries to come? Why are these people remembered? Everything in -- today is forgotten. You have so many wits on the television sets. One chases the other. And who are these wits whom you listen to? Just farcical characters. And they have to have a very simple name, Bob or Alan, or something like that. They can't be called Anaximander, and Anaximenes, and just say, "Warn you."

That it is enough to have produced one such insight for a whole life, and that it is the -- a practical problem of -- of real wisdom, gentlemen, to get after such a thought and to enhance it to its full power. If you think of the withdrawal of the Russians from Hungary today, and you read the sentence of Anaximenes, "As our soul being air holds us together, so do breath and air surround the whole universe," it will not dawn on you that the implication of this total defeat of -- of -- of Russia is already stated by Anaximenes, that one has to treat the -- the remaining universe as much alive as we are ourselves.

The Americans, as you know, are at this moment finished in Europe, the same manner, because we have treated the whole universe as too alive. We have not considered the dead regions of the world as having lower standards of politi-

cal power and right than the fully integrated one. In this country, one -- The Silent American, you know perhaps this novel by an Englishman, since -- because he is na‹ve in -- which -- because he thinks that everything is water. Even Egypt is as good as the United States, or as France. And -- that's a similar na‹vet‚ to judge the world by one preconception, by one dogma. But I mean to say that Russia has really tried to -- to treat the rest of the world as not breathing, as being able to be dominated as a cemetery, as a graveyard.

We have treated every part of the world as already fully alive. You call this self-determination of nations. It's equally na‹ve. You have to distinguish between dead matter and living matter, gentlemen. It's the whole problem. And parts of the universe are much deader than you think, and much -- other parts are much more alive than you would care to admit. I mean, the -- because you treated Germany as dead matter, the reeducation of Germany backfired totally. And every American whom I talk to now, quite wrongly by the way, even exaggeratedly, is ashamed of this attempt to reeducate Germany within five years. And now every American tries to forget it, because they treated German- -- the Germans as -- as just so much dead objects, dead matter.

"As our soul being air holds us together, so do breath and air surround the whole universe." You th- -- of course think that's not an important statement. But gentlemen, we live by deciding: Where is air in life, and where is dead matter? And in a time of A-bo- -- H-bombs and machinery, I assure you, your American psychology at this moment, for example, draws the line of dead matter far too much inside the human being, far too much parts of us are called manageable and manipulable. They even try to manipulate generals, and to psychologize leadership, because they do not know that this -- these people have to be judged as we ourselves want -- would like to be judged, the psychologists themselves, you know. They would like to make a career, and get rich, and have a beautiful wife. And we allow to follow their whims. But if it comes to treatment of other people, they think they can recommend recipes, machinery. You are all imbibed with this idea that very far into man you can expand the idea of a dead universe, which is not as much alive as you are. So we destroy the soil by chemicals, because we think you can treat the soil as not alive. And we'll -- we'll die from nervous exhaustion, because the bread, and the eggs, and the milk, and everything we produce is pasteurized; it's killed.

Gentlemen, what is alive can spoil. And this whole country wants to have food that cannot spoil. So it -- can't get food. That's not food what you eat, gentlemen. You have to eat so many calories, 3,000 and more than any other person in the world, because most of the food you take in is dead, absolutely dead. You don't believe that the -- universe, according to Anaximenes, has to be treated as alive, and not as dead.

That's a very serious question today for the future of the human race, gentlemen, that you are all inclined to forget that the air which you breathe must also circulate in the soil in which you plant. But the -- where there are chemicals, it's all burned up, as you know. You have to have rain worms, instead of chemicals, if you want to have a soil which heaves and which breathes. I'm quite serious. And there are very many serious people, gentlemen, very much concerned with your apartment way of life. You are departmentalized and apartmentalized today. And therefore you are de-mentalized.

So I only want -- before going on to Heraclitus and -- and Parmenides, I want to tell -- say -- tell you that these little phrases contain a whole world view. You don't have to write a long book of -- in two volumes, The World as Will and -- and Representation, as Schopenhauer, or System, like Thomas Aquinas in 49 volumes. Thomas Aquinas is not a greater philosopher than Anaximenes of Miletus. And that's very hard for you to understand, because you only live by quantity. And you say even, when an author comes to this campus, Mr. -- poor Mr. Cerf tonight, you say, "He's the author of 13 books." Put them all on the scales and weigh them, you see. Well, the more books, the more scandalous.

What does this mean? Author of one book is enough. Author of one sentence is enough. It can make you immortal. If you really follow it through. If you do, if you think, if you act -- and this is the great lesson of the Greeks, gentlemen, that in their beginnings, they were so over-awed by the common power to generalize, that we know of these people only one generalization. And yet, I assure you, and here I come to -- get back again to Mr. Leibowitz, in the history of philosophy, you must come to learn that none of these philosophers is dated. None of these is obsolete. None of them is swallowed up by the next philosopher, as you always think, in your na‹ve idea of progress. That's not true. Philosophy is in- -- completely immortal. The first philosopher, Mr. Thales, is as creative for your and my mental education as he was 600 B.C. If you don't believe this, gentlemen, you don't understand why the -- philosophy has to be taught as a history: of the human mind, you see. Every one moment of this history is equally alive today, as all the others. It's quite new for -- to you, because you think hos- -- history is bunk; history is that which has gone by. It isn't, gentlemen. Just as little as Homer is in any way obsolete -- made obsolete by Mr. Hemingway. He isn't. He's much greater than Mr. Hemingway, the lesser he wrote for the day -- the less he wrote for the day. The more you write for the day, the more obsolete you will be.

That's -- with Parmenides now, the logical conclusion of these first -- as the ethical, physical, and logical attempt of the first three men is reached, Parmenides, who is printed here a little too late on page -- where is he? -- on page 41, is given here a date which I think is exaggerately low. I would put him into the

year 490. And let me say here a word of technical explanation of these dates in this book. When you -- you have to work for your term paper also a little bit on the chronology of Greek philosophy. Now if you -- read this book through, you'll find that at -- one year is given -- is placed with every one of these men as being -- their being in their prime. It's a little doubtful translation of the -- Greek word "akme." "Prime" I think in your consideration would mean your own age. Aren't you in your prime? But for the Greeks, it was a little later. They had a -- some time to think. And so the -- the akme, the -- the flowering of a man is in his 40th year. And so the later Greeks, the Alexandrinian scholars, who look back at their homeland in Asia Minor, and Italy, Southern Italy, and Greece, from afar, in perspective, when they came to the Ptolemaic court, where also the Old Testament was translated, where there was a great center of the library in Alexandria, in this place, they -- they carpentered, they -- they -- they, so to speak, conceived of a chronology to make the mutual dependencies of these philosophers consciously known. And they simply put every man to his 40th year. Now obviously man is not a mech- -- mechanic -- human being. And some people have even some ideas at my age. It's rare, but it happens. And the others begin at 20, and have b- -- big ideas at your age. That doesn't happen, either, often.

So the -- there is a chronology of the Greek tradition in Alexandria which you find preserved in this book, is pretty arbitrary, because if you have always the -- the year 40, you do not know the interrelations of these men. Sometimes the man of 20 may already criticize a man of 40; or vice versa: a man of 60 may criticize a younger man, who comes up chronologically after him.

Now this is exactly, it seems to me, what has happened with Heraclitus and Parmenides. And that's why I have given you this book, this -- my pamphlet to read, so that you can study. In this book here, Heraclitus is on page 24, and Parmenides is on page 41. And yet I insist that many of the fragments of Heraclitus are written against Parmenides. And that shows you the dangers of this mechanic placement here, because Mrs. {Freeman} says that Heraclitus lived -- had his prime about 500 and Parmenides about 475. So the superficial reader is led to believe that they follow each other without any inner contact, and any -- any dialectics, any dialogue between them. Any dispute -- between them. This cannot be true. It is obvious that they had a very lively duel carried on between them.

As Ephesus and Miletus are neighboring cities, and both of great importance in the trade and in the religion of the Mediterranean. Where is the city of Ephesus still very famous at the end of antiquity? For -- where -- whence do we know something about Ephesus? Who lived in Ephesus? Well, where do you meet Ephesus in non-Greek sources which you -- were known to you? Mr. Miller?

(I'm thinking Saul.)

What?

(I said, { } I was thinking Saul. But I'm not sure.)

Saul? Well, I call him Paul.

(Paul?)

Yes. So? Why do call him Saul?

(I'm sorry.)

No, you don't have to be sorry. You have some good reason for this, too. But when he was in Tarsus, which is in the south of -- of Asia Minor, and went to school there -- probably to the liberal arts college of Tarsus, I think he was a very good student and -- there, which is always underrated. He had of course a full Greek education, Paul. He called himself Saulus from Tarsus. And then he went on and wrote a famous letter to the Ephesians. Never heard of it? Where can you find the letter to the Ephesians? Wie? Where is it printed?

(In the Bible.)

Yes, in a book quite well known formerly. Letter to the Ephesians. And what's the story about his relations -- his -- own experience in Ephesus? Where do you find the experience of Mr. Paul von Tarsus in Ephesus? It was very unpleasant. What?

{ }.

Yes, yes, Sir, yes. And what happened? Well have you never heard of the great outcry of the mob against Paul? Great is the Diana of the Ephesians? Never heard of this? {None ever heard}? Well, it's remarkable. The real religious revival in this country.

Gentlemen, Ephesus is a very great place. I mean, I hope it's all before you; at the age of 50, you may begin to read the Bible. And then you will find that the Apostle -- Johan- -- John -- St. John lived in Ephesus, that Paul was persecuted in Ephesus, and had a tremendous clash with the great cult of the Aphrodite, or Diana of Ephesus, the goddess with the innumerable breasts, this fertility goddess of all Asia Minor, compares -- a -- tremendous cul- -- cult. You find in Naples, for example, in the museum, a wonderful, marble statue of this

Diana of Ephesus. Nobody can see this without being deeply impressed about the fanta- -- fantastic imagination that worked these people up to -- to throw their all and everything into these -- this cults, you see. Men were castrated -- the whole cult of -- the whole religion of eunuchs and castrates comes from this fact that the god of fertility had to receive the breasts of the women and the penises of the men to increase his fertilities. That's quite some sacrifice. That's worse than life, the -- the human sacrifice. Don't think it's any ri- -- -thing ridiculous, Sir. It's quite serious, gentlemen. And against these mighty cults which intoxicated people, and led them to real sacrifices, it is very fight -- hard to fight with a sober religion, gentlemen, because religions are -- only impress people when they make -- ask for great sacrifices. You have no religion as long as you don't know that "religion" and "sacrifice" is the same word. Religion is nothing nice, is nothing peaceful. It certainly is not for the peace of mind, or the piece of soul as modern bestsellers try to make you believe. But it is worship. And the service of God is a very severe service, gentlemen. And your God demands sacrifices from you.

And -- since this country is told by its rulers -- yesterday in -- an afterdinner speech at 7 o'clock, that this country does not live by sacrifices, this is in a very bad mess. These -- every -- every drop of blood shed today by the Israelis, the English, and the French is to be laid at Mr. Dulles' doorstep. He is responsible for all the bloodshed. But here sits -- the Americans back and say -- say, they -- they want to stop the bloodshed which they have caused. It's very scandalous, gentlemen, because you are not serious in these matters. And you -- therefore you do not understand these philosophers of antiquity who had to fight against tremendous odds, against the severe cults of their cities -- no, no smoking. And -- that's the sacrifice I have to ask from you.

And -- it is very -- still astonishing how these men could stick their neck out, and be heard. And we still listen to them. And I think the only reason is this deep desire to find men who wud- -- were not totally encased in their nation, in their city, in Greece. The word of course in Greek for the political unit, as you know, is "polis." And our word "politics" comes from -- from this word, which means the city-state. Of course, it was a -- a city within walls with some territory -- some fruitful territory around it. And the cult was always one of fertility god, as in Ephesus, of the Diana. And therefore all the people in all these cities for which these philosophers thought, were exposed to tremendous hardships, to tremendous sacrifices. To sacrifice your firstborn, and to -- perhaps to castrate him in honor of the goddess -- that's not a small thing for a father. It's just as bad as the slaughter of Isaac, with -- by the -- through Abraham. And you must think that the very abolition of human sacrifice, which the Old Testament tells you about -- Abraham, and which you gloss over now as a minor thing, means that in all other tribes and cities, except Judaism, the human sacrifice still exists. Why is

it told in -- in the New -- Old Testament? Because Abraham is acquitted from this sacrifice, you see, this bloody sacrifice. But all the Greek cities had it. And therefore all these philosophers, of course, try to find a way out of this anxiety of every individual, political order of every one polis to go it alone.

They tried to generalize, they tried to find some principles which would not make it necessary to be totally engulfed in the -- within the precinct and the walls of one city, in one's own mind. It is an attempt to unfetter the mind so that the physical universe and the political universe come to an equation. We still some try -- of course, laboring for this. Today it's a crisis which shows you how difficult it is, how you can overshoot the mark, and how -- the American idea--everything is water--does not immediately equate the real political situation of today with your ideal. You want to live in a uni- -- fools' paradise already. That is, you say, "All -- the whole globe is peopled by civilized nations, and therefore no war," gentlemen, then you eternalize all tyranny. If the Hungarians had said, "No bloodshed," as Mr. Dulles says, or Ei- -- through the mouth of Mr. Eisenhower said yesterday -- because I don't -- I'm afraid our president says nothing of -- by -- on his own, so then you -- you say, "No bloodshed."

Gentlemen, that's no -- that's nonsense. You can't live that way. Tyranny cannot be eternal. Should -- the Hungarians not stone these -- their tyrants? Doesn't your heart -- isn't your heart uplifted by this fact that people with bare hands and naked fists can throw out a terr- -- a terrible tyranny?

But if you read the official statements in America, then any bloodshed is wicked. It's nonsense. There's good bloodshed and wicked bloodshed. It's both. You never know which is which. But certainly to say, "All bloodshed is wicked," is absolute nonsense. There would have never been a United States if the people had said this here.

And this deep sickness of your soul, gentlemen, is really something to behold, because you believe already that the physical universe is the only universe that exists, that the polis is already totally abolished. You are philosophically corrupt.

Now Parmenides is a great name, gentlemen, before Plato, who came forward -- and I had a friend who always said it's one story from Parmenides to Hegel, from Parmenides to William James, from Parmenides to modern philosophy. It is always the same thing. Nothing much has been changed. That's quite a challenge.

What did Parmenides? After these people -- these other people--there are a few other names whom I can pass over--had tried to encourage the youth of their cities with the idea that the mental world was wider than the world of their cult, and their city, and their military duty, that the right and wrong had to be thought outside the city walls, also. After these people had stated--stammeringly, you may say, and stutteringly--these first possibilities, Parmenides comes and says, "All first impressions are wrong." I have talked to you about first impressions and second impressions, have I not? And I said first impressions are those which ask for our immediate loyalty, which cannot wait. When a house burns, you cannot doubt whether you should help putting it out. You have just to extinguish it.

Therefore your first impression must unleash an immediate act. You can see this. And if a man doesn't help extinguish a fire, he's a coward and he's a scoundrel. And no philosophy can ever justify it.

First impressions demand immediate action. They are not wrong impressions, but they are compelling impressions. Against this, Parmenides is the first philosopher who has said, "All phenomena of this world, including the political phenomena of the city, are to be looked through as wrong, as pseudo, as lying to our senses. And everything realized before I wake up to philosophy, all these first impressions are to be called `cheat,' `illusion,' `lie.'" He's the first who says that the phenomenal world is a world of what the Hindus would call--how do the Hindus call this world of illusion? Oh, you have heard of this, some of you. Mr. {White}.

(Nirvana?)

Ja. What?

(Nirvana?)

Oh, a little knowledge is a bad thing. Terrible. It doesn't matter you -- of course, for you. Nirvana is just the opposite. Nirvana is the freedom from illusion.

(Karma.)

Karma is your character. No. No, it's called maya. Have you never heard of maya, this appearance, the world of apparitions? So really, this nirvana of yours is before -- is -- yours is the sleep before one wakes up. Nirvana is the sleep after one has suffered too much. Really, don't use words -- without context. "Maya" is the -- is the illusion against which the -- philosophy tries to wake

you up.

So Parmenides, gentlemen, is the first man who has the courage then imitated more or less by later philosophers, for example, by the Frenchman D‚scartes, that -- who says the first impressions are bad. They are wrong. We should get rid, at your age, so to speak, of all first impressions. I love my mother: illusion, you see. Hated my father: illusion. I played games: illusion. I ran around with boys: illusion. It -- is a defiance. -- This moment of the awakening of the intellect, you see, is of course for all of you a temptation. You really think that you can abolish God and the government by discussion. If you think so, if -- man is independent, you see, you think you can forget that you constantly must breathe while you are thinking, so certain life processes have to go -- be carried on. Any man, gentlemen, whose mind is alive, goes through this phase of temptation where he tries to get outside the world by his mind, with the help of his mind, and make the mind the judge of all these previous impressions, and say, they may all be wrong.

This is Parmenides, gentlemen. Therefore he has -- become, and you must keep his mind -- his name carefully in mind, gentlemen, he is the prototype of pure philosophy, because he takes the philosopher for the first time outside the seriousness of the responsibility of the citizenry. He says the philosopher must not be tempted by the illusions of the city in which he grows up, by the -- of the temple in which he worships, of the schools in which he is taught, of the parents whose heir he is. He must free himself of his environment in space and time. And Parmenides therefore is the first man who tries to penetrate against his own local and his own temporal limitations. And it is the first radical statement of the ambition of all philosophy, gentlemen. And Parmenides therefore is in a way more important than Plato. And more than Aristotle, because there is laid down the rule that the ambition of philosophy is to slay the dragon of times and spaces, and to discover, you see, what is true outside your time and outside your space. It is still your ambition. And you are much more Parmenides than you think. You are. Parmenides is perhaps no more -- nowhere more alive than in America.

How does he do it? Parmenides is also the first man of whom we know in philosophy that he based his community on homosexuality. That is, he created an artificial home for the mind, where men and young -- young boys could live together without any political need of marriage, of all the needs which would make these first impressions so utterly valid. If you have normal life, the problem of childbirth and of parenthood immediately occurs, and then it is laughable to wait for philosophy until you can lay down the rule, you see. You have already to comply. But if you pervert man and make him -- make him autonomous, even in his lust, even in his sex, you see, then you can create this fools'

paradise of a philosophical club in which people are self-contained. In which they therefore do not have to comply with the laws of {city}. This is a deep problem, gentlemen, of homosexuality and man- -- mentality. And that's why it always creeps in where you get big bunches of boys -- or men, young men, students in Oxford or in -- or in Harvard. And the temptation is then always to become autonomous. This is nothing -- it's very serious. And you know how serious it is, from very com- -- miserable -- -miserating cases.

Homosexuality is the consequence of an abundance of mind, of an abundance of intelligence, you see, waiting for second impressions, and stripping yourself of these so-called illusions, or first impressions, as not valid. Because in all these first illusions, there are certain laws that incest is forbidden, or perversion is forbidden, or whatever the -- the -- the obnoxious thing is, that befall the man who steps aside and begins to play in his mind with all possibilities. It's of course possibili- -- possible to play -- to sleep with a cow, but it isn't right. It is forbidden. Now if the mind is -- left to its sovereignty, the first thing is: nothing is forbidden. You can see that this is the first answer.

Therefore, gentlemen, all philosophy in Greece is tained -- tainted by this thing and we hear, by -- from Parmenides that he already was a sweetheart of an older man, and that he had gathered around him many men. We don't know how much this was pure sex, and how much it was just sympathy; but it was this incredible tenderness, which you still find in Oxford and Cambridge permeating the whole atmosphere between the dons and the boys, and depriving the English home of much of this same fascination. An Englishwoman always seems to me a very poor person, because she's deprived of these tendernesses which men in England extend to each other. They are -- haven't to be homosexuals. But there is a spirit of sympathy and manly friendship in all English political life, too, in the Parliament, you see, and in -- in -- in the colleges, which has been stolen from the -- from the hetero-erotic life between the sexes, which we would expect as going on between girl and boy, and husband and wife.

And -- England is a very good example of this transfer -- of this possibility of transfer. The whole English political life is based on this -- on this strange -- well, it is perversion of -- transfer of the Eros from the life between the sexes to the life bet- -- between friends, between -- between political or scholarly friends. It doesn't exist, I think, in any other country to that extent. Here it is more -- just a vice. I mean, senators of the United States Senate have often been found guilty of homosexuality. But I think these are just frustrated people who had -- never had the courage to love a woman. And it seems sometimes to be the line of least resistance, homosexuality. It has many reasons. It is just sometimes frustration.

But not so in England. Is -- in England it has -- it isn't very often there homosexuality in any physical sense. I know a case where a young girl came to me in her -- in her plight in England. She loved a very beautiful man -- that's already very dangerous, if they are too beautiful. And he was in politics. -- He wa- -- all his ambition in politics. And when they were together, he would beat her up and only talk to her about his next speech in Parliament. That is, his love song was in Parliament, and with her he was just cruel until she had to run away from this man. That's not rare. It's an old story in psychiatrics, that there is a whole tradition of flagellantism in England.

I must mention these disagreeable things, gentlemen, because Greek philosophy is an attempt to get outside first impressions, and that always means to get outside the city. And that always means to try to do without the community and its austere rules of chastity, and of probity, and of honesty. You can take different steps. A cynic would try to go it alone, you see, and the Parmenides group would try to go it as a club. And so you can have various ways of escaping. Or you can go on a desert island with your virgin -- Paul et Virginie, in an idyll, you see, and have, so to speak, a couple set aside, and live like Robinson Crusoe, or Paul et Virginie, the French novel, which according to the French of course, is much more reasonable because it doesn't omit womanhood, you see. Paul et Virginie is much nicer than Robinson Crusoe. The Ameri- -- the English, of course, thought up -- Robinson Crusoe with a man helping him, you see. What a boring island! That's typically England. And it was written in the high days of the development of the English character, and -- when was Robinson Crusoe written? It's very important.

(1808.)

Wie?

(Actually the end of the 1700s.)

I think 1718, something like that, if I'm wrong. About this time. That is the day -- it's a -- you know that all our economic theory is based on this, Robinson Crusoe. It is very harmful, this world of mere men, you see, because the economic man is of course in -- reality, gentlemen, the father of a family, a husbandman, who has a wife, and children, and sons who waste money, and daughters who -- who are -- who -- for whom you want to spend as much money as possible. And therefore in the real economic world, gentlemen, the -- even -- even the dollar-man, the man who is out for the money is...

[tape interruption]

...not even allowing her -- her son to go to the doctor, because it would have cost money, so he remained a cripple all his life. It's fam- -- you must read it, the -- her biography. It's a great story of {dollar} { }, where a woman takes over the function of the -- the husband, so to speak, you see, to look out for the wherewithal.

Now gentlemen, if one -- a man in a -- in the family is out for making money, and the daughter is asking him to make her presents, and the son is out to making debts, running into debt, and the -- mother is there to economize with what is there, make both ends meet, you have a normal, human society. But if you get a theory like Robinson Crusoe, you see, then everybody is asked to be -- a Robinson Crusoe in economics, you see, following only self-interest, and you get a mad society, which we have at this moment at the stock exchange.

It is -- they are -- the -- when I took -- I have this privilege quite often to talk to New York brokers. They strike me as the most insane group of people. They are absolutely insane. They think it is normal only to -- to -- to -- to see the whole universe, and -- and -- I talked to a bank economist four days ago. Well, the man is absolutely crazy. He said, "Every year -- we -- we -- we gain by -- 3 percent in wealth and efficiency." And such no- -- such mechanic ideas about human life.

The world is, in this country, full of these Parmenideses in economics. And of course, everything is artificial, because they -- they only can see that every human being is like them, whereas the beginning of wisdom is to say that to philosophize, gentlemen, is something very eccentric, is a function for the community. And I tried to show you from the beginning the no- -- nobility of philosophy is that it adds something to the orderly processes, because they do not suffice, you see. They are deficient. But if you say, "Tha- -- that's all," you go into the Parmenides direction. Now against this, Heraclitus -- stands up, and therefore I think he wrote against him, under the impact of this terrible danger, that there would develop a philosophic community, which would simply criticize the whole political world as insufficient; therefore, would undermine morale. It would be like the Red { } -- the -- the -- Alger Hisses in this country would anticipate a world state and would undermine the defenses of the United States in the meantime. We had the same problem in the last 20 years. Whereas the Platonists in this country, the Parmenideses in this country said, "Well, we already envisage a world society, therefore we have to give away all secrets of the United States to Russia."

This is all very practical, gentlemen. It's the tam- -- total temptation always to think about your second thoughts as though they could abolish our first thoughts. And I have tried to make you believe--it is very hard for you to

believe--that this is impossible, that children have to be educated with severity and with authority. You have to tell your children what is true and what is right. You can't get out of this and you can't say, "They shall find out themselves." That's nonsense. Then they will be monsters, like the Loeb brothers, who tried to find out themselves what they -- the perfect crime. But this is still the theory in this country, the -- the -- the -- the idea that the next generation can find out by themselves. Then you wouldn't be in this college, gentlemen. There would be no college, because this college is waiting for you and expects you to come. Isn't that all prearranged? Isn't that all an attempt to save you much trouble?

Now you can see, gentlemen, there is a long way from the Parmenides group, the first liberal arts college in the world, to us. I always simplify matters by saying, "No -- no homosexuality on this campus." That's the different -- distinction between Greek philosophy and modern philosophy. We cannot pay this price for thinking.

Once you look this through, you will find many other problems in this college already solved, which the Greeks could not solve in their philosophical clubs. They called these clubs love -- love-meetings, eranos. And the word "eranos" is spelled this way: e-r-a-n-o-s. And it contains of course the word "{eramai"}, I love. And is -- in the word "eros." And you know eros is the love, regardless of where it falls, whether between man and woman, or men and men, or women and women. "Eros" is the word for the passion of the heart as well as of the body. It is not sex. You cannot translate "eros" with sex. That would be really an injustice to the Greeks. They have never fallen so low as we -- to call, to divide men. Men -- we are units, and if I love, I sing, and I want to embrace. But I do not separate my body from my -- my soul, when I am in love, as you try to do. Sex doesn't exist for decent people. That's for the animal. But eros does. Eros is the driving passion which makes us overcome our mutual shame and resistance and drives us into each other's arms.

So "eros" and "eranos" are con- -- connected. The word "eranos" is the official term in Greece all these centuries for the friendly group in which people converse on problems of truth. And there is today in Switzerland a -- a maga- -- a yearbook, which is called Eranos, in which the leading people like Mr. Jung, the famous psychologist in Zrich, publish their findings, or poets like Hofmannsthal, and Rilke. It's called Eranos, and is published every year, because this is the immortal term for the loving conversation between men. Eranos.

It's not argumentation. It's not discussion, you see. It's not debate, what you think. It's not a -- a lecture meeting where people then ask questions, you see. But eranos is what you find in the -- your book, The Symposion, of Plato,

you see. The Symposion is a one mome- -- a one-evening eranos, you see. Eranos would be a constituted situation in which people meet twice a week, so to speak, at a symposion. You understand.

So the -- the -- the Platonic philosophy also climaxes in such an eranos.

So Parmenides is a terribly important figure for this reason, that he says, "All political impressions, and all first impressions," gentlemen, are -- as -- as the translator say- -- calls it, "opinion," by which he means "worthless," seem- -- "appearance," just "sham." And says -- creates now a second term for the real, for that which is true. And here is his famous word which today makes -- so -- gives so much headache to the existentialists, and in my paper I have deal -- dealt with it, too. That is the word "essence." He says, "There must be behind all these semblances of political orders," you see, "and technical laws the real world, which we cannot see. Behind water, there must be nitrogen." He didn't know what nitrogen was, but he tried to penetrate be- -- into the elements and into the lasting truth of everything. And therefore, he said, "Opinion is what we receive first." And most people get stuck in opinion. "I, however, with my boyfriends, I devote my life to stabilizing the lasting truth against this passing truth of time and space." And you get here this arrogance of the philosopher to tell you that he knows about the things outside time and space, whereas the ordinary man, you see, is blinded by time and space.

Now of course, you would admit that Mr. Parmenides never got outside time and space. He had to love his boys. And he was loved by his boyfriend himself. And therefore, he was very much in time and space. -- It is the illusion however, of most high-brows and most pseu- -- intellectuals that somewhere, through a loophole, they have escaped, like the devil out of the chimney for -- from under the roof of hu- -- common humanity, model humanity and -- and they look more clearly, with a bird's-eye view. Oh, they survey -- "your survey courses," they are kind of this deviltry still. They give you the impression that one can survey things.

Gentlemen, nobody knows anything which he doesn't love. And all the attempts of making -- I -- when I see these "individuals and society" people there -- stream out and into this cave there, to this prison, I pity them. Nothing enters their heart. Therefore, they can noth- -- understand nothing. Everything understand -- enters their brain. It's a mistake, this course, a grave mistake. It's an illusion. Every one of them should go on a farm or -- or in a -- in a workshop and work one day, and he would know more about the individual in society than sitting there in -- in this hall. You can't do it. It's impossible.

Our -- our -- it's -- the -- the same illusion of -- of the Par- -- it's the great

temptation of the Parmenideses, gentlemen. The Parmenideses do think that outside the polis, outside the city is the proper -- place to philosophize. Well, that's all right, to add second impressions, criticism; I'm all for it. But they go further and they say, "All the first impressions are wrong, and we are somehow outside space and time. We are idealists. We are in this famous second world" -- the ivory tower some people call it, you see -- "where we can look down on the rest of the world -- through a telescope, so to speak, as though this was another planet."

You well know that this is an illusion. We don't get outside our own planet. It's not true. But this illusion feeds most philosopher -- philosophical tradition in the world, that the philosopher deals with all the units -- passing units in space and time from some telescopical viewpoint, you see, which allows him to say -- tell us what space and time are. That's not given to mortals, gentlemen. We are not outside space and time, ever. Ever. But philosophy has always, since Parmenides, tried to prove this point. This very point, you see. And you come -- we come later to Plato's ideas and the ideas are somewhere immune against time and space, you see. It's very tempting.

And anybody who is out for the truth, gentlemen, must of course try to find some such foothold in the eternal, in the everlasting, in the unchanging, in the outside-space-and time. Every one of us, I included, of course, are always trying to persuade myself that I do not fall for the transient, for the mortal, for the corrupt, for the momentary, or the purely parochial. Not one of us want to be provincial, gentlemen, but we all are. But we can di- -- separate the -- divide the world into those who say, "We are provincials," you see, and the others say, "But we are not." Now I side with those who say that they are provincials, I -- preferably, to those who say they have no prejudices, you see, and they are not dogmatic. Because that's their dogma.

Most philosophers you can trap because they say, "I have no dogma." That's a dogma. Nobody can live without certainties, gentlemen. It's impossible. You live in some city. And if you don't live in the real city, you live in this dream city of nice students and -- as we try to live here in Dartmouth. And you know, it's a pseudo-city.

This is an artificial existence, gentlemen. I can tolerate this and you can tolerate it if you da- -- say to yourself, "It is an artificial existence." Then no harm is done. If once you say, "This is normal, and the other people are all fools," then we go wrong, you see. Then we must turn values topsy-turvy. Can you see this?

I think it is necessary for us to go through the hardship of this isolation for four years. That's a good training, you see. But you must know that it is not the

law of the universe, this separation of the sexes, here, and this -- these four years in -- in -- in Baker Library. Then, it can fulfill, like any medicine. You see, you don't say of a medicine that it is the norm, that it is the daily food. Yet you will not deny that medicine is a very good thing in -- in time -- at times to take.

And so I feel that the liberal arts college is a medicine which should be swallowed as something that is in its own day a cure for the excesses of the human mind at the time when it begins to grow in you, and otherwise would confuse you. And this community is an attempt to ma- -- make you see that the mind is given us to pool our energies for the purpose of unanimity, for the purpose of common understanding, of fellowship, and then it's -- does its thing.

There you see again, that Parmenides, as all great people, combines greatness and truth with falsehood. His perversion of the natural love between men and women is something we cannot imitate. The loyalty between these people to find out truth is something very much worthwhile. And the insistence only is that many of the first impressions need reprobation, or need criticism is also nothing to be -- to be -- be -- { } {up}. All freedom, all progress has been based on his power to get outside his own city. And it's very interesting, gentlemen, he was an American. He lived in Elea -- he came from Elea to Southern Italy. And Southern Italy was a colon- -- colonial state from Greece. And the Greeks settled there in Southern Italy and Sicily at great danger, because there were the Phoenicians, the Puni from Carthage, who were competing with them. Many of these -- of these harbors were in the hands of the Phoenicians at that time. Like Sardinia. That was tu- -- totally Punic, Lilybaeum, other cities in -- in --in Sicily. And so the Greeks came there under great danger. This is a kind of situation as between the Spaniards here in Florida, you see, or in Texas, and the Anglo-Saxons in the North. A similar, bloody competition. And you know, there were many terrible events between Spa- -- Spanish settlers and Anglo-Saxon settlers for 300 years.

Now in the similar way, the Phoenicians in the south of Italy, and Syracu- -- and Sicily competed with the Greek settlers. Therefore these Greek settlers were pushed forward to modernize and streamline their thought as well as their civilization. And in Her- -- in Parmenides, we have a man of the new type, a pioneering man who wanted to do away with these prejudices as living in a new-founded state and said, "Let's philosophize straight. And let's consider everything under general denominators. Let's forget our first loyalties. Let's not be prejudiced by any other, older religious cult." So he -- goes so far to say, "All first impressions are illusions." Page 41, gentlemen, it is shortly -- stated there in -- in small print: "He wrote a poem in hexameter verse addressed to his pupil Zeno." You can also say "his sweetheart Zeno." "It was divided into three parts: the Prologue, the Way of Truth, the Way of Opinion." Now it is just as queer as the Lucretius in that it invokes the gods, in the Prologue. But it then s- -- tells

what is real being, what is the essence of things, unchanging, forever the same. And then says, "But in order to condescend to you, foolish mortals, I'll show you how your way of opinion looks if I judge it, if I describe it."

And I have done the same now. I have -- am -- just published two volumes of a sociology in German. And in the -- my first volume, I deal with the illusions of the space-thinker. And then in the second volume, I try to tell my truth in terms of time-thinking. So obviously the Parmenides situation repeats itself in every generation, that to a certain extent, one has to write from -- with the Eros of one's contemporaries, you see, in order to convince them that one is -- even -- just as able as they are, to follow through their illusions, their prejudices.

And so I feel very -- very strongly for this man, Parmenides, in this sense that I also have two volumes. The Way of Opinion is my first volume, you see, and The Way of Truth is my second volume. And the way of opinion is in my case the ephemeral way of momentary sensation, stimuli, impressions, and news, you see; and the way of truth to me is the man who is able to live in -- represent three generations in his thinking, and has his father and his child in -- in him- -- mind just as much as himself. And you can see, these are two different people. The man who -- in any act thinks: how does this compare to the values of my father and of my son? -- will act very differently in -- in his lawgiving and in his rules than a man who is swayed by the latest fad, about vitamins, or about the Mormons, or about some -- some fad, as you -- most of you think you have to.

And that is to me the way of truth and the way of opinion. And therefore, the division of Parmenides is a stroke of genius. But we have a hard time to understand that to him it was -- the way of opinion was the way of my local environment, of my five senses, you see. And the way of truth was the -- that was -- remained forever unchanging. His difference is change, you see, as the fools who run after change in space and -- I tried to say yesterday to my class, that to you, gentlemen, who -- run always with opinion, who don- -- know any- -- that there is truth agai- -- against opinion, who are totally -- every three months you have a different truth, and you are very much insulted if a man already speaks up for the truth of your next three months, which is not very difficult to know. But you -- are insulted, I mean.

I never forget when I s- -- was standing at The -- in The Wigwam -- in the -- what's it called? The Indian Bowl? In the Indian Bowl -- at that time, it wasn't called the Indian Bowl. It was -- it was before its first bankruptcy, and it was called The Wigwam. And -- and there was the war announced be- -- under Mr. Forestal's secretaryship between Russia and us. And I was just sipping a cup of coffee. And next to me the student of Dartmouth elaborated on the fact that now there would be war.

And I said to him with a very quiet tone, "There will be no war."

And I was a leper to him at that very moment. At that time, you had to say in Dar- -- on the Dartmouth campus that there woul- -- s- -- be war, you see. Today everybody has to say the Americans will not be involved. Three months from now, they will be involved. But this -- is just how this country lives, you see. On September 4th, 1939, I have heard the president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, say over the radio, "There shall be no blackout of peace in America." And five months before, he had said to a friend of mine that this time, when the European nations went to war, the United States would have to go into this war within six months. That's politics in this country.

But -- the whole country loves it. You ate it -- eat it all up. "No involvements," headlines in the papers. Is this politics? This is just for children. Children. How can a great statesman know what's going to happen? He can say, "I pray that we may not have to be involved." Never can he say, "There will be no involvement." That's more than human beings can say. That's forbidden. That's blasphemy. That's God's will, and not human will. So you elect a president 1916. He kept the country out of war so that he might take the country into war the next day. That's American opinion, gentlemen.

And that's exactly what Parmenides attacked. And therefore, Parmenides has an eternal position in your own -- in your own breast, gentlemen. If you will have to live this silly life of hunting opinions down, of chasing butterflies, which you think is the -- the life of the informed mind in this country, who knows nothing, but is informed every day about something else, then you think of Parmenides, who was fed up with this and said, "I distinguish the way of truth and the way of opinion. And I cannot worship at the shrine of opinion, because I become the laughing stock. I become nauseated with myself. Shall I believe every three months something the opposite?" That's no truth, gentlemen. That's silly. And I've never seen -- the -- the childishness of this country has reached an alltime high, because you don't mind being sold down the river every three months for a different subject. You think that's the way in which peop- -- things have to move. You do not even want to be remembered -- or reminded, I should say -- reminded of the fact that three months ago you believed the opposite.

So the Opinion -- gentlemen, the Book of Truth and the Book of Opinion are enemies today, as they always have been. And therefore with all my regrets about Mr. Parmenides' homosexuality, I forgive him much, because probably it was at that time the only way of getting outside the fog, you see. And a -- a kind of violent medicine was taken. I mean, the -- the means was as atrocious as our H-bomb is, the homosexuality between teacher and students, gentlemen. But it worked. It has had the tremendous merit. And it is very strange. We have to say

that we owe the Greeks a contribution which probably no other group could ever have made. On the balancing, on something unnatural, and con- -- counternatural, you see, they yet did something, and there we -- we look into the tragic -- tragedy of human beings. You see, if there is great corruption, the -- the medicine is oft -- often corrupt, too, you see, because two minus, as you know, give us a plus. And the corruption of the individual passionate city who run to their selfdestruction in one war after another, led these philosophers to use desperate means. Fortunately I think we live in a world in which the -- means don't have to be desperate. But gentlemen, if you don't have to have homosexuality, for -- telling the truth, or knowing the truth, or learning the truth, sacrifices are still needed; courage is still needed.

The cowardice which prevails on this campus at this moment, gentlemen, and the timidity of your mind will destroy the colleges. I think -- 50 years from now, the colleges will be -- all be abolished as perfectly unnecessary, because they no longer serve truth. They just serve opinion.

I'm very serious about this. We have -- over the last 20 years, the American colleges have destroyed their right of existing -- existence. If you want to hear a very distinguished American speak about -- his mind about this, read Samuel Eliot Morison's -- the great historian's of Harvard -- address in Kingston, Can- -- Canada where he speaks out against that trash which today is called "truth" in our -- your education. It's -- just appeared. I'd advise you very much to read it. "Freedom and the -- and Higher Education" it is called. Samuel Eliot Morison. Things are in very bad shape, gentlemen. The sore spot in America are you. Your education. Not yourself. You are very innocent people, gentlemen. But what you -- you do not contribute to the truth, to the -- to -- you contri- -- only contribute to -- to the opinion. For this we don't need colleges, gentlemen. Opinions form in every city, anyway, you see. Opinion is that which is the -- the gist of -- of daily life, the routines of life. If you only repeat these routines yourself, if you do not obstruct them, if you do not appraise them, if you do not outgrow them, then why should there be a college? Why -- why should you have just the same life in an easier way of the plumber and the man at the filling station, you see? You must oppose their opinions to find out the truth. That's at least the idea of the liberal arts college as it was founded by Parmenides.

Now comes the -- the dangerous result once more. The essence says, "This group can forget about the city. It has no duties in the realm of first impressions." That's Parmenides, the pure ivory tower concept. Against this, Heraclitus says, "We have to find the truth within the first impressions," and that's why the fathers of the Church called Heraclitus "the only Christian in all Greek philosophy." Why? Because the Christian suffers within his congregation, and within his community, you see, for the truth. He doesn't go outside. But he is

redeemed, so to speak, to look through the opinions of the day, you see, because he's willing to suffer.

Gentlemen, anybody who is willing to be the underdog, who is willing to suffer, can know the truth.

I have here a colleague, I told you this I think in class, who has shocked me terribly, because he said under any dictatorship, he would comply, because he couldn't suffer. And he would certainly have helped to -- to -- to extinguish the Jews in Germany; and in Hungary, he would have shot down, as the secret police, the peasants, because he would go with the power. He has no guts to resist evil.

I said to him, "Do you know that you then commit evil?"

"Yes," he said. "Maybe I have to admit it."

And I said, "You are much worse than the evildoers, because the -- the lukewarm are always the ones who make life impossible." You -- the lukewarm are always the majority, and they are the real, guilty ones. Because the evildoers are punished by their wickedness; but the lukewarm, you see, think that they are not punishable, if they have done nothing wrong. They have just followed their so-called -- enlightened self-interest or what-not.

Now this colleague of mine, gentlemen, is a very important example of one fact, gentlemen: if you suffer -- are willing to suffer, you can know the truth inside the existing orders. As long as you do not identify yourself with the powers that be, the full realm of truth is available, because the truth is between the culprit in court and this district attorney. The truth is not -- neither has the district attorney the full truth nor the criminal. But if you could ta- -- take the two together, you would have the full truth of the case. That's why Jesus sided with the -- with the culprits, because the district-attorney wisdom He had anyway. He was innocent. But if He was also on the side of the culprits, He represented the whole truth of human community life. That's why it is equally important that Jesus was innocent, and that He was on the side of the -- found on the side of the sinners, you see. Because through -- by innocence, I share the insight into the righteousness of the law, but on the -- by siding with the sinners, I also see the incompetency of the law, that the law is never enough, that the law doesn't cover all the facts of life, you see. It's always limited.

So gentlemen, he who can suffer, Christianity says, can know the truth. Philosophy says: he who can get outside can know the truth. These are the two ways of philosophy and Christianity, and they are always in opposition.

Now the word -- I now may ask you to have read next time this paper of mine. Who has read it already? Well, you -- I make this point that this word "essence," you see, is an attempt to sanctify the easy talk of boys outside the city. In the city, there are no such pronouns and proverbs, you see, like "being." In the city, you only know that -- there is -- war is raging, a pestilence is coming, a ship is landing, you see, prices are high. That is, events which you can name. There are -- all named events happen. And in a -- in a symposion, in an eranos, we can tal- -- talk about essences, abbreviated, as you talk always of God, "the thing," or "something." When you -- try to -- to explain what you do not want to name, you speak always of "something," or "anyway," you say. Most people say, when they mean God, they say "anyway." You can test this out. It's very strange. When you find people are quite serious, "I have to do this anyway," they mean, "It's the will of God that I have to do it. I wouldn't like to do it."

So -- you all use these very -- same abbreviations which I pillory there in my letter. And Heraclitus is -- as a major -- sel- -- elder -- elder statesmen in Ephesus tries to say exactly what the Christians say. If a man would see its own opposite in the city -- his -- its own -- no, his own opposite in the city, he would not have to get outside. If he wa- -- would have the wits, you see, which later Christ had, you see, to see -- to pray for His enemies, you see, because they don't know what they are doing; if you could see once your own opposition, your own enemy as comprised in one unit, the s- -- district attorney, so to speak, and the culprit, you would see the full workings of the universe. And -- as fire and water are needed, and air and earth in their contrast to support us, so -- and woman and man, and -- and foe -- and friend and foe, we cannot abolish these contrasts. You see, you live here in a -- in a world which preaches: there can -- all can -- men can be friends, there have -- don't have to be foes. It's an error. You can only have friends as long as there are foes. It's not -- not possible to ha- -- if everybody's a friend, nobody's a friend. And then friendship -- foe -- enmity will break out in between friends, because opposites are necessary. You have to have enmity in order to have life.

So Heraclitus' deep sermon is against the Parmenideses and their juvenile henchman in -- I said, "Don't set up this second community." Don't set up this second community. Of course, he went unheard, but he made a tremendous impression. Plato, gentlemen, is the combination of Heraclitus and Parmenides, because Parmenides says, "Pure essence. Outside experience. Forget your first experiences. Begin from scratch."

Heraclitus says, "Nonsense. Truth is inside our deepest experiences." We only are too short of breath. We only say, "I"--what shall I use as an example?--"Well, I go in this direction, for example; I go from Elea to Miletus." I -- a man who is wise considers that at the same moment some person must go

from Miletus to Elea. He's -- makes the very strong point that to every achievement there is the way toward and the way back. It's one thing to climb a mountain. Who has climbed a mountain? I suppose you all have. Gentlemen, some of you will admit that the way down sometimes is much more disagreeable than the way up. And if you only consider the time it takes to climb a mountain, you are utterly wrong. It is just as much a problem to come down without sore feet.

He has this great picture, Heraclitus. And he says, "The way up and the way down are the same way, but they look utterly different." And most people in your -- in your own desire, you only are -- try to get somewhere, gentlemen. But you also have -- all -- all human ways have also to be evacuated. It's very nice to become president, gentlemen. But it is -- takes great wisdom not to stand for reelection. That's a way back. That's just as much God-given, gentlemen. And that is, of course, in Christianity called the wisdom of death, that we have to die to our ascent. Death is the most general term for this way back. We go up -- we get up, you see, but for Mr. Rockefeller, it was one thing to acquire the millions. It was just as difficult for him, as you know, to get rid of them. And so he pays all these idiots for their Rockefeller stipends, and makes great havoc in American civilization, because all kind of nonsense is produced now on account of this money. It's called beneficial. Is it? You see. It's a bribe.

You say -- you simply don't think about this, gentlemen. But obviously, I would -- I would -- con- -- my consequence of Mr. Rockefeller's foundation would be that he should never have acquired so much money in the first place, because now it has to be invested in this dead weight, in this dead-hand of a foundation and put to all kind of obsolete uses. And that's not good. I would consider then therefore a legislation justified which would prevent any man to make so much money as Mr. Rockefeller. That's my logic. Because I see how all research today is handicapped by these foundations who are full of old-time prejudices, the -- all the heads of these foundations are anxious people who don't want to make blunders. And will never support a bold venture in thinking, but will always support the most stupid and old-fashioned kind of inquiry and research. The money that is spent for -- over the last 20 years on cancer is all wasted. Why? Because people 20 years ago thought that cancer had to be something like Pasteur's infectious diseases. And therefore all the money was spent in imitating Mr. Pasteur, who lived -- who did his experiments in 1878. And the cancer research was -- has been delayed for a whole generation because of too much money invested in the wrong direction. Anybody who tried to say in 1920 that cancer was not such a disease was -- could not become a professor of physiology in this country, or in Europe for that matter. And of course, all the money of the foundations was thrown behind the people who had the obsolete, aping ideas of -- you see, saying it was something like -- like hydrophobia. Isn't that the word for the dog disease? And -- and so we are very far behind what

would have been possible if people hadn't had this foundation money.

So the way back, says Heraclitus, is just as important as the way in. How do you get out of any fixation, you see? For it -- take the Constitution. It's very nice to have an ironclad constitution which you can never change. But gentlemen, it can lead to great disaster if in a decisive moment, no pow- -- no constitutional amendment can pass through the two-third of the states, or three-quar- -- or how many have to be? Three quarters? Wie?

(Three-quarters.)

Well, don't you think that's a very dangerous proviso? In a decisive moment, that can lead to the destruction of the union, because the amendment is not passed in time. So you see, the way back, that is the power to alter what I have done, you see, is very important. Same problem with any new human vow. Very nice to say "no divorce." If you look into real life, there are marriages that are such hell that you have to find a -- divorce, you see. That's also a way back.

Now Heraclitus says, "While you are in for one thing, you have already to allow the community to have an ordinance, you see, which also allows you to get out of this again." This is -- seems very simple, gentlemen, but you all live only in one direction always. Every opinion means, "Today is everything. I'm only looking in this direction," you see. Some wisdom would mean -- real philosophy would mean that although you are allowed to go full and wholeheartedly in one direction, there is some mechanism which protects you against the Dionysian, you see, orgy of your will and mine -- you see, and says later, "Now come; we'll get you out of this trap, you see { }."

So you see perhaps that Heraclitus is the wiser, the much more -- older type of man. He's the -- he is the type of elder statesman. And that's why I think that he wrote to Parmenides after he was dumbfounded by the boldness of this new approach of Parmenides, who declared that truth can only be had through people who get totally out of the city, totally out of the laws of the times, you see, and out of politics, and looked at the world from the outside. And he says, "You can have this if you are wise inside." And that's the only way in which we can really have wisdom.

So you can see why Plato is a combination later of Heraclitus and Parmenides. Parmenides he follows in the purity of his search, outside the passions of the city, you see. But the content of his thinking is dictated by -- to by Heraclitus. He says, "I must find the real city." Parmenides is not interested in the city at all, you see. He neguts- -- he negates it. He wants to have the truth of the essences, of being outside any human political intercourse. He has his autono-

mous world. And -- of Plato, you know, he wrote a Republic, because in devotion to Heraclitus, he knew that the real human wisdom could not remain outside the affairs of men.

Perhaps we read now a few fragments of -- on page 41 so that you can see the difficulty for our friend Parmenides to formulate that which has been the bugbear of all future philosophy: what is essence? What is being? As you know, for the last 30 years in France and Germany, there rages a battle between existentialists and essentialists, you see. The existentialist is a Heraclitean, you see, who says, "I know nothing but actions, certain days and acts of my life." The essentialist is a man who says, "I can penetrate behind space and time." All Roman Catholics today are much less Christian than they are essentialists; they are philosophers. It's a very strange turnaround. Most Catholics I know are philosophically corrupt by Parmenides, because they believe in essences. Now it's not a crime of the Christian faith to believe in essences, but that's what most of these educated Catholics unfortunately believe. Thomas Aquinas inherited from the Greeks, you see, this tradition. And therefore people perorate in this -- in Manhattan College in New York with great eloquence on essences. Following Parmenides. Before Parmenides, nobody ever knew what an essence could be.

Will you kindly read the -- we have still 10 minutes -- will you kindly read 7 and 8 on page 43 -- oh no, Number 6 on page 43. Who has it? Will you?

("One should both say and think what being is. But to be is possible, and { } is not possible. This I command you to consider. For from the latter way of search first of all I debar you. But next I debar you from that way along which {wander mortals} knowing nothing. Two { } perplexity in their bosoms { } their intelligence astray. And they carry along as deaf as they are blind, amazed, uncritical { }, by whom to be and not be are regarded as the same and not the same. And for whom in everything there is a way of opposing stress.")

It -- as in two minds. You see, which is a much better translation. Go on. Do you have it? Ja.

("For this view can never predominate, that that which is not exists.")

No. That that which is not, exists. It is difficult, I grant you. You see -- ja. Go on.

("You must debar your thought from this way of search, not let ordinary experience in its var- -- in its variety force you along this way, namely that of allowing the eye. Sightness as it -- sight-

less as it is, and ear, full of sound, and the tongue to rule. But you must judge by means of reason, logos. The much-contested proof, which is astounded by me. There is only one --")

There you have it. The five sense are rejected. You may also say, gentlemen, that if Parmenides, and all philosophers, who -- who move into their ivory tower of pure thinking, one thought must beget the next thought. In normal life, here I -- think something. If I go out the door, I have another thought, because while I -- going out of the door, I have seen something and I have made a different experience, don't you think? All our thinking of normal human beings -- occurs this way. We do something. Strikes us such-and-such. Then we go on to another action. And again we have a thought. That's the way I live, you see. Going from action to thought, from action to thought, from action to thought.

Philosophy however, in Parmenides reaches a point, and that's in this paragraph, { } it's a little difficult for {you} to grasp. What you think is correct, that a syllogism, as in mathematics, you see, can proceed without further experience in their meaning. That is, I have grasped one clear thought, let me say that -- that all -- just one space. Now the philosopher tries to deduce his next thought, you see. If there is only one space, you see, all men are contained in one space, and should live in one world state, you see. That's what the conclusion is -- most philosophers conclude. The logic is that it is more normal to live in one state than in many, if you start with the assumption that the world is one space by the nature of things.

This is the typical philosophical conclusion, whereas gentlemen, when I conceive of the sun shining here and say, "Oh, the universe is wonderful," and then I stumble out of this room and run into this -- fall over the staircase, I say, "But this room is fully built," I -- don't connect in my experience the problem of the sun shining over the universe, and the space here confined to my political entity, you see. I have no such theory that the whole world should be one world state, because I do not conclude from one logical -- you see, basis other {assumptions}. Don't { } -- most people think erratically, sporadically, don't they?

Now the whole problem of Parmenides is to persuade his henchmen, to persuade the student, as we do it--Mr. Mandelbaum does it in his class, and every one of us in our department does it--that it is possible and worthwhile to have a maxim, to have a basis of thought, you see, one assumption, and to build on this assumption certain waterproof, logical conclusions, you see, without intervening new experience. That has been the temptation of all systematic philosophizing, you see. I think it goes against all first impression, { }. All the first impressions of a child are that it does something. And then it says, "How strange that I did this," you see. Then it does something else again and again it says, "How strange that I did this." But it's a very far way of demanding from a

normal human being, you see, a taxi driver, to connect all these thoughts -- afterthoughts, after any one of these actions { } {well-rounded} system. And as you know, your mother never achieved this, and had never any intention of achieving this. She's quite a reasonable person, but she's far from ever having the idea that all her thoughts had to form a logical whole. You see this? This is however Parmenides' assumption. Once you get outside the first -- light of first impressions, of first actions, of first responsibility, of direct obedience to law, { } -- then you have to embark on the center of this ivory tower, that on this first thought, you see, you must build more thought.

So you can say, gentlemen, Parmenides is thought upon thought upon thought, you see. Once you understand that this is not the normal life of man, you see how artificial philosophy is, and how dangerous it is. It's -- I doesn't -- I do not say that it's always wrong. You can reach certain conclusions. But certainly it's a second way of life. And you can never wish that any child, for example, should ever become a philosopher throughout, you see. It's impossible. It would damage his -- his responses, wouldn't it? Can you see this?

Now let's still read the last paragraph, and then have done. But that's quite important. Here, the next. "There's only one other description." Would you? Your neighbor? You read it?

("There's only one other description of a way remaining. Namely, that what it is, is. In this way, there are very many signposts, that being has made coming into being no {disruption}. For it is whole { } without motion and without {end}. { } together was, or will be, because it is now. A whole, all together, one continuous {for what} creation of it will you look for? How, whence could it have sprung? Nor shall I allow you to speak or think of it as springing from not being.")

That's the famous -- our conception of creation out of nothingness. He dec- -- he denies this, you see, as an impossible thought. Everything has been there all the time. It's this -- Ja? "For it is neither expressible nor thinkable that what is not, is. Also what necessity impelled it, if it did spring from nothing, to be produced later or earlier. {That} is -- must be absolutely all or not at all." That's a very good sentence to sum it all up. He says all these appearances, winter and summer, behind it is weather, behind it is some state. Winter is changing. Summer is changing. But there is something in summer and winter which I call being. That's behind these op- -- opinion-creating semblances of warm, or cold, or sunshine, or -- or rain, or snow. And you know, we haven't reached any further perfection. If you ask me what's behind the galaxy, behind the firmament of stars, there's no answer. Why are they there? We still have to accept that there must be some meaning in all these tremendous movements in

the stars' being. What it is? Nobody has ever expressed it better than Parmenides. And also, if you read it now, it sounds very hollow. Yet it is a ch- -- challenge. You see the sky move. The people in Argentina see the sky move. And we all see it in different -- times, and different stages. "What is it in essence?" Parmenides cries, you see.

"What is the essence of all this? And what is not opinion about it? So far as that is concerned, justice has never released -- being in its fetters and set it free, either to come into being or to perish, but holds it fast. The decision on these matters depends on the following: it is -- that's the way of truth, or it is not. It is therefore decided, as is inevitable, that one must ignore the one way as unthinkable, and inexpressible, for it is no true way, and take the other as the way of being and reality."

Now the strange thing is that everything the normal child of God calls "This is," he s- -- calls "Not being," you see. "This is sweet." He says, "That's a delusion, because for somebody else it may sou- -- taste sour. Therefore I will not give the predicate `sweet' to anything except in the realm of illusions, and the chemist will bear me -- him out heute -- today and say, "We have penetrated behind sweet and sour, and we know that these are just degrees of some, you see, or- -- org- -- order in -- in the composition of things. It's just expressed by numbers. "How could being perish? How would it come into being? If it came into being, it is not. And so too"--because then it hasn't been at one time--"and so, if it is about to be at some future time. Thus coming into being is quenched and destruction also into the unseen."

Will you kindly take the trouble and read for the next time the pages 44 and 45?