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If you understand the entrance of Parmenides and the so-called Eleatic school into the history of the human mind, you will find that Parmenides, living in the then-America of Greece, in South Italy, across the ocean, across the sea in a colonial environment, for the first time reversed the order of first and second impressions, and said -- in so many words, "The cults of the gods of my home city, and the legislature of my constitution are unreal compared to the insight I can get of the lasting character of the natural order," of phusis.

This has been the tenet of all philosophy ever since, that the first impressions have to be brushed aside or scrutinized by the second impressions to such an extent, gentlemen, that we -- we should try to forget what we have experienced in love, in faith, in hope, in traditions, in law, in justice in the first 20 years. It is a horrid claim. And it is always again being defeated by wiser philosophers. But it is repeated time and again. The whole American enlightenment of the last 200 years -- I just happened to read in an article in the Journal of Higher Education in which this man says, and -- Mr. Eliot Morison, I told you, Samuel Eliot Morison repeated it -- this article in the Journal of Higher Education came right after the Second World War -- he said, "America is drunk with the idea that the laws of a Mau-Mau tribe and the laws of the United States are of equal value compared with the nature of my mind. I can look at -- objectively at these things."

Now gentlemen, no man in his reason can think for one moment that this is true. But it is taught this way, that the law of the land is purely historical, purely gen- -- evolutionary, purely passing, and the laws of nature, however, of the atom and of the -- of your mind are eternal. This megalomania of philosophy, gentlemen, is paramount in your own brain. You are most this -- this -- the -- most of you are the victims of this idiocy. And that's why I have to show you the relative grandeur and the relative misery of this position.

If first impressions, gentlemen, become the football of second impressions, of what we have called "philosophy," by a group of onlookers, you see, then the whole history of philosophy is set in motion down to the destructive character of Mr. John Dewey's philosophy of pragmatism; then everything is pragmatic; then the means -- are more important than the ends; and then you -- expl- -- understand the American household, bowed under the installment plan, where a man has an income of $500; $400 are earmarked for the rest of his life with mortgaging his future, and it -- his house is cluttered up with unnecessary things. Because then, tradition is nothing. Debts have not to be paid. We live as -- exactly in 1928, gentlemen, today again in this same fools' paradise, that all the

old laws of the -- of the ages are abolished, waste is better than saving, death is abolished, madness is abolished. And so the country is exactly today as you know, in 1956, again in this wonderful coma that the laws of the city have been abolished in favor of some philosophical trick by which you can expect a pay raise every year, automatically. There will be no crisis. There will be no war. If there is a war, the school- -- little -- schoolteacher of America will lift her finger and say, "That's very bad, very nasty," and -- and you will vote for a government that promises you elimination of all hardship, of all sacrifices. That's philosophy of pure nature, gentlemen.

Parmenides is already anticipating, gentlemen, all s- -- later schools of philosophy, as I want to show you. If you take the result of the -- Parmenides' sec- -- secession to the sacred mountain -- as you know, in -- 20 years later in Ro- -- the city of Rome, they had the famous secession of the plebeians from the aristocrats. Who has heard of this secession of the -- of the plebs? Has anybody? Well, that's all {that} you know, {still from history}.

Well, it is said that in 496, in the days just of this same South Italian upheaval of the mind in Parmenides, the plebeians already tried to secede from the old traditions of the Roman city, and went to the sacred mountain, to the {Mont Sacra}, and the famous story then it was told -- told to them, when they were asked to return--do you know the story?--told to them by the aristocrat Menenius Agrippa that they were the stomach of the city, because they were the toilers. They produced the bread. And of course the -- stomach one day was very angry, because he had to serve all the other limbs of the body, so he went on strike. But then Menenius Agrippa shows very nicely that the poor stomach would not -- could not live without the limbs, and could not stay outside the operations of the heart, and the brain, and the speech, et cetera.

That's the famous first attempt to secede. And I'm quite sure, and I -- I think as research goes on, and we will come to see this more clearly, the -- most of the constitution of Rome, gentlemen, was worked out under the impact of the South Italian philosophers. And there are many other signs that the -- the whole Roman constitution already was largely influenced by the philosophies of Southern Italy in the 5th century. That makes Rome so an interest- -- such an interesting community, because Rome is already founded not simply by tradition, but already by the Enlightenment. Very much as this country, you see. It's a -- Rome is the Jeffersonian democracy, so to speak, of antiquity. And it also had originally a very weak government, as you may know for one year only. And two consuls, you see, competing with each other. It's li- -- very much like the Congress and the president, you see, checks and balances.

And -- well, I'm not going into this, but I only want to sh- -- point out that

Parmenides already sets the pace for an influence of philosophy on the political practice of the communities. And although this is as yet not accepted, I -- I think it is mo- -- most probable that the results of this man in Elea, which is a little south of Naples, already had an impact on the whole of Italy, especially the Roman republic and its neighboring cities in La- -- Lazio, on the {Lataeni}. { } more clearly you can see, gentlemen, that with Parmenides, there is set in motion a -- a whole chain reaction. First, the second impressions of the natural world are more original, somebody will hold, than the laws of any city. The laws of the city are arbitrary, what Rousseau said. You have heard -- that much of Rousseau. He says, "Man in a state of nature, you see, is good; the city -- laws of the city are all pseudo. They are all forgeries," you see. "They are all misnomers."

And so you get instead of mind and Heraclitus, definite loyalty to first impressions, that first the cult and the law, that is, Church and state, of the city have to be upheld and must not give way to second impressions--you get immediately after Parmenides, gentlemen, the new order. If the first impressions are all semblances of reality, if they mislead us, as Parmon- -- Parmenides-toHegel, you see, people teach, then obviously nature is first -- phusis is fo- -- first, has a -- you may say phusis is a priori. And the city con- -- comprehended in the term, "the law," as you find it also in the Bible, "the law." The world of the law -- of human law, you see, is second. Greek, this is "nomos." You have heard of "economy," which means the nomos, the law of the ecos, of the household -- its husbandry. Eco-nomy. You have heard of "bionomics," perhaps. Nowadays people in -- Mr. Tillich in Harvard speaks of "theonomics," of the law of God under which our own will is revealed as His will.

So "nomic," "nomos" is a very important word, which I recommend -- take it into your notes. In Greek, the word "law," La- -- Latin, "lex", is expressed by the word "nomos" as we have it today in "economics." And you need this word to understand now that what I have called "ethos" so far, in the reversal, by the philosophers, now becomes "nomos." And "nomos" means in their eyes human invention, human doing, human position. The word Greek -- the Greek word for position is "thesis." "Thesis" means it is put on, you see, by my will, by my rationalization. And -- it is very strange, gentlemen. If I meet an American boy discussing these problems, he always thinks that that's just human fallibility, or wrong law, that his reason is infallible, and he can judge the law.

I never understand -- have never understood, since I'm always been an arch-reactionary in political thinking -- I have never understood how all of you -- all the students in the whole world always have this brazenness to say that their reason is excellent. But the reason of all the legislators is just arbitrary. And if you could only understand -- educate these benighted people who have blue laws, who forbid -- have censorship for movies -- for obscene movies, or who

have laws that -- there should be no work on Sab- -- on the Sabbath, and the people who burned the witches in Salem -- if you could have only enlightened the legislators with your own light, then all these terrible laws would never have happened. When I then talk to these people, I'm very happy that these reasonable people are not legislators, because I find their mind, their -- absolutely incapable of formulating any law. I don't think there is any one boy in this -- class who could formulate a hu- -- law for human society. You're -- totally unprepared for this.

Yet you trust your philosophical mind to sit in judgment and say, "Nature is better than men's laws." Gentlemen, to me this is utter nonsense. Men's laws are better than nature. Because I'm a piece of nature, and the ex- -- most extravagant piece of nature. God created me to help nature. And obviously, gentlemen, I still think that the Aswan Dam's be- -- is better than the Nile, if it could be built. And that the George Washington Bridge is the completion of human nature crossing from -- from one side to -- the Hudson River than the whole Hudson River itself. And Erie Canal, too, is better than the Lake Erie.

So I don't understand you. And I don't understand this kind of American philosophy which really thinks always the light -- the light of the critic who writes on Homer -- about a play, or a law, or a political party or so is perfectly inhuman, is infallible. But the things he judges are humanly so frail, you see, that they are less than he. It is absolutely ridiculous to me, but you find -- this is the American heresy, that every later-comer is -- has a better mind than the people who pass the law. To my mind, it is obvious that my mind, since I have not suffered as the people who fought in the Civil War, and went to war there against slavery, obviously they are more competent to judge the question of slavery than I do, you see. But you don't think so. You always think because you are born later, your lazy mind is more alert than these people who have decided to lay down their life for a new law. Have you decided to sacrifice anything for your judgment? Always ask yourself the simple question, gentlemen: How much is the critic willing to pay for his truth? Then you will know how true he is.

And if you read Mr. Atkinson on the new play in The New York Times, that's utterly ridiculous to trust him, gentlemen. But you all read only book reviews and judge all the books by book reviews. The -- the general plebiscite in this country among the college students is that the critic is cleverer than the poet. Now who suffers in writing this poem -- if he is a poet? The poet. The critic is paid for passing silly judgments. Costs him nothing. Absolutely nothing. That is the phil- -- Mr. Parmenides' attitude, however. You go outside the city. You look at this law -- these laws, and you declare them to be second-rate. Because nature -- "I'm communing with nature."

We had such a man -- gentleman here. He was quite famous on this campus. When you met him in the middle of the -- talk with him, he would simply stop and -- and -- and fall silent. And you would be very surprised. It was rather impolite, after all, you were very -- in the midst of a talk. And after a -- minute, he would see -- speak to me and said -- say, "Oh, pardon me. I had just to commune with nature." Yes! Imagine!

Now here he was, condescending to the pigs and leaving me alone. And I'm a human being. Well, you find this nonsense. It comes from Rousseau. It comes from Thoreau, you see. You commune with nature. Costs you nothing, because nature doesn't -- answer you. You can -- it's a waxen nose. He stood there on campus, and probably just -- yawned ins- { } -- and that he calls "communing with nature," no resistance. I offer him resistance. So of course, he didn't like me. It's very simple to commune with nature, you see. It's just vacuum. But all this nonsense, you can hear in every Pentecost divine service on a mountain here with frozen noses.

Yes. Have you ever -- or Easter is even worse, because it's still colder. Yet -- that's how they try to captivate you, the modern church, with -- by pulling you out into the cold there on a -- on an Easter morning and selling you this as communion with nature. You shall not commune in the church with nature. You shall commune with your creator and your brother man. But this heresy is all rampant, gentlemen. This kind of detrimental church service is a -- is a typical capitulation to the philosophers who say, "Nature first," gentlemen; that is, the dead things first. And man is no longer in nature, but he's just a fallible lawgiver who runs after nature and is less than nature.

So gentlemen, the problem since Parmenides is that philosophy tempts any man to say, "I must get out of politics." Well, you hear so many s- -- people say this, you see, "Politics is dirty. This is just politics." Gentlemen, a man who gets out of politics because it is dirty just doesn't know himself how dirty he is. So what else can politics be but dirty? Don't you know how dirty you are? You have to shit. And well, what is shitting, gentlemen? It is a problem of consumption. It is a problem of goods. It is a problem of your daily bread. Isn't that very serious? That's nothing to laugh about.

So politics have to be -- deal with the -- with these dirty processes. Because we are greedy. We are afraid if we aren't fed well. You are dissatisfied if your father doesn't buy you a car. That has to be -- comes from somewhere. And it comes from an attempt of politicians to satisfy your nature by articulating something that will coerce your nature so that you don't destroy the city. Now obviously, their law is a little better than your own natural instincts. It may not be good enough. You may improve the law. But you cannot improve the law by

saying, "My instincts are better than the law." That's however the general gist of -- of modern American -- Americanism. That's called "pragmatism." First my desires and wishes, and then I frame the universe after my -- my wishes.

Do you think there would be any government in the world if this had -- has prevailed? Neither the United States forged in Valley Forge nor the state of Israeli could exist for one minute on your philosophy. It is contemptible. It's an old-women philosophy. Yet it prevails in this country. And there sit these people and -- and cry out, because the Israeli broke -- broke into this -- through these fetters of a constant dea- -- deadly threat of their existence. That comes first.

But here you are, and you -- it leads immediately--will you take it down?--Parmenides leads for any philosophical group, for any high school, for any college, for any university to the temptation to say, "The laws of nature are better as we find them--as observers--than the laws of men." Therefore, the relation is of -- no longer that, as I put you -- before you, logical, ethical, physical. But as soon as you give the little finger to mere philosophy, not in a balance to your serv- -- divine service, to your religious loyalty, or political loyalty, but if you say, "I'm first a philosopher," then you get into this situation that you will call the ethical, gentlemen, the "merely political," or logic- -- or nomical -- the Greeks { } -- well, or positivist. That's the best translation of "thetical," of "thesis," you see. Put on by man, you see. What Hegel calls the the- -- or what the Marxian calls the "thesis," and the "antithesis," you see, and the "synthesis." It's what I do rather arbitrarily, and thereby challenge to be resisted and contradicted by the antithesis.

As soon as you therefore, gentlemen, see yourself safe outside the city, with your homosexuality, your -- independent of marriage, of children, of the whole growth of wisdom through the generations, if you have your second world to yourself, as in ancient Greece these people did get it, Mr. Henry Miller has now construed, I am told, the same thing in -- at the -- at the Pacific Coast, you get the reverse nature-phusis. Nature comes -- is the a p- -- is first. We may call it with the learned expression, the a priori. That is before I wake up to think. And the second is, the world in which I actually grow up is -- is then the a posteriori. It comes later. That is, it's -- it's second to my own mind, and I judge it as merely nomical, or thetical, or positive. That is, it is not a part of the created nature, but it is just done by human wit. And this human wit is then under my judgment more than nature. To natural law I have to bow, you see; but human law, I can sit in judgment and criticize.

Now the -- the -- we listen. Now gentlemen, of phil- -- of schools of thought that has streamed out of this Eleatic school is tremendous. Let's put this word--you have to learn this, the Eleatic school--you find in your book of Mrs.

{Freeman's} the list of all these names. And I still take it that you have learned how to read and write, and I'm not going to take from you the duty of reading this -- these names yourself, Theophanes and Zeno, and the other adherents of this school. It's not important, those names. But it is very important that you understand that at the outcome, Epicurus, the Epicureans, and the Stoics, you see, are immediately born much later -- 300 years later, 200 years later, I should -- 250 years later -- Epicurus says, "Therefore my relation to nature is all that matters, and there is no loyalty to the city needed. My private bliss," you see, "taking to the hills, when the draft calls you, is all that matters." That's Epicureanism. He was a very noble soul, but it was a life for him alone, which he recommends. The world is so nomical, so abused by politics that he says, "Not for me." And the perfect bliss of the Epicurean is to enjoy in wisdom, by the way, and in great subtlety, you may even say, and refinement the goods of life and the lonely being -- alone, so to speak, perhaps with his friends, you see. But without responsibility for the whole of the world which cannot be helped, anyway, which is going to the dug- -- you see -- to the dogs, as all Republicans thought under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

You talked then to a businessman, "The country's always going to the dogs." It's a general practice of the defeated party to say that the country is going to the dogs, because it is going to the other party.

Well, that's Epicurus, gentlemen. At the same time, the Stoics said, "If you penetrate deeply enough into nature, nature will -- serve you with laws which are the best for the real city of man."

The Stoic lives in nature as his city. He is a cosmopolitan. "Cosmos" and "polis" grow together there in this wonderful word "cosmopolitan," you see. The physical world is the polis of the wise. Therefore you see that already in Parmenides, the much later school of the Stoics is raising its head. Parmenides didn't say this, because he had just to conquer a way of life outside the city. But if you -- can you see immediately in the history of philosophy that if you think this through to all its consequences, it means that I can create out of my head the real city. And this real city must of course coincide with phusis, with the whole natural world. Therefore I can only be a citizen of the world. And that -- it means the word "cosmo-politan" -- "polis" and "cosmos" coincide in the word "cosmopolitan." And therefore you see that at the end in the Stoa, man is alone -- in the Epicurean world, man is alone. And here "phusis" and "nomos" coincide. That's the mean- -- is meant by the word -- those of you who write on the Stoa can see there the -- the -- the -- the seed of the great Parmenidean conception of freeing myself from the immediate appearances of my environment. It leads then to the -- reversal of the order: the cosmos is the only city that counts.

Marcus Aurelius, the emperor, who was the last philosopher king in antiquity in 180 A.D., he wrote as you -- in his diary that Zeus was the king of the city in which he, the emperor, lived. That's the good expression of this cosmopolis, you see, where he tries to see that he is a citizen of the world, I -- very American expression and very American conception. A great desire of man, you see, to -- to arbitrate between the discord of one political society, like the United States of America, and the whole world, by -- here they now use the United Nations for this kind of smokescreen so that every American can at the same time be a good American taxpayer, and at the other hand, feel very good as a cosmopolitan citizen of the whole world. I don't like it. If you had no United Nations, this country would have to act much more realistically. It's a smokescreen for your conscience. It doesn't do any good to have the United Nations, as you see in the last days. But it helps to -- to avoid responsibility and to pass moral judgments, who in any family quarrel, as you know, are only poisoning the atmosphere. But that's your decision. But you -- can show -- see at this moment very much the Stoic attitude.

This man, Marcus Aurelius, you see, I told you this I think before, is the most tragic figure of antiquity, because he was the perfect philosopher on the throne. He was a Stoic. Phusis dominated nomos in his mind, here -- up here, you see. And therefore, he believed that he was an emperor of cosmopolis, of the universe. On the other hand, he destroyed the Roman empire, because he had become emperor as the adopted son of An- -- Antoninus Pius, because he had the qualities to be adopted. His father had been adopted; his grandfather had been adopted, because the great wisdom of the previous emperors has been to see to it that by adoption, you can have all the benefits of republicanism, you see, because you could select your successor by virtue.

And here comes this man, who writes this great diary on cosmopolis, and seems to use the -- always poses in America and in Europe, and in schools of Enlightenment as the great philosopher. And he allowed his terrible son, whom he had produced from his loins, his carnal son, to follow him, and thereby destroyed the emperor -- empire, and overturned all the philosophy of a whole century of reign, of adopted governors, you see, by this one weakness. And this one weakness I think is much more important than all the philosophy with which he plastered his diaries.

There you can see again the weakness of mere mentality, of mere philosophy, you see. He convinced himself every day in the evening, as you probably do, too, by keeping his diary, that he was an excellent man, and an excellent philosopher, and a cosmopolitan, and followed the laws of nature. But the one difficult law of human society, you see, which is not natural, that you adopt your successor, you see, and frustrate your carnal son from destroying the empire, you

cannot find this in phusis. You -- nature doesn't know adoption. Nature doesn't know the spirit. Nature doesn't know den- -- self-denying ordinance, you see, of abstemiousness. Na- -- nature is not ascetic. Nature cannot renounce any claim.

And therefore you have the real consequence of philosophy, which puts nature before law -- human law, because he succumbed to nature, you see. Here was his physical son. And this man had not the guts--as so many thinkers, and many reasonable people don't have the guts--to resist their own family. And he couldn't tell his wife that her son was not the right successor. Probably he would have to put up with his wife, you see, more than with the son in this case. And so she might have murdered him, and of course put her son in. If you can't risk being murdered under the laws of the city, you are not a good citizen.

Nature, you see, it's like my friend {Ames -- Adelbert Ames} communing with nature. Nature doesn't contradict you. So let Mr. {Ames} here on this campus could commune with nature. And Mr. Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, could commune, you see, with nature, and leave his succession, the most important decision of his life, to accident. Because the law established, since 96 of our era, that the emperor should desi- -- designate the best man in the state to be his successor, you see. That would have asked for a loyalty to a political decision. You understand the difference? A political decision is -- cannot be proven from the texts of nature, you see. It's -- you walk a tightrope. It's like the decision of Mr. Truman to dismiss MacArthur, or to go to -- resist the -- the North Ko- -- Korean aggression, or to have the -- Greece and Turkey defended against Communism, you see; or to have the airlift in -- in -- in Berlin. These are the vital decisions. He cannot base them on anything natural. They are perfectly unnatural.

There is nothing in nature which gives you any clue to what to do. And as soon as you believe in nature, gentlemen, you are misfits for politics. Absolute misfits, because in -- in -- in the history of the human race, you -- we live by precedent. And precedents are irrational. They have happened. That's experience, you see. That's empirical. And you have to believe your ancestors, that they had some wisdom. And you have to learn by -- by looking up to these heroes, you see, like Mr. Truman who said, "I read, because I couldn't play sports -- at sports, because I had poor eyesight. I read history. So I read how Mr. Lincoln dealt with McClellan. And then I knew how I would have to deal with a disobedient general." And you don't. You don't.

The void in which -- Sunday I preached and then after church, we had an old -- old leading woman of the church talking to me. And I had talked about this -- these historical predecessors, these -- these forbears who create our values. You remember. And well, she came to me. She's our most conservative lady. And I

could tell many funny stories about her, but she groped for understanding, and she said, "Yes, I look up to my father. He was a deacon of the church. And then I had my great, heroic example."

Well, I didn't want to -- to educate her, because it's hopeless. So I didn't say that she should learn to look up to people who were not carnally related to her, you see. That this would only save her. She could not na‹vely look at her own flesh and blood as the examples, you see. That's too simple, her own father; that's how she glorifies herself only.

And so this girl cannot be helped. She has to die out, because like Marcus Aurelius, she cannot, you see, take the step out of nature into the risky selection of her values by mere historical wisdom. By simply saying, "Lincoln is my man, although I'm not related to him." You see.

So Marcus Aurelius is -- is the great example, gentlemen, of the last consequence of Parmenides. Before we come to these, I want to put on you this -- further list however of -- of successions from Par- -- from the Eleatic school. The first consequence of the Eleatic influence, when it came back to Greece and Asia Minor, was to say that therefore we can treat the city as accidental. And the group that said so is -- are the sophists. What is a sophist? A sophist is the man who has alre- -- already learned from philosophy, gentlemen, that the mind is eccentric to the city, that by -- with the help of your mind, you can be the critic of the city. And the sophist says, "Ooh, well, then I'm superior. I can play a trick. I can beat the stock exchange. I can make money on the Depression."

I had -- I met a -- I had a gentleman for a lunch the other day. And I really had a great impression. It's a man who lost all his money in '29. He was on the right side, on the bearish side in '29, but when he sold short--you know what that is--then he had to cover two days before the -- Black Friday, and lost his shirt. And ever s- -- he was a rich man, and he has never forgiven himself and nature that this should have happened, {all this}, that he -- he nearly was a rich man, you see, very rich indeed. Put all his gold on this bet, and he was right, but only by two days, wrong. And -- so ever since, he has been a poor man, and he drives an English car, which he disapproves of, and -- a small { }. And so he can't get over the fact that he is in reduced circumstances.

So he came to me and said, after all -- the country was very much in the same situation as in '29, only this time not from the money side, but from the side of commodities, the installment buying, you see, and the debt. And everything pointed to the similar crisis. And now how could he pull off this time the stunt the right way? Recuper- -- recoup?

Well, he was a pathetic case, because after all, 1929, and 1956, I wouldn't live hipped on this for 27 years. It's a little startling to find an old man of 60 just hell-bound, petrified, I mean totally hypnotized, you see, by this one, great, semimistake in his life. Because he wasn't wrong, you see. But he just had bad luck, by two days.

And the sophists then said, "I can take advantage of the second-rate nature of the city." That's I think the simplest definition of a sophist. "I can take advantage of the transparent, second-ratedness of my -- of any city." And so the sophist be- -- became a wandering troop of {rhetors}, of people who resold the wisdom of how to circumvent, how to play with the laws of a city. And when you read the Platonic dialogues, and when you read the history of the 5th century--it was repeated in the 13th century in Italy, exactly the same phenomenon--people available -- the so-called "humanists" in the 13th, 14th century, available, because they knew how much in these small communities, you see, bribe, and persuasion, and coteries, and cliques could be operated, and how you could -- twist the law and give it a waxen nose.

Sophistry--you all know this term--is a natural feeling of power. It's what you call today Madison Avenue. That's sophistry. I have written in a -- there was a -- a questionnaire sent out by a philosophers' association in -- in Yale. And we had to make a very brief statement of what we wanted to say. And I said, "We live today again in the age of the sophists." And they printed this, and said to me they were very much startled, but obviously it was true. But nobody is allowed to say it loud today in this country. We have exactly the pre-Socratic situation of sophistry, I mean. And you don't even mind, that everybody tells you openly he's g- -- out to cheat you. But they do. They say this. That's exactly what the sophists did. And so the excess of freedom, gentlemen, begotten by Parmenides, is with you. And therefore you need a mild dictatorship.

In a -- sophistry, gentlemen, always begets dictatorship, tyranny. It's -- can't be helped, because it's abuse, and any abuse cares -- you see, must be right. You -- cannot. If you have expensive spending at this moment, and television, and all this business because of Madison Avenue, then you have to have an Addison Avenue, you see. You have to have another avenue to life which offsets this, and that has to be severity. Very strict -- strict measures. It's -- very strange that you should -- could believe that you can get away with murder. You may get -- away, but your daughter will not. She will reap the fruits of your murder -- I mean, murder ec- -- in the economic sense. You're selling out -- you're selling liberty short.

Anybody who's -- who is impressed by advertising, and by the television, and by the modern mass media, gentlemen, sells short his freedom, obviously.

Because there is of course a relation between truth and reality, gentlemen, if you eliminate the truth as of today, it has to be paid back with interest, and usu- -- usurers' interest, of course, 4- -- 54 percent per annum the next day.

Therefore gentlemen, Parmenides is followed by sophistry. That -- are the immediate successors, because they eliminate the unconditional loyalty to one's own city. They already straddle the way between the cities. They migrate, you see, they become a group -- well, in the -- now modern days they were called intellectuals, or intelligentsia, but it is much too weak an expression. They are the whole ph- -- sophical group s- -- who say, "We have a wisdom that transcends the laws of the city."

I don't think that it is at this moment for you and me of great importance to go into the individual sophists. But you know, one of the sophistical theories is a famous one. The -- the tortoise and Achilles. You can prove by sophistication, you see, that when the two run the race, Achilles can never overtook -- -take the tortoise. You know. You know how the argument runs? Can you tell us? Get up and tell us.

(Well, I'm not sure, because he runs -- Achilles runs twice as fast as the tortoise, but he always only runs half the distance, so he can never reach the tortoise.)

Ja. Well, it -- is funny, but by sophistry, you can prove {else}. I think the argument must be in the book. You have it there? I -- I never think it is worth a man's dignity and a man's mind to de- -- have much dealings. Our students seem to be very interested in these -- kind of sophistry -- sophistry. But I have always despised them so deeply that I have never given it a moment's time to stop. I know that Achilles can overtake the tortoise, and I do not see why I should read the sophisticated argument that he can't, you see. I still don't see it. Where is it? Zeno.

(145.)

{ }? 125?

(There's something on Sophists. No, 79.)

(No, not there, either.)

No, I think it's still a different place. Who can find it? Well, of course you get first Zeno. He's very famous, because he -- Page 47. You want to make an impression in Smith College, learn these things by heart. Well -- for example,

take Number 4 on Page 47 -- this typical sophisma. "That which moves, moves either in the place in which it is, nor in that in -- neither in the place in which it is, nor in that in which it is not. So therefore movement is impossible." Well. It is this tremendous overrating of reason, you see, as against facts.

You know what the young lady said to her fianc‚ -- "Don't bother me with facts. I have made up my mind."

But here, it is, you see: "My mind construes the world, and therefore the world has no law except I mentally," you see, "approve of it."

The Greeks however, must have been rather intoxicated because of this, because you must imagine that these philosophical schools and these migrat- -- -grating sophists enabled a man to feel that he was at home in a wider world than his small city. Has anybody ever heard of {Chrystel de Coulange,} The Ancient City? Who has? It's a very famous book by a French- -- {Chrystel de Coulange}, This Ancient City, in which it is shown how cruel, how severe, how integral the existence of any ancient citizen, before Christianity came in, was, because Church and state were identical. And therefore the cult of the gods was in the hand of the rulers of the city, and woe to you if you do -- did not, you see, comply with their double role of priest and statesman, you -- you just couldn't move. And there -- every -- everything was as under the same tyrannical s- -- discipline as here the Puritan rule was for the man in the little town, you see. You could not work on Satur- -- Sunday or Saturday afternoon. Everybody had to behave according to the common law, and the common discipline, and the common cult.

And wherever you have this total duplication, you see, that the man who commands the earth also commands the heavens, the individual, of course, has absolutely no space for his own thought, or his own freedom. The Sophists were the first to persuade every citizen of Athens, or of Elea, or of Miletus, you see, that they could devote their mind to second thoughts as much as they could send their triremes, their ships, across the Mediterranean. That there was then outside their own city, you see, a second realm of afterthought.

The third consequence, gentlemen, of the Sophists was -- the second part -- the Sophist is the man who questions the wisdom of the city in which he moves. He questions it. He asks questions, and is willing to answer any question which he is asked. And they -- they are the advisers of the citizens, therefore, and perhaps this is -- I should stress more, that they are asked to give advice. They are hirelings, they are experts hired by each individual government, just as Syria or Albania now hire experts from the United Nations, you see. Very similar. They are, so to speak, the UNESCO group of the 5th century, because the smaller cities

can ask for these accomplished minds to get some advance report, and advance knowledge.

And of course, these Sophists were partly--let me stress this--they were partly great experts. My -- if I have said negative things at this moment about the Sophists, perhaps I did this in order to help you understand the -- the discredit into which the word "sophistry" today has fallen. But originally the Sophist was needed by the smaller communities who had no intellectual group, in order to bring a fresh wind into their little cities. If you think there were 300 -- 400 such cities, you can imagine that many were without high schools, were just like Podunk. And you just had to get somebody from the outside to improve the city's laws. Or to say, "This is obsolete. We no longer have human sacrifice," or "We -- you don't have to pledge your whole fortune when you enter a contract of buying or selling," you see. All these very crude first rules of commerce could be mitigated by sophistry. So the Sophist was the loaned expert without roots himself. He was the man from outside who would move through one city without being asked any questions, "Whence do you come? Where do you pay taxes? Where do you belong?"

Of course, he paid very dearly for this by -- sometimes he was exiled from the city where he was used. The -- of course, the mob would storm his -- his house and would say, "This is a bloody foreigner." And he would also suffer for his courageous intervention.

The important thing which you have to keep in mind is, gentlemen, that the Sophist sanctifies questioning. He sanctifies questioning. And that is a -- I think, a step which is already implicitly to be found in the story of the mind from Homer to Parmenides. But in sophistry, it becomes so paramount that the -- you and I have to ask what it is to ask a question. You never think about this. It is one of your birthrights that you think any child can ask any question, and has to be answered. The first answer Heraclitus would s- -- give is that stupid questions must not be answered, that question is a revolution of the human mind which puts the man who's ignorant in a pow- -- position to -- exercise power over the people who are knowledgeable, who are know -- in the know. You don't see this, gentlemen, but one fool can ask more questions than hundred wise men can answer. Most questions, gentlemen, should not be answered, because they are wrong questions.

And this I'm going to prove now, till the intermission in the next 10 minutes, gentlemen. The process which Parmenides sets in motion, and which is signified by the problem of the Sophists has later been concluded by Socrates. Socrates is not a Sophist anymore, but as you know, a philosopher, although he ranked with the sophists and he was killed as a Sophist. He was killed for that

which he didn't try to be -- tried -- did -- tried not to be. But Socrates drank the poison as a Sophist, and that's the important thing, that in Socrates, the problem of the question is changed.

If you want to understand Socrates, you now must understand what I'm going to tell you about the Sophists. We shall then see that from Socrates there are two ways possible. One into Plato and one into Aristotle. I have tried to show you that from the Eleatics, there is one way to the single man in Epicurus, and one to the whole city of nature, or nature as a city, in the Stoic. But in between, we have the great climax of Greek philosophy: Plato and Aristotle. And in order to -- to -- before we go in detail in this, I want to give you a -- the whole road map.

Why is sophistry and Socrates the evolution of the Parmenidean scheme? Parmenides says, "The only real thing is that which is not given me by first impressions: the prayers that my mother teaches me, the law that my father teaches me, the military service that I have to perform for my country: they are all semblances. They are all -- one day I have to go to war, the other day I have to go to court. Ha! Everything changes. Everything is -- what is all this, you see? Here I marry, and there I bury. That's all semblance. There is an eternal universe with its laws that I am con- -- interested in, the being. All the rest is just New England weather.

The Sophists say, "Therefore after Parmenides has said so, I can question everything of these transient things. I can question whether the war should be fought," like the Labour Party in England now. And they can -- "I can question everything. Authority is ridiculous. Law is for the asking." And therefore the Sophists ask any questions.

Now gentlemen, before Parmenides, and before you were born, in a normal community, gentlemen, of red Indians, fighting for their life, or Eskimos, of any group not sophisticated, as we rightly say, you see--all the people you think are primitive--these people are not primitive, but they are integral and they are primordial. And they are out for the minimum conditions of any good human society. What is this, gentlemen? The minimum is that those who know are considered to be inside. And those who have to ask questions are considered to be outsiders. When I come to a foreign city, and I ask a man, "Where is the commons?" I suppose that he knows, and that I don't know. And why do I think he knows? Because he has moved across the commons, and I haven't. I'm a newcomer to the society.

And therefore, will you take this down, gentlemen? Originally, to ask a question means to try to join the group. Anything you ask means that you are

less -- no -- no, you see, less familiar than the family. You ask, "How many daughters do you have?" Well, the father knows very well how many he has. And the mother knows. But you don't know. Therefore, gentlemen, you have completely forgotten that he who asks and he who knows, or answers, live in two different societies. One is inside, and the other is outside. Now America, which consists of outsiders, doesn't understand this, because here everybody's an outsider, so to speak. But that isn't normal. And you still find in the small town that it isn't handled that way. The man who asks questions there is immediately spotted as an outsider, of course, you see. He doesn't even know, you see, basic. He doesn't A from B. So he cannot become selectman. He cannot become mayor, even if he has paid taxes there for five years, the people feel -- he asks too many questions. He doesn't take the ways -- the folk ways as the only ways, you see, just -- going on as always. We know. They don't ask questions. They know. But he, this disturbance, you see, he asks questions. If you want to serve up in a new community, never ask questions. Always claim that you know all -- how it is done. You have to show that you are one of them.

You know Willa Cather's book, do you? One of Ours? Who has read it? Gentlemen, that's one of your tragedies. Who has read Willa Cather's book, One of Ours? But gentlemen, Willa Cather is one of the great souls of the last 30 years. But you only live with the last moment. How can you -- there be any American literature field if a person like Willa Cather is not familiar to you? Gentlemen, you can buy the legs of Marilyn by the dozen. They're valueless. Why do you do that? Have you -- who has read any book by Willa Cather? That's all? Which -- what have you read?

(My Antonia.)

Wie?

(My Antonia.)

Ja. And what have you read then?

(Same one.)

It wa- -- obviously was prescribed reading in high school. Well, she has written this very wonderful book, One of Ours. Gentlemen, the problem of the One of Ours is that no questions are asked. You are unquestionably in. You don't have to ask.

Gentlemen, if you would understand that the -- who is taking English as a major? Now for you, it is of some importance, as it is also of importance -- more

important of course still in -- in the law, and in history, and in logic, if you take the sentence, "The commons { } lies east of the church," well, this makes only sense in a certain town with the name of Podunk. Or New Town, Newton, or whatever it is. That is, it is only true in a concrete, you see, situation. You can now put your linguistic sagacity to work by questioning any one word of this sentence by putting in a question: "The what?--you have not heard the sentence--"lies," and on it goes, "east of the Church." You have not heard the word "commons." So you ask the "What lies east of the common?" Then you can ask, "The commons does -- what?" Does what? And then you question the verb. East of the commons. Well, it lies there. It doesn't march. In this case, of course, that's a poor example, but in this way a living thing, you see. If you say, "The" -- "the" -- "the militia," you see, then you could have "The militia marches," or "The militia runs," or "The militia waits," or "The militia camps," you see, you could alternate the verb. And so instead of "what?" here -- you would here ask, "behaves how?" Then you have the question "where?" And there you have the question "whither?"

If you have any longer sentence, gentlemen, you will see that to question means to take a full sentence and to have at one point of the sentence a lacuna, a gap, which our words, "what," whither, "whether," "who," "how," try to even on -- by sound try to articulate as less-articulate, as -- it's a hyphen. All the words of interrogation, gentlemen, are semantic blanks. And these people had no writing at that time, and so they invented in all languages--German, Greek, Latin, Spanish--wherever--Hebrew--wherever you go, the words of interrogation are socalled enclitica, spoken with less power, a kind of -- fall of the voice, you see, because you are ashamed that you don't know. And you s- -- ask the other fellow to whom you put this question, "Would you kindly help me in, and complete this sentence?" you see. I say "how?" I say "why?" I say -- "what?" Would you kindly put in the verb? Would you put in the noun? Would you put in the preposition, you see? Would you help me to say the full sentence? That's the essence of a question.

Therefore any question presupposes an answer. Therefore, you cannot ask the question, "Who is God?" You cannot say -- ask the question, "Is there a God?" It's all nonsense, because God is the power that makes you speak. Including the que- -- of asking questions. That we call God. You cannot question Him, because He puts the word in your mouth that you ask Him, if you aren't the devil. And then again, the devil only exists by the mercy of God.

So there are questions that should not be asked. Most of your questions, gentlemen, are so silly, and since nobody in this country is spanked, that they shouldn't be asked. And they are -- just asked in America, because there is no one who stops you and say, "This question is nonsense." Most of your questions in all

your bull sessions, whether the will is free, or man is immortal, and all this nonsense, you know all the answers beforehand in your heart. But your mind is just like Achilles and the tortoise, occupied with sophistry. Three-quarters of the questions asked in Dartmouth College are questions that cannot be answered. Because questions can only be derived from answers, from positive statements. People in a society must have said certain things. That's what you can question. Other things you cannot question. At least not at first sight. And there we come to Socrates, later.

So the first thing is, gentlemen -- is that when the Sophists asked any number of questions, there was absolutely no discrimination between questions that can be asked and questions that cannot be asked, sensibly. There are innumerable questions which your children will ask you, and you have asked your parents, which the parents should not answer. The -- one of the insanities of this country is that every stupid question is answered. The first education of a human being is that it is told that there are questions that don't deserve an answer. In this moment, you are only free as an educator. As long as you try to answer every question of a child, you are their slave, but not their educator. Because there are wrong questions and right questions. Certain questions can be asked, and certain cannot be asked. I am not against asking questions, but I'm asking against the very strict beweeding of the questions.

And this is probably the most difficult thing for you to understand, gentlemen, that philosophy in the long process had to weed out wrong questions. And that is the second step after Parmenides and the Sophists: to know what can be asked and what cannot be asked. And here we come to Socrates. You see, Socrates appears to the citizens of Athens as a Sophist, that is, of a man who asked wanton questions. And to himself, he appears as a man who overcomes the Sophists, because he asks them. All the books of Plato are questions put by Socrates to the Sophists, to the questioners, to these people who ask simply arbitrary questions, you see. And he puts them into the wrong, because he says -- he points out that their questions are wrongly asked. Has anybody read a dialogue by Plato so far? Who has? Which -- what is it you have read?

(The Death of Socrates.)

Wie?

(Death of Socrates.)

That's not a dialogue. Criton, yes. Well, here you see that he bows to the -- to what does he bow in that -- bow into -- bow in the Plato? To -- ?

(Whom he bows to?)

What does he bow to? That's a question which I can answer, because he does bow.

(The will of the city.)

Wie?

(The will of the city.)

To the law of the city. The law. And there you have the answer to sophistry. There is a -- you see, a restriction on questioning. You cannot question the laws of the city. That's his answer to the Sophists. You understand? It's a very pathetic answer. I told you perhaps that I -- The Criton -- this sentence of The Criton, in which he says this is the motto of my first book which I wrote as a young man, my -- my book on -- on which -- the basis of which I made my whole career, 1914. It just quotes The Criton, you see. To -- to -- you strike out any number of questions once you say the law has to be obeyed. And especially when it is -- would be to my advantage to disobey it. Then you have to obey it. You can perhaps disobey the law, if it is to my -- to your -- somebody else's -- to your friends', you see, advantage to disobey it. But you cannot when it is your own { }. That's { }.

There he turns against the Sophists and says, "This cannot be questioned, obedience to the law, in the case of my own -- of my own sentence." You understand? And that is the greatness of The Criton. Only a few pages, gentlemen. And nothing has been more beautiful to me than the sentence in which he says -- who has the text here? Has anybody the text of The Criton? Where is The Criton?

({ }.)

I have put the Greek words from the end. Here. "This, I have to -- I assure you, my dear comrade Criton, if what I seem to hear the laws telling me." And now comes the words I have quoted in this, "So in my ears the sound of these words keeps coming, and makes me deaf to other things. As far as I can see, you may be sure that whatever you will say contrary to this, you will say in vain." The vanity of a human question when the sentence is known, gentlemen, that's of sublime greatness, and that puts a stop to the -- to the realm of sophistry, gentlemen. Here a man accepts death because the laws of his city, the first impressions, have spoken. The polis is still alive.

And therefore in Socrates, gentlemen, we strike an equilibrium between the questions that the sophists have asked and the first impression that must remain. And therefore, Plato and Socrates, gentlemen, put a stop to this flood of questions set in motion by the physicists, by the people of being, by the people whom I have described in this letter of Heraclitus to Parmenides. Who has read this letter in the meantime? Interesting. Wouldn't the other gentlemen proceed to do that, too? Or, at least give me back my text? I don't see why I should give you this as toilet paper. Why don't you read it? It's hopeless. I -- know nothing of the assigned readings, gentlemen. You -- I treat you as grownup people. But I thought that if I give you a text which is not even published, yet, you will be curious enough to read these few pages. So bring it back next time. I want to collect them again. They are precious to me, if they aren't precious to you.

Heraclitus, you see, is the man who already anticipates Plato by -- because he says his first loyalties cannot be destroyed. And the whole century from 500 to 400 consists in a mad race of philosophy against first laws, against the laws that can even bury a Socrates under their debris, because he has no right to question them.

Now what does Socrates do, gentlemen? Socrates, I told you, asks this -- the Sophists. He reverses the process. He asks the questioner. And therefore, you will never understand the Socratic method if you read Mr. Durant -- Mr. Will Durant. Who knows this book? Ja. Well, he shouldn't have written it. He doesn't know what philosophy is. He doesn't take it seriously. He thinks it's what everybody does, gentlemen. Your little mind is also called a philosophical mind. Will Durant has this American assumption that everybody is a philosopher.

I have told you in the beginning that there are few philosophers, that philosophy is difficult, and that it is always against common sense. You may not believe me, gentlemen, but my course is given under the -- assumption that this is so, and that Mr. Will Durant therefore is wrong, because he thinks he can make it a bestseller. Philosophy will -- must never be a bestseller. If it is, it is -- has ceased to be philosophy. I'm sorry. That's just what it is. And as a proof, I mean, you haven't read my paper. Two-third of you didn't even bother to read this, because I've made it an assigned reading. Gentlemen, philosophers are not read because they are assigned. Because -- they are read because -- they are so attractive because they are difficult. If you cannot appreciate difficulty, gentlemen, don't come to this whole department of philosophy. I'm not here to smear pap around your mouth. It's nonsense. I mean, if you can't think -- if you do not want to learn to think, please leave this room right away. I'll give you a B in this course for truthfulness and veracity. It is contemptible to -- to take a course in philosophy and to think that I have to think, and you have not.

The problem of Socrates was to reverse the process of the -- the question had gone -- be degenerated -- had degenerated. Everything could be asked. Is this law -- law reasonable? If it isn't reasonable, don't obey it. Escape, cheat. Do -- do something -- do something around it. Circumvent it. Socrates says, "There is a compromise. We have to find the equilibrium between the existing order and the workings of our mind." And so he prefers to die to this rational escape which his friends hold ready -- you know, they have made a -- had a -- already hired the ship to go where? Did they tell you? Isn't this -- the story tell you, in Criton? You know, it -- it has been said that Plato was reproved -- reproached by all his friends, because he did what Pla- -- Socrates didn't. Socra- -- Plato was not present when Socrates died. You know where he had to -- gone to? Didn't you take Philosophy -- Humanities 11? Who di- -- did take Humanities 11? Well, there they tell you this. Classical Civilization, too. Ja?

({ }.)

Well, he went to Megara. And in Megara was a -- there was a famous school of philosophy, too, similar to Elea. That's why it was interesting. He went to his philosophical friends, Plato, in Megara, that is north of Athens, and -- and it ha- -- it has been said that he wrote all his dialogues and his -- established his Academy as a re- -- as an act of repentance against his absence from the death of Socrates. And I think it is a trauma -- what they call now in psychoanalysis a "trauma." There must have been a kind of deeply felt wound, that he was abandoning his teacher at that moment, at this decisive moment. However, that's a wanton guess, because we simply don't know the -- why he went or -- the -- we have no -- no inkling.

But it is remarkable that he writes the story of Criton, you see, but has to admit that was not the Criton. And if a man writes all his life on Socrates, you of course wonder what's the relation of his -- his existential position to Socrates { } and his -- his professional writing, so to speak, on { }. And I think it's a very profound question, because in human psychology, I think it is true that the -- the -- if you have omitted an act, you have to repeat it endlessly, endlessly in order to -- to try to say that it has happened. I mean, "I have not been present at the death of Socrates, therefore I must circle around the death of Socrates, you see, unendingly." That is, there is a deep problem between Socrates and Plato, because it is otherwise hard to understand why Plato should have never seceded from this umbilical cord with Socrates.

The point I have to make today is very simple. The point is that Socrates stopped questioning in one direction by reversing the direction of the question. You ask the man who puts all the questions, the Sophist, you see, and in this very moment, you have a dialectics to the second degree. You understand? If I

ask the man who puts the questions, then we have a certain freedom now. The questioner is not always superior to the man who is questioned, you see. The laws of the city have yet a chance, for the first time. If I, from the realm of nature, communing with nature, you see, and Mr. Parmenides, {who is} being, and with my young friends, sit in judgment in the stadium or my walks on the philosophical avenues around the city and say, "Laughable, these -- these -- these hidebound citizens, you see, of this Podunk here, we are superior. We can criticize all these { }." And if they are suddenly caught in the same process of questioning, and Mr. Socrates want { } Protagoras { }, you see. How did you spend your time? How -- how come -- why can you corrupt these young men, you see? Then you see that freedom is reestablished, the real freedom, you see, because these men are also under { }.

And Socrates includes, gentlemen, the newly created realm of the mind into that reality which has to be investigated. The man who abuses the city, as well as the city, now come under scrutiny; therefore -- you always hear about the Socratic method. And in the Will Durant book, it is the most shallow thing I can imagine. If this is the Socratic method, it isn't worth anything, and wouldn't have taken tears, and bloodshed, and execution, and -- and martyrs to establish it. Gentlemen, the no- -- Socratic method doesn't consist of a teacher -- a little schoolteacher asking a child, "How much is 2 and 2?" And then getting the wonderful answer that it is allegedly 4, which of course untrue. And -- you can never know what 2 and 2 -- 4 is in real life. That's an abstraction.

I once was asked this question by a famous theologian, by Karl Barth, if 2 and 2 is always 4. And I said, "No, it isn't. It can be 5, or 7, or 3 in real life."

And he said, "How come?"

Well, he had this problem that four people were -- five people were marching through the desert. And they had only four bottles of water. And one bottle was just sufficient to save a man's life, so that he could make the exit from the desert. It was so hot and -- all our { } assumption in his question. And it's the devil -- diabolical, Soph- -- real Sophis- -- Sophist's problem, you see, like Achilles and the tortoise. And he said, "Now, what do these people have morally to do? Five men, all doomed if they can't drink water. And four of them have a bottle. And the fifth has none. And who gets the water, and how do they get out?" And -- and -- what was -- would be your answer to this tempter's question. Lead us not into temptation, of course, is the only answer. But -- and it was here really put by this rascal. They wanted to print the answer. It was a kind of -- he asked all his friends. What's your answer, Mr. {Wynant}?

(Well, one man would agree to sacrifice himself.)

Who -- one of the -- who is the -- fifth who has to sacrifice itself?

({ } -- to go around.)

What?

({ } and eliminate one man.)

Now the sun is very hot. If you idle away the time, it's only 10 minutes, you are already -- get 10 minutes later and you can't make it. Therefore any -- such stop, you see, is already murder for five of the men. Because the condition is so clear that only now if you immediately act, you see, can you make the exit from the desert. So if you spend now time idling and quarreling, and -- and -- and arguing, and -- and you just -- everyone is lost. You just get more thirsty, the water gets hotter, et cetera.

(I'm not sure what I would say about the conditions in the desert, but -- but looking at it from the viewpoint that we { } now, outside of the scene, it would depend on what type of system of morals you had. If you were a hedonist, or something like that, I suppose you would have to say that you have to drop out, because you couldn't live with yourself afterwards. In other words, you had -- you would have to take the route which would give you the greatest amount of pleasure in the long run, even it meant sacrificing your life { }.)

You mean, that's -- in the long run you sacrifice your life.

(Well, I'm saying if -- if you believe in this type of theory. I wouldn't say -- I wouldn't say my own personal feeling is --)

I agree with you. I think it's a funny expression to say that the man who will live shortest has the greatest pleasure in the long run. Because you cannot use the word "sacrifice," that's not used in American colleges. So you have say, "pleasure in the long run." It's a funny expression. He has to sacrifice himself, my dear man. That's all. All right. But can the others accept the sacrifice? Could you live with -- knowing that one man has given his life -- given his life for you, because you were such a da- -- bastard?

(Don't they all?)

What?

(Don't they all have to sacrifice?)

Of course, they all have to smash the bottles and make it, because they will be so enthusiastic, because they smash the bottles, that they'll have twice as much strength as they had before, because man has a second wind.

(Do all five men get out?)

Because all this assumption is all nonsense -- what? What did you say?

(He said, do all five men get out?)

What?

(He wants to know if all five men got out.)

All five will get out, of course. And the -- the weakest one will be carried by the others. You see, the whole assumption is that -- { }. Explain.

(He wants to know why I laugh?)

Yes.

(I think the assumption you're giving is ridiculous.)

Sure, it is. Because, you see the Sophist exactly as in the tortoise and Achilles, thinks that space of the tortoise is -- is in tidbits, so if I here run 20 centimeters, the tortoise will run 10 centimeters. And if he runs another 20, then again 10. So he'll -- he always is a little ahead of him, you see. It's all nonsense. He just overtakes her, you see. The same thing is -- is if you assume that five human beings are just moral spinsters, you see, who sit in judgment on what is right, you just abolish reality, because every man can have an increase of power by sacrifice, you see, and by courage. Everyone. And the greatest temptation of course to be overcome is such an idiotic question, you see. And the idiotic question is paralyzing him. And -- and in order not to be paralyzed by this terrible temptation to weigh the evidence: who's worth more, who should survive, you see. You have to smash these bottles, because otherwise you will -- destroy all your stamina. But these questions are asked every day, of course, by Dorothy Post. Or what's her name? Dorothy Dix.

This is the -- terrible of ethics, you see, in the abstract. It's just shocking what -- and this goes on in all America. All these quizzes are of this nature, all these moral questions. There are no such answers. And again, the United Nations are so idiotic that they do not see that a country that is in a qu- -- a qu- -- life-and-death struggle has of course to -- to create a new situation first of all,

before it can talk business in terms of the -- Mr. -- corporation lawyers like Mr. Dulles, who always have a vot- -- a voting majority on their side first. But -- Israel has to get a voting majority before it can -- that has never happened to Mr. -- Mr. Dulles that a minority is in the right. He always thinks the majority is right. It's ridiculous.

How can you say that a majority is right? All your aunts are down on your engagement, and you know that you are right. Do you think the majority then can rule that you cannot marry this girl? You are the only person who's right, and all the aunts in the whole family are wrong. The uncles, too. You -- you who act on these -- assumption every day. And yet when it comes to politics, you want to change the whole universe, because of your timidity of sophistry. You are -- you are all in the spell of Sophists. And Socrates is the man who asks the Sophists. "Ha! Sir. What is your credential? What do you do to these young men? What do you do to this city? What's the consequence of these judgments?"

So I only wanted to say today--I hope I have achieved it, gentlemen--that the problem of the question is the question of questions -- of all questions, you see. The -- the Sophi- -- the -- the pre-Parmenidean situation of the questioner is that he is outside, and therefore inferior to the people inside. He has to wait for their answer in order to know. The Sophist says, "I question these four insiders as to the legitimacy of their answers," you see. "I question everything." That's -- that's what you do, gentlemen. And that's why -- what the American brat is taught to do in school, and at home. And the -- of course, complete decadence -- decadence and degeneracy is the follow- -- consequence, because once you are allowed to ask the fundamentals of your family life, gentlemen, you have lost your family. Because the family is authority or it's nothing. The family is either so as it is, and the child has to stomach it; or it is nothing. If you have to explain and to justify yourself to your child, it isn't worth that you have any { }. The child cannot understand it. It has first to experience it. And years later, it can understand why there is a turkey at Thanksgiving. First it has to be there at Thanksgiving. The child cannot go the -- on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and say to the f- -- father, "Why don't we throw out the turkey?" Isn't -- you see. It cannot. It has just to happen. And you cannot say when the draft comes and say, "Wouldn't it be better to escape to Megara?" And not to serve? First, you have to serve. Later you can criticize the draft.

I've made it a law in my whole life, gentlemen: I will not criticize an institution of which I have not been a member. I can here -- criticize a college and the university, because I have been a full-fledged member of it, but not otherwise, because I don't know what it is. You can criticize a thing if you belong to it, and have -- have done it. And Socrates' criticism of the laws of Athens are

amenable -- are acceptable to me, because he has died under them. That makes sense. Don't you understand? But the man who criticized the laws from the outside, I'm very doubtful, because he doesn't know what a law -- even a just law is.

And so Socrates, gentlemen, reverses the problem -- that's the Socratic method: question the questioner. That's why most of his dialogues are -- have a name in their head, Protagoras, you see, this {great} Sophist, for example, you see, and Theaetetus, and Ion, and all these other dialogues. They always ask the asker. And this is your own question, gentlemen. Ask yourself, "Who asks?" And you do it, by the way, in a sound instinct. Most of you are much better than you think you are, because most people well know when a man is purely argumentative, you see, and asks questions for questions' sake, and when he is entitled to ask the question, wouldn't you say? We are quite well aware of this fact. But it has to be formulated.

And the history of Greek philosophy the- -- gentlemen, then is that in Socrates, the revolution of Parmenides reaches full cycle. It comes back to the tempter, that he himself is tempted. Socrates puts Parmenides, so to speak, the Parmenideses, you see, under contribution. He says, "Let me hear Parmenides." He has written a dialogue, "Parmenides," has he not? And he has not written a dialogue, "Heraclitus."

And perhaps that's the end of what I wanted to say today, gentlemen. The Socratics reconcile Heraclitus and Parmenides by writing dialogues on all the people who are not Heraclitus, you see. And coming back to Heraclitus' position that there is a minimum of loyalty, a minimum of devotion, a minimum of existential identity with the things discussed, you see, which Heraclitus set up as a -- and which Plato then inherits, and Aristotle, in -- in -- in Socrates, in Heraclian strength and the Parmenidean, and -- meet, in a very subtle way because the questioner is now questioned. And therefore, he doesn't go to the -- back to the Heraclian conservative of one-city order. But it's the wider realm consisting of cities and intellectuals. And Socrates encompasses both. He questions intellectuals and he questions the laws of the city.

And therefore you have in Socrates for the first time the new public of Parmenides brought under discipline. For the first time, the question arises, "What's the minimum standard of morality, which the Sophists themselves, these freelance intellectuals, you see, have to give proof of?" For example, what is the minimum morality of Dartmouth College? Because we are the heirs of the Sophists, gentlemen. But we are under certain Socratic criticism, you see. You cannot settle anything here, you see. It has to be in relation to the laws of a good city. It can be critical of the city. I'm very critical, as you know, of the city. But

I'm under scrutiny myself, too, you see. What is the price I'm willing to pay for my truth? Can you see the difference?