The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates | Page 3

knows not who shall gather the fruit; he who
builds a house cannot tell who shall inhabit it; a general is not certain
that he shall be successful in his command, nor a Minister of State in
his ministry; he who marries a beautiful woman in hopes of being
happy with her knows not but that even she herself may be the cause of
all his uneasinesses; and he who enters into a grand alliance is
uncertain whether they with whom he allies himself will not at length
be the cause of his ruin. This made him frequently say that it is a great
folly to imagine there is not a Divine Providence that presides over
these things, and that they can in the least depend on human prudence.
He likewise held it to be a weakness to importune the gods with
questions which we may resolve ourselves; as if we should ask them
whether it be better to take a coachman who knows how to drive than
one who knows nothing of the matter? whether it be more eligible to
take an experienced pilot than one that is ignorant? In a word, he
counted it a kind of impiety to consult the oracles concerning what
might be numbered or weighed, because we ought to learn the things
which the gods have been pleased to capacitate us to know; but that we
ought to have recourse to the oracles to be instructed in those that
surpass our knowledge, because the gods are wont to discover them to
such men as have rendered them propitious to themselves.
Socrates stayed seldom at home. In the morning he went to the places
appointed for walking and public exercises. He never failed to be at the
hall, or courts of justice, at the usual hour of assembling there, and the
rest of the day he was at the places where the greatest companies
generally met. There it was that he discoursed for the most part, and
whoever would hear him easily might; and yet no man ever observed
the least impiety either in his actions or his words. Nor did he amuse
himself to reason of the secrets of nature, or to search into the manner
of the creation of what the sophists call the world, nor to dive into the
cause of the motions of the celestial bodies. On the contrary, he

exposed the folly of such as give themselves up to these contemplations;
and he asked whether it was, after having acquired a perfect knowledge
of human things, that they undertook to search into the divine, or if
they thought themselves very wise in neglecting what concerned them
to employ themselves in things above them? He was astonished
likewise that they did not see it was impossible for men to comprehend
anything of all those wonders, seeing they who have the reputation of
being most knowing in them are of quite different opinions, and can
agree no better than so many fools and madmen; for as some of these
are not afraid of the most dangerous and frightful accidents, while
others are in dread of what is not to be feared, so, too, among those
philosophers, some are of opinion that there is no action but what may
be done in public, nor word that may not freely be spoken before the
whole world, while others, on the contrary, believe that we ought to
avoid the conversation of men and keep in a perpetual solitude. Some
have despised the temples and the altars, and have taught not to honour
the gods, while others have been so superstitious as to worship wood,
stones, and irrational creatures. And as to the knowledge of natural
things, some have confessed but one only being; others have admitted
an infinite number: some have believed that all things are in a perpetual
motion; others that nothing moves: some have held the world to be full
of continual generations and corruptions; others maintain that nothing
is engendered or destroyed. He said besides that he should be glad to
know of those persons whether they were in hopes one day to put in
practice what they learned, as men who know an art may practise it
when they please either for their own advantage or for the service of
their friends; or whether they did imagine that, after they found out the
causes of all things that happen, they should be able to cause winds and
rains, and to dispose the times and seasons as they had occasion for
them; or whether they contented themselves with the bare knowledge
without expecting any farther advantage.
This was what he said of those who delight in such studies. As for his
part, he meditated chiefly on what is useful and proper for man,