[3545] Lit., "sent to."
[3546] So the ms., reading milvus, for which all edd. (except Oberthuer) since Stewechius read mulus, "a mule."
23. If you give a grape to him when hungry, a must-cake, an onion, a thistle, [3547] a cucumber, a fig, will he know that his hunger can be appeased by all these, or of what kind each should be to be fit for eating? [3548] If you made a very great fire, or surrounded him with venomous creatures, will he not go through the midst of flames, vipers, tarantulæ, [3549] without knowing that they are dangerous, and ignorant even of fear? But again, if you set before him garments and furniture, both for city and country life, will he indeed be able to distinguish [3550] for what each is fitted? to discharge what service they are adapted? Will he declare for what purposes of dress the stragula [3551] was made, the coif, [3552] zone, [3553] fillet, cushion, handkerchief, cloak, veil, napkin, furs, [3554] shoe, sandal, boot? What, if you go on to ask what a wheel is, or a sledge, [3555] a winnowing-fan, jar, tub, an oil-mill, ploughshare, or sieve, a mill-stone, ploughtail, or light hoe; a carved seat, a needle, a strigil, a laver, an open seat, a ladle, a platter, a candlestick, a goblet, a broom, a cup, a bag; a lyre, pipe, silver, brass, gold, [3556] a book, a rod, a roll, [3557] and the rest of the equipment by which the life of man is surrounded and maintained? Will he not in such circumstances, as we said, like an ox [3558] or an ass, a pig, or any beast more senseless, look [3559] at these indeed, observing their various shapes, but [3560] not knowing what they all are, and ignorant of the purpose for which they are kept? If he were in any way compelled to utter a sound, would he not with gaping mouth shout something indistinctly, as the dumb usually do?
[3547] Carduus, no doubt the esculent thistle, a kind of artichoke.
[3548] So, according to an emendation in LB., esui, adopted by Orelli and others, instead of the ms. reading et sui.
[3549] There has been much discussion as to whether the solifuga or solipuga here spoken of is an ant or spider.
[3550] The ms. reads discriminare, discernere, with the latter word, however, marked as spurious.
[3551] A kind of rug.
[3552] Mitra.
[3553] Strophium, passing round the breast, by some regarded as a kind of corset.
[3554] Mastruca, a garment made of the skins of the muflone, a Sardinian wild sheep.
[3555] Tribula, for rubbing out the corn.
[3556] Aurum is omitted in all edd., except those of LB., Hild., and Oehler.
[3557] Liber, a roll of parchment or papyrus, as opposed to the preceding codex, a book of pages.
[3558] The ms. reads vobis unintelligibly, corrected by Meursius bovis.
[3559] So Orelli and modern edd.; but Crusius gives as the ms. reading conspici-etur (not -et), as given by Ursinus, and commonly received--"Will he not...be seen?"
[3560] The ms. and first five edd. read et--"and," changed in LB. to sed.
24. Why, O Plato, do you in the Meno [3561] put to a young slave certain questions relating to the doctrines of number, and strive to prove by his answers that what we learn we do not learn, but that we merely call back to memory those things which we knew in former times? Now, if he answers you correctly,--for it would not be becoming that we should refuse credit to what you say,--he is led to do so not by his real knowledge, [3562] but by his intelligence; and it results from his having some acquaintance with numbers, through using them every day, that when questioned he follows your meaning, and that the very process of multiplication always prompts him. But if you are really assured that the souls of men are immortal and endowed with knowledge when they fly hither, cease to question that youth whom you see to be ignorant [3563] and accustomed to the ways of men; [3564] call to you that man of forty years, and ask of him, not anything out of the way or obscure about triangles, about squares, not what a cube is, or a second power, [3565] the ratio of nine to eight, or finally, of four to three; but ask him that with which all are acquainted--what twice two are, or twice three. We wish to see, we wish to know, what answer he gives when questioned--whether he solves the desired problem. In such a case will he perceive, although his ears are open, whether you are saying anything, or asking anything, or requiring some answer from him? and will he not stand like a stock, or the Marpesian rock, [3566] as the saying is, dumb and speechless, not understanding or knowing even this--whether you are talking with him or with another, conversing with another or with him; [3567] whether that is intelligible speech which you utter, or merely a cry having no meaning, but drawn out and protracted to no purpose?
[3561] In this dialogue (st. p. 81) Socrates brings forward the doctrine of reminiscence as giving a reasonable ground for the pursuit of knowledge, and then proceeds to give a practical illustration of it by leading an uneducated slave to solve a mathematical problem by means of question and answer.
[3562] Lit., "his knowledge of things."
[3563] So the ms. and edd., reading i-gnarum rerum, except LB., which by merely omitting the i gives the more natural meaning, "acquainted with the things," etc.
[3564] Lit., "established in the limits of humanity."
[3565] i.e., a square numerically or algebraically. The ms., both Roman edd., and Canterus read di-bus aut dynam-us, the former word being defended by Meursius as equivalent to binio, "a doubling,"--a sense, however, in which it does not occur. In the other edd., cubus aut dynamis has been received from the margin of Ursinus.
[3566] Æneid, vi. 472.
[3567] This clause is with reason rejected by Meursius as a gloss.
25. What say you, O men, who assign to yourselves too much of an excellence not your own? Is this the learned soul which you describe, immortal, perfect, divine, holding the fourth place under God the Lord of the universe, and under the kindred spirits, [3568] and proceeding from the fountains of life? [3569] This is that precious being man, endowed [3570] with the loftiest powers of reason, who is said to be a microcosm, and to be made and formed after the fashion of the whole universe, superior, as has been seen, to no brute, more senseless than stock or stone; for he is unacquainted with men, and always lives, loiters idly in the still deserts although he were rich, [3571] lived years without number, and never escaped from the bonds of the body. But when he goes to school, you say, and is instructed by the teaching of masters, he is made wise, learned, and lays aside the ignorance which till now clung to him. And an ass, and an ox as well, if compelled by constant practice, learn to plough and grind; a horse, to submit to the yoke, and obey the reins in running; [3572] a camel, to kneel down when being either loaded or unloaded; a dove, when set free, to fly back to its master's house; a dog, on finding game, to check and repress its barking; a parrot, too, to articulate words; and a crow to utter names.
[3568] Founded on Plato's words (Phædrus, st. p. 247), to d' (i.e., Zeus) hepetai stratia theon te kai daimonon, the doctrine became prevalent that under the supreme God were lesser gods made by Him, beneath whom again were dæmons, while men stood next. To this Orelli supposes that Arnobius here refers.
[3569] The vessels in which according to Plato (Timæus, st. p. 41), the Supreme Being mixed the vital essence of all being. Cf. c. 52.
[3570] Lit., "and endowed."
[3571] The text and meaning are both rather doubtful, and the edd. vary exceedingly. The reading of Orelli, demoretur iners, valeat in ære quamvis, has been translated as most akin to the ms., with which, according to Oehler, it agrees, although Orelli himself gives the ms. reading as ær-io.
[3572] Lit., "acknowledge turnings in the course."
26. But when I hear the soul spoken of as something extraordinary, as akin and very nigh to God, and as coming hither knowing all about past times, I would have it teach, not learn; and not go back to the rudiments, as the saying is, after being advanced in knowledge, but hold fast the truths it has learned when it enters its earthly body. [3573] For unless it were so, how could it be discerned whether the soul recalls to memory or learns for the first time that which it hears; seeing that it is much easier to believe that it learns what it is unacquainted with, than that it has forgot what it knew but a little before, and that its power of recalling former things is lost through the interposition of the body? And what becomes of the doctrine that souls, being bodiless, do not have substance? For that which is not connected with [3574] any bodily form is not hampered by the opposition of another, nor can anything be led [3575] to destroy that which cannot be touched by what is set against it. For as a proportion established in bodies remains unaffected and secure, though it be lost to sight in a thousand cases; so must souls, if they are not material, as is asserted, retain their knowledge [3576] of the past, however thoroughly they may have been enclosed in bodies. [3577] Moreover, the same reasoning not only shows that they are not incorporeal, but deprives them of all [3578] immortality even, and refers them to the limits within which life is usually closed. For whatever is led by some inducement to change and alter itself, so that it cannot retain its natural state, must of necessity be considered essentially passive. But that which is liable and exposed to suffering, is declared to be corruptible by that very capacity of suffering.
[3573] Lit., "but retaining its own things, bind itself in earthly bodies."
[3574] Lit., "of."
[3575] So the ms. and edd., reading sua-de-ri, for which Oehler reads very neatly sua de vi--"can anything of its own power destroy," etc.
[3576] Lit., "not suffer forgetfulness."
[3577] Lit., "however the most solid unions of bodies may have bound them round."
[3578] So the edd. reading privat immortalitate has omni, for which, according to Hildebrand, the ms. reads -tatem has omnis--"all these of immortality."
27. So then, if souls lose all their knowledge on being fettered with the body, they must experience something of such a nature that it makes them become blindly forgetful. [3579] For they cannot, without becoming subject to anything whatever, either lay aside their knowledge while they maintain their natural state, or without change in themselves pass into a different state. Nay, we rather think that what is one, immortal, simple, in whatever it may be, must always retain its own nature, and that it neither should nor could be subject to anything, if indeed it purposes to endure and abide within the limits of true immortality. For all suffering is a passage for death and destruction, a way leading to the grave, and bringing an end of life which may not be escaped from; and if souls are liable to it, and yield to its influence and assaults, they indeed have life given to them only for present use, not as a secured possession, [3580] although some come to other conclusions, and put faith in their own arguments with regard to so important a matter.
[3579] Lit., "put on the blindness of oblivion."
[3580] Cf. Lucretius, iii. 969, where life is thus spoken of.
28. And yet, that we may not be as ignorant when we leave you as before, let us hear from you [3581] how you say that the soul, on being enwrapt in an earthly body, has no recollection of the past; while, after being actually placed in the body itself, and rendered almost senseless by union with it, it holds tenaciously and faithfully the things which many years before, eighty if you choose to say so, or even more, it either did, or suffered, or said, or heard. For if, through being hampered by the body, it does not remember those things which it knew long ago, and before it came into this world, [3582] there is more reason that it should forget those things which it has done from time to time since being shut up in the body, than those which it did before entering it, [3583] while not yet connected with men. For the same body which [3584] deprives of memory the soul which enters it, [3585] should cause what is done within itself also to be wholly forgotten; for one cause cannot bring about two results, and these opposed to each other, so as to make some things to be forgotten, and allow others to be remembered by him who did them. But if souls, as you call them, are prevented and hindered by their fleshly members from recalling their former knowledge, [3586] how do they remember what has been arranged [3587] in these very bodies, and know that they are spirits, and have no bodily substance, being exalted by their condition as immortal beings? [3588] how do they know what rank they hold in the universe, in what order they have been set apart from other beings? how they have come to these, the lowest parts of the universe? what properties they acquired, and from what circles, [3589] in gliding along towards these regions? How, I say, do they know that they were very learned, and have lost their knowledge by the hindrance which their bodies afford them? For of this very thing also they should have been ignorant, whether their union with the body had brought any stain upon them; for to know what you were, and what to-day you are not, is no sign that you have lost your memory, [3590] but a proof and evidence that it is quite sound. [3591]