Let us therefore put from us all such foolishness
and pretension, and, as we go onward to the task of
learning, let us take pains thoroughly to comprehend
all profitable discourses ; let us submit with patience
to the laughter of those reputed to be clever, as
did Cleanthes and Xenocrates, who, although they
seemed to be slower than their schoolmates, yet did
not try to escape learning or give it up in despair,
but were the first to make jokes at themselves by
comparing themselves to narrow-necked bottles and
bronze tablets, as much as to say that they found
great difficulty in taking in what was said, yet they
kept it safely and securely. For not only is one
bound, as Phocylides says,
Many a time to be cheated of hope when he seeks
to be noble,1
but he is bound also many a time to be laughed at
and to be in disrepute, and to put up with joking and
buffoonery as he struggles with might and main
against his ignorance and overthrows it.
On the other hand, however, we certainly must
not neglect the mistake that leads to the opposite
extreme, which some persons are led to commit by
laziness, thus making themselves unpleasant and
[p. 257]
irksome. For when they are by themselves they
are not willing to give themselves any trouble, but
they give trouble to the speaker by repeatedly
asking questions about the same things, like unfledged nestlings always agape toward the mouth of
another, and desirous of receiving everything ready
prepared and predigested. There is another class,
who, eager to be thought astute and attentive out
of due place, wear out the speakers with loquacity
and officiousness, by continually propounding some
extraneous and unessential difficulty and asking for
demonstrations of matters that need no demonstration, and so, as Sophocles
2 puts it,
Much time it takes to go a
little way,
not only for themselves but for the rest of the
company too. For holding back the speaker on
every possible occasion by their inane and superfluous
questions, as in a company of persons travelling
together, they impede the regular course of the
lecture, which has to put up with halts and delays.
Now such persons are, according to Hieronymus, like
cowardly and persistent puppies which, at home,
bite at the skins of wild animals, and tear off what
bits they can, but never touch the animals themselves. But as for those lazy persons whom we have
mentioned, let us urge them that, when their
intelligence has comprehended the main points, they
put the rest together by their own efforts, and use
their memory as a guide in thinking for themselves,
and, taking the discourse of another as a germ and
seed, develop and expand it. For the mind does
not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood,
it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse
to think independently and an ardent desire for the
[p. 259]
truth. Imagine, then, that a man should need to
get fire from a neighbour, and, upon finding a big
bright fire there, should stay there continually
warming himself; just so it is if a man comes to
another to share the benefit of a discourse, and does
not think it necessary to kindle from it some illumination for himself and some thinking of his own, but,
delighting in the discourse, sits enchanted ; he gets,
as it were, a bright and ruddy glow in the form of
opinion imparted to him by what is said, but the
mouldiness and darkness of his inner mind he has
not dissipated nor banished by the warm glow of
philosophy.
Finally, if there be need of any other instruction
in regard to listening to a lecture, it is that it is
necessary to keep in mind what has here been said,
and to cultivate independent thinking along with our
learning, so that we may acquire a habit of mind
that is not sophistic or bent on acquiring mere
information, but one that is deeply ingrained and
philosophic, as we may do if we believe that right
listening is the beginning of right living.
