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S. “Then if I believed it right to lie or steal, I, in lying or stealing, should lie or steal by the spirit of truth?”

A. “Certainly: but that is impossible.”

S. “My fine fellow, and wherefore? I have heard of a nation among the Indians who hold it a sacred duty to murder every one not of their own tribe, whom they can waylay: and when they are taken and punished by the rulers of that country, die joyfully under the greatest torments, believing themselves certain of an entrance into the Elysian fields, in proportion to the number of murders which they have committed.”

A. “They must be impious wretches.”

S. “Be it so. But believing themselves to be right, they commit murder by the spirit of truth.”

A. “It seems to follow from the argument.”

S. “Then it is indifferent to the spirit of truth whether the action which it prompts be right or wrong?”

A. “It must be confessed.”

S. “It is therefore not a moral faculty, this spirit of truth. Let us see now whether it be an intellectual one. How are intellectual things defined, Phaethon? Tell me, for you are cunning in such matters.”

P. “Those things which have to do with processes of the mind.”

S. “With right processes, or with wrong?”

P. “With right, of course.”

S. “And processes for what purpose?”

P. “For the discovery of facts.”

S. “Of facts as they are, or as they are not?”

P. “As they are.”

S. “And he who discovers facts as they are, discovers truth; while he who discovers facts as they are not, discovers falsehood?”

P. “He discovers nothing, Socrates.”

S. “True; but it has been agreed already that the spirit of truth is indifferent to the question whether facts be true or false, but only concerns itself with the sincere affirmation of them, whatsoever they may be. Much more then must it be indifferent to those processes by which they are discovered.”

P. “How so?”

S. “Because it only concerns itself with affirmation concerning facts; but these processes are anterior to that affirmation.”

P. “I comprehend.”

S. “And much more is it indifferent to whether those are right processes or not.”

P. “Much more so.”

S. “It is therefore not intellectual. It remains, therefore, that it must be some merely physical faculty, like that of fearing, hungering, or enjoying the sexual appetite.”

A. “Absurd, Socrates!”

S. “That is the argument’s concern, not ours: let us follow manfully whithersoever it may lead us.”

A. “Lead on, thou sophist!”

S. “It was agreed, then, that he who does what he thinks right, does so by the spirit of truth-was it not?”

A. “It was.”

S. “Then he who eats when he thinks that he ought to eat, does so by the spirit of truth?”

A. “What next?”

S. “This next, that he who blows his nose when he thinks that it wants blowing, blows his nose by the spirit of truth.”

A. “What next?”

S. “Do not frown, friend. Believe me, in such days as these, I honour even the man who is honest enough to blow his nose because he finds that he ought to do so. But tell me-a horse, when he shies at a beggar, does not he also do so by the spirit of truth? For he believes sincerely the beggar to be something formidable, and honestly acts upon his conviction.”

“Not a doubt of it,” said I, laughing, in spite of myself, at Alcibiades’s countenance.

S. “It is in danger, then, of proving to be something quite brutish and doggish, this spirit of truth. I should not wonder, therefore, if we found it proper to be restrained.”

A. “How so, thou hair-splitter?”

S. “Have we not proved it to be common to man and animals; but are not those passions which we have in common with animals to be restrained?”