NOTES
You have been wishing to know my views with regard to liberal studies.
My answer is this:
I respect no study, and deem no study good, which results in money-making. Such studies are profit-bringing occupations, useful only in so far as they give the mind a preparation and do not engage it permanently. One should linger upon them only so long as the mind can occupy itself with nothing greater they are our apprenticeship, not our real work.
Hence you see why "liberal studies" are so called it is because they are studies worthy of a free-born gentleman. But there is only one really liberal study,— that which gives a man his liberty. It is the study of wisdom, and that is lofty, brave, and great-souled. All other studies are puny and puerile. [...]
"What then," you say, "do the liberal studies contribute nothing to our welfare?" Very much in other respects, but nothing at all as regards virtue. For even these arts of which I have spoken, though admittedly of a low grade depending as they do upon handiwork - contribute greatly toward the equipment of life, but nevertheless have nothing to do with virtue.
And if you inquire, " Why, then, do we educate our children in the liberal studies?" it is not because they can bestow virtue, but because they prepare the soul for the reception of virtue.
Just as that "primary course" as the ancients called it, in grammar, which gave boys their elementary training, does not teach them the liberal arts, but prepares the ground for their early acquisition of these arts, so the liberal arts do not conduct the soul all the way to virtue, but merely set it going in that direction. [...]
"But," one says, "since you declare that virtue cannot be attained without the ' liberal studies,' how is it that you deny that they offer any assistance to virtue?
Because you cannot attain virtue without food, either and yet food has nothing to do with virtue. Wood does not offer assistance to a ship, although a ship cannot be built except of wood. There is no reason, I say, why you should think that anything is made by the assistance of that without which it cannot be made. We might
even make the statement that it is possible to attain wisdom without the "liberal studies"; for although virtue is a thing that must be learned, yet it is not learned by means of these studies. [...]
"But it is a pleasure to be acquainted with many arts." Therefore let us keep only as much of them as is essential. Do you regard that man as blame-worthy who puts superfluous things on the same footing with useful things, and in his house makes a lavish display of costly objects, but do not deem him blameworthy who has allowed himself to become engrossed with the useless furniture of learning?
This desire to know more than is sufficient is a sort of intemperance. Why?
Because this unseemly pursuit of the liberal arts makes men troublesome, wordy, tactless, self-satisfied bores, who fail to learn the essentials just because they have learned the non-essentials.
Didymus the scholar wrote four thousand books. I should feel pity for him if he had only read the same number of superfluous volumes. In these books he investigates Homer's birthplace, who was really the mother of Aeneas, whether Anacreon was more of a rake or more of a drunkard, whether Sappho was a bad lot, and other problems the answers to which, if found, were forthwith to be forgotten. Come now, do not tell me that life is long! [...]
I have been speaking so far of liberal studies but think how much superfluous and unpractical matter the philosophers contain! Of their own accord they also have descended to establishing nice divisions of syllables, to determining the true meaning of conjunctions and prepositions; they have been envious of the scholars, envious of the mathematicians.
They have taken over into their own art all the superfluities of these other arts; the result is that they know more about careful speaking than about careful living.
Let me tell you what evils are due to over-nice exactness, and what an enemy it is of truth.
Protagoras declares that one can take either side on any question and debate it with equal success - even on this very question, whether every subject can be debated from either point of view.
Nausiphanes holds that in things which seem to exist, there is no difference between existence and non-existence.
Parmenides maintains that nothing exists of all this which seems to exist, except the universe alone.
Zeno of Elea removed all the difficulties by removing one for he declares that nothing exists.
The Pyithonean, Megarian, Eretrian, and Academic schools are all engaged in practically the same task they have introduced a new knowledge, non-knowledge.
You may sweep all these theories in with the superfluous troops of "liberal" studies; the one class of men give me a knowledge that will be of no use to me, the other class do away with any hope of attaining knowledge.
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. One set of philosophers offers no light by which I may direct my gaze toward the truth the other digs out my very eyes and leaves me blind.
If I cleave to Protagoras, there is nothing in the scheme of nature that is not doubtful; if I hold with Nausiphanes, I am sure only of this that — everything is unsure; if with Parmenides, there is nothing except the One; if with Zeno, there is not even the One.
What are we, then? What becomes of all these things that surround us, support us, sustain us? The whole universe is then a vain or deceptive shadow. I cannot readily say whether I am more vexed at those who would have it that we know nothing, or with those who would not leave us even this privilege.