The students asked Socrates for advice on how to stand for the truth. Socrates told everyone to sit down. He cupped an apple in his fingers and slowly walked past each student’s seat, saying as he did so, “Please concentrate, students, and pay attention to the smell in the air.”
Then, he returned to the podium, held the apple up, shook it from side to side, and asked, “Which student smelled the apple?”
One student raised his hand and answered, “I smell it, it smells good.”
Socrates again stepped down from the podium, held up the apple, and slowly walked past each student’s seat, urging as he did so, “Please make sure your students concentrate and smell the air carefully.”
After a short pause, Socrates walked over to the students a third time and asked each student to take a sniff of the apple. This time, all but one of the students raised their hands.
The student who hadn’t raised his hand looked around and scrambled to raise his hand.
The smile on Socrates’ face was gone, and he held up the apple and said slowly, “Very unfortunately, this is a false apple, it doesn’t taste like anything.”
Fake things may confuse your ears, but never let them confuse your mind, adhere to the truth, advocate science, and be a natural person. If it is the truth, we should insist on it, not be followed by others, and not be intimidated by authority, but give up the precious truth.
