Jowett: opinion

  

Socrates   : And is every ophthalmia, in your opinion, a disease ? ALCIBIADES II  

Socrates : I mean that, generally speaking, it rather looks as though the possession of the sciences as a whole, if it does not include possession of the science of the best, will in a few instances help, but in most will harm, the owner. Consider it this way : must it not be the case, in your opinion, that when we are about to do or say anything, we first suppose that we know, or do really know, the thing [144e] we so confidently intend to say or do ? ALCIBIADES II  

I mean, what is done best by rule of his particular art ó while he is entirely off the track of what is best for the state and for himself, because, I conceive, he has put his trust in opinion apart from intelligence. In these circumstances, [146b] should we not be right in saying that such a state is one great mass of turmoil and lawlessness ? ALCIBIADES II

Socrates : So now we repeat our statement that the many have missed getting the best because in most cases, I conceive, they have put their trust in opinion apart from intelligence. ALCIBIADES II

So it was nothing to their purpose to sacrifice and pay tribute of gifts in vain, when they were hated by the gods. For it is not, I imagine, the way of the gods to be seduced with gifts, like a base insurer. And indeed it is but silly talk of ours, if we claim to surpass the Spartans on this score. For it would be a strange thing if the gods had regard to our gifts and sacrifices instead of our souls, and the piety and [150a] justice that may be found in any of us. Far rather at these, I believe, do they look than at those costly processions and sacrifices which are offered, it well may be, by individual and state, year in, year out, though they may have offended greatly against the gods, or as greatly against their neighbors. But the gods are not to be won by bribes, and so they despise all these things, as Ammon and the holy prophet say. Certainly it would seem that justice and wisdom are held in especial honor both by the gods and by men of intelligence ; [150b] and wise and just are they alone who know what acts and words to use towards gods and men. But I should like now to hear what may be your opinion on the subject. ALCIBIADES II

Socrates : You see, then, how unsafe it is for you to approach the god with your prayers, for it may chance that when he hears your irreverent speech he will reject your sacrifice altogether, and you may perhaps be accorded some other bad thing as well. In my opinion, therefore, it is best to hold your peace : for I expect you will not consent to use the Spartanís prayer, you have such a romantic spirit ó to give it the fairest of follyís names. [150d] It is necessary, therefore, to bide oneís time until one can learn how one should behave towards gods and men. ALCIBIADES II

[151c] so do I take this opinion of yours as a good omen. For I consider I am no less wave-tossed than Creon, and would like to come off victorious over your lovers  . ALCIBIADES II

Friend : In my opinion, they are those who think it worth while to make gain out of things of no worth. HIPPARCHUS  

Socrates : Is it your opinion that they know those things to be of no worth, or do not know ? For if they do not know, you mean that the lovers of gain are fools. HIPPARCHUS

I next asked him if it was not impossible for the same person to learn in this way merely two of the arts, not to speak of many or the principal ones ; to which he replied : Do not conceive me, Socrates, [135d] to be stating that the philosopher must have accurate knowledge of each of the arts, like the actual adept in any of them ; I mean only so far as may be expected of a free and educated man : that is, he should be able to follow the explanations of the craftsman more readily than the rest of the company, and to contribute an opinion of his own which will make him appear the cleverest and most accomplished of the company who may at any time be present at some verbal or practical exposition of the arts. LOVERS

[121b] Demodocus : Let us go, then. Socrates, it would seem that all growths follow the same course, both those that grow from the earth, and the animals, including man. In regard to the plants, as you know, we who cultivate the earth find it the easiest part of our work to make all our preparations that are needed before planting, and to do the planting itself ; but when the plant begins to grow, thenceforward we have a great deal of difficult and vexatious business in tending the new growth. [121c] Such, it seems, is also the case in regard to men : I take my own concerns as evidence for judging of the rest. For indeed I have found the planting, or the procreation ó whichever one ought to call it ó of this son of mine the easiest thing in the world ; but his upbringing has been vexatious and a constant source of alarm, so great are my fears for him. Among the many instances that I could mention, the desire which occupies him at the moment is a thing that especially alarms me : for it is not an ill-bred desire, but a dangerous one, since here we have him, Socrates, as he says, desiring to become wise. [121d] My opinion is that some of his fellow-townsmen, about his own age, who pay visits to the city, excite him with accounts of certain discussions they have heard there ; and in his envy of these he has long been pestering me with the demand that I should take due thought for his needs, and pay fees to some sophist or other who will make him wise. Now I do not mind so much about the fees, but I believe he is running into no slight danger [122a] where he is hastening. I did for a time restrain him with good advice ; but since I am no longer able to do so, I believe my best course is to comply with his request, in order that he may not resort, perchance, behind my back to somebody who will corrupt him. So I have come now on this very business of placing this youth with one of these sophists, or purveyors of wisdom, as they are held to be. It is a happy chance, therefore, that has thrown you in our way, as I should be particularly glad, with this plan of action in my mind, to ask your advice. Come, if you have any advice to give [122b] on what you have heard from me, you not only may, but should, give it. THEAGES  

[126d] Theages : Well, Socrates, I have heard of the argument that you are said to put forward ó that the sons of those statesmen are no better men than the sons of shoemakers ; and in my opinion your words are very true, from what I am able to gather. Hence I should be an utter fool if I supposed that any of these men would impart his wisdom to me when he never was of any use to his own son, as he would have been, if he were able to be of use in this matter to anyone at all in the world. THEAGES

Socrates : Demodocus, your zeal is no wonder to me, if you suppose that I especially could be of use to him ; for I know of nothing for which a sensible man could be more zealous than for his own sonís utmost improvement. But how you came to form this opinion, that I would be better able to be of use to your son in his aim of becoming a good citizen than you would yourself, and how he came to suppose that I rather than yourself would be of use to him ó this does fill me with wonder. For you, [127e] in the first place, are my elder, and further, you have held in your time many of the highest offices in Athens, and are respected by the people of Anagyrus above all your fellow-townsmen, and by the whole state as much as any man, whereas neither of you can notice anything like this about me. And moreover, if Theages here does despise the instruction of our statesmen, and is looking for some other persons who profess to be able to educate young people, we have here Prodicus of Ceos, Gorgias of Leontini, Polus of Acragas, [128a] and many more, who are so wise that they go to our cities and persuade the noblest and wealthiest of our young men ó who have the choice of learning from any citizen they choose, free of charge ó they persuade them to abandon that instruction and learn from them, with a deposit, besides, of a large sum of money as their fee, and to feel thankful in addition. Some of these persons might naturally have been chosen both by your son and by yourself, in preference to me ; [128b] for I have no knowledge of those fair and beatific subjects of study : I only wish that I had. But what I always say, you know, is that I am in the position of knowing practically nothing except one little subject, that of love-matters. In this subject, however, I claim to be skilled above anybody who has ever lived or is now living in the world. THEAGES

Cleitophon   : That was a man, Socrates, who gave you a false report of the talk I had about you with Lysias. For I was really praising you for some things, though not for others. But since it is plain that you are reproaching me, though you pretend to be quite indifferent, I should be delighted to repeat to you myself what I said, now that we happen to be alone, so that you may be less inclined to suspect me of holding a poor opinion of you. For at present it seems that you have heard what is not true, with the result that you appear to be more vexed with me than I deserve. So if you give me leave to speak I shall avail myself of it most gladly, as I want to explain. CLEITOPHON

Finally, Socrates, one of your companions, who was reputed to be a most accomplished speaker, made answer that the peculiar effect of justice, which was effected by no other art, was to produce friendship in States. And he, in turn, when questioned declared that friendship is a good thing and never an evil ; while as to the friendships of children and those of wild beasts, which we call by this name, he refused to admit ó when questioned upon the point ó that they were friendships ; since, as a result of the argument, he was forced to say that such relations were for the most part harmful [409e] rather than good. So to avoid such an admission he denied that such relations were friendships at all, and said that those who give them this name name them falsely ; and real and true friendship, he said, is most exactly described as “unanimity.” And when asked about “unanimity,” whether he declared it to be unity of opinion or “knowledge,” he rejected the expression “unity of opinion,” for of necessity many cases of “unity of opinion” occurred amongst men that were harmful, whereas he had agreed that friendship was wholly a good thing and an effect of justice ; consequently he affirmed that unanimity was the same, and was not opinion, but knowledge. CLEITOPHON

Socrates : State opinion, it seems, is what you call law. MINOS  

Socrates : But still, I am quite clear myself that law is some sort of opinion ; and since it is not evil opinion, is it not manifest by this time that it is good opinion, granting that law is opinion ? MINOS

Socrates : But what is good opinion ? Is it not true opinion ? MINOS

[315a] Socrates : And true opinion is discovery of reality ? MINOS

Socrates : And it is no wonder, my excellent friend, if what you say is correct, and I have overlooked it. But if you continue to express your views after your own fashion in lengthy speeches, [315e] and I speak likewise, we shall never come to any agreement, in my opinion : but if we study the matter jointly, we may perhaps concur. Well now, if you like, hold a joint inquiry with me by asking me questions ; or if you prefer, by answering them. MINOS

Companion : The same, in my opinion. MINOS

Socrates : Because of something that will make both you, if you are wise, my excellent friend, and everybody else who cares to have a good reputation, beware of ever quarreling with any man of a poetic turn. For poets have great influence over opinion, according as they create it in the minds of men by either commending or vilifying. And this was the mistake that Minos made, in waging war on this city of ours, which besides all its various culture has poets of every kind, and especially those who write tragedy. [321a] Now tragedy is a thing of ancient standing here ; it did not begin, as people suppose, from Thespis or from Phrynicus, but if you will reflect, you will find it is a very ancient invention of our city. Tragedy is the most popularly delightful and soul-enthralling branch of poetry : in it, accordingly, we get Minos on the rack of verse, and thus avenge ourselves for that tribute which he compelled us to pay. This, then, was the mistake that Minos made ó his quarrel with us ó and hence it is that, as you said in your question, he has fallen more and more into evil repute. For that he was a good [321b] and law-abiding person, as we stated in what went before ó a good apportioner ó is most convincingly shown by the fact the his laws are unshaken, since they were made by one who discovered aright the truth of reality in regard to the management of a state. MINOS

Companion : In my opinion, Socrates, your statement is a probable one. MINOS

Socrates : Do you see, Hippias, that I speak the truth [372b] when I say that I am persistent in questioning wise men ? And this is probably the only good thing about me, as I am otherwise quite worthless ; for I am all wrong about facts, and do not know the truth about them. And it is to me sufficient proof of the truth of this, that when I come into contact with one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Greeks bear witness, I am found to know nothing ; [372c] for there is hardly a single thing about which you and I have the same opinion ; and yet what greater proof of ignorance is there than when one disagrees with a wise man ? But I have this one remarkable good quality, which is my salvation ; for I am not afraid to learn, but I inquire and ask questions and am very grateful to him who answers, and I never failed in gratitude to anyone ; for when I have learned anything I have never denied it, pretending that the information was a discovery of my own ; but I praise the wisdom of him who instructed me and proclaim what I learned from him. And so now I do not agree with what you say, [372d] but disagree very strongly ; and I know very well that this is my own fault, because I am the sort of man I am ó not to give myself any greater title. For my opinion, Hippias, is the exact opposite of what you say ; I think that those who injure people and do wrong and speak falsehood and cheat and err voluntarily, not involuntarily, are better than those who do so involuntarily. Sometimes, however, the opposite of this seems to me to be the case, and I am all astray about these matters, [372e] evidently because I am ignorant ; but now at the present moment a sort of paroxysm of my disease has come upon me, and those who err in respect to anything voluntarily appear to me better than those who err involuntarily. And I lay the blame for my present condition upon our previous argument, which causes those who do any of these things involuntarily to appear to me at this moment worse than those who do them voluntarily. So please do me a favour and do not refuse to cure my soul ; for you will be doing me much more good if you cure my soul of ignorance, than if you were to cure my body of disease. [373a] Now if you choose to deliver a long speech, I tell you beforehand that you would not cure me ó for I could not follow you ó but if you are willing to answer me, as you did just now, you will do me a great deal of good, and I think you yourself will not be injured, either. And I might fairly call upon you also, son of Apemantus, for help ; for you stirred me up to converse with Hippias ; so now, if Hippias is unwilling to answer me, ask him in my behalf to do so. LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : And how about grace, Hippias ? Does not the better body take ugly and bad postures voluntarily, and the worse body involuntarily ? Or what is your opinion ? LESSER HIPPIAS

Hippias : That is my opinion. LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Nor I with myself, Hippias ; [376c] but that appears at the moment to be the inevitable result of our argument ; however, as I was saying all along, in respect to these matters I go astray, up and down, and never hold the same opinion ; and that I, or any other ordinary man, go astray is not surprising ; but if you wise men likewise go astray, that is a terrible thing for us also, if even when we have come to you we are not to cease from our straying. LESSER HIPPIAS

[282b] Socrates : Yours, Hippias, is a most excellent way, at any rate, of speaking about them and of thinking, it seems to me and I can bear you witness that you speak the truth, and that your art really has progressed in the direction of ability to carry on public together with private affairs. For this man Gorgias, the sophist from Leontini, came here from home in the public capacity of envoy, as being best able of all the citizens of Leontini to attend to the interests of the community, and it was the general opinion that he spoke excellently in the public assembly, and in his private capacity, by giving exhibitions and associating with the young, he earned and received a great deal of money from this city ; [282c] or, if you like, our friend here, Prodicus, often went to other places in a public capacity, and the last time, just lately, when he came here in a public capacity from Ceos, he gained great reputation by his speaking before the Council, and in his private capacity, by giving exhibitions and associating with the young, he received a marvellous sum of money ; but none of those ancients ever thought fit to exact the money as payment for his wisdom or to give exhibitions among people of various places ; [282d] so simple-minded were they, and so unconscious of the fact that money is of the greatest value. But either of these two has earned more money from his wisdom than any artisan from his art. And even before these Protagoras did so. GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Thatís the kind of person he is, Hippias, not elegant, but vulgar, thinking of nothing but the truth. But nevertheless the man must be answered, and I will declare my opinion beforehand : if the pot were made by a good potter, were smooth and round and well fired, as are some of the two-handled pots, those that hold six choes, very beautiful ones ó [288e] if that were the kind of pot he asked about, we must agree that it is beautiful ; for how could we say that being beautiful it is not beautiful ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Hippias : That which makes them appear so, in my opinion, Socrates. GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Ah, donít boast, Hippias. You see how much trouble it has caused us already ; Iím afraid it may get angry and run away more than ever.[295b] And yet that is nonsense ; for you, I think, will easily find it when you go away by yourself. But for Heavenís sake, find it in my presence, or, if you please, join me, as you are now doing, in looking for it. And if we find it, that will be splendid, but if we do not, I shall, I suppose, accept my lot, and you will go away and find it easily. And if we find it now, I shall certainly not be a nuisance to you by asking what that was which you found by yourself ; [295c] but now once more see if this is in your opinion the beautiful : I say, then, that it is ó but consider, paying close attention to me, that I may not talk nonsense ó for I say, then, whatever is useful shall be for us beautiful. But I said it with this reason for my thought ; beautiful eyes, we say, are not such as seem to be so, which are unable to see, but those which are able and useful for seeing. Is that right ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Then, too, in the same way we say that the whole body is beautiful, part of it for running, part for wrestling ; [295d] and again all the animals, a beautiful horse or cock or quail and all utensils and land vehicles, and on the sea freight-ships and ships of war ; and all instruments in music and in the other arts, and, if you like, customs and laws also ó pretty well all these we call beautiful in the same way looking at each of them ó how it is formed by nature, how it is wrought, how it has been enacted ó the useful we call beautiful, and beautiful in the way in which it is useful, and for the purpose for which it is useful, and at the time when it is useful ; [295e] and that which is in all these aspects useless we say is ugly. Now is not this your opinion also, Hippias ? GREATER HIPPIAS

[296d] Hippias : Far from it, in my opinion, Socrates. GREATER HIPPIAS

[296e] Hippias : Yes, in my opinion. GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Well, I do prefer. For we, my friend, were so stupid, before you spoke, as to have an opinion concerning you and me, that each of us was one, but that we were not both that which each of us was ó for we are not one, but two [301e] ó so foolish were we. But now we have been taught by you that if we are both two, then each of us is inevitably two, and if each is one, then both are inevitably one ; for it is impossible, by the continuous doctrine of reality according to Hippias, that it be otherwise, but what we both are, that each is, and what each is, both are. So now I have been convinced by you, and I hold this position. But first, Hippias, refresh my memory : Are you and I one, or are you two and I two ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Ion  . Yes ; in my opinion there are a good many. ION

Soc. And did you ever know any one who was skilful in pointing out the excellences and defects of Polygnotus the son of Aglaophon, but incapable of criticizing other painters ; and when the work of any other painter was produced, went to sleep and was at a loss, and had no ideas ; but when he had to give his opinion about Polygnotus, or whoever the painter might be, and about him only, woke up and was attentive and had plenty to say ? ION

Ion. That is my opinion, Socrates. ION

Socrates. What of his beard ? Are you not of Homerís opinion, who says youth is most charming when the beard first appears ? And that is now the charm of Alcibiades. PROTAGORAS

Com. And is this stranger really in your opinion a fairer love than the son of Cleinias ? PROTAGORAS

But you should not assume, Hippocrates, that the instruction of Protagoras is of this nature : may you not learn of him in the same way that you learned the arts of the grammarian, musician, or trainer, not with the view of making any of them a profession, but only as a part of education, and because a private gentleman and freeman ought to know them ? Just so, he said ; and that, in my opinion, is a far truer account of the teaching of Protagoras. I said : I wonder whether you know what you are doing ? And what am I doing ? You are going to commit your soul to the care of a man whom you call a Sophist. And yet I hardly think that you know what a Sophist is ; and if not, then you do not even know to whom you are committing your soul and whether the thing to which you commit yourself be good or evil. I certainly think that I do know, he replied. Then tell me, what do you imagine that he is ? I take him to be one who knows wise things, he replied, as his name implies. And might you not, I said, affirm this of the painter and of the carpenter also : Do not they, too, know wise things ? But suppose a person were to ask us : In what are the painters wise ? We should answer : In what relates to the making of likenesses, and similarly of other things. And if he were further to ask : What is the wisdom of the Sophist, and what is the manufacture over which he presides ? ó how should we answer him ? How should we answer him, Socrates ? What other answer could there be but that he presides over the art which makes men eloquent ? Yes, I replied, that is very likely true, but not enough ; for in the answer a further question is involved : Of what does the Sophist make a man talk eloquently ? The player on the lyre may be supposed to make a man talk eloquently about that which he makes him understand, that is about playing the lyre. Is not that true ? Yes. Then about what does the Sophist make him eloquent ? Must not he make him eloquent in that which he understands ? Yes, that may be assumed. And what is that which the Sophist knows and makes his disciple know ? Indeed, he said, I cannot tell. PROTAGORAS

Then I proceeded to say : Well, but are you aware of the danger which you are incurring ? If you were going to commit your body to some one, who might do good or harm to it, would you not carefully consider and ask the opinion of your friends and kindred, and deliberate many days as to whether you should give him the care of your body ? But when the soul is in question, which you hold to be of far more value than the body, and upon the good or evil of which depends the well-being of your all, ó about this never consulted either with your father or with your brother or with any one of us who are your companions. But no sooner does this foreigner appear, than you instantly commit your soul to his keeping. In the evening, as you say, you hear of him, and in the morning you go to him, never deliberating or taking the opinion of any one as to whether you ought to intrust yourself to him or not ; ó you have quite made up your mind that you will at all hazards be a pupil of Protagoras, and are prepared to expend all the property of yourself and of your friends in carrying out at any price this determination, although, as you admit, you do not know him, and have never spoken with him : and you call him a Sophist, but are manifestly ignorant of what a Sophist is ; and yet you are going to commit yourself to his keeping. When he heard me say this, he replied : No other inference, Socrates, can be drawn from your words. I proceeded : Is not a Sophist, Hippocrates, one who deals wholesale or retail in the food of the soul ? To me that appears to be his nature. And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul ? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul ; and we must take care, my friend, that the Sophist does not deceive us when he praises what he sells, like the dealers wholesale or retail who sell the food of the body ; for they praise indiscriminately all their goods, without knowing what are really beneficial or hurtful : neither do their customers know, with the exception of any trainer or physician who may happen to buy of them. In like manner those who carry about the wares of knowledge, and make the round of the cities, and sell or retail them to any customer who is in want of them, praise them all alike ; though I should not wonder, O my friend, if many of them were really ignorant of their effect upon the soul ; and their customers equally ignorant, unless he who buys of them happens to be a physician of the soul. If, therefore, you have understanding of what is good and evil, you may safely buy knowledge of Protagoras or of any one ; but if not, then, O my friend, pause, and do not hazard your dearest interests at a game of chance. For there is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink : the one you purchase of the wholesale or retail dealer, and carry them away in other vessels, and before you receive them into the body as food, you may deposit them at home and call in any experienced friend who knows what is good to be eaten or drunken, and what not, and how much, and when ; and then the danger of purchasing them is not so great. But you cannot buy the wares of knowledge and carry them away in another vessel ; when you have paid for them you must receive them into the soul and go your way, either greatly harmed or greatly benefited ; and therefore we should deliberate and take counsel with our elders ; for we are still young ó too young to determine such a matter. And now let us go, as we were intending, and hear Protagoras ; and when we have heard what he has to say, we may take counsel of others ; for not only is Protagoras at the house of Callias, but there is Hippias of Elis, and, if I am not mistaken, Prodicus of Ceos, and several other wise men. PROTAGORAS

Then, I said, you do indeed possess a noble art, if there is no mistake about this ; for I will freely confess to you, Protagoras, that I have a doubt whether this art is capable of being taught, and yet I know not how to disbelieve your assertion. And I ought to tell you why I am of opinion that this art cannot be taught or communicated by man to man. I say that the Athenians are an understanding people, and indeed they are esteemed to be such by the other Hellenes. Now I observe that when we are met together in the assembly, and the matter in hand relates to building, the builders are summoned as advisers ; when the question is one of shipbuilding, then the ship-wrights ; and the like of other arts which they think capable of being taught and learned. And if some person offers to give them advice who is not supposed by them to have any skill in the art, even though he be good-looking, and rich, and noble, they will not listen to him, but laugh and hoot at him, until either he is clamoured down and retires of himself ; or if he persist, he is dragged away or put out by the constables at the command of the prytanes. This is their way of behaving about professors of the arts. But when the question is an affair of state, then everybody is free to have a say ó carpenter, tinker, cobbler, sailor, passenger ; rich and poor, high and low ó any one who likes gets up, and no one reproaches him, as in the former case, with not having learned, and having no teacher, and yet giving advice ; evidently because they are under the impression that this sort of knowledge cannot be taught. And not only is this true of the state, but of individuals ; the best and wisest of our citizens are unable to impart their political wisdom to others : as for example, Pericles, the father of these young men, who gave them excellent instruction in all that could be learned from masters, in his own department of politics neither taught them, nor gave them teachers ; but they were allowed to wander at their own free will in a sort of hope that they would light upon virtue of their own accord. Or take another example : there was Cleinias the younger brother of our friend Alcibiades, of whom this very same Pericles was the guardian ; and he being in fact under the apprehension that Cleinias would be corrupted by Alcibiades, took him away, and placed him in the house of Ariphron to be educated ; but before six months had elapsed, Ariphron sent him back, not knowing what to do with him. And I could mention numberless other instances of persons who were good themselves, and never yet made any one else good, whether friend or stranger. Now I, Protagoras, having these examples before me, am inclined to think that virtue cannot be taught. But then again, when I listen to your words, I waver ; and am disposed to think that there must be something in what you say, because I know that you have great experience, and learning, and invention. And I wish that you would, if possible, show me a little more clearly that virtue can be taught. Will you be so good ? That I will, Socrates, and gladly. But what would you like ? Shall I, as an elder, speak to you as younger men in an apologue or myth, or shall I argue out the question ? To this several of the company answered that he should choose for himself. Well, then, he said, I think that the myth will be more interesting. PROTAGORAS

I have been showing that they are right in admitting every man as a counsellor about this sort of virtue, as they are of opinion that every man is a partaker of it. And I will now endeavour to show further that they do not conceive this virtue to be given by nature, or to grow spontaneously, but to be a thing which may be taught ; and which comes to a man by taking pains. No one would instruct, no one would rebuke, or be angry with those whose calamities they suppose to be due to nature or chance ; they do not try to punish or to prevent them from being what they are ; they do but pity them. Who is so foolish as to chastise or instruct the ugly, or the diminutive, or the feeble ? And for this reason. Because he knows that good and evil of this kind is the work of nature and of chance ; whereas if a man is wanting in those good qualities which are attained by study and exercise and teaching, and has only the contrary evil qualities, other men are angry with him, and punish and reprove him ó of these evil qualities one is impiety, another injustice, and they may be described generally as the very opposite of political virtue. In such cases any man will be angry with another, and reprimand him, ó clearly because he thinks that by study and learning, the virtue in which the other is deficient may be acquired. If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired ; no one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong, only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone ; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught. This is the notion of all who retaliate upon others either privately or publicly. And the Athenians, too, your own citizens, like other men, punish and take vengeance on all whom they regard as evil doers ; and hence, we may infer them to be of the number of those who think that virtue may be acquired and taught. Thus far, Socrates, I have shown you clearly enough, if I am not mistaken, that your countrymen are right in admitting the tinker and the cobbler to advise about politics, and also that they deem virtue to be capable of being taught and acquired. PROTAGORAS

Such is my Apologue, Socrates, and such is the argument by which I endeavour to show that virtue may be taught, and that this is the opinion of the Athenians. And I have also attempted to show that you are not to wonder at good fathers having bad sons, or at good sons having bad fathers, of which the sons of Polycleitus afford an example, who are the companions of our friends here, Paralus and Xanthippus, but are nothing in comparison with their father ; and this is true of the sons of many other artists. As yet I ought not to say the same of Paralus and Xanthippus themselves, for they are young and there is still hope of them. Protagoras ended, and in my ear / So charming left his voice, that I the while PROTAGORAS

And has each of them a distinct function like the parts of the face ; ó the eye, for example, is not like the ear, and has not the same functions ; and the other parts are none of them like one another, either in their functions, or in any other way ? I want to know whether the comparison holds concerning the parts of virtue. Do they also differ from one another in themselves and in their functions ? For that is clearly what the simile would imply. Yes, Socrates, you are right in supposing that they differ. Then, I said, no other part of virtue is like knowledge, or like justice, or like courage, or like temperance, or like holiness ? No, he answered. Well then, I said, suppose that you and I enquire into their natures. And first, you would agree with me that justice is of the nature of a thing, would you not ? That is my opinion : would it not be yours also ? Mine also, he said. PROTAGORAS

Whichever you please, if you will only answer me and say whether you are of their opinion or not. My object is to test the validity of the argument ; and yet the result may be that I who ask and you who answer may both be put on our trial. PROTAGORAS

Now I had got up, and was in the act of departure. Son of Hipponicus, I replied, I have always admired, and do now heartily applaud and love your philosophical spirit, and I would gladly comply with your request, if I could. But the truth is that I cannot. And what you ask is as great an impossibility to me, as if you bade me run a race with Crison of Himera, when in his prime, or with some one of the long or day course runners. To such a request I should reply that I would fain ask the same of my own legs ; but they refuse to comply. And therefore if you want to see Crison and me in the same stadium, you must bid him slacken his speed to mine, for I cannot run quickly, and he can run slowly. And in like manner if you want to hear me and Protagoras discoursing, you must ask him to shorten his answers, and keep to the point, as he did at first ; if not, how can there be any discussion ? For discussion is one thing, and making an oration is quite another, in my humble opinion. PROTAGORAS

I am of opinion, Socrates, he said, that skill in poetry is the principal part of education ; and this I conceive to be the power of knowing what compositions of the poets are correct, and what are not, and how they are to be distinguished, and of explaining when asked the reason of the difference. And I propose to transfer the question which you and I have been discussing to the domain of poetry ; we will speak as before of virtue, but in reference to a passage of a poet. Now Simonides says to Scopas the son of Creon the Thessalian : PROTAGORAS

Brother dear, let us both together stay the force of the hero. And I summon you, for I am afraid that Protagoras will make an end of Simonides. Now is the time to rehabilitate Simonides, by the application of your philosophy of synonyms, which enables you to distinguish “will” and “wish,” and make other charming distinctions like those which you drew just now. And I should like to know whether you would agree with me ; for I am of opinion that there is no contradiction in the words of Simonides. And first of all I wish that you would say whether, in your opinion, Prodicus, “being” is the same as “becoming.” PROTAGORAS

The poet, he replied, could never have made such a mistake as to say that virtue, which in the opinion of all men is the hardest of all things, can be easily retained. PROTAGORAS

Then now, I said, I will endeavour to explain to you my opinion about this poem of Simonides. There is a very ancient philosophy which is more cultivated in Crete and Lacedaemon than in any other part of Hellas, and there are more philosophers in those countries than anywhere else in the world. This, however, is a secret which the Lacedaemonians deny ; and they pretend to be ignorant, just because they do not wish to have it thought that they rule the world by wisdom, like the Sophists of whom Protagoras was speaking, and not by valour of arms ; considering that if the reason of their superiority were disclosed, all men would be practising their wisdom. And this secret of theirs has never been discovered by the imitators of Lacedaemonian fashions in other cities, who go about with their ears bruised in imitation of them, and have the caestus bound on their arms, and are always in training, and wear short cloaks ; for they imagine that these are the practices which have enabled the Lacedaemonians to conquer the other Hellenes. Now when the Lacedaemonians want to unbend and hold free conversation with their wise men, and are no longer satisfied with mere secret intercourse, they drive out all these laconizers, and any other foreigners who may happen to be in their country, and they hold a philosophical seance unknown to strangers ; and they themselves forbid their young men to go out into other cities ó in this they are like the Cretans ó in order that they may not unlearn the lessons which they have taught them. And in Lacedaemon and Crete not only men but also women have a pride in their high cultivation. And hereby you may know that I am right in attributing to the Lacedaemonians this excellence in philosophy and speculation : If a man converses with the most ordinary Lacedaemonian, he will find him seldom good for much in general conversation, but at any point in the discourse he will be darting out some notable saying, terse and full of meaning, with unerring aim ; and the person with whom he is talking seems to be like a child in his hands. And many of our own age and of former ages have noted that the true Lacedaemonian type of character has the love of philosophy even stronger than the love of gymnastics ; they are conscious that only a perfectly educated man is capable of uttering such expressions. Such were Thales of Miletus, and Pittacus of Mitylene, and Bias of Priene, and our own Solon, and Cleobulus the Lindian, and Myson the Chenian ; and seventh in the catalogue of wise men was the Lacedaemonian Chilo. All these were lovers and emulators and disciples of the culture of the Lacedaemonians, and any one may perceive that their wisdom was of this character ; consisting of short memorable sentences, which they severally uttered. And they met together and dedicated in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, as the first-fruits of their wisdom, the far-famed inscriptions, which are in all menís mouths ó ”Know thyself,” and “Nothing too much.” PROTAGORAS

Sees a thing when he is alone, he goes about straightway seeking until he finds some one to whom he may show his discoveries, and who may confirm him in them. And I would rather hold discourse with you than with any one, because I think that no man has a better understanding of most things which a good man may be expected to understand, and in particular of virtue. For who is there, but you ? ó who not only claim to be a good man and a gentleman, for many are this, and yet have not the power of making others good whereas you are not only good yourself, but also the cause of goodness in others. Moreover such confidence have you in yourself, that although other Sophists conceal their profession, you proclaim in the face of Hellas that you are a Sophist or teacher of virtue and education, and are the first who demanded pay in return. How then can I do otherwise than invite you to the examination of these subjects, and ask questions and consult with you ? I must, indeed. And I should like once more to have my memory refreshed by you about the questions which I was asking you at first, and also to have your help in considering them. If I am not mistaken the question was this : Are wisdom and temperance and courage and justice and holiness five names of the same thing ? or has each of the names a separate underlying essence and corresponding thing having a peculiar function, no one of them being like any other of them ? And you replied that the five names were not the names of the same thing, but that each of them had a separate object, and that all these objects were parts of virtue, not in the same way that the parts of gold are like each other and the whole of which they are parts, but as the parts of the face are unlike the whole of which they are parts and one another, and have each of them a distinct function. I should like to know whether this is still your opinion ; or if not, I will ask you to define your meaning, and I shall not take you to task if you now make a different statement. For I dare say that you may have said what you did only in order to make trial of me. PROTAGORAS

May I employ an illustration ? I said. Suppose some one who is enquiring into the health or some other bodily quality of another : ó he looks at his face and at the tips of his fingers, and then he says, Uncover your chest and back to me that I may have a better view : ó that is the sort of thing which I desire in this speculation. Having seen what your opinion is about good and pleasure, I am minded to say to you : Uncover your mind to me, Protagoras, and reveal your opinion about knowledge, that I may know whether you agree with the rest of the world. Now the rest of the world are of opinion that knowledge is a principle not of strength, or of rule, or of command : their notion is that a man may have knowledge, and yet that the knowledge which is in him may be overmastered by anger, or pleasure, or pain, or love, or perhaps by fear, ó just as if knowledge were a slave, and might be dragged about anyhow. Now is that your view ? or do you think that knowledge is a noble and commanding thing, which cannot be overcome, and will not allow a man, if he only knows the difference of good and evil, to do anything which is contrary to knowledge, but that wisdom will have strength to help him ? PROTAGORAS

But why, Socrates, should we trouble ourselves about the opinion of the many, who just say anything that happens to occur to them ? PROTAGORAS

And is not ignorance the having a false opinion and being deceived about important matters ? PROTAGORAS

That is true ; and to that opinion I shall always adhere. PROTAGORAS

Well, then, I will make my defence, and I will endeavor in the short time which is allowed to do away with this evil opinion of me which you have held for such a long time ; and I hope I may succeed, if this be well for you and me, and that my words may find favor with you. But I know that to accomplish this is not easy ó I quite see the nature of the task. Let the event be as God wills : in obedience to the law I make my defence. APOLOGY

Friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing Anaxagoras ; and you have but a bad opinion of the judges, if you fancy them ignorant to such a degree as not to know that those doctrines are found in the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, who is full of them. And these are the doctrines which the youth are said to learn of Socrates, when there are not unfrequently exhibitions of them at the theatre (price of admission one drachma at the most) ; and they might cheaply purchase them, and laugh at Socrates if he pretends to father such eccentricities. And so, Meletus, you really think that I do not believe in any god ? APOLOGY

Soc. But why, my dear Crito  , should we care about the opinion of the many ? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they happened. CRITO

Cr. But do you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, as is evident in your own case, because they can do the very greatest evil to anyone who has lost their good opinion. CRITO

Soc. And what was said about another matter ? Was the disciple in gymnastics supposed to attend to the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of one man only ó his physician or trainer, whoever that was ? CRITO

Soc. And he ought to live and train, and eat and drink in the way which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than according to the opinion of all other men put together ? CRITO

Soc. And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding, will he not suffer evil ? CRITO

Soc. Very good ; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which we need not separately enumerate ? In the matter of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them ; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding, and whom we ought to fear and reverence more than all the rest of the world : and whom deserting we shall destroy and injure that principle in us which may be assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice ; is there not such a principle ? CRITO

Soc. Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us : but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you suggest that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable. Well, someone will say, “But the many can kill us.” CRITO

Soc. Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong, or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do wrong, or is doing wrong always evil and dishonorable, as I was just now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by us ? Are all our former admissions which were made within a few days to be thrown away ? And have we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one another all our life long only to discover that we are no better than children ? Or are we to rest assured, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, of the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonor to him who acts unjustly ? Shall we affirm that ? CRITO

Soc. Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons ; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the premise of our argument ? Or do you decline and dissent from this ? For this has been of old and is still my opinion ; but, if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step. CRITO

Alcibiades : In my opinion, Socrates, some noble things are evil. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : Well then, that is what I was asking just now ó whether the user [129d] and what he uses are always, in your opinion, two different things. ALCIBIADES I

That he will, said Critias  , and I can tell you that he is a philosopher already, and also a considerable poet, not in his own opinion only, but in that of others. CHARMIDES  

I think, I said, that I had better begin by asking you a question ; for if temperance abides in you, you must have an opinion about her ; she must give some intimation of her nature and qualities, which may enable you to form a notion of her. Is not that true ? CHARMIDES

In order, then, that I may form a conjecture whether you have temperance abiding in you or not, tell me, I said, what, in your opinion, is Temperance ? CHARMIDES

At first he hesitated, and was very unwilling to answer : then he said that he thought temperance was doing things orderly and quietly, such things for example as walking in the streets, and talking, or anything else of that nature. In a word, he said, I should answer that, in my opinion, temperance is quietness. CHARMIDES

After a momentís pause, in which he made a real manly effort to think, he said : My opinion is, Socrates, that temperance makes a man ashamed or modest, and that temperance is the same as modesty. CHARMIDES

That is my opinion. CHARMIDES

Then, I said, be cheerful, sweet sir, and give your opinion in answer to the question which I asked, never minding whether Critias or Socrates is the person refuted ; attend only to the argument, and see what will come of the refutation. CHARMIDES

Or of an opinion which is an opinion of itself and of other opinions, and which has no opinion on the subjects of opinion in general ? CHARMIDES

Lysimachus. You have seen the exhibition of the man fighting in armour, Nicias and Laches, but we did not tell you at the time the reason why my friend Melesias and I asked you to go with us and see him. I think that we may as well confess what this was, for we certainly ought not to have any reserve with you. The reason was, that we were intending to ask your advice. Some laugh at the very notion of advising others, and when they are asked will not say what they think. They guess at the wishes of the person who asks them, and answer according to his, and not according to their own, opinion. But as we know that you are good judges, and will say exactly what you think, we have taken you into our counsels. The matter about which I am making all this preface is as follows : Melesias and I have two sons ; that is his son, and he is named Thucydides, after his grandfather ; and this is mine, who is also called after his grandfather, Aristides. Now, we are resolved to take the greatest care of the youths, and not to let them run about as they like, which is too often the way with the young, when they are no longer children, but to begin at once and do the utmost that we can for them. And knowing you to have sons of your own, we thought that you were most likely to have attended to their training and improvement, and, if perchance you have not attended to them, we may remind you that you ought to have done so, and would invite you to assist us in the fulfillment of a common duty. I will tell you, Nicias and Laches, even at the risk of being tedious, how we came to think of this. Melesias and I live together, and our sons live with us ; and now, as I was saying at first, we are going to confess to you. Both of us often talk to the lads about the many noble deeds which our own fathers did in war and peace ó in the management of the allies, and in the administration of the city ; but neither of us has any deeds of his own which he can show. The truth is that we are ashamed of this contrast being seen by them, and we blame our fathers for letting us be spoiled in the days of our youth, while they were occupied with the concerns of others ; and we urge all this upon the lads, pointing out to them that they will not grow up to honour if they are rebellious and take no pains about themselves ; but that if they take pains they may, perhaps, become worthy of the names which they bear. They, on their part, promise to comply with our wishes ; and our care is to discover what studies or pursuits are likely to be most improving to them. Some one commended to us the art of fighting in armour, which he thought an excellent accomplishment for a young man to learn ; and he praised the man whose exhibition you have seen, and told us to go and see him. And we determined that we would go, and get you to accompany us ; and we were intending at the same time, if you did not object, to take counsel with you about the education of our sons. That is the matter which we wanted to talk over with you ; and we hope that you will give us your opinion about this art of fighting in armour, and about any other studies or pursuits which may or may not be desirable for a young man to learn. Please to say whether you agree to our proposal. LACHES

Socrates. I will endeavour to advise you, Lysimachus, as far as I can in this matter, and also in every way will comply with your wishes ; but as I am younger and not so experienced, I think that I ought certainly to hear first what my elders have to say, and to learn of them, and if I have anything to add, then I may venture to give my opinion to them as well as to you. Suppose, Nicias, that one or other of you begin. LACHES

Nic. I have no objection, Socrates ; and my opinion is that the acquirement of this art is in many ways useful to young men. It is an advantage to them that among the favourite amusements of their leisure hours they should have one which tends to improve and not to injure their bodily health. No gymnastics could be better or harder exercise ; and this, and the art of riding, are of all arts most befitting to a freeman ; for they only who are thus trained in the use of arms are the athletes of our military profession, trained in that on which the conflict turns. Moreover in actual battle, when you have to fight in a line with a number of others, such an acquirement will be of some use, and will be of the greatest whenever the ranks are broken and you have to fight singly, either in pursuit, when you are attacking some one who is defending himself, or in flight, when you have to defend yourself against an assailant. Certainly he who possessed the art could not meet with any harm at the hands of a single person, or perhaps of several ; and in any case he would have a great advantage. Further, this sort of skill inclines a man to the love of other noble lessons ; for every man who has learned how to fight in armour will desire to learn the proper arrangement of an army, which is the sequel of the lesson : and when he has learned this, and his ambition is once fired, he will go on to learn the complete art of the general. There is no difficulty in seeing that the knowledge and practice of other military arts will be honourable and valuable to a man ; and this lesson may be the beginning of them. Let me add a further advantage, which is by no means a slight one, ó that this science will make any man a great deal more valiant and self-possessed in the field. And I will not disdain to mention, what by some may he thought to be a small matter ; ó he will make a better appearance at the right time ; that is to say, at the time when his appearance will strike terror into his enemies. My opinion then, Lysimachus, is, as I say, that the youths should be instructed in this art, and for the reasons which I have given. But Laches may take a different view ; and I shall be very glad to hear what he has to say. LACHES

La. I should not like to maintain, Nicias, that any kind of knowledge is not to be learned ; for all knowledge appears to be a good : and if, as Nicias and as the teachers of the art affirm, this use of arms is really a species of knowledge, then it ought to be learned ; but if not, and if those who profess to teach it are deceivers only ; or if it be knowledge, but not of a valuable sort, then what is the use of learning it ? I say this, because I think that if it had been really valuable, the Lacedaemonians, whose whole life is passed in finding out and practising the arts which give them an advantage over other nations in war, would have discovered this one. And even if they had not, still these professors of the art would certainly not have failed to discover that of all the Hellenes the Lacedaemonians have the greatest interest in such matters, and that a master of the art who was honoured among them would be sure to make his fortune among other nations, just as a tragic poet would who is honoured among ourselves ; which is the reason why he who fancies that he can write a tragedy does not go about itinerating in the neighbouring states, but rushes straight, and exhibits at Athens ; and this is natural. Whereas I perceive that these fighters in armour regard Lacedaemon as a sacred inviolable territory, which they do not touch with the point of their foot ; but they make a circuit of the neighbouring states, and would rather exhibit to any others than to the Spartans ; and particularly to those who would themselves acknowledge that they are by no means first-rate in the arts of war. Further, Lysimachus, I have encountered a good many of these gentlemen in actual service, and have taken their measure, which I can give you at once ; for none of these masters of fence have ever been distinguished in war, ó there has been a sort of fatality about them ; while in all other arts the men of note have been always those who have practised the art, they appear to be a most unfortunate exception. For example, this very Stesilaus, whom you and I have just witnessed exhibiting in all that crowd and making such great professions of his powers, I have seen at another time making, in sober truth, an involuntary exhibition of himself, which was a far better spectacle. He was a marine on board a ship which struck a transport vessel, and was armed with a weapon, half spear half scythe ; the singularity of this weapon was worthy of the singularity of the man. To make a long story short, I will only tell you what happened to this notable invention of the scythe-spear. He was fighting, and the scythe was caught in the rigging of the other ship, and stuck fast ; and he tugged, but was unable to get his weapon free. The two ships were passing one another. He first ran along his own ship holding on to the spear ; but as the other ship passed by and drew him after as he was holding on, he let the spear slip through his hand until he retained only the end of the handle. The people in the transport clapped their hands, and laughed at his ridiculous figure ; and when some one threw a stone, which fell on the deck at his feet, and he quitted of the scythe-spear, the crew of his own trireme also burst out laughing ; they could not refrain when they beheld the weapon waving in the air, suspended from the transport. Now I do not deny that there may be something in such an art, as Nicias asserts, but I tell you my experience ; and, as I said at first, whether this be an art of which the advantage is so slight, or not an art at all, but only an imposition, in either case such an acquirement is not worth having. For my opinion is, that if the professor of this art be a coward, he will be likely to become rash, and his character will be only more notorious ; or if he be brave, and fail ever so little, other men will be on the watch, and he will be greatly traduced ; for there is a jealousy of such pretenders ; and unless a man be preeminent in valour, he cannot help being ridiculous, if he says that he has this sort of skill. Such is my judgment, Lysimachus, of the desirableness of this art ; but, as I said at first, ask Socrates, and do not let him go until he has given you his opinion of the matter. LACHES

Soc. What, Lysimachus, are you going to accept the opinion of the majority ? LACHES

Soc. And would you do so too, Melesias ? If you were deliberating about the gymnastic training of your son, would you follow the advice of the majority of us, or the opinion of the one who had been trained and exercised under a skilful master ? LACHES

La. I have but one feeling, Nicias, or (shall I say ?) two feelings, about discussions. Some would think that I am a lover, and to others I may seem to be a hater of discourse ; for when I hear a man discoursing of virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure : and I compare the man and his words, and note the harmony and correspondence of them. And such an one I deem to be the true musician, attuned to a fairer harmony than that of the lyre, or any pleasant instrument of music ; for truly he has in his own life a harmony of words and deeds arranged, not in the Ionian, or in the Phrygian mode, nor yet in the Lydian, but in the true Hellenic mode, which is the Dorian, and no other. Such an one makes me merry with the sound of his voice ; and when I hear him I am thought to be a lover of discourse ; so eager am I in drinking in his words. But a man whose actions do not agree with his words is an annoyance to me ; and the better he speaks the more I hate him, and then I seem to be a hater of discourse. As to Socrates, I have no knowledge of his words, but of old, as would seem, I have had experience of his deeds ; and his deeds show that free and noble sentiments are natural to him. And if his words accord, then I am of one mind with him, and shall be delighted to be interrogated by a man such as he is, and shall not be annoyed at having to learn of him : for I too agree with Solon, “that I would fain grow old, learning many things.” But I must be allowed to add “of the good only.” Socrates must be willing to allow that he is a good teacher, or I shall be a dull and uncongenial pupil : but that the teacher is younger, or not as yet in repute-anything of that sort is of no account with me. And therefore, Socrates, I give you notice that you may teach and confute me as much as ever you like, and also learn of me anything which I know. So high is the opinion which I have entertained of you ever since the day on which you were my companion in danger, and gave a proof of your valour such as only the man of merit can give. Therefore, say whatever you like, and do not mind about the difference of our ages. LACHES

Soc. But that is what we must do if we are to answer the question. And yet I cannot say that every kind of endurance is, in my opinion, to be deemed courage. Hear my reason : I am sure, Laches, that you would consider courage to be a very noble quality. LACHES

Soc. Come then, Nicias, and do what you can to help your friends, who are tossing on the waves of argument, and at the last gasp : you see our extremity, and may save us and also settle your own opinion, if you will tell us what you think about courage. LACHES

La. Yes certainly so in my opinion. LACHES

La. I cannot understand what Nicias would be at, Socrates ; for he represents the courageous man as neither a soothsayer, nor a physician, nor in any other character, unless he means to say that he is a god. My opinion is that he does not like honestly to confess that he is talking nonsense, but that he shuffles up and down in order to conceal the difficulty into which he has got himself. You and I, Socrates, might have practised a similar shuffle just now, if we had only wanted to avoid the appearance of inconsistency. And if we had been arguing in a court of law there might have been reason in so doing ; but why should a man deck himself out with vain words at a meeting of friends such as this ? LACHES

La. Capital, Socrates ; by the gods, that is truly good. And I hope, Nicias, that you will tell us whether these animals, which we all admit to be courageous, are really wiser than mankind ; or whether you will have the boldness, in the face of universal opinion, to deny their courage. LACHES

Nic. Why, Laches, I do not call animals or any other things which have no fear of dangers, because they are ignorant of them, courageous, but only fearless and senseless. Do you imagine that I should call little children courageous, which fear no dangers because they know none ? There is a difference, to my way of thinking, between fearlessness and courage. I am of opinion that thoughtful courage is a quality possessed by very few, but that rashness and boldness, and fearlessness, which has no forethought, are very common qualities possessed by many men, many women, many children, many animals. And you, and men in general, call by the term “courageous” actions which I call rash ; ó my courageous actions are wise actions. LACHES

Soc. Well then, so far we are agreed. And now let us proceed a step, and try to arrive at a similar agreement about the fearful and the hopeful : I do not want you to be thinking one thing and myself another. Let me then tell you my own opinion, and if I am wrong you shall set me in my opinion the terrible and the are the things which do or do not create fear, and fear is not of the present, nor of the past, but is of future and expected evil. Do you not agree to that, Laches ? LACHES

Nic. Yes, indeed Socrates ; that is my opinion. LACHES

Nic. I perceive, Laches, that you think nothing of having displayed your ignorance of the nature of courage, but you look only to see whether I have not made a similar display ; and if we are both equally ignorant of the things which a man who is good for anything should know, that, I suppose, will be of no consequence. You certainly appear to me very like the rest of the world, looking at your neighbour and not at yourself. I am of opinion that enough has been said on the subject which we have been discussing ; and if anything has been imperfectly said, that may be hereafter corrected by the help of Damon, whom you think to laugh down, although you have never seen him, and with the help of others. And when I am satisfied myself, I will freely impart my satisfaction to you, for I think that you are very much in want of knowledge. LACHES

And have we not admitted already that the friend loves something for a reason ? and at the time of making the admission we were of opinion that the neither good nor evil loves the good because of the evil ? LYSIS  

Here I was going to invite the opinion of some older person, when suddenly we were interrupted by the tutors of Lysis and Menexenus  , who came upon us like an evil apparition with their brothers, and bade them go home, as it was getting late. At first, we and the bystanders drove them off ; but afterwards, as they would not mind, and only went on shouting in their barbarous dialect, and got angry, and kept calling the boys ó they appeared to us to have been drinking rather too much at the Hermaea, which made them difficult to manage we fairly gave way and broke up the company. LYSIS

Euth. I hope that he may ; but I rather fear, Socrates, that the opposite will turn out to be the truth. My opinion is that in attacking you he is simply aiming a blow at the foundation of the state. But in what way does he say that you corrupt the young ? EUTHYPHRO  

Soc. They have differences of opinion, as you say, about good and evil, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable : there would have been no quarrels among them, if there had been no such differences ó would there now ? EUTHYPHRO

Soc. Then, my friend, I remark with surprise that you have not answered the question which I asked. For I certainly did not ask you to tell me what action is both pious and impious : but now it would seem that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them. And therefore, Euthyphro, in thus chastising your father you may very likely be doing what is agreeable to Zeus but disagreeable to Cronos or Uranus, and what is acceptable to Hephaestus but unacceptable to Here, and there may be other gods who have similar differences of opinion. EUTHYPHRO

Euth. But I believe, Socrates, that all the gods would be agreed as to the propriety of punishing a murderer : there would be no difference of opinion about that. EUTHYPHRO

Soc. Well then, my dear friend Euthyphro, do tell me, for my better instruction and information, what proof have you that in the opinion of all the gods a servant who is guilty of murder, and is put in chains by the master of the dead man, and dies because he is put in chains before he who bound him can learn from the interpreters of the gods what he ought to do with him, dies unjustly ; and that on behalf of such an one a son ought to proceed against his father and accuse him of murder. How would you show that all the gods absolutely agree in approving of his act ? Prove to me that they do, and I will applaud your wisdom as long as I live. EUTHYPHRO

Soc. You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience of disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do not always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either party of the subjects which they are discussing ; but disagreements are apt to arise ó somebody says that another has not spoken truly or clearly ; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest in the question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another until the company at last are quite vexed at themselves for ever listening to such fellows. Why do I say this ? Why, because I cannot help feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or accordant with what you were saying at first about rhetoric. And I am afraid to point this out to you, lest you should think that I have some animosity against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of discovering the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one of my sort, I should like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you alone. And what is my sort ? you will ask. I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute ó I for I hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of a very great evil than of curing another. For I imagine that there is no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous opinion about the matters of which we are speaking and if you claim to be one of my sort, let us have the discussion out, but if you would rather have done, no matter ó let us make an end of it. GORGIAS

Soc. To say the truth, Polus, it is not an art at all, in my opinion. GORGIAS

Pol. Then what, in your opinion, is rhetoric ? GORGIAS

Soc. In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how to manage mankind : this habit I sum up under the word “flattery” ; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine and not an art : ó another part is rhetoric, and the art of attiring and sophistry are two others : thus there are four branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of flattery is rhetoric : he did not see that I had not yet answered him when he proceeded to ask a further question : Whether I do not think rhetoric a fine thing ? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I have first answered, “What is rhetoric ?” For that would not be right, Polus ; but I shall be happy to answer, if you will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric ? GORGIAS

Soc. By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a question of me. GORGIAS

Soc. Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me after the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring forward a number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their allegations, and their adversary has only a single one or none at all. But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim ; a man may often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring witnesses in disproof of my statement ó you may, if you will, summon Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him ; or you may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi ; summon, if you will, the whole house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you choose ó they will all agree with you : I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me ; although you produce many false witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worth speaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words ; nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours ; no matter about the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one which is yours and that of the world in general ; but mine is of another sort ó let us compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we are at issue about matters which to know is honourable and not to know disgraceful ; to know or not to know happiness and misery ó that is the chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler ? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this ? And therefore I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be happy, seeing that you think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy ? May I assume this to be your opinion ? GORGIAS

Soc. But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case, ó more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men. GORGIAS

Soc. In your own opinion, Polus. GORGIAS

Soc. Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I am beginning at the beginning : which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is the worst ? ó to do injustice or to suffer ? GORGIAS

Soc. And would you not allow that all just things are honourable in so far as they are just ? Please to reflect, and, tell me your opinion. GORGIAS

Soc. O Callicles, if there were not some community of feelings among mankind, however varying in different persons ó I mean to say, if every manís feelings were peculiar to himself and were not shared by the rest of his species ó I do not see how we could ever communicate our impressions to one another. I make this remark because I perceive that you and I have a common feeling. For we are lovers both, and both of us have two loves apiece : ó I am the lover of Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias ó I and of philosophy ; and you of the Athenian Demus, and of Demus the son of Pyrilampes. Now, I observe that you, with all your cleverness, do not venture to contradict your favourite in any word or opinion of his ; but as he changes you change, backwards and forwards. When the Athenian Demus denies anything that you are saying in the assembly, you go over to his opinion ; and you do the same with Demus, the fair young son of Pyrilampes. For you have not the power to resist the words and ideas of your loves ; and is a person were to express surprise at the strangeness of what you say from time to time when under their influence, you would probably reply to him, if you were honest, that you cannot help saying what your loves say unless they are prevented ; and that you can only be silent when they are. Now you must understand that my words are an echo too, and therefore you need not wonder at me ; but if you want to silence me, silence philosophy, who is my love, for she is always telling me what I am telling you, my friend ; neither is she capricious like my other love, for the son of Cleinias says one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, but philosophy is always true. She is the teacher at whose words you are. now wondering, and you have heard her yourself. Her you must refute, and either show, as I was saying, that to do injustice and to escape punishment is not the worst of all evils ; or, if you leave her word unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his whole life, will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus which I provided ; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, and contradict myself. GORGIAS

Soc. And are not the many of opinion, as you were lately saying, that justice is equality, and that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice ? ó is that so or not ? Answer, Callicles, and let no modesty be : found to come in the way ; do the many think, or do they not think thus ? ó I must beg of you to answer, in order that if you agree with me I may fortify myself by the assent of so competent an authority. GORGIAS

Cal. Yes ; the opinion of the many is what you say. GORGIAS

Cal. Quite so, Socrates ; and they are really fools, for how can a man be happy who is the servant of anything ? On the contrary, I plainly assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them ; but when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain ; and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise temperance and justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally the son of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than temperance ó to a man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every good, and has no one to stand in his way, and yet has admitted custom and reason and the opinion of other men to be lords over him ? ó must not he be in a miserable plight whom the reputation of justice and temperance hinders from giving more to his friends than to his enemies, even though he be a ruler in his city ? Nay, Socrates, for you profess to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this : ó that luxury and intemperance and licence, if they be provided with means, are virtue and happiness ó all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to nature, foolish talk of men, nothing worth. GORGIAS

Who knows if life be not death and death life ; and that we are very likely dead ; I have heard a philosopher say that at this moment we are actually dead, and that the body (soma) is our tomb (sema), and that the part of the soul which is the seat of the desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up and down ; and some ingenious person, probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the soul ó because of its believing and make-believe nature ó a vessel, and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires are seated, being the intemperate and incontinent part, he compared to a vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of thinking, Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in Hades, meaning the invisible world these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel which is full of holes out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The colander, as my informer assures me, is the soul, and the soul which he compares to a colander is the soul of the ignorant, which is likewise full of holes, and therefore incontinent, owing to a bad memory and want of faith. These notions are strange enough, but they show the principle which, if I can, I would fain prove to you ; that you should change your mind, and, instead of the intemperate and insatiate life, choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for daily needs. Do I make any impression on you, and are you coming over to the opinion that the orderly are happier than the intemperate ? Or do I fail to persuade you, and, however many tales I rehearse to you, do you continue of the same opinion still ? GORGIAS

Soc. You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will no longer be a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you say what is contrary to your real opinion. GORGIAS

Cal. That, Socrates, is only your opinion. GORGIAS

Soc. Let me now remind you of what I was saying to Gorgias and Polus ; I was saying, as you will not have forgotten, that there were some processes which aim only at pleasure, and know nothing of a better and worse, and there are other processes which know good and evil. And I considered that cookery, which I do not call an art, but only an experience, was of the former class, which is concerned with pleasure, and that the art of medicine was of the class which is concerned with the good. And now, by the god of friendship, I must beg you, Callicles, not to jest, or to imagine that I am jesting with you ; do not answer at random and contrary to your real opinion ó for you will observe that we are arguing about the way of human life ; and to a man who has any sense at all, what question can be more serious than this ? ó whether he should follow after that way of life to which you exhort me, and act what you call the manly part of speaking in the assembly, and cultivating rhetoric, and engaging in public affairs, according to the principles now in vogue ; or whether he should pursue the life of philosophy ó and in what the latter way differs from the former. But perhaps we had better first try to distinguish them, as I did before, and when we have come to an agreement that they are distinct, we may proceed to consider in what they differ from one another, and which of them we should choose. Perhaps, however, you do not even now understand what I mean ? GORGIAS

Soc. Then I will proceed, and ask whether you also agree with me, and whether you think that I spoke the truth when I further said to Gorgias and Polus that cookery in my opinion is only an experience, and not an art at all ; and that whereas medicine is an art, and attends to the nature and constitution of the patient, and has principles of action and reason in each case, cookery in attending upon pleasure never regards either the nature or reason of that pleasure to which she devotes herself, but goes straight to her end, nor ever considers or calculates anything, but works by experience and routine, and just preserves the recollection of what she has usually done when producing pleasure. And first, I would have you consider whether I have proved what I was saying, and then whether there are not other similar processes which have to do with the soul ó some of them processes of art, making a provision for the soulís highest interest ó others despising the interest, and, as in the previous case, considering only the pleasure of the soul, and how this may be acquired, but not considering what pleasures are good or bad, and having no other aim but to afford gratification, whether good or bad. In my opinion, Callicles, there are such processes, and this is the sort of thing which I term flattery, whether concerned with the body or the soul, or whenever employed with a view to pleasure and without any consideration of good and evil. And now I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with us in this notion, or whether you differ. GORGIAS

Soc. For in my opinion there is no profit in a manís life if his body is in an evil plight ó in that case his life also is evil : am I not right ? GORGIAS

Socrates. O Meno, there was a time when the Thessalians were famous among the other Hellenes only for their riches and their riding ; but now, if I am not mistaken, they are equally famous for their wisdom, especially at Larisa, which is the native city of your friend Aristippus. And this is Gorgiasí doing ; for when he came there, the flower of the Aleuadae, among them your admirer Aristippus, and the other chiefs of the Thessalians, fell in love with his wisdom. And he has taught you the habit of answering questions in a grand and bold style, which becomes those who know, and is the style in which he himself answers all comers ; and any Hellene who likes may ask him anything. How different is our lot ! my dear Meno. Here at Athens there is a dearth of the commodity, and all wisdom seems to have emigrated from us to you. I am certain that if you were to ask any Athenian whether virtue was natural or acquired, he would laugh in your face, and say : “Stranger, you have far too good an opinion of me, if you think that I can answer your question. For I literally do not know what virtue is, and much less whether it is acquired by teaching or not.” And I myself, Meno, living as I do in this region of poverty, am as poor as the rest of the world ; and I confess with shame that I know literally nothing about virtue ; and when I do not know the “quid” of anything how can I know the “quale” ? How, if I knew nothing at all of Meno, could I tell if he was fair, or the opposite of fair ; rich and noble, or the reverse of rich and noble ? Do you think that I could ? MENO

Soc. And yet, O son of Alexidemus, I cannot help thinking that the other was the better ; and I am sure that you would be of the same opinion, if you would only stay and be initiated, and were not compelled, as you said yesterday, to go away before the mysteries. MENO

Soc. And, in your opinion, do those who think that they will do them good know that they are evils ? MENO

Soc. Mark now the farther development. I shall only ask him, and not teach him, and he shall share the enquiry with me : and do you watch and see if you find me telling or explaining anything to him, instead of eliciting his opinion. Tell me, boy, is not this a square of four feet which I have drawn ? MENO

Soc. O Meno, think that Anytus is in a rage. And he may well be in a rage, for he thinks, in the first place, that I am defaming these gentlemen ; and in the second place, he is of opinion that he is one of them himself. But some day he will know what is the meaning of defamation, and if he ever does, he will forgive me. Meanwhile I will return to you, Meno ; for I suppose that there are gentlemen in your region too ? MENO

Soc. And a person who had a right opinion about the way, but had never been and did not know, might be a good guide also, might he not ? MENO

Soc. And while he has true opinion about that which the other knows, he will be just as good a guide if he thinks the truth, as he who knows the truth ? MENO

Soc. Then true opinion is as good a guide to correct action as knowledge ; and that was the point which we omitted in our speculation about the nature of virtue, when we said that knowledge only is the guide of right action ; whereas there is also right opinion. MENO

Soc. Then right opinion is not less useful than knowledge ? MENO

Men. The difference, Socrates, is only that he who has knowledge will always be right ; but he who has right opinion will sometimes be right, and sometimes not. MENO

Soc. What do you mean ? Can he be wrong who has right opinion, so long as he has right opinion ? MENO

Men. I admit the cogency of your argument, and therefore, Socrates, I wonder that knowledge should be preferred to right opinion ó or why they should ever differ. MENO

Soc. I mean to say that they are not very valuable possessions if they are at liberty, for they will walk off like runaway slaves ; but when fastened, they are of great value, for they are really beautiful works of art. Now this is an illustration of the nature of true opinions : while they abide with us they are beautiful and fruitful, but they run away out of the human soul, and do not remain long, and therefore they are not of much value until they are fastened by the tie of the cause ; and this fastening of them, friend Meno, is recollection, as you and I have agreed to call it. But when they are bound, in the first place, they have the nature of knowledge ; and, in the second place, they are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more honourable and excellent than true opinion, because fastened by a chain. MENO

Soc. I too speak rather in ignorance ; I only conjecture. And yet that knowledge differs from true opinion is no matter of conjecture with me. There are not many things which I profess to know, but this is most certainly one of them. MENO

Soc. And am I not also right in saying that true opinion leading the way perfects action quite as well as knowledge ? MENO

Soc. Then right opinion is not a whit inferior to knowledge, or less useful in action ; nor is the man who has right opinion inferior to him who has knowledge ? MENO

Soc. Seeing then that men become good and useful to states, not only because they have knowledge, but because they have right opinion, and that neither knowledge nor right opinion is given to man by nature or acquired by him ó do you imagine either of them to be given by nature ? MENO

Soc. And the only right guides are knowledge and true opinion ó these are the guides of man ; for things which happen by chance are not under the guidance of man : but the guides of man are true opinion and knowledge. MENO

Soc. But if not by knowledge, the only alternative which remains is that statesmen must have guided states by right opinion, which is in politics what divination is in religion ; for diviners and also prophets say many things truly, but they know not what they say. MENO

Yes, in my opinion. EUTHYDEMUS  

Then there is no such thing as false opinion ? EUTHYDEMUS

O Euthydemus, I said, I have but a dull conception of these subtleties and excellent devices of wisdom ; I am afraid that I hardly understand them, and you must forgive me therefore if I ask a very stupid question : if there be no falsehood or false opinion or ignorance, there can be no such thing as erroneous action, for a man cannot fail of acting as he is acting ó that is what you mean ? EUTHYDEMUS

Cri. Indeed, I am ; for if he did say so, then in my opinion he needs neither Euthydemus nor any one else to be his instructor. EUTHYDEMUS

Then, my dear Crito, there was universal applause of the speakers and their words, and what with laughing and clapping of hands and rejoicings the two men were quite overpowered ; for hitherto their partisans only had cheered at each successive hit, but now the whole company shouted with delight until the columns of the Lyceum returned the sound, seeming to sympathize in their joy. To such a pitch was I affected myself, that I made a speech, in which I acknowledged that I had never seen the like of their wisdom ; I was their devoted servant, and fell to praising and admiring of them. What marvellous dexterity of wit, I said, enabled you to acquire this great perfection in such a short time ? There is much, indeed, to admire in your words, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, but there is nothing that I admire more than your magnanimous disregard of any opinion ó whether of the many, or of the grave and reverend seigniors ó you regard only those who are like yourselves. And I do verily believe that there are few who are like you, and who would approve of such arguments ; the majority of mankind are so ignorant of their value, that they would be more ashamed of employing them in the refutation of others than of being refuted by them. I must further express my approval of your kind and public-spirited denial of all differences, whether of good and evil, white or black, or any other ; the result of which is that, as you say, every mouth is sewn up, not excepting your own, which graciously follows the example of others ; and thus all ground of offence is taken away. But what appears to me to be more than all is, that this art and invention of yours has been so admirably contrived by you, that in a very short time it can be imparted to any one. I observed that Ctesippus learned to imitate you in no time. Now this quickness of attainment is an excellent thing ; but at the same time I would advise you not to have any more public entertainments ; there is a danger that men may undervalue an art which they have so easy an opportunity of acquiring ; the exhibition would be best of all, if the discussion were confined to your two selves ; but if there must be an audience, let him only be present who is willing to pay a handsome fee ; ó you should be careful of this ; ó and if you are wise, you will also bid your disciples discourse with no man but you and themselves. For only what is rare is valuable ; and “water,” which, as Pindar   says, is the “best of all things,” is also the cheapest. And now I have only to request that you will receive Cleinias and me among your pupils. EUTHYDEMUS

Cri. Truly, Socrates, though I am curious and ready to learn, yet I fear that I am not like minded with Euthydemus, but one of the other sort, who, as you were saying, would rather be refuted by such arguments than use them in refutation of others. And though I may appear ridiculous in venturing to advise you, I think that you may as well hear what was said to me by a man of very considerable pretensions ó he was a professor of legal oratory ó who came away from you while I was walking up and down. “Crito,” said he to me, “are you giving no attention to these wise men ?” “No, indeed,” I said to him ; “I could not get within hearing of them ó there was such a crowd.” “You would have heard something worth hearing if you had.” “What was that ?” I said. “You would have heard the greatest masters of the art of rhetoric discoursing.” “And what did you think of them ?” I said. “What did I think of them ?” he said : ó “theirs was the sort of discourse which anybody might hear from men who were playing the fool, and making much ado about nothing.” That was the expression which he used. “Surely,” I said, “philosophy is a charming thing.” “Charming !” he said ; “what simplicity ! philosophy is nought ; and I think that if you had been present you would have been ashamed of your friend ó his conduct was so very strange in placing himself at the mercy of men who care not what they say, and fasten upon every word. And these, as I was telling you, are supposed to be the most eminent professors of their time. But the truth is, Crito, that the study itself and the men themselves are utterly mean and ridiculous.” Now censure of the pursuit, Socrates, whether coming from him or from others, appears to me to be undeserved ; but as to the impropriety of holding a public discussion with such men, there, I confess that, in my opinion, he was in the right. EUTHYDEMUS

Soc. Now I understand, Crito ; he is one of an amphibious class, whom I was on the point of mentioning ó one of those whom Prodicus describes as on the border-ground between philosophers and statesmen ó they think that they are the wisest of all men, and that they are generally esteemed the wisest ; nothing but the rivalry of the philosophers stands in their way ; and they are of the opinion that if they can prove the philosophers to be good for nothing, no one will dispute their title to the palm of wisdom, for that they are themselves really the wisest, although they are apt to be mauled by Euthydemus and his friends, when they get hold of them in conversation. This opinion which they entertain of their own wisdom is very natural ; for they have a certain amount of philosophy, and a certain amount of political wisdom ; there is reason in what they say, for they argue that they have just enough of both, and so they keep out-of the way all risks and conflicts and reap the fruits of their wisdom. EUTHYDEMUS

Her. I have often talked over this matter, both with Cratylus   and others, and cannot convince myself that there is any principle of correctness in names other than convention and agreement ; any name which you give, in my opinion, is the right one, and if you change that and give another, the new name is as correct as the old ó we frequently change the names of our slaves, and the newly-imposed name is as good as the old : for there is no name given to anything by nature ; all is convention and habit of the users ; ó such is my view. But if I am mistaken I shall be happy to hear and learn of Cratylus, or of any one else. CRATYLUS

Soc. Then the actions also are done according to their proper nature, and not according to our opinion of them ? In cutting, for example, we do not cut as we please, and with any chance instrument ; but we cut with the proper instrument only, and according to the natural process of cutting ; and the natural process is right and will succeed, but any other will fail and be of no use at all. CRATYLUS

Her. I cannot answer you, Socrates ; but I find a difficulty in changing my opinion all in a moment, and I think that I should be more readily persuaded, if you would show me what this is which you term the natural fitness of names. CRATYLUS

Soc. The name appears to me to be very nearly the same as the name of Astyanax ó both are Hellenic ; and a king (anax) and a holder (ektor) have nearly the same meaning, and are both descriptive of a king ; for a man is clearly the holder of that of which he is king ; he rules, and owns, and holds it. But, perhaps, you may think that I am talking nonsense ; and indeed I believe that I myself did not know what I meant when I imagined that I had found some indication of the opinion of Homer about the correctness of names. CRATYLUS

Soc. They are the men to whom I should attribute the imposition of names. Even in foreign names, if you analyze them, a meaning is still discernible. For example, that which we term ousia is by some called esia, and by others again osia. Now that the essence of things should be called estia, which is akin to the first of these (esia = estia), is rational enough. And there is reason in the Athenians calling that estia which participates in ousia. For in ancient times we too seem to have said esia for ousia, and this you may note to have been the idea of those who appointed that sacrifices should be first offered to estia, which was natural enough if they meant that estia was the essence of things. Those again who read osia seem to have inclined to the opinion of Heracleitus, that all things flow and nothing stands ; with them the pushing principle (othoun) is the cause and ruling power of all things, and is therefore rightly called osia. Enough of this, which is all that we who know nothing can affirm. Next in order after Hestia we ought to consider Rhea and Cronos, although the name of Cronos has been already discussed. But I dare say that I am talking great nonsense. CRATYLUS

Soc. I will tell you my own opinion ; but first, I should like to ask you which chain does any animal feel to be the stronger ? and which confines him more to the same spot, ó desire or necessity ? CRATYLUS

Soc. But the name, in my opinion, is really most expressive of the power of the God. CRATYLUS

For those who suppose all things to be in motion conceive the greater part of nature to be a mere receptacle ; and they say that there is a penetrating power which passes through all this, and is the instrument of creation in all, and is the subtlest and swiftest element ; for if it were not the subtlest, and a power which none can keep out, and also the swiftest, passing by other things as if they were standing still, it could not penetrate through the moving universe. And this element, which superintends all things and pieces (diaion) all, is rightly called dikaion ; the letter k is only added for the sake of euphony. Thus far, as I was saying, there is a general agreement about the nature of justice ; but I, Hermogenes, being an enthusiastic disciple, have been told in a mystery that the justice of which I am speaking is also the cause of the world : now a cause is that because of which anything is created ; and some one comes and whispers in my ear that justice is rightly so called because partaking of the nature of the cause, and I begin, after hearing what he has said, to interrogate him gently : “Well, my excellent friend,” say I, “but if all this be true, I still want to know what is justice.” Thereupon they think that I ask tiresome questions, and am leaping over the barriers, and have been already sufficiently answered, and they try to satisfy me with one derivation after another, and at length they quarrel. For one of them says that justice is the sun, and that he only is the piercing (diaionta) and burning (kaonta) element which is the guardian of nature. And when I joyfully repeat this beautiful notion, I am answered by the satirical remark, “What, is there no justice in the world when the sun is down ?” And when I earnestly beg my questioner to tell me his own honest opinion, he says, “Fire in the abstract” ; but this is not very intelligible. Another says, “No, not fire in the abstract, but the abstraction of heat in the fire.” Another man professes to laugh at all this, and says, as Anaxagoras says, that justice is mind, for mind, as they say, has absolute power, and mixes with nothing, and orders all things, and passes through all things. At last, my friend, I find myself in far greater perplexity about the nature of justice than I was before I began to learn. But still I am of opinion that the name, which has led me into this digression, was given to justice for the reasons which I have mentioned. CRATYLUS

Soc. That is a very singular word about which I can hardly form an opinion, and therefore I must have recourse to my ingenious device. CRATYLUS

Her. What do you think of doxa (opinion), and that class of words ? CRATYLUS

Her. In my opinion, no. But I wish that you would tell me, Socrates, what sort of an imitation is a name ? CRATYLUS

Crat. In my opinion, Socrates, the speaker would only be talking nonsense. CRATYLUS

Crat. Why, perhaps the letter l is wrongly inserted, Socrates, and should be altered into r, as you were saying to Hermogenes and in my opinion rightly, when you spoke of adding and subtracting letters upon occasion. CRATYLUS

Soc. Let us return to the point from which we digressed. You were saying, if you remember, that he who gave names must have known the things which he named ; are you still of that opinion ? CRATYLUS

Soc. There is another point. I should not like us to be imposed upon by the appearance of such a multitude of names, all tending in the same direction. I myself do not deny that the givers of names did really give them under the idea that all things were in motion and flux ; which was their sincere but, I think, mistaken opinion. And having fallen into a kind of whirlpool themselves, they are carried round, and want to drag us in after them. There is a matter, master Cratylus, about which I often dream, and should like to ask your opinion : Tell me, whether there is or is not any absolute beauty or good, or any other absolute existence ? CRATYLUS

Now here and in Lacedaemon the rules about love are perplexing, but in most cities they are simple and easily intelligible ; in Elis and Boeotia, and in countries having no gifts of eloquence, they are very straightforward ; the law is simply in favour of these connexions, and no one, whether young or old, has anything to say to their discredit ; the reason being, as I suppose, that they are men of few words in those parts, and therefore the lovers do not like the trouble of pleading their suit. In Ionia and other places, and generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable ; loves of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and gymnastics are held because they are inimical to tyranny ; for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience ; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had strength which undid their power. And, therefore, the ill-repute into which these attachments have fallen is to be ascribed to the evil condition of those who make them to be ill-reputed ; that is to say, to the self-seeking of the governors and the cowardice of the governed ; on the other hand, the indiscriminate honour which is given to them in some countries is attributable to the laziness of those who hold this opinion of them. In our own country a far better principle prevails, but, as I was saying, the explanation of it is rather perplexing. For, observe that open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable. SYMPOSIUM  

Nay, replied Socrates, I should be very wrong in attributing to you, Agathon, that or any other want of refinement. And I am quite aware that if you happened to meet with any whom you thought wise, you would care for their opinion much more than for that of the many. But then we, having been a part of the foolish many in the theatre, cannot be regarded as the select wise ; though I know that if you chanced to be in the presence, not of one of ourselves, but of some really wise man, you would be ashamed of disgracing yourself before him ó would you not ? SYMPOSIUM

And now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love which I heard from Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed the disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me, beginning with the admissions made by Agathon, which are nearly if not quite the same which I made to the wise woman when she questioned me ó I think that this will be the easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as well as I can. As you, Agathon, suggested, I must speak first of the being and nature of Love, and then of his works. First I said to her in nearly the same words which he used to me, that Love was a mighty god, and likewise fair and she proved to me as I proved to him that, by my own showing, Love was neither fair nor good. “What do you mean, Diotima,” I said, “is love then evil and foul ?” “Hush,” she cried ; “must that be foul which is not fair ?” “Certainly,” I said. “And is that which is not wise, ignorant ? do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance ?” “And what may that be ?” I said. “Right opinion,” she replied ; “which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how can knowledge be devoid of reason ? nor again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom.” “Quite true,” I replied. “Do not then insist,” she said, “that what is not fair is of necessity foul, or what is not good evil ; or infer that because love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil ; for he is in a mean between them.” “Well,” I said, “Love is surely admitted by all to be a great god.” “By those who know or by those who do not know ?” “By all.” “And how, Socrates,” she said with a smile, “can Love be acknowledged to be a great god by those who say that he is not a god at all ?” “And who are they ?” I said. “You and I are two of them,” she replied. “How can that be ?” I said. “It is quite intelligible,” she replied ; “for you yourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair of course you would ó would to say that any god was not ?” “Certainly not,” I replied. “And you mean by the happy, those who are the possessors of things good or fair ?” “Yes.” “And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want ?” “Yes, I did.” “But how can he be a god who has no portion in what is either good or fair ?” “Impossible.” “Then you see that you also deny the divinity of Love.” SYMPOSIUM

And this is what I and many others have suffered, from the flute-playing of this satyr. Yet hear me once more while I show you how exact the image is, and. how marvellous his power. For let me tell you ; none of you know him ; but I will reveal him to you ; having begun, I must go on. See you how fond he is of the fair ? He is always with them and is always being smitten by them, and then again he knows nothing and is ignorant of all thing such is the appearance which he puts on. Is he not like a Silenus in this ? To be sure he is : his outer mask is the carved head of the Silenus ; but, O my companions in drink, when he is opened, what temperance there is residing within ! Know you that beauty and wealth and honour, at which the many wonder, are of no account with him, and are utterly despised by him : he regards not at all the persons who are gifted with them ; mankind are nothing to him ; all his life is spent in mocking and flouting at them. But when I opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded : they may have escaped the observation of others, but I saw them. Now I fancied that he was seriously enamoured of my beauty, and I thought that I should therefore have a grand opportunity of hearing him tell what he knew, for I had a wonderful opinion of the attractions of my youth. In the prosecution of this design, when I next went to him, I sent away the attendant who usually accompanied me (I will confess the whole truth, and beg you to listen ; and if I speak falsely, do you, Socrates, expose the falsehood). Well, he and I were alone together, and I thought that when there was nobody with us, I should hear him speak the language which lovers use to their loves when they are by themselves, and I was delighted. Nothing of the sort ; he conversed as usual, and spent the day with me and then went away. Afterwards I challenged him to the palaestra ; and he wrestled and closed with me, several times when there was no one present ; I fancied that I might succeed in this manner. Not a bit ; I made no way with him. Lastly, as I had failed hitherto, I thought that I must take stronger measures and attack him boldly, and, as I had begun, not give him up, but see how matters stood between him and me. So I invited him to sup with me, just as if he were a fair youth, and I a designing lover. He was not easily persuaded to come ; he did, however, after a while accept the invitation, and when he came the first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over, and I had not the face to detain him. The second time, still in pursuance of my design, after we had supped, I went on conversing far into the night, and when he wanted to go away, I pretended that the hour was late and that he had much better remain. So he lay down on the couch next to me, the same on which he had supped, and there was no one but ourselves sleeping in the apartment. All this may be told without shame to any one. But what follows I could hardly tell you if I were sober. Yet as the proverb says, “In vino veritas,” whether with boys, or without them ; and therefore I must speak. Nor, again, should I be justified in concealing the lofty actions of Socrates when I come to praise him. Moreover I have felt the serpentís sting ; and he who has suffered, as they say, is willing to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely to understand him, and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or doings which have been wrung from his agony. For I have been bitten by a more than viperís tooth ; I have known in my soul, or in my heart, or in some other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous youth than any serpentís tooth, the pang of philosophy, which will make a man say or do anything. And you whom I see around me, Phaedrus   and Agathon and Eryximachus and Pausanias and Aristodemus and Aristophanes, all of you, and I need not say Socrates himself, have had experience of the same madness and passion in your longing after wisdom. Therefore listen and excuse my doings then and my sayings now. But let the attendants and other profane and unmannered persons close up the doors of their ears. SYMPOSIUM

And what do you say of another question, my friend, about which I should like to have your opinion, and the answer to which will probably throw light on our present inquiry : Do you think that the philosopher ought to care about the pleasures ó if they are to be called pleasures ó of eating and drinking ? PHAEDO  

Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of opinion that a life which has no bodily pleasures and no part in them is not worth having ; but that he who thinks nothing of bodily pleasures is almost as though he were dead. PHAEDO

I am sure, said Cebes, that I should gready like to know your opinion about them. PHAEDO

Then you are not of opinion, Simmias, that all men know these things ? PHAEDO

I think, Socrates, that, in the opinion of everyone who follows the argument, the soul will be infinitely more like the unchangeable even the most stupid person will not deny that. PHAEDO

Certainly not ! For not in that way does the soul of a philosopher reason ; she will not ask philosophy to release her in order that when released she may deliver herself up again to the thraldom of pleasures and pains, doing a work only to be undone again, weaving instead of unweaving her Penelopeís web. But she will make herself a calm of passion and follow Reason, and dwell in her, beholding the true and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence derive nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to be freed from human ills. Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing. PHAEDO

Cebes said : I will tell you. My feeling is that the argument is still in the same position, and open to the same objections which were urged before ; for I am ready to admit that the existence of the soul before entering into the bodily form has been very ingeniously, and, as I may be allowed to say, quite sufficiently proven ; but the existence of the soul after death is still, in my judgment, unproven. Now my objection is not the same as that of Simmias ; for I am not disposed to deny that the soul is stronger and more lasting than the body, being of opinion that in all such respects the soul very far excels the body. Well, then, says the argument to me, why do you remain unconvinced ? When you see that the weaker is still in existence after the man is dead, will you not admit that the more lasting must also survive during the same period of time ? Now I, like Simmias, must employ a figure ; and I shall ask you to consider whether the figure is to the point. The parallel which I will suppose is that of an old weaver, who dies, and after his death somebody says : He is not dead, he must be alive ; and he appeals to the coat which he himself wove and wore, and which is still whole and undecayed. And then he proceeds to ask of someone who is incredulous, whether a man lasts longer, or the coat which is in use and wear ; and when he is answered that a man lasts far longer, thinks that he has thus certainly demonstrated the survival of the man, who is the more lasting, because the less lasting remains. But that, Simmias, as I would beg you to observe, is not the truth ; everyone sees that he who talks thus is talking nonsense. For the truth is that this weaver, having worn and woven many such coats, though he outlived several of them, was himself outlived by the last ; but this is surely very far from proving that a man is slighter and weaker than a coat. Now the relation of the body to the soul may be expressed in a similar figure ; for you may say with reason that the soul is lasting, and the body weak and short-lived in comparison. And every soul may be said to wear out many bodies, especially in the course of a long life. For if while the man is alive the body deliquesces and decays, and yet the soul always weaves her garment anew and repairs the waste, then of course, when the soul perishes, she must have on her last garment, and this only will survive her ; but then again when the soul is dead the body will at last show its native weakness, and soon pass into decay. And therefore this is an argument on which I would rather not rely as proving that the soul exists after death. For suppose that we grant even more than you affirm as within the range of possibility, and besides acknowledging that the soul existed before birth admit also that after death the souls of some are existing still, and will exist, and will be born and die again and again, and that there is a natural strength in the soul which will hold out and be born many times ó for all this, we may be still inclined to think that she will weary in the labors of successive births, and may at last succumb in one of her deaths and utterly perish ; and this death and dissolution of the body which brings destruction to the soul may be unknown to any of us, for no one of us can have had any experience of it : and if this be true, then I say that he who is confident in death has but a foolish confidence, unless he is able to prove that the soul is altogether immortal and imperishable. But if he is not able to prove this, he who is about to die will always have reason to fear that when the body is disunited, the soul also may utterly perish. PHAEDO

Then I will tell you, said Socrates. When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called Natural Science ; this appeared to me to have lofty aims, as being the science which has to do with the causes of things, and which teaches why a thing is, and is created and destroyed ; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of such questions as these : Is the growth of animals the result of some decay which the hot and cold principle contracts, as some have said ? Is the blood the element with which we think, or the air, or the fire ? or perhaps nothing of this sort ó but the brain may be the originating power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory and opinion may come from them, and science may be based on memory and opinion when no longer in motion, but at rest. And then I went on to examine the decay of them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and at last I concluded that I was wholly incapable of these inquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was fascinated by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things that I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well ; and I forgot what I had before thought to be self-evident, that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking ; for when by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser bulk becomes larger and the small man greater. Was not that a reasonable notion ? PHAEDO

What hopes I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed ! As I proceeded, I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when he endeavored to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up of bones and muscles ; and the bones, as he would say, are hard and have ligaments which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them ; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture : that is what he would say, and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence ; for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia ó by the dog of Egypt they would, if they had been guided only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and nobler part, instead of playing truant and running away, to undergo any punishment which the State inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming. And thus one man makes a vortex all round and steadies the earth by the heaven ; another gives the air as a support to the earth, which is a sort of broad trough. Any power which in disposing them as they are disposes them for the best never enters into their minds, nor do they imagine that there is any superhuman strength in that ; they rather expect to find another Atlas of the world who is stronger and more everlasting and more containing than the good is, and are clearly of opinion that the obligatory and containing power of the good is as nothing ; and yet this is the principle which I would fain learn if anyone would teach me. But as I have failed either to discover myself or to learn of anyone else, the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have found to be the second best mode of inquiring into the cause. PHAEDO

Soc. The wise are doubtful, and I should not be singular if, like them, I too doubted. I might have a rational explanation that Orithyia was playing with Pharmacia, when a northern gust carried her over the neighbouring rocks ; and this being the manner of her death, she was said to have been carried away by Boreas. There is a discrepancy, however, about the locality ; according to another version of the story she was taken from Areopagus, and not from this place. Now I quite acknowledge that these allegories are very nice, but he is not to be envied who has to invent them ; much labour and ingenuity will be required of him ; and when he has once begun, he must go on and rehabilitate Hippocentaurs and chimeras dire. Gorgons and winged steeds flow in apace, and numberless other inconceivable and portentous natures. And if he is sceptical about them, and would fain reduce them one after another to the rules of probability, this sort of crude philosophy will take up a great deal of time. Now I have no leisure for such enquiries ; shall I tell you why ? I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says ; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this ; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself : am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny ? But let me ask you, friend : have we not reached the plane-tree to which you were conducting us ? PHAEDRUS

If you say that the lover is more to be esteemed, because his love is thought to be greater ; for he is willing to say and do what is hateful to other men, in order to please his beloved ; ó that, if true, is only a proof that he will prefer any future love to his present, and will injure his old love at the pleasure of the new. And how, in a matter of such infinite importance, can a man be right in trusting himself to one who is afflicted with a malady which no experienced person would attempt to cure, for the patient himself admits that he is not in his right mind, and acknowledges that he is wrong in his mind, but says that he is unable to control himself ? And if he came to his right mind, would he ever imagine that the desires were good which he conceived when in his wrong mind ? Once more, there are many more non-lovers than lovers ; and if you choose the best of the lovers, you will not have many to choose from ; but if from the non-lovers, the choice will be larger, and you will be far more likely to find among them a person who is worthy of your friendship. If public opinion be your dread, and you would avoid reproach, in all probability the lover, who is always thinking that other men are as emulous of him as he is of them, will boast to some one of his successes, and make a show of them openly in the pride of his heart ; ó he wants others to know that his labour has not been lost ; but the non-lover is more his own master, and is desirous of solid good, and not of the opinion of mankind. Again, the lover may be generally noted or seen following the beloved (this is his regular occupation), and whenever they are observed to exchange two words they are supposed to meet about some affair of love either past or in contemplation ; but when non-lovers meet, no one asks the reason why, because people know that talking to another is natural, whether friendship or mere pleasure be the motive. PHAEDRUS

I believe that I have said enough ; but if there is anything more which you desire or which in your opinion needs to be supplied, ask and I will answer.” PHAEDRUS

Phaedr. Now donít talk in that way, Socrates, but let me have your real opinion ; I adjure you, by Zeus, the god of friendship, to tell me whether you think that any Hellene could have said more or spoken better on the same subject. PHAEDRUS

Soc. Well, but are you and I expected to praise the sentiments of the author, or only the clearness, and roundness, and finish, and tournure of the language ? As to the first I willingly submit to your better judgment, for I am not worthy to form an opinion, having only attended to the rhetorical manner ; and I was doubting whether this could have been defended even by Lysias himself ; I thought, though I speak under correction, that he repeated himself two or three times, either from want of words or from want of pains ; and also, he appeared to me ostentatiously to exult in showing how well he could say the same thing in two or three ways. PHAEDRUS

“Every one sees that love is a desire, and we know also that non-lovers desire the beautiful and good. Now in what way is the lover to be distinguished from the non-lover ? Let us note that in every one of us there are two guiding and ruling principles which lead us whither they will ; one is the natural desire of pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion which aspires after the best ; and these two are sometimes in harmony and then again at war, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other conquers. When opinion by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering principle is called temperance ; but when desire, which is devoid of reason, rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is called excess. Now excess has many names, and many members, and many forms, and any of these forms when very marked gives a name, neither honourable nor creditable, to the bearer of the name. The desire of eating, for example, which gets the better of the higher reason and the other desires, is called gluttony, and he who is possessed by it is called a glutton ó I the tyrannical desire of drink, which inclines the possessor of the desire to drink, has a name which is only too obvious, and there can be as little doubt by what name any other appetite of the same family would be called ; ó it will be the name of that which happens to be eluminant. And now I think that you will perceive the drift of my discourse ; but as every spoken word is in a manner plainer than the unspoken, I had better say further that the irrational desire which overcomes the tendency of opinion towards right, and is led away to the enjoyment of beauty, and especially of personal beauty, by the desires which are her own kindred ó that supreme desire, I say, which by leading conquers and by the force of passion is reinforced, from this very force, receiving a name, is called love.” PHAEDRUS

Such is the life of the gods ; but of other souls, that which follows God best and is likest to him lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world, and is carried round in the revolution, troubled indeed by the steeds, and with difficulty beholding true being ; while another only rises and falls, and sees, and again fails to see by reason of the unruliness of the steeds. The rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world and they all follow, but not being strong enough they are carried round below the surface, plunging, treading on one another, each striving to be first ; and there is confusion and perspiration and the extremity of effort ; and many of them are lamed or have their wings broken through the ill-driving of the charioteers ; and all of them after a fruitless toil, not having attained to the mysteries of true being, go away, and feed upon opinion. The reason why the souls exhibit this exceeding eagerness to behold the plain of truth is that pasturage is found there, which is suited to the highest part of the soul ; and the wing on which the soul soars is nourished with this. And there is a law of Destiny, that the soul which attains any vision of truth in company with a god is preserved from harm until the next period, and if attaining always is always unharmed. But when she is unable to follow, and fails to behold the truth, and through some ill-hap sinks beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice, and her wings fall from her and she drops to the ground, then the law ordains that this soul shall at her first birth pass, not into any other animal, but only into man ; and the soul which has seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a philosopher, or artist, or some musical and loving nature ; that which has seen truth in the second degree shall be some righteous king or warrior chief ; the soul which is of the third class shall be a politician, or economist, or trader ; the fourth shall be lover of gymnastic toils, or a physician ; the fifth shall lead the life of a prophet or hierophant ; to the sixth the character of poet or some other imitative artist will be assigned ; to the seventh the life of an artisan or husbandman ; to the eighth that of a sophist or demagogue ; to the ninth that of a tyrant ó all these are states of probation, in which he who does righteously improves, and he who does unrighteously, improves, and he who does unrighteously, deteriorates his lot. PHAEDRUS

Phaedr. And yet, Socrates, I have heard that he who would be an orator has nothing to do with true justice, but only with that which is likely to be approved by the many who sit in judgment ; nor with the truly good or honourable, but only with opinion about them, and that from opinion comes persuasion, and not from the truth. PHAEDRUS

Phaedr. You have too good an opinion of me if you think that I have any such insight into his principles of composition. PHAEDRUS

Phaedr. Yes, they are royal men ; but their art is not the same with the art of those whom you call, and rightly, in my opinion, dialecticians : ó Still we are in the dark about rhetoric. PHAEDRUS

Soc. Oratory is the art of enchanting the soul, and therefore he who would be an orator has to learn the differences of human souls ó they are so many and of such a nature, and from them come the differences between man and man. Having proceeded thus far in his analysis, he will next divide speeches into their different classes : ó “Such and such persons,” he will say, “are affected by this or that kind of speech in this or that way,” and he will tell you why. The pupil must have a good theoretical notion of them first, and then he must have experience of them in actual life, and be able to follow them with all his senses about him, or he will never get beyond the precepts of his masters. But when he understands what persons are persuaded by what arguments, and sees the person about whom he was speaking in the abstract actually before him, and knows that it is he, and can say to himself, “This is the man or this is the character who ought to have a certain argument applied to him in order to convince him of a certain opinion” ; ó he who knows all this, and knows also when he should speak and when he should refrain, and when he should use pithy sayings, pathetic appeals, sensational effects, and all the other modes of speech which he has learned ; ó when, I say, he knows the times and seasons of all these things, then, and not till then, he is a perfect master of his art ; but if he fail in any of these points, whether in speaking or teaching or writing them, and yet declares that he speaks by rules of art, he who says “I donít believe you” has the better of him. Well, the teacher will say, is this, and Socrates, your account of the so-called art of rhetoric, or am I to look for another ? PHAEDRUS

Theaet. I think that we did ; but I should like to have your opinion. THEAETETUS  

Soc. Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs ; but differs, in that I attend men and not women ; and look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies : and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. And like the mid-wives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just ó the reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit. Some of them appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, they all make astonishing progress ; and this in the opinion of others as well as in their own. It is quite dear that they never learned anything from me ; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. But to me and the god they owe their delivery. And the proof of my words is, that many of them in their ignorance, either in their self-conceit despising me, or falling under the influence of others, have gone away too soon ; and have not only lost the children of whom I had previously delivered them by an ill bringing up, but have stifled whatever else they had in them by evil communications, being fonder of lies and shams than of the truth ; and they have at last ended by seeing themselves, as others see them, to be great fools. Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, is one of them, and there are many others. The truants often return to me, and beg that I would consort with them again ó they are ready to go to me on their knees and then, if my familiar allows, which is not always the case, I receive them, and they begin to grow again. Dire are the pangs which my art is able to arouse and to allay in those who consort with me, just like the pangs of women in childbirth ; night and day they are full of perplexity and travail which is even worse than that of the women. So much for them. And there are others, Theaetetus, who come to me apparently having nothing in them ; and as I know that they have no need of my art, I coax them into marrying some one, and by the grace of God I can generally tell who is likely to do them good. Many of them I have given away to Prodicus, and many to other inspired sages. I tell you this long story, friend Theaetetus, because I suspect, as indeed you seem to think yourself, that you are in labour ó great with some conception. Come then to me, who am a midwifeís son and myself a midwife, and do your best to answer the questions which I will ask you. And if I abstract and expose your first-born, because I discover upon inspection that the conception which you have formed is a vain shadow, do not quarrel with me on that account, as the manner of women is when their first children are taken from them. For I have actually known some who were ready to bite me when I deprived them of a darling folly ; they did not perceive that I acted from good will, not knowing that no god is the enemy of man ó that was not within the range of their ideas ; neither am I their enemy in all this, but it would be wrong for me to admit falsehood, or to stifle the truth. Once more, then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question, “What is knowledge ?” ó and do not say that you cannot tell ; but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of God you will be able to tell. THEAETETUS

Soc. Bravely said, boy ; that is the way in which you should express your opinion. And now, let us examine together this conception of yours, and see whether it is a true birth or a mere, wind-egg : ó You say that knowledge is perception ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Well, you have delivered yourself of a very important doctrine about knowledge ; it is indeed the opinion of Protagoras, who has another way of expressing it, Man, he says, is the measure of all things, of the existence of things that are, and of the non-existence of things that are not : ó You have read him ? THEAETETUS

Theaet. I do not know what to say, Socrates, for, indeed, I cannot make out whether you are giving your own opinion or only wanting to draw me out. THEAETETUS

Soc. You forget, my friend, that I neither know, nor profess to know, anything of ! these matters ; you are the person who is in labour, I am the barren midwife ; and this is why I soothe you, and offer you one good thing after another, that you may taste them. And I hope that I may at last help to bring your own opinion into the light of day : when this has been accomplished, then we will determine whether what you have brought forth is only a wind-egg or a real and genuine birth. Therefore, keep up your spirits, and answer like a man what you think. THEAETETUS

Soc. Then once more : Is it your opinion that nothing is but what becomes ? the good and the noble, as well ; as all the other things which we were just now mentioning ? THEAETETUS

Soc. I am charmed with his doctrine, that what appears is to each one, but I wonder that he did not begin his book on Truth with a declaration that a pig or a dog-faced baboon, or some other yet stranger monster which has sensation, is the measure of all things ; then he might have shown a magnificent contempt for our opinion of him by informing us at the outset that while we were reverencing him like a God for his wisdom he was no better than a tadpole, not to speak of his fellow-men ó would not this have produced an over-powering effect ? For if truth is only sensation, and no man can discern anotherís feelings better than he, or has any superior right to determine whether his opinion is true or false, but each, as we have several times repeated, is to himself the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and right, why, my friend, should Protagoras be preferred to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own wisdom ? Must he not be talking ad captandum in all this ? I say nothing of the ridiculous predicament in which my own midwifery and the whole art of dialectic is placed ; for the attempt to supervise or refute the notions or opinions of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of folly, if to each man his own are right ; and this must be the case if Protagoras Truth is the real truth, and the philosopher is not merely amusing himself by giving oracles out of the shrine of his book. THEAETETUS

Soc. And are not we, Protagoras, uttering the opinion of man, or rather of all mankind, when we say that every one thinks himself wiser than other men in some things, and their inferior in others ? In the hour of danger, when they are in perils of war, or of the sea, or of sickness, do they not look up to their commanders as if they were gods, and expect salvation from them, only because they excel them in knowledge ? Is not the world full of men in their several employments, who are looking for teachers and rulers of themselves and of the animals ? and there are plenty who think that they are able to teach and able to rule. Now, in all this is implied that ignorance and wisdom exist among them, least in their own opinion. THEAETETUS

Soc. And wisdom is assumed by them to be true thought, and ignorance to be false opinion. THEAETETUS

Soc. How then, Protagoras, would you have us treat the argument ? Shall we say that the opinions of men are always true, or sometimes true and sometimes false ? In either case, the result is the same, and their opinions are not always true, but sometimes true and sometimes false. For tell me, Theodorus, do you suppose that you yourself, or any other follower of Protagoras, would contend that no one deems another ignorant or mistaken in his opinion ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Why, suppose that you determine in your own mind something to be true, and declare your opinion to me ; let us assume, as he argues, that this is true to you. Now, if so, you must either say that the rest of us are not the judges of this opinion or judgment of yours, or that we judge you always to have a true opinion : But are there not thousands upon thousands who, whenever you form a judgment, take up arms against you and are of an opposite judgment and opinion, deeming that you judge falsely ? THEAETETUS

Theod. That would follow if the truth is supposed to vary with individual opinion. THEAETETUS

Soc. And the best of the joke is, that he acknowledges the truth of their opinion who believe his own opinion to be false ; for he admits that the opinions of all men are true. THEAETETUS

Soc. And does he not allow that his own opinion is false, if he admits that the opinion of those who think him false is true ? THEAETETUS

Soc. And he, as may be inferred from his writings, agrees that this opinion is also true. THEAETETUS

Soc. Then all mankind, beginning with Protagoras, will contend, or rather, I should say that he will allow, when he concedes that his adversary has a true opinion ó Protagoras, I say, will himself allow that neither a dog nor any ordinary man is the measure of anything which he has not learned ó am I not right ? THEAETETUS

Theod. In that opinion I quite agree. THEAETETUS

Soc. And is there not most likely to be firm ground in the distinction which we were indicating on behalf of Protagoras, viz., that most things, and all immediate sensations, such as hot, dry, sweet, are only such as they appear ; if however difference of opinion is to be allowed at all, surely we must allow it in respect of health or disease ? for every woman, child, or living creature has not such a knowledge of what conduces to health as to enable them to cure themselves. THEAETETUS

Soc. Whatever be the term used, the good or expedient is the aim of legislation, and as far as she has an opinion, the state imposes all laws with a view to the greatest expediency ; can legislation have any other aim ? THEAETETUS

Soc. And do you extend your doctrine, Protagoras (as we shall further say), to the future as well as to the present ; and has he the criterion not only of what in his opinion is but of what will be, and do things always happen to him as he expected ? For example, take the case of heat : ó When an ordinary man thinks that he is going to have a fever, and that this kind of heat is coming on, and another person, who is a physician, thinks the contrary, whose opinion is likely to prove right ? Or are they both right ? ó he will have a heat and fever in his own judgment, and not have a fever in the physicianís judgment ? THEAETETUS

Theod. That is the best refutation of him, Socrates ; although he is also caught when he ascribes truth to the opinions of others, who give the lie direct to his own opinion. THEAETETUS

Soc. There are many ways, Theodorus, in which the doctrine that every opinion of : every man is true may be refuted ; but there is more difficulty, in proving that states of feeling, which are present to a man, and out of which arise sensations and opinions in accordance with them, are also untrue. And very likely I have been talking nonsense about them ; for they may be unassailable, and those who say that there is clear evidence of them, and that they are matters of knowledge, may probably be right ; in which case our friend Theaetetus was not so far from the mark when he identified perception and knowledge. And therefore let us draw nearer, as the advocate of Protagoras desires ; and the truth of the universal flux a ring : is the theory sound or not ? at any rate, no small war is raging about it, and there are combination not a few. THEAETETUS

This is the language of Parmenides  , Melissus, and their followers, who stoutly maintain that all being is one and self-contained, and has no place which to move. What shall we do, friend, with all these people ; for, advancing step by step, we have imperceptibly got between the combatants, and, unless we can protect our retreat, we shall pay the penalty of our rashness ó like the players in the palaestra who are caught upon the line, and are dragged different ways by the two parties. Therefore I think that we had better begin by considering those whom we first accosted, “the river-gods,” and, if we find any truth in them, we will help them to pull us over, and try to get away from the others. But if the partisans of “the whole” appear to speak more truly, we will fly off from the party which would move the immovable, to them. And if I find that neither of them have anything reasonable to say, we shall be in a ridiculous position, having so great a conceit of our own poor opinion and rejecting that of ancient and famous men. O Theodorus, do you think that there is any use in proceeding when the danger is so great ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Then examine we must, since you, who were so reluctant. to begin, are so eager to proceed. The nature of motion appears to be the question with which we begin. What do they mean when they say that all things are in motion ? Is there only one kind of motion, or, as I rather incline to think, two ? should like to have your opinion upon this point in addition to my own, that I may err, if I must err, in your company ; tell me, then, when a thing changes from one place to another, or goes round in the same place, is not that what is called motion ? THEAETETUS

Theaet. I agree with you in that opinion. THEAETETUS

Soc. You are a beauty, Theaetetus, and not ugly, as Theodorus was saying ; for he who utters the beautiful is himself beautiful and good. And besides being beautiful, you have done me a kindness in releasing me from a very long discussion, if you are clear that the soul views some things by herself and others through the bodily organs. For that was my own opinion, and I wanted you to agree with me. THEAETETUS

Theaet. I cannot say, Socrates, that all opinion is knowledge, because there may be a false opinion ; but I will venture to assert, that knowledge is true opinion : let this then be my reply ; and if this is hereafter disproved, I must try to find another. THEAETETUS

Soc. That is the way in which you ought to answer, Theaetetus, and not in your former hesitating strain, for if we are bold we shall gain one of two advantages ; either we shall find what we seek, or we shall be less likely to think that we know what we do not know ó in either case we shall be richly rewarded. And now, what are you saying ? ó Are there two sorts of opinion, one true and the other false ; and do you define knowledge to be the true ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Is it still worth our while to resume the discussion touching opinion ? THEAETETUS

Soc. How there can be ó false opinion ó that difficulty still troubles the eye of my mind ; and I am uncertain whether I shall leave the question, or over again in a new way. THEAETETUS

Soc. Well, and what is the difficulty ? Do we not speak of false opinion, and say that one man holds a false and another a true opinion, as though there were some natural distinction between them ? THEAETETUS

Soc. That point being now determined, must we not say that he who has an opinion, must have an opinion about something which he knows or does not know ? THEAETETUS

Soc. What shall we say then ? When a man has a false opinion does he think that which he knows to be some other thing which he knows, and knowing both, is he at the same time ignorant of both ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Where, then, is false opinion ? For if all things are either known or unknown, there can be no opinion which is not comprehended under this alternative, and so false opinion is excluded. THEAETETUS

Soc. Then false opinion has no existence in us, either in the sphere of being or of knowledge ? THEAETETUS

Soc. May we not suppose that false opinion or thought is a sort of heterodoxy ; a person may make an exchange in his mind, and say that one real object is another real object. For thus he always thinks that which is, but he puts one thing in place of another ; and missing the aim of his thoughts, he may be truly said to have false opinion. THEAETETUS

Theaet. Now you appear to me to have spoken the exact truth : when a man puts the base in the place of the noble, or the noble in the place of the base, then he has truly false opinion. THEAETETUS

Soc. You think, if I am not mistaken, that your “truly false” is safe from censure, and that I shall never ask whether there can be a swift which is slow, or a heavy which is light, or any other self-contradictory thing, which works, not according to its own nature, but according to that of its opposite. But I will not insist upon this, for I do not wish needlessly to discourage you. And so you are satisfied that false opinion is heterodoxy, or the thought of something else ? THEAETETUS

Soc. I mean the conversation which the soul holds with herself in considering of anything. I speak of what I scarcely understand ; but the soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking ó asking questions of herself and answering them, affirming and denying. And when she has arrived at a decision, either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has at last agreed, and does not doubt, this is called her opinion. I say, then, that to form an opinion is to speak, and opinion is a word spoken, ó I mean, to oneself and in silence, not aloud or to another : What think you ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Then no one who has either both or only one of the two objects in his mind can think that the one is the other. And therefore, he who maintains that false opinion is heterodoxy is talking nonsense ; for neither in this, any more than in the previous way, can false opinion exist in us. THEAETETUS

Soc. Now, when a person has this knowledge, and is considering something which he sees or hears, may not false opinion arise in the following manner ? THEAETETUS

Soc. I should begin by making a list of the impossible cases which must be excluded. (1) No one can think one thing to be another when he does not perceive either of them, but has the memorial or seal of both of them in his mind ; nor can any mistaking of one thing for another occur, when he only knows one, and does not know, and has no impression of the other ; nor can he think that one thing which he does not know is another thing which he does not know, or that what he does not know is what he knows ; nor (2) that one thing which he perceives is another thing which he perceives, or that something which he perceives is something which he does not perceive ; or that something which he does not perceive is something else which he does not perceive ; or that something which he does not perceive is something which he perceives ; nor again (3) can he think that something which he knows and perceives, and of which he has the impression coinciding with sense, is something else which he knows and perceives, and of which he has the impression coinciding with sense ; ó this last case, if possible, is still more inconceivable than the others ; nor (4) can he think that something which he knows and perceives, and of which he has the memorial coinciding with sense, is something else which he knows ; nor so long as these agree, can he think that a thing which he knows and perceives is another thing which he perceives ; or that a thing which he does not know and does not perceive, is the same as another thing which he does not know and does not perceive ; ó nor again, can he suppose that a thing which he does not know and does not perceive is the same as another thing which he does not know ; or that a thing which he does not know and does not perceive is another thing which he does not perceive : ó All these utterly and absolutely exclude the possibility of false opinion. The only cases, if any, which remain, are the following. THEAETETUS

Soc. In the third case, not knowing and not perceiving either of you, I cannot think that one of you whom I do not know is the other whom I do not know. I need not again go over the catalogue of excluded cases, in which I cannot form a false opinion about you and Theodorus, either when I know both or when I am in ignorance of both, or when I know one and not the other. And the same of perceiving : do you understand me ? THEAETETUS

Soc. The only possibility of erroneous opinion is, when knowing you and Theodorus, and having on the waxen block the impression of both of you given as by a seal, but seeing you imperfectly and at a distance, I try to assign the right impression of memory to the right visual impression, and to fit this into its own print : if I succeed, recognition will take place ; but if I fad and transpose them, putting the foot into the wrong shoe ó that is to say, putting the vision of either of you on to the wrong impression, or if my mind, like the sight in a mirror, which is transferred from right to left, err by reason of some similar affection, then “heterodoxy” and false opinion ensues. THEAETETUS

Theaet. Yes, Socrates, you have described the nature of opinion with wonderful exactness. THEAETETUS

Soc. But there was an omission of the further case, in which, as we now say, false opinion may arise, when knowing both, and seeing, or having some other sensible perception of both, I fail in holding the seal over against the corresponding sensation ; like a bad archer, I miss and fall wide of the mark ó and this is called falsehood. THEAETETUS

Soc. When, therefore, perception is present to one of the seals or impressions but not to the other, and the mind fits the seal of the absent perception on the one which is present, in any case of this sort the mind is deceived ; in a word, if our view is sound, there can be no error or deception about things which a man does not know and has never perceived, but only in things which are known and perceived ; in these alone opinion turns and twists about, and becomes alternately true and false ; ó true when the seals and impressions of sense meet straight and opposite ó false when they go awry and crooked. THEAETETUS

Soc. But when the heart of any one is shaggy ó a quality which the all-wise poet commends, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or very hard, then there is a corresponding defect in the mind ó the soft are good at learning, but apt to forget ; and the hard are the reverse ; the shaggy and rugged and gritty, or those who have an admixture of earth or dung in their composition, have the impressions indistinct, as also the hard, for there is no depth in them ; and the soft too are indistinct, for their impressions are easily confused and effaced. Yet greater is the indistinctness when they are all jostled together in a little soul, which has no room. These are the natures which have false opinion ; for when they see or hear or think of anything, they are slow in assigning the right objects to the right impressions ó in their stupidity they confuse them, and are apt to see and hear and think amiss ó and such men are said to be deceived in their knowledge of objects, and ignorant. THEAETETUS

Soc. Then now we may admit the existence of false opinion in us ? THEAETETUS

Soc. And of true opinion also ? THEAETETUS

Soc. We have at length satisfactorily proven beyond a doubt there are these two sorts of opinion ? THEAETETUS

Soc. I am not only out of heart, but in positive despair ; for I do not know what to answer if any one were to ask me : ó O Socrates, have you indeed discovered that false opinion arises neither in the comparison of perceptions with one another nor yet in thought, but in union of thought and perception ? Yes, I shall say, with the complacence of one who thinks that he has made a noble discovery. THEAETETUS

Soc. Well, but do you think that no one ever put before his own mind five and seven, ó I do not mean five or seven men or horses, but five or seven in the abstract, which, as we say, are recorded on the waxen block, and in which false opinion is held to be impossible ; did no man ever ask himself how many these numbers make when added together, and answer that they are eleven, while another thinks that they are twelve, or would all agree in thinking and saying that they are twelve ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Then do we not come back to the old difficulty ? For he who makes such a mistake does think one thing which he knows to be another thing which he knows ; but this, as we said, was impossible, and afforded an irresistible proof of the non-existence of false opinion, because otherwise the same person would inevitably know and not know the same thing at the same time. THEAETETUS

Soc. Then false opinion cannot be explained as a confusion of thought and sense, for in that case we could not have been mistaken about pure conceptions of thought ; and thus we are obliged to say, either that false opinion does not exist, or that a man may not know that which he knows ; ó which alternative do you prefer ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Then shall we say that about names we care nothing ? ó any one may twist and turn the words “knowing” and “learning” in any way which he likes, but since we have determined that the possession of knowledge is not the having or using it, we do assert that a man cannot not possess that which he possesses ; and, therefore, in no case can a man not know that which he knows, but he may get a false opinion about it ; for he may have the knowledge, not of this particular thing, but of some other ; ó when the various numbers and forms of knowledge are flying about in the aviary, and wishing to capture a certain sort of knowledge out of the general store, he takes the wrong one by mistake, that is to say, when he thought eleven to be twelve, he got hold of the ringdove which he had in his mind, when he wanted the pigeon. THEAETETUS

Soc. But when he catches the one which he wants, then he is not deceived, and has an opinion of what is, and thus false and true opinion may exist, and the difficulties which were previously raised disappear. I dare say that you agree with me, do you not ? THEAETETUS

Soc. How can the exchange of one knowledge for another ever become false opinion ? THEAETETUS

Theaet. Perhaps, Socrates, we may have been wrong in making only forms of knowledge our birds : whereas there ought to have been forms of ignorance as well, flying about together in the mind, and then he who sought to take one of them might sometimes catch a form of knowledge, and sometimes a form of ignorance ; and thus he would have a false opinion from ignorance, but a true one from knowledge, about the same thing. THEAETETUS

Soc. I cannot help praising you, Theaetetus, and yet I must beg you to reconsider your words. Let us grant what you say ó then, according to you, he who takes ignorance will have a false opinion ó am I right ? THEAETETUS

Soc. He will certainly not think that he has a false opinion ? THEAETETUS

Soc. He will think that his opinion is true, and he will fancy that he knows the things about which he has been deceived ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Are not his reproaches just, and does not the argument truly show that we are wrong in seeking for false opinion until we know what knowledge is ; that must be first ascertained ; then, the nature of false opinion ? THEAETETUS

Theaet. Knowledge was said by us to be true opinion ; and true opinion is surely unerring, and the results which follow from it are all noble and good. THEAETETUS

Soc. And would you not say that persuading them is making them have an opinion ? THEAETETUS

Soc. When, therefore, judges are justly persuaded about matters which you can know only by seeing them, and not in any other way, and when thus judging of them from report they attain a true opinion about them, they judge without knowledge and yet are rightly persuaded, if they have judged well. THEAETETUS

Soc. And yet, O my friend, if true opinion in law courts and knowledge are the same, the perfect judge could not have judged rightly without knowledge ; and therefore I must infer that they are not the same. THEAETETUS

Theaet. That is a distinction, Socrates, which I have heard made by some one else, but I had forgotten it. He said that true opinion, combined with reason, was knowledge, but that the opinion which had no reason was out of the sphere of knowledge ; and that things of which there is no rational account are not knowable ó such was the singular expression which he used ó and that things which have a reason or explanation are knowable. THEAETETUS

Soc. Let me give you, then, a dream in return for a dream : ó Methought that I too had a dream, and I heard in my dream that the primeval letters or elements out of which you and I and all other things are compounded, have no reason or explanation ; you can only name them, but no predicate can be either affirmed or denied of them, for in the one case existence, in the other non-existence is already implied, neither of which must be added, if you mean to speak of this or that thing by itself alone. It should not be called itself, or that, or each, or alone, or this, or the like ; for these go about everywhere and are applied to all things, but are distinct from them ; whereas, if the first elements could be described, and had a definition of their own, they would be spoken of apart from all else. But none of these primeval elements can be defined ; they can only be named, for they have nothing but a name, and the things which are compounded of them, as they are complex, are expressed by a combination of names, for the combination of names is the essence of a definition. Thus, then, the elements or letters are only objects of perception, and cannot be defined or known ; but the syllables or combinations of them are known and expressed, and are apprehended by true opinion. When, therefore, any one forms the true opinion of anything without rational explanation, you may say that his mind is truly exercised, but has no knowledge ; for he who cannot give and receive a reason for a thing, has no knowledge of that thing ; but when he adds rational explanation, then, he is perfected in knowledge and may be all that I have been denying of him. Was that the form in which the dream appeared to you ? THEAETETUS

Soc. And you allow and maintain that true opinion, combined with definition or rational explanation, is knowledge ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Which is probably correct ó for how can there be knowledge apart from definition and true opinion ? And yet there is one point in what has been said which does not quite satisfy me. THEAETETUS

Soc. We cannot, therefore, agree in the opinion of him who says that the syllable can be known and expressed, but not the letters. THEAETETUS

Soc. And there might be given other proofs of this belief, if I am not mistaken. But do not let us in looking for them lose sight of the question before us, which is the meaning of the statement, that right opinion with rational definition or explanation is the most perfect form of knowledge. THEAETETUS

Soc. In the first place, the meaning may be, manifesting oneís thought by the voice with verbs and nouns, imaging an opinion in the stream which flows from the lips, as in a mirror or water. Does not explanation appear to be of this nature ? THEAETETUS

Soc. And every one who is not born deaf or dumb is able sooner or later to manifest what he thinks of anything ; and if so, all those who have a right opinion about anything will also have right explanation ; nor will right opinion be anywhere found to exist apart from knowledge. THEAETETUS

Soc. And our opponent will probably laugh at us, just as he would if we professed to be grammarians and to give a grammatical account of the name of Theaetetus, and yet could only tell the syllables and not the letters of your name ó that would be true opinion, and not knowledge ; for knowledge, as has been already remarked, is not attained until, combined with true opinion, there is an enumeration of the elements out of which is composed. THEAETETUS

Soc. In the same general way, we might also have true opinion about a waggon ; but he who can describe its essence by an enumeration of the hundred planks, adds rational explanation to true opinion, and instead of opinion has art and knowledge of the nature of a waggon, in that he attains to the whole through the elements. THEAETETUS

Soc. And in that case, when he knows the order of the letters and can write them out correctly, he has right opinion ? THEAETETUS

Soc. But although we admit that he has right opinion, he will still be without knowledge ? THEAETETUS

Soc. And yet he will have explanations, as well as right opinion, for he knew the order of the letters when he wrote ; and this we admit be explanation. THEAETETUS

Soc. Then, my friend, there is such a thing as right opinion united with definition or explanation, which does not as yet attain to the exactness of knowledge. THEAETETUS

Soc. And what we fancied to be a perfect definition of knowledge is a dream only. But perhaps we had better not say so as yet, for were there not three explanations of knowledge, one of which must, as we said, be adopted by him who maintains knowledge to be true opinion combined with rational explanation ? And very likely there may be found some one who will not prefer this but the third. THEAETETUS

Soc. But he, who having right opinion about anything, can find out the difference which distinguishes it from other things will know that of which before he had only an opinion. THEAETETUS

Soc. I will endeavour to explain : I will suppose myself to have true opinion of you, and if to this I add your definition, then I have knowledge, but if not, opinion only. THEAETETUS

Soc. But when I had only opinion, I had no conception of your distinguishing characteristics. THEAETETUS

Soc. Surely I can have no conception of Theaetetus until your snub-nosedness has left an impression on my mind different from the snub-nosedness of all others whom I have ever seen, and until your other peculiarities have a like distinctness ; and so when I meet you tomorrow the right opinion will be re-called ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Then right opinion implies the perception of differences ? THEAETETUS

Soc. What, then, shall we say of adding reason or explanation to right opinion ? If the meaning is, that we should form an opinion of the way in which something differs from another thing, the proposal is ridiculous. THEAETETUS

Soc. We are supposed to acquire a right opinion of the differences which distinguish one thing from another when we have already a right opinion of them, and so we go round and round : ó the revolution of the scytal, or pestle, or any other rotatory machine, in the same circles, is as nothing compared with such a requirement ; and we may be truly described as the blind directing the blind ; for to add those things which we already have, in order that we may learn what we already think, is like a soul utterly benighted. THEAETETUS

Soc. If, my boy, the argument, in speaking of adding the definition, had used the word to “know,” and not merely “have an opinion” of the difference, this which is the most promising of all the definitions of knowledge would have come to a pretty end, for to know is surely to acquire knowledge. THEAETETUS

Soc. And so, when the question is asked, What is knowledge ? this fair argument will answer “Right opinion with knowledge,” ó knowledge, that is, of difference, for this, as the said argument maintains, is adding the definition. THEAETETUS

Soc. But how utterly foolish, when we are asking what is knowledge, that the reply should only be, right opinion with knowledge of difference or of anything ! And so, Theaetetus, knowledge is neither sensation nor true opinion, nor yet definition and explanation accompanying and added to true opinion ? THEAETETUS

I understand, said Socrates, and quite accept your account. But tell me, Zeno  , do you not further think that there is an idea of likeness in itself, and another idea of unlikeness, which is the opposite of likeness, and that in these two, you and I and all other things to which we apply the term many, participate ó things which participate in likeness become in that degree and manner like ; and so far as they participate in unlikeness become in that degree unlike, or both like and unlike in the degree in which they participate in both ? And may not all things partake of both opposites, and be both like and unlike, by reason of this participation ? ó Where is the wonder ? Now if a person could prove the absolute like to become unlike, or the absolute unlike to become like, that, in my opinion, would indeed be a wonder ; but there is nothing extraordinary, Zeno, in showing that the things which only partake of likeness and unlikeness experience both. Nor, again, if a person were to show that all is one by partaking of one, and at the same time many by partaking of many, would that be very astonishing. But if he were to show me that the absolute one was many, or the absolute many one, I should be truly amazed. And so of all the rest : I should be surprised to hear that the natures or ideas themselves had these opposite qualities ; but not if a person wanted to prove of me that I was many and also one. When he wanted to show that I was many he would say that I have a right and a left side, and a front and a back, and an upper and a lower half, for I cannot deny that I partake of multitude ; when, on the other hand, he wants to prove that I am one, he will say, that we who are here assembled are seven, and that I am one and partake of the one. In both instances he proves his case. So again, if a person shows that such things as wood, stones, and the like, being many are also one, we admit that he shows the coexistence the one and many, but he does not show that the many are one or the one many ; he is uttering not a paradox but a truism. If however, as I just now suggested, some one were to abstract simple notions of like, unlike, one, many, rest, motion, and similar ideas, and then to show that these admit of admixture and separation in themselves, I should be very much astonished. This part of the argument appears to be treated by you, Zeno, in a very spirited manner ; but, as I was saying, I should be far more amazed if any one found in the ideas themselves which are apprehended by reason, the same puzzle and entanglement which you have shown to exist in visible objects. PARMENIDES

The latter view, Parmenides, is no more rational than the previous one. In my opinion, the ideas are, as it were, patterns fixed in nature, and other things are like them, and resemblances of them ó what is meant by the participation of other things in the ideas, is really assimilation to them. PARMENIDES

Then there is no name, nor expression, nor perception, nor opinion, nor knowledge of it ? PARMENIDES

And since we have at this moment opinion and knowledge and perception of the one, there is opinion and knowledge and perception of it ? PARMENIDES

Nor can what is not, be anything, or be this thing, or be related to or the attribute of this or that or other, or be past, present, or future. Nor can knowledge, or opinion, or perception, or expression, or name, or any other thing that is, have any concern with it ? PARMENIDES

Nor is there an opinion or any appearance of not-being in connection with the others, nor is not-being ever in any way attributed to the others. PARMENIDES

Theod. Nay, Socrates, he is not one of the disputatious sort ó he is too good for that. And, in my opinion, he is not a god at all ; but divine he certainly is, for this is a title which I should give to all philosophers. SOPHIST

Str. I should say that the habit which leads a man to neglect his own affairs for the pleasure of conversation, of which the style is far from being agreeable to the majority of his hearers, may be fairly termed loquacity : such is my opinion. SOPHIST

Str. And do we not see that opinion is opposed to desire, pleasure to anger, reason to pain, and that all these elements are opposed to one another in the souls of bad men ? SOPHIST

Theaet. That certainly appears to be the opinion of mankind. SOPHIST

Theaet. Precisely my own opinion of him. SOPHIST

Str. Again, false opinion is that form of opinion which thinks the opposite of the truth : ó You would assent ? SOPHIST

Str. You mean to say that false opinion thinks what is not ? SOPHIST

Str. Does false opinion think that things which are not are not, or that in a certain sense they are ? SOPHIST

Str. And does not false opinion also think that things which most certainly exist do not exist at all ? SOPHIST

Theaet. Of course he will say that we are contradicting ourselves when we hazard the assertion, that falsehood exists in opinion and in words ; for in maintaining this, we are compelled over and over again to assert being of not-being, which we admitted just now to be an utter impossibility. SOPHIST

Str. Yes, a blind man, as they say, might see that, and, unless these questions are decided in one way or another, no one when he speaks false words, or false opinion, or idols, or images or imitations or appearances, or about the arts which are concerned with them ; can avoid falling into ridiculous contradictions. SOPHIST

Str. With those who make being to consist in ideas, there will be less difficulty, for they are civil people enough ; but there will be very great difficulty, or rather an absolute impossibility, in getting an opinion out of those who drag everything down to matter. Shall I tell you what we must do ? SOPHIST

Str. Let us, if we can, really improve them ; but if this is not possible, let us imagine them to be better than they are, and more willing to answer in accordance with the rules of argument, and then their opinion will be more worth having ; for that which better men acknowledge has more weight than that which is acknowledged by inferior men. Moreover we are no respecters of persons, but seekers after time. SOPHIST

Str. And thence arises the question, whether not-being mingles with opinion and language. SOPHIST

Str. If not-being has no part in the proposition, then all things must be true ; but if not-being has a part, then false opinion and false speech are possible, for think or to say what is not is falsehood, which thus arises in the region of thought and in speech. SOPHIST

Str. And now, not-being has been shown to partake of being, and therefore he will not continue fighting in this direction, but he will probably say that some ideas partake of not-being, and some not, and that language and opinion are of the non-partaking class ; and he will still fight to the death against the existence of the image-making and phantastic art, in which we have placed him, because, as he will say, opinion and language do not partake of not-being, and unless this participation exists, there can be no such thing as falsehood. And, with the view of meeting this evasion, we must begin by enquiring into the nature of language, opinion, and imagination, in order that when we find them we may find also that they have communion with not-being, and, having made out the connection of them, may thus prove that falsehood exists ; and therein we will imprison the Sophist, if he deserves it, or, if not, we will let him go again and look for him in another class. SOPHIST

Theaet. Certainly, Stranger, there appears to be truth in what was said about the Sophist at first, that he was of a class not easily caught, for he seems to have abundance of defences, which he throws up, and which must every one of them be stormed before we can reach the man himself. And even now, we have with difficulty got through his first defence, which is the not-being of not-being, and lo ! here is another ; for we have still to show that falsehood exists in the sphere of language and opinion, and there will be another and another line of defence without end. SOPHIST

Str. Then, as I was saying, let us first of all obtain a conception of language and opinion, in order that we may have clearer grounds for determining, whether not-being has any concern with them, or whether they are both always true, and neither of them ever false. SOPHIST

Str. And therefore thought, opinion, and imagination are now proved to exist in our minds both as true and false. SOPHIST

Str. When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in the mind only, have you any other name by which to call it but opinion ? SOPHIST

Str. And when opinion is presented, not simply, but in some form of sense, would you not call it imagination ? SOPHIST

Str. And seeing that language is true and false, and that thought is the conversation of the soul with herself, and opinion is the end of thinking, and imagination or phantasy is the union of sense and opinion, the inference is that some of them, since they are akin to language, should have an element of falsehood as well as of truth ? SOPHIST

Str. Do you perceive, then, that false opinion and speech have been discovered sooner than we expected ? ó For just now we seemed to be undertaking a task which would never be accomplished. SOPHIST

Str. And now, since there has been shown to be false speech and false opinion, there may be imitations of real existences, and out of this condition of the mind an art of deception may arise. SOPHIST

Str. Looking, now, at the world and all the animals and plants, at things which grow upon the earth from seeds and roots, as well as at inanimate substances which are formed within the earth, fusile or non-fusile, shall we say that they come into existence ó not having existed previously ó by the creation of God, or shall we agree with vulgar opinion about them ? SOPHIST

Str. The opinion that nature brings them into being from some spontaneous and unintelligent cause. Or shall we say that they are created by a divine reason and a knowledge which comes from God ? SOPHIST

Str. And what would you say of the figure or form of justice or of virtue in general ? Are we not well aware that many, having no knowledge of either, but only a sort of opinion, do their best to show that this opinion is really entertained by them, by expressing it, as far as they can, in word and deed ? SOPHIST

Str. Can we find a suitable name for each of them ? This is clearly not an easy task ; for among the ancients there was some confusion of ideas, which prevented them from attempting to divide genera into species ; wherefore there is no great abundance of names. Yet, for the sake of distinctness, I will make bold to call the imitation which coexists with opinion, the imitation of appearance ó that which coexists with science, a scientific or learned imitation. SOPHIST

Str. Could any one, my friend, who began with false opinion ever expect to arrive even at a small portion of truth and to attain wisdom ? STATESMAN

Str. Well, such as this : ó Every man will reflect that he suffers strange things at the hands of both of them ; the physician ; saves any whom he wishes to save, and any whom he wishes to maltreat he maltreats ó cutting or burning them ; and at the same time requiring them to bring him patients, which are a sort of tribute, of which little or nothing is spent upon the sick man, and the greater part is consumed by him and his domestics ; and the finale is that he receives money from the relations of the sick man or from some enemy of his ; and puts him out of the way. And the pilots of ships are guilty, of numberless evil deeds of the same kind ; they intentionally play false and leave you ashore when the hour of sailing arrives ; or they cause mishaps at sea and cast away their freight ; and are guilty of other rogueries. Now suppose that we, bearing all this in mind, were to determine, after consideration, that neither of these arts shall any longer be allowed to exercise absolute control either over freemen or over slaves, but that we will summon an assembly either of all the people, or of the rich only, that anybody who likes, whatever may be his calling, or even if he have no calling, may offer an opinion either about seamanship or about diseases ó whether as to the manner in which physic or surgical instruments are to be applied to the patient, or again about the vessels and the nautical implements which are required in navigation, and how to meet the dangers of winds and waves which are incidental to the voyage, how to behave when encountering pirates, and what is to be done with the old fashioned galleys, if they have to fight with others of a similar build ó and that, whatever shall be decreed by the multitude on these points, upon the advice of persons skilled or unskilled, shall be written down on triangular tablets and columns, or enacted although unwritten to be national customs ; and that in all future time vessels shall be navigated and remedies administered to the patient after this fashion. STATESMAN

Str. And, as we were saying, he who has knowledge and is a true Statesman, will do many things within his own sphere of action by his art without regard to the laws, when he is of opinion that something other than that which he has written down and enjoined to be observed during his absence would be better. STATESMAN

Str. Or again, when an individual rules according to law in imitation of him who knows, we call him a king ; and if he rules according to law, we give him the same name, whether he rules with opinion or with knowledge. STATESMAN

Str. To assume that one part of virtue differs in kind from another, is a position easily assailable by contentious disputants, who appeal to popular opinion. STATESMAN

Str. The meaning is, that the opinion about the honourable and the just and good and their opposites, which is true and confirmed by reason, is a divine principle, and when implanted in the soul, is implanted, as I maintain, in a nature of heavenly birth. STATESMAN

Str. Only the Statesman   and the good legislator, having the inspiration of the royal muse, can implant this opinion, and he, only in the rightly educated, whom we were just now describing. STATESMAN

Str. It was of these bonds I said that there would be no difficulty in creating them, if only both classes originally held the same opinion about the honourable and good ; ó indeed, in this single work, the whole process of royal weaving is comprised ó never to allow temperate natures to be separated from the brave, but to weave them together, like the warp and the woof, by common sentiments and honours and reputation, and by the giving of pledges to one another ; and out of them forming one smooth and even web, to entrust to them the offices of State. STATESMAN

Crit. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man ; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling : “Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.” “And what was the tale about, Critias ?” said Amynander. “About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us.” “Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition.” TIMAEUS  

“I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young ; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes ; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his fatherís chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals ; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below ; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient. TIMAEUS

First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What is that which always is and has no becoming ; and what is that which is always becoming and never is ? That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state ; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is. Now everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect ; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. Was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other more appropriate name ó assuming the name, I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about anything ó was the world, I say, always in existence and without beginning ? or created, and had it a beginning ? Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible ; and all sensible things are apprehended by opinion and sense and are in a process of creation and created. Now that which is created must, as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out ; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible. And there is still a question to be asked about him : Which of the patterns had the artificer in view when he made the world ó the pattern of the unchangeable, or of that which is created ? If the world be indeed fair and the artificer good, it is manifest that he must have looked to that which is eternal ; but if what cannot be said without blasphemy is true, then to the created pattern. Every one will see that he must have looked to, the eternal ; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes. And having been created in this way, the world has been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, be a copy of something. Now it is all-important that the beginning of everything should be according to nature. And in speaking of the copy and the original we may assume that words are akin to the matter which they describe ; when they relate to the lasting and permanent and intelligible, they ought to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far as their nature allows, irrefutable and immovable ó nothing less. But when they express only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things themselves, they need only be likely and analogous to the real words. As being is to becoming, so is truth to belief. If then, Socrates, amid the many opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give notions which are altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others ; for we must remember that I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further. TIMAEUS

All these are to be reckoned among the second and co-operative causes which God, carrying into execution the idea of the best as far as possible, uses as his ministers. They are thought by most men not to be the second, but the prime causes of all things, because they freeze and heat, and contract and dilate, and the like. But they are not so, for they are incapable of reason or intellect ; the only being which can properly have mind is the invisible soul, whereas fire and water, and earth and air, are all of them visible bodies. The lover of intellect and knowledge ought to explore causes of intelligent nature first of all, and, secondly, of those things which, being moved by others, are compelled to move others. And this is what we too must do. Both kinds of causes should be acknowledged by us, but a distinction should be made between those which are endowed with mind and are the workers of things fair and good, and those which are deprived of intelligence and always produce chance effects without order or design. Of the second or co-operative causes of sight, which help to give to the eyes the power which they now possess, enough has been said. I will therefore now proceed to speak of the higher use and purpose for which God has given them to us. The sight in my opinion is the source of the greatest benefit to us, for had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and the heaven, none of the words which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and the months and the revolutions of the years, have created number, and have given us a conception of time, and the power of enquiring about the nature of the universe ; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods to mortal man. This is the greatest boon of sight : and of the lesser benefits why should I speak ? even the ordinary man if he were deprived of them would bewail his loss, but in vain. Thus much let me say however : God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to the perturbed ; and that we, learning them and partaking of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely unerring courses of God and regulate our own vagaries. The same may be affirmed of speech and hearing : they have been given by the gods to the same end and for a like reason. For this is the principal end of speech, whereto it most contributes. Moreover, so much of music as is adapted to the sound of the voice and to the sense of hearing is granted to us for the sake of harmony ; and harmony, which has motions akin to the revolutions of our souls, is not regarded by the intelligent votary of the Muses as given by them with a view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our day, but as meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringing her into harmony and agreement with herself ; and rhythm too was given by them for the same reason, on account of the irregular and graceless ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them. TIMAEUS

Thus far in what we have been saying, with small exception, the works of intelligence have been set forth ; and now we must place by the side of them in our discourse the things which come into being through necessity ó for the creation is mixed, being made up of necessity and mind. Mind, the ruling power, persuaded necessity to bring the greater part of created things to perfection, and thus and after this manner in the beginning, when the influence of reason got the better of necessity, the universe was created. But if a person will truly tell of the way in which the work was accomplished, he must include the other influence of the variable cause as well. Wherefore, we must return again and find another suitable beginning, as about the former matters, so also about these. To which end we must consider the nature of fire, and water, and air, and earth, such as they were prior to the creation of the heaven, and what was happening to them in this previous state ; for no one has as yet explained the manner of their generation, but we speak of fire and the rest of them, whatever they mean, as though men knew their natures, and we maintain them to be the first principles and letters or elements of the whole, when they cannot reasonably be compared by a man of any sense even to syllables or first compounds. And let me say thus much : I will not now speak of the first principle or principles of all things, or by whatever name they are to be called, for this reason ó because it is difficult to set forth my opinion according to the method of discussion which we are at present employing. Do not imagine, any more than I can bring myself to imagine, that I should be right in undertaking so great and difficult a task. Remembering what I said at first about probability, I will do my best to give as probable an explanation as any other ó or rather, more probable ; and I will first go back to the beginning and try to speak of each thing and of all. Once more, then, at the commencement of my discourse, I call upon God, and beg him to be our saviour out of a strange and unwonted enquiry, and to bring us to the haven   of probability. So now let us begin again. TIMAEUS

Thus I state my view : ó If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind ; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature ; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion ; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason ; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can : and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only. And there is another nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created, always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense. And there is a third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, and is hardly real ; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth has no existence. Of these and other things of the same kind, relating to the true and waking reality of nature, we have only this dreamlike sense, and we are unable to cast off sleep and determine the truth about them. For an image, since the reality, after which it is modelled, does not belong to it, and it exists ever as the fleeting shadow of some other, must be inferred to be in another [i.e. in space ], grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be at all. But true and exact reason, vindicating the nature of true being, maintains that while two things [i.e. the image and space] are different they cannot exist one of them in the other and so be one and also two at the same time. TIMAEUS

Now, he who, duly reflecting on all this, enquires whether the worlds are to be regarded as indefinite or definite in number, will be of opinion that the notion of their indefiniteness is characteristic of a sadly indefinite and ignorant mind. He, however, who raises the question whether they are to be truly regarded as one or five, takes up a more reasonable position. Arguing from probabilities, I am of opinion that they are one ; another, regarding the question from another point of view, will be of another mind. But, leaving this enquiry, let us proceed to distribute the elementary forms, which have now been created in idea, among the four elements. TIMAEUS

But our creators, considering whether they should make a longer-lived race which was worse, or a shorter-lived race which was better, came to the conclusion that every one ought to prefer a shorter span of life, which was better, to a longer one, which was worse ; and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, but not with flesh and sinews, since it had no joints ; and thus the head was added, having more wisdom and sensation than the rest of the body, but also being in every man far weaker. For these reasons and after this manner God placed the sinews at the extremity of the head, in a circle round the neck, and glued them together by the principle of likeness and fastened the extremities of the jawbones to them below the face, and the other sinews he dispersed throughout the body, fastening limb to limb. The framers of us framed the mouth, as now arranged, having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the necessary and the good, contriving the way in for necessary purposes, the way out for the best purposes ; for that is necessary which enters in and gives food to the body ; but the river of speech, which flows out of a man and ministers to the intelligence, is the fairest and noblest of all streams. Still the head could neither be left a bare frame of bones, on account of the extremes of heat and cold in the different seasons, nor yet be allowed to be wholly covered, and so become dull and senseless by reason of an overgrowth of flesh. The fleshy nature was not therefore wholly dried up, but a large sort of peel was parted off and remained over, which is now called the skin. This met and grew by the help of the cerebral moisture, and became the circular envelopment of the head. And the moisture, rising up under the sutures, watered and closed in the skin upon the crown, forming a sort of knot. The diversity of the sutures was caused by the power of the courses of the soul and of the food, and the more these struggled against one another the more numerous they became, and fewer if the struggle were less violent. This skin the divine power pierced all round with fire, and out of the punctures which were thus made the moisture issued forth, and the liquid and heat which was pure came away, and a mixed part which was composed of the same material as the skin, and had a fineness equal to the punctures, was borne up by its own impulse and extended far outside the head, but being too slow to escape, was thrust back by the external air, and rolled up underneath the skin, where it took root. Thus the hair sprang up in the skin, being akin to it because it is like threads of leather, but rendered harder and closer through the pressure of the cold, by which each hair, while in process of separation from the skin, is compressed and cooled. Wherefore the creator formed the head hairy, making use of the causes which I have mentioned, and reflecting also that instead of flesh the brain needed the hair to be a light covering or guard, which would give shade in summer and shelter in winter, and at the same time would not impede our quickness of perception. From the combination of sinew, skin, and bone, in the structure of the finger, there arises a triple compound, which, when dried up, takes the form of one hard skin partaking of all three natures, and was fabricated by these second causes, but designed by mind which is the principal cause with an eye to the future. For our creators well knew that women and other animals would some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that many animals would require the use of nails for many purposes ; wherefore they fashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails. For this purpose and for these reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails to grow at the extremities of the limbs. And now that all the parts and members of the mortal animal had come together, since its life of necessity consisted of fire and breath, and it therefore wasted away by dissolution and depletion, the gods contrived the following remedy : They mingled a nature akin to that of man with other forms and perceptions, and thus created another kind of animal. These are the trees and plants and seeds which have been improved by cultivation and are now domesticated among us ; anciently there were only the will kinds, which are older than the cultivated. For everything that partakes of life may be truly called a living being, and the animal of which we are now speaking partakes of the third kind of soul, which is said to be seated between the midriff and the navel, having no part in opinion or reason or mind, but only in feelings of pleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them. For this nature is always in a passive state, revolving in and about itself, repelling the motion from without and using its own, and accordingly is not endowed by nature with the power of observing or reflecting on its own concerns. Wherefore it lives and does not differ from a living being, but is fixed and rooted in the same spot, having no power of self-motion. TIMAEUS

Socrates. Certainly, Critias, we will grant your request, and we will grant the same by anticipation to Hermocrates, as well as to you and Timaeus ; for I have no doubt that when his turn comes a little while hence, he will make the same request which you have made. In order, then, that he may provide himself with a fresh beginning, and not be compelled to say the same things over again, let him understand that the indulgence is already extended by anticipation to him. And now, friend Critias, I will announce to you the judgment of the theatre. They are of opinion that the last performer was wonderfully successful, and that you will need a great deal of indulgence before you will be able to take his place. CRITIAS

Soc. Philebus   was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure for all who are able to partake of them, and that to all such who are or ever will be they are the most advantageous of all things. Have I not given, Philebus, a fair statement of the two sides of the argument ? PHILEBUS

Pro. That seems to be very near the truth, Socrates. Happy would the wise man be if he knew all things, and the next best thing for him is that he should know himself. Why do I say so at this moment ? I will tell you. You, Socrates, have granted us this opportunity of conversing with you, and are ready to assist us in determining what is the best of human goods. For when Philebus said that pleasure and delight and enjoyment and the like were the chief good, you answered ó No, not those, but another class of goods ; and we are constantly reminding ourselves of what you said, and very properly, in order that we may not forget to examine and compare the two. And these goods, which in your opinion are to be designated as superior to pleasure, and are the true objects of pursuit, are mind and knowledge and understanding and art and the like. There was a dispute about which were the best, and we playfully threatened that you should not be allowed to go home until the question was settled ; and you agreed, and placed yourself at our disposal. And now, as children say, what has been fairly given cannot be taken back ; cease then to fight against us in this way. PHILEBUS

Soc. But if you had neither mind, nor memory, nor knowledge, nor true opinion, you would in the first place be utterly ignorant of whether you were pleased or not, because you would be entirely devoid of intelligence. PHILEBUS

Soc. And similarly, if you had no memory you would not recollect that you had ever been pleased, nor would the slightest recollection of the pleasure which you feel at any moment remain with you ; and if you had no true opinion you would not think that you were pleased when you were ; and if you had no power of calculation you would not be able to calculate on future pleasure, and your life would be the life, not of a man, but of an oyster or pulmo marinus. Could this be otherwise ? PHILEBUS

Pro. There can be no difference of opinion ; not some but all would surely choose this third rather than either of the other two, and in addition to them. PHILEBUS

Soc. But were you right ? Shall we enquire into the truth of your opinion ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Let us then put into more precise terms the question which has arisen about pleasure and opinion. Is there such a thing as opinion ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And an opinion must of something ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And whether the opinion be right or wrong, makes no difference ; it will still be an opinion ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Then, how can opinion be both true and false, and pleasure true only, although pleasure and opinion are both equally real ? PHILEBUS

Soc. You mean that opinion admits of truth and falsehood, and hence becomes not merely opinion, but opinion of a certain quality ; and this is what you think should be examined ? PHILEBUS

Soc. But there is no difficulty in seeing that Pleasure and pain as well as opinion have qualities, for they are great or small, and have various degrees of intensity ; as was indeed said long ago by us. PHILEBUS

Soc. And if badness attaches to any of them, Protarchus, then we should speak of a bad opinion or of a bad pleasure ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And if rightness attaches to any of them, should we not speak of a right opinion or right pleasure ; and in like manner of the reverse of rightness ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And if the thing opined be erroneous, might we not say that opinion, being erroneous, is not right or rightly opined ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And surely pleasure often appears to accompany an opinion which is not true, but false ? PHILEBUS

Pro. Certainly it does ; and in that case, Socrates, as we were saying, the opinion is false, but no one could call the actual pleasure false. PHILEBUS

Soc. And is there no difference, my friend, between that pleasure which is associated with right opinion and knowledge, and that which is often found in all of us associated with falsehood and ignorance ? PHILEBUS

Soc. We agree ó do we not ? ó that there is such a thing as false, and also such a thing as true opinion ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And pleasure and pain, as I was just now saying, are often consequent upon these upon true and false opinion, I mean. PHILEBUS

Soc. And do not opinion and the endeavour to form an opinion always spring from memory and perception ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And if he has a companion, he repeats his thought to him in articulate sounds, and what was before an opinion, has now become a proposition. PHILEBUS

Soc. Memory and perception meet, and they and their attendant feelings seem to almost to write down words in the soul, and when the inscribing feeling writes truly, then true opinion and true propositions which are the expressions of opinion come into our souls ó but when the scribe within us writes falsely, the result is false. PHILEBUS

Soc. And did we not allow that a man who had an opinion at all had a real opinion, but often about things which had no existence either in the past, present, or future ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And this was the source of false opinion and opining ; am I not right ? PHILEBUS

Soc. I think that there are, Protarchus ; but this is an opinion which should be well assured, and not rest upon a mere assertion. PHILEBUS

Pro. I do not see how any one can deny what you say, Socrates, however eager he may be to assert the opposite opinion. PHILEBUS

Soc. These, in turn, then, I will now endeavour to indicate ; for with the maintainers of the opinion that all pleasures are a cessation of pain, I do not agree, but, as I was saying, I use them as witnesses, that there are pleasures which seem only and are not, and there are others again which have great power and appear in many forms, yet are intermingled with pains, and are partly alleviations of agony and distress, both of body and mind. PHILEBUS

Pro. On the analogy of what has preceded, I should be of opinion that they were severally two. PHILEBUS

Soc. Do you say so because you observe that the arts in general and those engaged in them make use of opinion, and are resolutely engaged in the investigation of matters of opinion ? Even he who supposes himself to be occupied with nature is really occupied with the things of this world, how created, how acting or acted upon. Is not this the sort of enquiry in which his life is spent ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And if we erred in any point, then let any one who will, take up the enquiry again and set us right ; and assuming memory and wisdom and knowledge and true opinion to belong to the same class, let him consider whether he would desire to possess or acquire ó I will not say pleasure, however abundant or intense, if he has no real perception that he is pleased, nor any consciousness of what he feels, nor any recollection, however momentary, of the feeling, ó but would he desire to have anything at all, if these faculties were wanting to him ? And about wisdom I ask the same question ; can you conceive that any one would choose to have all wisdom absolutely devoid of pleasure, rather than with a certain degree of pleasure, or all pleasure devoid of wisdom, rather than with a certain degree of wisdom ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Tell us, O beloved ó shall we call you pleasures or by some other name ? ó would you rather live with or without wisdom ? I am of opinion that they would certainly answer as follows : PHILEBUS

Soc. And we shall take up our parable and say : Do you wish to have the greatest and most vehement pleasures for your companions in addition to the true ones ? “Why, Socrates,” they will say, “how can we ? seeing that they are the source of ten thousand hindrances to us ; they trouble the souls of men, which are our habitation, with their madness ; they prevent us from coming to the birth, and are commonly the ruin of the children which are born to us, causing them to be forgotten and unheeded ; but the true and pure pleasures, of which you spoke, know to be of our family, and also those pleasures which accompany health and temperance, and which every Virtue, like a goddess has in her train to follow her about wherever she goes, ó mingle these and not the others ; there would be great want of sense in any one who desires to see a fair and perfect mixture, and to find in it what is the highest good in man and in the universe, and to divine what is the true form of good ó there would be great want of sense in his allowing the pleasures, which are always in the company of folly and vice, to mingle with mind in the cup.” ó Is not this a very rational and suitable reply, which mind has made, both on her own behalf, as well as on the behalf of memory and true opinion ? PHILEBUS

Cle. Yes, that is our tradition ; and there was Rhadamanthus, a brother of his, with whose name you are familiar ; he is reputed to have been the justest of men, and we Cretans are of opinion that he earned this reputation from his righteous administration of justice when he was alive. LAWS BOOK I

Meg. Quite excellent, in my opinion, as far as we have gone. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. You ought to have said, Stranger ó The Cretan laws are with reason famous among the Hellenes ; for they fulfil the object of laws, which is to make those who use them happy ; and they confer every sort of good. Now goods are of two kinds : there are human and there are divine goods, and the human hang upon the divine ; and the state which attains the greater, at the same time acquires the less, or, not having the greater, has neither. Of the lesser goods the first is health, the second beauty, the third strength, including swiftness in running and bodily agility generally, and the fourth is wealth, not the blind god [Pluto], but one who is keen of sight, if only he has wisdom for his companion. For wisdom is chief and leader of the divine dass of goods, and next follows temperance ; and from the union of these two with courage springs justice, and fourth in the scale of virtue is courage. All these naturally take precedence of the other goods, and this is the order in which the legislator must place them, and after them he will enjoin the rest of his ordinances on the citizens with a view to these, the human looking to the divine, and the divine looking to their leader mind. Some of his ordinances will relate to contracts of marriage which they make one with another, and then to the procreation and education of children, both male and female ; the duty of the lawgiver will be to take charge of his citizens, in youth and age, and at every time of life, and to give them punishments and rewards ; and in reference to all their intercourse with one another, he ought to consider their pains and pleasures and desires, and the vehemence of all their passions ; he should keep a watch over them, and blame and praise them rightly by the mouth of the laws themselves. Also with regard to anger and terror, and the other perturbations of the soul, which arise out of misfortune, and the deliverances from them which prosperity brings, and the experiences which come to men in diseases, or in war, or poverty, or the opposite of these ; in all these states he should determine and teach what is the good and evil of the condition of each. In the next place, the legislator has to be careful how the citizens make their money and in what way they spend it, and to have an eye to their mutual contracts and dissolutions of contracts, whether voluntary or involuntary : he should see how they order all this, and consider where justice as well as injustice is found or is wanting in their several dealings with one another ; and honour those who obey the law, and impose fixed penalties on those who disobey, until the round of civil life is ended, and the time has come for the consideration of the proper funeral rites and honours of the dead. And the lawgiver reviewing his work, will appoint guardians to preside over these things ó some who walk by intelligence, others by true opinion only, and then mind will bind together all his ordinances and show them to be in harmony with temperance and justice, and not with wealth or ambition. This is the spirit, Stranger, in which I was and am desirous that you should pursue the subject. And I want to know the nature of all these things, and how they are arranged in the laws of Zeus, as they are termed, and in those of the Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus gave ; and how the order of them is discovered to his eyes, who has experience in laws gained either by study or habit, although they are far from being self-evident to the rest of mankind like ourselves. LAWS BOOK I

Cle. Your opinion, Stranger, about the questions which are now being raised, is precisely what we want to hear. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. And are perception and memory, and opinion and prudence, heightened and increased ? Do not these qualities entirely desert a man if he becomes saturated with drink ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. I am glad to hear that you agree with me ; for, indeed, the discipline of pleasure and pain which, when rightly ordered, is a principle of education, has been often relaxed and corrupted in human life. And the Gods, pitying the toils which our race is born to undergo, have appointed holy festivals, wherein men alternate rest with labour ; and have given them the Muses and Apollo, the leader of the Muses, and Dionysus, to be companions in their revels, that they may improve their education by taking part in the festivals of the Gods, and with their help. I should like to know whether a common saying is in our opinion true to nature or not. For men say that the young of all creatures cannot be quiet in their bodies or in their voices ; they are always wanting to move and cry out ; some leaping and skipping, and overflowing with sportiveness and delight at something, others uttering all sorts of cries. But, whereas the animals have no perception of order or disorder in their movements, that is, of rhythm or harmony, as they are called, to us, the Gods, who, as we say, have been appointed to be our companions in the dance, have given the pleasurable sense of harmony and rhythm ; and so they stir us into life, and we follow them, joining hands together in dances and songs ; and these they call choruses, which is a term naturally expressive of cheerfulness. Shall we begin, then, with the acknowledgment that education is first given through Apollo and the Muses ? What do you say ? LAWS BOOK II

Ath. What, then, leads us astray ? Are beautiful things not the same to us all, or are they the same in themselves, but not in our opinion of them ? For no one will admit that forms of vice in the dance are more beautiful than forms of virtue, or that he himself delights in the forms of vice, and others in a muse of another character. And yet most persons say, that the excellence of music is to give pleasure to our souls. But this is intolerable and blasphemous ; there is, however, a much more plausible account of the delusion. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. The view which identifies the pleasant and the pleasant and the just and the good and the noble has an excellent moral and religious tendency. And the opposite view is most at variance with the designs of the legislator, and is, in his opinion, infamous ; for no one, if he can help, will be persuaded to do that which gives him more pain than pleasure. But as distant prospects are apt to make us dizzy, especially in childhood, the legislator will try to purge away the darkness and exhibit the truth ; he will persuade the citizens, in some way or other, by customs and praises and words, that just and unjust are shadows only, and that injustice, which seems opposed to justice, when contemplated by the unjust and evil man appears pleasant and the just most unpleasant ; but that from the just manís point of view, the very opposite is the appearance of both of them. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. Then, if such be our principles, we must assert that imitation is not to be judged of by pleasure and false opinion ; and this is true of all equality, for the equal is not equal or the symmetrical symmetrical, because somebody thinks or likes something, but they are to be judged of by the standard of truth, and by no other whatever. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. Yes ; and I remember, and you will remember, what I said at first, that a statesman and legislator ought to ordain laws with a view to wisdom ; while you were arguing that the good lawgiver ought to order all with a view to war. And to this I replied that there were four virtues, but that upon your view one of them only was the aim of legislation ; whereas you ought to regard all virtue, and especially that which comes first, and is the leader of all the rest ó I mean wisdom and mind and opinion, having affection and desire in their train. And now the argument returns to the same point, and I say once more, in jest if you like, or in earnest if you like, that the prayer of a fool is full of danger, being likely to end in the opposite of what he desires. And if you would rather receive my words in earnest, I am willing that you should ; and you will find, I suspect, as I have said already, that not cowardice was the cause of the ruin of the Dorian kings and of their whole design, nor ignorance of military matters, either on the part of the rulers or of their subjects ; but their misfortunes were due to their general degeneracy, and especially to their ignorance of the most important human affairs. That was then, and is still, and always will be the case, as I will endeavour, if you will allow me, to make out and demonstrate as well as I am able to you who are my friends, in the course of the argument. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. Then now consider what is really the greatest ignorance. I should like to know whether you and Megillus would agree with me in what I am about to say ; for my opinion is ó LAWS BOOK III

Ath. That the greatest ignorance is when a man hates that which he nevertheless thinks to be good and noble, and loves and embraces that which he knows to be unrighteous and evil. This disagreement between the sense of pleasure and the judgment of reason in the soul is, in my opinion, the worst ignorance ; and also the greatest, because affecting the great mass of the human soul ; for the principle which feels pleasure and pain in the individual is like the mass or populace in a state. And when the soul is opposed to knowledge, or opinion, or reason, which are her natural lords, that I call folly, just as in the state, when the multitude refuses to obey their rulers and the laws ; or, again, in the individual, when fair reasonings have their habitation in the soul and yet do no good, but rather the reverse of good. All these cases I term the worst ignorance, whether in individuals or in states. You will understand, Stranger, that I am speaking of something which is very different from the ignorance of handicraftsmen. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. There was small credit to us, Cleinias, in defeating them ; and the discredit was, not that the conquerors did not win glorious victories both by land and sea, but what, in my opinion, brought discredit was, first of all, the circumstance that of the three cities one only fought on behalf of Hellas, and the two others were so utterly good for nothing that the one was waging a mighty war against Lacedaemon, and was thus preventing her from rendering assistance, while the city of Argos, which had the precedence at the time of the distribution, when asked to aid in repelling the barbarian, would not answer to the call, or give aid. Many things might be told about Hellas in connection with that war which are far from honourable ; nor, indeed, can we rightly say that Hellas repelled the invader ; for the truth is, that unless the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, acting in concert, had warded off the impending yoke, all the tribes of Hellas would have been fused in a chaos of Hellenes mingling with one another, of barbarians mingling with Hellenes, and Hellenes with barbarians ; just as nations who are now subject to the Persian power, owing to unnatural separations and combinations of them, are dispersed and scattered, and live miserably. These, Cleinias and Megillus, are the reproaches which we have to make against statesmen and legislators, as they are called, past and present, if we would analyse the causes of their failure, and find out what else might have been done. We said, for instance, just now, that there ought to be no great and unmixed powers ; and this was under the idea that a state ought to be free and wise and harmonious, and that a legislator ought to legislate with a view to this end. Nor is there any reason to be surprised at our continually proposing aims for the legislator which appear not to be always the same ; but we should consider when we say that temperance is to be the aim, or wisdom is to be the aim, or friendship is to be the aim, that all these aims are really the same ; and if so, a variety in the modes of expression ought not to disturb us. LAWS BOOK III

Cle. Let us resume the argument in that spirit. And now, speaking of friendship and wisdom and freedom, I wish that you would tell me at what, in your opinion, the legislator should aim. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. Very good ; a quality, which is a mere appendage of things which can be praised or blamed, does not deserve an expression of opinion, but is best passed over in silence. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. In the first place, let us speak of the laws about music ó that is to say, such music as then existed ó in order that we may trace the growth of the excess of freedom from the beginning. Now music was early divided among us into certain kinds and manners. One sort consisted of prayers to the Gods, which were called hymns ; and there was another and opposite sort called lamentations, and another termed paeans, and another, celebrating the birth of Dionysus, called, I believe, “dithyrambs.” And they used the actual word “laws,” or nomoi, for another kind of song ; and to this they added the term “citharoedic.” All these and others were duly distinguished, nor were the performers allowed to confuse one style of music with another. And the authority which determined and gave judgment, and punished the disobedient, was not expressed in a hiss, nor in the most unmusical shouts of the multitude, as in our days, nor in applause and clapping of hands. But the directors of public instruction insisted that the spectators should listen in silence to the end ; and boys and their tutors, and the multitude in general, were kept quiet by a hint from a stick. Such was the good order which the multitude were willing to observe ; they would never have dared to give judgment by noisy cries. And then, as time went on, the poets themselves introduced the reign of vulgar and lawless innovation. They were men of genius, but they had no perception of what is just and lawful in music ; raging like Bacchanals and possessed with inordinate delights-mingling lamentations with hymns, and paeans with dithyrambs ; imitating the sounds of the flute on the lyre, and making one general confusion ; ignorantly affirming that music has no truth, and, whether good or bad, can only be judged of rightly by the pleasure of the hearer. And by composing such licentious works, and adding to them words as licentious, they have inspired the multitude with lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy that they can judge for themselves about melody and song. And in this way the theatres from being mute have become vocal, as though they had understanding of good and bad in music and poetry ; and instead of an aristocracy, an evil sort of theatrocracy has grown up. For if the democracy which judged had only consisted of educated persons, no fatal harm would have been done ; but in music there first arose the universal conceit of omniscience and general lawlessness ; ó freedom came following afterwards, and men, fancying that they knew what they did not know, had no longer any fear, and the absence of fear begets shamelessness. For what is this shamelessness, which is so evil a thing, but the insolent refusal to regard the opinion of the better by reason of an over-daring sort of liberty ? LAWS BOOK III

Cle. I remember, and am of opinion that we both were and are in the right. LAWS BOOK IV

Ath. Why, yes ; and that is an opinion which is widely spread both among Hellenes and barbarians. But Megillus and I say rather, that the battle of Marathon was the beginning, and the battle of Plataea the completion, of the great deliverance, and that these battles by land made the Hellenes better ; whereas the sea-fights of Salamis and Artemisium ó for I may as well put them both together ó made them no better, if I may say so without offence about the battles which helped to save us. And in estimating the goodness of a state, we regard both the situation of the country and the order of the laws, considering that the mere preservation and continuance of life is not the most honourable thing for men, as the vulgar think, but the continuance of the best life, while we live ; and that again, if I am jot mistaken, is remark which has been made already. LAWS BOOK IV

Cle. The lawgiver, if he asks my opinion, will certainly legislate in the form which you advise. LAWS BOOK IV

Athenian Stranger. Listen, all ye who have just now heard the laws about Gods, and about our dear forefathers : ó Of all the things which a man has, next to the Gods, his soul is the most divine and most truly his own. Now in every man there are two parts : the better and superior, which rules, and the worse and inferior, which serves ; and the ruling part of him is always to be preferred to the subject. Wherefore I am right in bidding every one next to the Gods, who are our masters, and those who in order follow them [i.e., the demons], to honour his own soul, which every one seems to honour, but no one honours as he ought ; for honour is a divine good, and no evil thing is honourable ; and he who thinks that he can honour the soul by word or gift, or any sort of compliance, without making her in any way better, seems to honour her, but honours her not at all. For example, every man, from his very boyhood, fancies that he is able to know everything, and thinks that he honours his soul by praising her, and he is very ready to let her do whatever she may like. But I mean to say that in acting thus he injures his soul, and is far from honouring her ; whereas, in our opinion, he ought to honour her as second only to the Gods. Again, when a man thinks that others are to be blamed, and not himself, for the errors which he has committed from time to time, and the many and great evils which befell him in consequence, and is always fancying himself to be exempt and innocent, he is under the idea that he is honouring his soul ; whereas the very reverse is the fact, for he is really injuring her. And when, disregarding the word and approval of the legislator, he indulges in pleasure, then again he is far from honouring her ; he only dishonours her, and fills her full of evil and remorse ; or when he does not endure to the end the labours and fears and sorrows and pains which the legislator approves, but gives way before them, then, by yielding, he does not honour the soul, but by all such conduct he makes her to be dishonourable ; nor when he thinks that life at any price is a good, does he honour her, but yet once more he dishonours her ; for the soul having a notion that the world below is all evil, he yields to her, and does not resist and teach or convince her that, for aught she knows, the world of the Gods below, instead of being evil, may be the greatest of all goods. Again, when any one prefers beauty to virtue, what is this but the real and utter dishonour of the soul ? For such a preference implies that the body is more honourable than the soul ; and this is false, for there is nothing of earthly birth which is more honourable than the heavenly, and he who thinks otherwise of the soul has no idea how greatly he undervalues this wonderful possession ; nor, again, when a person is willing, or not unwilling, to acquire dishonest gains, does he then honour his soul with gifts ó far otherwise ; he sells her glory and honour for a small piece of gold ; but all the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. In a word, I may say that he who does not estimate the base and evil, the good and noble, according to the standard of the legislator, and abstain in every possible way from the one and practise the other to the utmost of his power, does not know that in all these respects he is most foully and disgracefully abusing his soul, which is the divinest part of man ; for no one, as I may say, ever considers that which is declared to be the greatest penalty of evil-doing ó namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men, and growing like them to fly from the conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of the bad. And he who is joined to them must do and suffer what such men by nature do and say to one another ó a suffering which is not justice but retribution ; for justice and the just are noble, whereas retribution is the suffering which waits upon injustice ; and whether a man escape or endure this, he is miserable ó in the former case, because he is not cured ; while in the latter, he perishes in order that the rest of mankind may be saved. LAWS BOOK V

Now we ought by all means to consider that there can never be such a happy concurrence of circumstances as we have described ; neither can all things coincide as they are wanted. Men who will not take offence at such a mode of living together, and will endure all their life long to have their property fixed at a moderate limit, and to beget children in accordance with our ordinances, and will allow themselves to be deprived of gold and other things which the legislator, as is evident from these enactments, will certainly forbid them ; and will endure, further, the situation of the land with the city in the middle and dwellings round about ; ó all this is as if the legislator were telling his dreams, or making a city and citizens of wax. There is truth in these objections, and therefore every one should take to heart what I am going to say. Once more, then, the legislator shall appear and address us : ó “O my friends,” he will say to us, “do not suppose me ignorant that there is a certain degree of truth in your words ; but I am of opinion that, in matters which are not present but future, he who exhibits a pattern of that at which he aims, should in nothing fall short of the fairest and truest ; and that if he finds any part of this work impossible of execution he should avoid and not execute it, but he should contrive to carry out that which is nearest and most akin to it ; you must allow the legislator to perfect his design, and when it is perfected, you should join with him in considering what part of his legislation is expedient and what will arouse opposition ; for surely the artist who is to be deemed worthy of any regard at all, ought always to make his work self-consistent.” LAWS BOOK V

Ath. O, Cleinias, Athens is proud, and Sparta too ; and they are both a long way off. But you and likewise the other colonists are conveniently situated as you describe. I have been speaking of the way in which the new citizens may be best managed under present circumstances ; but in after-ages, if the city continues to exist, let the election be on this wise. All who are horse or foot soldiers, or have seen military service at the proper ages when they were severally fitted for it, shall share in the election of magistrates ; and the election shall be held in whatever temple the state deems most venerable, and every one shall carry his vote to the altar of the God, writing down on a tablet the name of the person for whom he votes, and his fatherís name, and his tribe, and ward ; and at the side he shall write his own name in like manner. Any one who pleases may take away any tablet which he does not think properly filled up, and exhibit it in the Agara for a period of not less than thirty days. The tablets which are judged to be first, to the number of 300, shall be shown by the magistrates to the whole city, and the citizens shall in like manner select from these the candidates whom they prefer ; and this second selection, to the number of 100, shall be again exhibited to the citizens ; in the third, let any one who pleases select whom pleases out of the 100, walking through the parts of victims, and let them choose for magistrates and proclaim the seven and thirty who have the greatest number of votes. But who, Cleinias and Megillus, will order for us in the colony all this matter of the magistrates, and the scrutinies of them ? If we reflect, we shall see that cities which are in process of construction like ours must have some such persons, who cannot possibly be elected before there are any magistrates ; and yet they must be elected in some way, and they are not to be inferior men, but the best possible. For as the proverb says, “a good beginning is half the business” ; and “to have begun well” is praised by all, and in my opinion is a great deal more than half the business, and has never been praised by any one enough. LAWS BOOK VI

Now the establishment of courts of justice may be regarded as a choice of magistrates, for every magistrate must also be a judge of some things ; and the judge, though he be not a magistrate, yet in certain respects is a very important magistrate on the day on which he is determining a suit. Regarding then the judges also as magistrates, let us say who are fit to be judges, and of what they are to be judges, and how many of them are to judge in each suit. Let that be the supreme tribunal which the litigants appoint in common for themselves, choosing certain persons by agreement. And let there be two other tribunals : one for private causes, when a citizen accuses another of wronging him and wishes to get a decision ; the other for public causes, in which some citizen is of opinion that the public has been wronged by an individual, and is willing to vindicate the common interests. And we must not forget to mention how the judges are to be qualified, and who they are to be. In the first place, let there be a tribunal open to all private persons who are trying causes one against another for the third time, and let this be composed as follows : ó All the officers of state, as well annual as those holding office for a longer period, when the new year is about to commence, in the month following after the summer solstice, on the last day but one of the year, shall meet in some temple, and calling God to witness, shall dedicate one judge from every magistracy to be their first-fruits, choosing in each office him who seems to them to be the best, and whom they deem likely to decide the causes of his fellow-citizens during the ensuing year in the best and holiest manner. And when the election is completed, a scrutiny shall be held in the presence of the electors themselves, and if any one be rejected another shall be chosen in the same manner. Those who have undergone the scrutiny shall judge the causes of those who have declined the inferior courts, and shall give their vote openly. The councillors and other magistrates who have elected them shall be required to be hearers and spectators of the causes ; and any one else may be present who pleases. If one man charges another with having intentionally decided wrong, let him go to the guardians of the law and lay his accusation before them, and he who is found guilty in such a case shall pay damages to the injured party equal to half the injury ; but if he shall appear to deserve a greater penalty, the judges shall determine what additional punishment he shall suffer, and how much more he ought to pay to the public treasury, and to the party who brought the suit. LAWS BOOK VI

Ath. We will say to them ó O friends and saviours of our laws, in laying down any law, there are many particulars which we shall omit, and this cannot be helped ; at the same time, we will do our utmost to describe what is important, and will give an outline which you shall fill up. And I will explain on what principle you are to act. Megillus and Cleinias and I have often spoken to one another touching these matters, and we are of opinion that we have spoken well. And we hope that you will be of the same mind with us, and become our disciples, and keep in view the things which in our united opinion the legislator and guardian of the law ought to keep in view. There was one main point about which we were agreed ó that a manís whole energies throughout life should be devoted to the acquisition of the virtue proper to a man, whether this was to be gained by study, or habit, or some mode of acquisition, or desire, or opinion, or knowledge ó and this applies equally to men and women, old and young ó the aim of all should always be such as I have described ; anything which may be an impediment, the good man ought to show that he utterly disregards. And if at last necessity plainly compels him to be an outlaw from his native land, rather than bow his neck to the yoke of slavery and be ruled by inferiors, and he has to fly, an exile he must be and endure all such trials, rather than accept another form of government, which is likely to make men worse. These are our original principles ; and do you now, fixing your eyes upon the standard of what a man and a citizen ought or ought not to be, praise and blame the laws ó blame those which have not this power of making the citizen better, but embrace those which have ; and with gladness receive and live in them ; bidding a long farewell to other institutions which aim at goods, as they are termed, of a different kind. LAWS BOOK VI

Let us proceed to another class of laws, beginning with their foundation in religion. And we must first return to the number 5040 ó the entire number had, and has, a great many convenient divisions, and the number of the tribes which was a twelfth part of the whole, being correctly formed by 21 X 20 [5040/(21 X 20), i.e., 5040/420=12], also has them. And not only is the whole number divisible by twelve, but also the number of each tribe is divisible by twelve. Now every portion should be regarded by us as a sacred gift of Heaven, corresponding to the months and to the revolution of the universe. Every city has a guiding and sacred principle given by nature, but in some the division or distribution has been more right than in others, and has been more sacred and fortunate. In our opinion, nothing can be more right than the selection of the number 5040, which may be divided by all numbers from one to twelve with the single exception of eleven, and that admits of a very easy correction ; for if, turning to the dividend (5040), we deduct two families, the defect in the division is cured. And the truth of this may be easily proved when we have leisure. But for the present, trusting to the mere assertion of this principle, let us divide the state ; and assigning to each portion some God or son of a God, let us give them altars and sacred rites, and at the altars let us hold assemblies for sacrifice twice in the month ó twelve assemblies for the tribes, and twelve for the city, according to their divisions ; the first in honour of the Gods and divine things, and the second to promote friendship and “better acquaintance,” as the phrase is, and every sort of good fellowship with one another. For people must be acquainted with those into whose families and whom they marry and with those to whom they give in marriage ; in such matters, as far as possible, a man should deem it all important to avoid a mistake, and with this serious purpose let games be instituted in which youths and maidens shall dance together, seeing one another and being seen naked, at a proper age, and on a suitable occasion, not transgressing the rules of modesty. LAWS BOOK VI

Ath. There is a common opinion, that luxury makes the disposition of youth discontented and irascible and vehemently excited by trifles ; that on the other hand excessive and savage servitude makes men mean and abject, and haters of their kind, and therefore makes them undesirable associates. LAWS BOOK VII

Megillus. You have a low opinion of mankind, Stranger. LAWS BOOK VII

Cle. Yes, I do. Ath. But how can I in one word rightly comprehend all of them ? I am of opinion, and, if I am not mistaken, there is a general agreement, that every one of these poets has said many things well and many things the reverse of well ; and if this be true, then I do affirm that much learning is dangerous to youth. LAWS BOOK VII

Meg. I, for my part, Stranger, would gladly receive this law. Cleinias shall speak for himself, and tell you what is his opinion. LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. And ought the legislator alone among writers to withhold his opinion about the beautiful, the good, and the just, and not to teach what they are, and how they are to be pursued by those who intend to be happy ? LAWS BOOK IX

Ath. And now I can define to you clearly, and without ambiguity, what I mean by the just and unjust, according to my notion of them : ó When anger and fear, and pleasure and pain, and jealousies and desires, tyrannize over the soul, whether they do any harm or not ó I call all this injustice. But when the opinion of the best, in whatever part of human nature states or individuals may suppose that to dwell, has dominion in the soul and orders the life of every man, even if it be sometimes mistaken, yet what is done in accordance therewith, the principle in individuals which obeys this rule, and is best for the whole life of man, is to be called just ; although the hurt done by mistake is thought by many to be involuntary injustice. Leaving the question of names, about which we are not going to quarrel, and having already delineated three sources of error, we may begin by recalling them somewhat more vividly to our memory : ó One of them was of the painful sort, which we denominate anger and fear. LAWS BOOK IX

Ath. There was a second consisting of pleasures and desires, and a third of hopes, which aimed at true opinion about the best. The latter being subdivided into three, we now get five sources of actions ; and for these five we will make laws of two kinds. LAWS BOOK IX

Whoever shall wrongfully and of design slay with his own hand any of his kinsmen, shall in the first place be deprived of legal privileges ; and he shall not pollute the temples, or the agora, or the harbours, or any other place of meeting, whether he is forbidden of men or not ; for the law, which represents the whole state, forbids him, and always is and will be in the attitude of forbidding him. And if a cousin   or nearer relative of the deceased, whether on the male or female side, does not prosecute the homicide when he ought, and have him proclaimed an outlaw, he shall in the first place be involved in the pollution, and incur the hatred of the Gods, even as the curse of the law stirs up the voices of men against him ; and in the second place he shall be liable to be prosecuted by any one who is willing to inflict retribution on behalf of the dead. And he who would avenge a murder shall observe all the precautionary ceremonies of lavation, and any others which the God commands in cases of this kind. Let him have proclamation made, and then go forth and compel the perpetrator to suffer the execution of justice according to the law. Now the legislator may easily show that these things must be accomplished by prayers and sacrifices to certain Gods, who are concerned with the prevention of murders in states. But who these Gods are, and what should be the true manner of instituting such trials with due regard to religion, the guardians of the law, aided by the interpreters, and the prophets, and the God, shall determine, and when they have determined let them carry on the prosecution at law. The cause shall have the same judges who are appointed to decide in the case of those who plunder temples. Let him who is convicted be punished with death, and let him not be buried in the country of the murdered man, for this would be shameless as well as impious. But if he fly and will not stand his trial, let him fly for ever ; or, if he set foot anywhere on any part of the murdered manís country, let any relation of the deceased, or any other citizen who may first happen to meet with him, kill him with impunity, or bind and deliver him to those among the judges of the case who are magistrates, that they may put him to death. And let the prosecutor demand surety of him whom he prosecutes ; three sureties sufficient in the opinion of the magistrates who try the cause shall be provided by him, and they shall undertake to produce him at the trial. But if he be unwilling or unable to provide sureties, then the magistrates shall take him and keep him in bonds, and produce him at the day of trial. LAWS BOOK IX

Ath. They will make some irreverent speech of this sort : ó “O inhabitants of Athens, and Sparta, and Cnosus,” they will reply, “in that you speak truly ; for some of us deny the very existence of the Gods, while others, as you say, are of opinion that they do not care about us ; and others that they are turned from their course by gifts. Now we have a right to claim, as you yourself allowed, in the matter of laws, that before you are hard upon us and threaten us, you should argue with us and convince us ó you should first attempt to teach and persuade us that there are Gods by reasonable evidences, and also that they are too good to be unrighteous, or to be propitiated, or turned from their course by gifts. For when we hear such things said of them by those who are esteemed to be the best of poets, and orators, and prophets, and priests, and by innumerable others, the thoughts of most of us are not set upon abstaining from unrighteous acts, but upon doing them and atoning for them. When lawgivers profess that they are gentle and not stern, we think that they should first of all use persuasion to us, and show us the existence of Gods, if not in a better manner than other men, at any rate in a truer ; and who knows but that we shall hearken to you ? If then our request is a fair one, please to accept our challenge.” LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Seeing you thus in earnest, I would fain offer up a prayer that I may succeed : ó but I must proceed at once. Who can be calm when he is called upon to prove the existence of the Gods ? Who can avoid hating and abhorring the men who are and have been the cause of this argument ; I speak of those who will not believe the tales which they have heard as babes and sucklings from their mothers and nurses, repeated by them both in jest and earnest, like charms, who have also heard them in the sacrificial prayers, and seen sights accompanying them ó sights and sounds delightful to children ó and their parents during the sacrifices showing an intense earnestness on behalf of their children and of themselves, and with eager interest talking to the Gods, and beseeching them, as though they were firmly convinced of their existence ; who likewise see and hear the prostrations and invocations which are made by Hellenes and barbarians at the rising and setting of the sun and moon, in all the vicissitudes of life, not as if they thought that there were no Gods, but as if there could be no doubt of their existence, and no suspicion of their non-existence ; when men, knowing all these things, despise them on no real grounds, as would be admitted by all who have any particle of intelligence, and when they force us to say what we are now saying, how can any one in gentle terms remonstrate with the like of them, when he has to begin by proving to them the very existence of the Gods ? Yet the attempt must be made ; for it would be unseemly that one half of mankind should go mad in their lust of pleasure, and the other half in their indignation at such persons. Our address to these lost and perverted natures should not be spoken in passion ; let us suppose ourselves to select some one of them, and gently reason with him, smothering our anger : ó O my son, we will say to him, you are young, and the advance of time will make you reverse may of the opinions which you now hold. Wait awhile, and do not attempt to judge at present of the highest things ; and that is the highest of which you now think nothing ó to know the Gods rightly and to live accordingly. And in the first place let me indicate to you one point which is of great importance, and about which I cannot be deceived : ó You and your friends are not the first who have held this opinion about the Gods. There have always been persons more or less numerous who have had the same disorder. I have known many of them, and can tell you, that no one who had taken up in youth this opinion, that the Gods do not exist, ever continued in the same until he was old ; the two other notions certainly do continue in some cases, but not in many ; the notion, I mean, that the Gods exist, but take no heed of human things, and the other notion that they do take heed of them, but are easily propitiated with sacrifices and prayers. As to the opinion about the Gods which may some day become clear to you, I advise you go wait and consider if it be true or not ; ask of others, and above all of the legislator. In the meantime take care that you do not offend against the Gods. For the duty of the legislator is and always will be to teach you the truth of these matters. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. The wisest of all doctrines, in the opinion of many. LAWS BOOK X

Cle. Why, Stranger, if such persuasion be at all possible, then a legislator who has anything in him ought never to weary of persuading men ; he ought to leave nothing unsaid in support of the ancient opinion that there are Gods, and of all those other truths which you were just now mentioning ; he ought to support the law and also art, and acknowledge that both alike exist by nature, and no less than nature, if they are the creations of mind in accordance with right reason, you appear to me to maintain, and I am disposed to agree with you in thinking. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Then, by Heaven, we have discovered the source of this vain opinion of all those physical investigators ; and I would have you examine their arguments with the utmost care, for their impiety is a very serious matter ; they not only make a bad and mistaken use of argument, but they lead away the minds of others : that is my opinion of them. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Yes, very true ; the soul then directs all things in heaven, and earth, and sea by her movements, and these are described by the terms ó will, consideration, attention, deliberation, opinion true and false, joy and sorrow, confidence, fear, hatred, love, and other primary motions akin to these ; which again receive the secondary motions of corporeal substances, and guide all things to growth and decay, to composition and decomposition, and to the qualities which accompany them, such as heat and cold, heaviness and lightness, hardness and softness, blackness and whiteness, bitterness and sweetness, and all those other qualities which the soul uses, herself a goddess, when truly receiving the divine mind she disciplines all things rightly to their happiness ; but when she is the companion of folly, she does the very contrary of all this. Shall we assume so much, or do we still entertain doubts ? LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Then to them we will say no more. And now we are to address him who, believing that there are Gods, believes also that they take no heed of human affairs : To him we say ó O thou best of men, in believing that there are Gods you are led by some affinity to them, which attracts you towards your kindred and makes you honour and believe in them. But the fortunes of evil and unrighteous men in private as well as public life, which, though not really happy, are wrongly counted happy in the judgment of men, and are celebrated both by poets and prose writers ó these draw you aside from your natural piety. Perhaps you have seen impious men growing old and leaving their childrenís children in high offices, and their prosperity shakes your faith ó you have known or heard or been yourself an eyewitness of many monstrous impieties, and have beheld men by such criminal means from small beginnings attaining to sovereignty and the pinnacle of greatness ; and considering all these things you do not like to accuse the Gods of them, because they are your relatives ; and so from some want of reasoning power, and also from an unwillingness to find fault with them, you have come to believe that they exist indeed, but have no thought or care of human things. Now, that your present evil opinion may not grow to still greater impiety, and that we may if possible use arguments which may conjure away the evil before it arrives, we will add another argument to that originally addressed to him who utterly denied the existence of the Gods. And do you, Megillus and Cleinias, answer for the young man as you did before ; and if any impediment comes in our way, I will take the word out of your mouths, and carry you over the river as I did just now. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. I will explain : ó When the king saw that our actions had life, and that there was much virtue in them and much vice, and that the soul and body, although not, like the Gods of popular opinion, eternal, yet having once come into existence, were indestructible (for if either of them had been destroyed, there would have been no generation of living beings) ; and when he observed that the good of the soul was ever by nature designed to profit men, and the evil to harm them ó he, seeing all this, contrived so to place each of the parts that their position might in the easiest and best manner procure the victory of good and the defeat of evil in the whole. And he contrived a general plan by which a thing of a certain nature found a certain seat and room. But the formation of qualities he left to the wills of individuals. For every one of us is made pretty much what he is by the bent of his desires and the nature of his soul. LAWS BOOK X

Cle. Certainly not : nor is such a notion to be endured, and he who holds this opinion may be fairly singled out and characterized as of all impious men the wickedest and most impious. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. In my opinion, Cleinias, the ancient legislators were too good-natured, and made laws without sufficient observation or consideration of human things. LAWS BOOK XI

Greater differences than there ought to be sometimes arise between fathers and sons, on the part either of fathers who will be of opinion that the legislator should enact that they may, if they wish, lawfully renounce their son by the proclamation of a herald in the face of the world, or of sons who think that they should be allowed to indict their fathers on the charge of imbecility when they are disabled by disease or old age. These things only happen, as a matter of fact, where the natures of men are utterly bad ; for where only half is bad, as, for example, if the father be not bad, but the son be bad, or conversely, no great calamity is the result of such an amount of hatred as this. In another state, a son disowned by his father would not of necessity cease to be a citizen, but in our state, of which these are to be the laws, the disinherited must necessarily emigrate into another country, for no addition can be made even of a single family to the 5040 households ; and, therefore, he who deserves to suffer these things must be renounced not only by his father, who is a single person, but by the whole family, and what is done in these cases must be regulated by some such law as the following : ó He who in the sad disorder of his soul has a mind, justly or unjustly, to expel from his family a son whom he has begotten and brought up, shall not lightly or at once execute his purpose ; but first of all he shall collect together his own kinsmen extending to cousins, and in like manner his sonís kinsmen by the motherís side, and in their presence he shall accuse his son, setting forth that he deserves at the hands of them all to be dismissed from the family ; and the son shall be allowed to address them in a similar manner, and show that he does not deserve to suffer any of these things. And if the father persuades them, and obtains the suffrages of more than half of his kindred, exclusive of the father and mother and the offender himself ó I say, if he obtains more than half the suffrages of all the other grown-up members of the family, of both sexes, the father shall be permitted to put away his son, but not otherwise. And if any other citizen is willing to adopt the son who is put away, no law shall hinder him ; for the characters of young men are subject to many changes in the course of their lives. And if he has been put away, and in a period of ten years no one is willing to adopt him, let those who have the care of the superabundant population which is sent out into colonies, see to him, in order that he may be suitably provided for in the colony. And if disease or age or harshness of temper, or all these together, makes a man to be more out of his mind than the rest of the world are ó but this is not observable, except to those who live with him ó and he, being master of his property, is the ruin of the house, and his son doubts and hesitates about indicting his father for insanity, let the law in that case or, that he shall first of all go to the eldest guardians of the law and tell them of his fatherís misfortune, and they shall duly look into the matter, and take counsel as to whether he shall indict him or not. And if they advise him to proceed, they shall be both his witnesses and his advocates ; and if the father is cast, he shall henceforth be incapable of ordering the least particular of his life ; let him be as a child dwelling in the house for the remainder of his days. And if a man and his wife have an unfortunate incompatibility of temper, ten of the guardians of the law, who are impartial, and ten of the women who regulate marriages, shall look to the matter, and if they are able to reconcile them they shall be formally reconciled ; but if their souls are too much tossed with passion, they shall endeavour to find other partners. Now they are not likely to have very gentle tempers ; and, therefore, we must endeavour to associate with them deeper and softer natures. Those who have no children, or only a few, at the time of their separation, should choose their new partners with a view to the procreation of children ; but those who have a sufficient number of children should separate and marry again in order that they may have some one to grow old with and that the pair may take care of one another in age. If a woman dies, leaving children, male or female, the law will advise rather than compel the husband to bring up the children without introducing into the house a stepmother. But if he have no children, then he shall be compelled to marry until he has begotten a sufficient number of sons to his family and to the state. And if a man dies leaving a sufficient number of children, the mother of his children shall remain with them and bring, them up. But if she appears to be too young to live virtuously without a husband, let her relations communicate with the women who superintend marriage, and let both together do what they think best in these matters ; if there is a lack of children, let the choice be made with a view to having them ; two children, one of either sex, shall be deemed sufficient in the eye of the law. When a child is admitted to be the offspring of certain parents and is acknowledged by them, but there is need of a decision as to which parent the child is to follow ó in case a female slave have intercourse with a male slave, or with a freeman or freedman, the offspring shall always belong to the master of the female slave. Again, if a free woman have intercourse with a male slave, the offspring shall belong to the master of the slave ; but if a child be born either of a slave by her master, or of his mistress by a slave ó and this be provence offspring of the woman and its father shall be sent away by the women who superintend marriage into another country, and the guardians of the law shall send away the offspring of the man and its mother. LAWS BOOK XI

The so-called decision of Rhadamanthus is worthy of all admiration. He knew that the men of his own time believed and had no doubt that there were Gods, which was a reasonable belief in those days, because most men were the sons of Gods, and according to tradition he was one himself. He appears to have thought that he ought to commit judgment to no man, but to the Gods only, and in this way suits were simply and speedily decided by him. For he made the two parties take an oath respecting the points in dispute, and so got rid of the matter speedily and safely. But now that a certain portion of mankind do not believe at all in the existence of the Gods, and others imagine that they have no care of us, and the opinion of most men, and of the men, is that in return for small sacrifice and a few flattering words they will be their accomplices in purloining large sums and save them from many terrible punishments, the way of Rhadamanthus is no longer suited to the needs of justice ; for as the needs of men about the Gods are changed, the laws should also be changed ; ó in the granting of suits a rational legislation ought to do away with the oaths of the parties on either side ó he who obtains leave to bring an action should write, down the charges, but should not add an oath ; and the defendant in like manner should give his denial to the magistrates in writing, and not swear ; for it is a dreadful thing to know, when many lawsuits are going on in a state that almost half the people who meet one another quite unconcernedly at the public meals and in other companies and relations of private life are perjured. Let the law, then, be as follows : ó A judge who is about to give judgment shall take an oath, and he who is choosing magistrates for the state shall either vote on oath or with a voting tablet which he brings from a temple ; so too the judge of dances and of all music, and the superintendents and umpires of gymnastic and equestrian contests, and any matters in which, as far as men can judge, there is nothing to be gained by a false oath ; but all cases in which a denial confirmed by an oath clearly results in a great advantage to the taker of the oath, shall be decided without the oath of the parties to the suit, and the presiding judges shall not permit either of them. to use an oath for the sake of persuading, nor to call down curses on himself and his race, nor to use unseemly supplications or womanish laments. But they shall ever be teaching and learning what is just in auspicious words ; and he who does otherwise shall be supposed to speak beside the point, and the judges shall again bring him back to the question at issue. On the other hand, strangers in their dealings with strangers shall as at present have power to give and receive oaths, for they will not often grow old in the city or leave a fry of young ones like themselves to be the sons and heirs of the land. LAWS BOOK XII

Cle. We must not, Stranger, by the God of strangers I swear that we must not, for in our opinion you speak most truly ; but we should like to know how you will accomplish your purpose. LAWS BOOK XII

Ath. Just the opposite, as I said, of the opinion which once prevailed among men, that the sun and stars are without soul. Even in those days men wondered about them, and that which is now ascertained was then conjectured by some who had a more exact knowledge of them ó that if they had been things without soul, and had no mind, they could never have moved with numerical exactness so wonderful ; and even at that time some ventured to hazard the conjecture that mind was the orderer of the universe. But these same persons again mistaking the nature of the soul, which they conceived to be younger and not older than the body, once more overturned the world, or rather, I should say, themselves ; for the bodies which they saw moving in heaven all appeared to be full of stones, and earth, and many other lifeless substances, and to these they assigned the causes of all things. Such studies gave rise to much atheism and perplexity, and the poets took occasion to be abusive ó comparing the philosophers to she-dogs uttering vain howlings, and talking other nonsense of the same sort. But now, as I said, the case is reversed. LAWS BOOK XII

Cleinias : We shall probably agree with you on that, my good sir, [974d] in the hope which in time you will surely give us of forming hereafter the truest opinion on these matters. EPINOMIS   BOOK XII

[976a] And that which they call medicine is likewise, of course, an assistance in almost every case towards things of which animal nature is deprived by seasons of untimely cold and heat and all such visitations. But none of these is of high repute for the truest wisdom : for they are borne along by opinion, as inaccurate matter of conjecture. We may, I suppose, speak of pilots and sailors alike as giving assistance : yet you shall not report, to appease us, a single wise man from amongst them all ; for a man cannot know [976b] the wrath or amity of the wind, a desirable thing for all piloting. Nor again all those who say they can give assistance in law suits by their powers of speech, men who by memory and exercise of opinion pay attention to human character, but are far astray from the truth of what is really just. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

But surely there must be found some science, the possession of which will cause the wisdom of him who is really wise and not wise merely in menís opinion. Well, let us see : for in this laborious discussion we are trying our hardest to find some other science, [976d] apart from those we have mentioned, which can really and reasonably be termed wisdom ; such an acquirement as will not make one a mean and witless drudge, but will enable one to be a wise and good citizen, at once a just ruler and subject of his city, and decorous. So let us examine this one first, and see what single science it is of those that we now have which, by removing itself or being absent from human nature, must render mankind the most thoughtless and senseless of creatures. [976e] Well, there is no great difficulty in making that out. For if there is one more than another, so to speak, which will do this, it is the science which gave number to the whole race of mortals ; and I believe God rather than some chance gave it to us, and so preserves us. And I must explain who it is that I believe to be God, though he be a strange one, and somehow not strange either : for why should we not believe [977a] the cause of all the good things that are ours to have been the cause also of what is far the greatest, understanding ? And who is it that I magnify with the name of God, Megillus and Cleinias ? Merely Heaven, which it is most our duty to honor and pray to especially, as do all other spirits and gods. That it has been the cause of all the other good things we have, we shall all admit ; that it likewise gave us number we do really say, and that it will give us this hereafter, if we will but follow its lead. [977b] For if one enters on the right theory about it, whether one be pleased to call it World-order or Olympus or Heaven ó let one call it this or that, but follow where, in bespangling itself and turning the stars that it contains, it produces all their courses and the seasons and food for all. And thence, accordingly, we have understanding in general, we may say, and therewith all number, and all other good things : but the greatest of these is when, after receiving its gift of numbers, one has covered the whole circuit. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

And one may judge, perhaps, for brevityís sake how the human race needs number, by glancing at the arts ó and yet that too is a great matter ó but if you note the divinity of birth, and its mortality, in which awe of the divine must be acknowledged, and real number, [978a] it is not anybody who can tell how great is the power which we owe to the accompaniment of number as a whole ó for it is clear that everything in music needs a distinct numeration of movement and notes ó and above all, how it is the cause of all good things ; and that it is the cause of no evil thing is a point that must be well understood, as it may be quickly enough. Nay, the motion that we may call unreasoned and unordered, lacking shape and rhythm and harmony, and everything that has a share of some evil, [978b] is deficient in number altogether ; and in this light must the matter be regarded by him who means to end his life in happiness. And no one who does not know the just, the good, the honorable and all the rest of such qualities, with a hold on true opinion, will number them off so as fully to persuade both himself and his neighbor. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

Well then, for the present let us attempt so much in treating of the gods, as to try ó after observing the two living creatures visible to us, of which we call one immortal, and the other, all earthy, a mortal creation ó to tell of the three middle things of the five, which come most evidently, according to the probable opinion, between those two. For let us consider ether as coming next after fire, and let us hold that soul fashions from it live creatures with their faculties, as it does creatures from the other kinds of element, [984c] each being for the most part of that one nature, but in its lesser parts derived from the other elements for the sake of connection. After ether, there is fashioned by soul another kind of creature from air, and the third kind from water ; and by having produced all these it is likely that soul filled the whole heaven with creatures, having made use of all the elements so far as it could, and all the creatures having been made participators in life ; but the second, third, fourth, and fifth kinds, which took their first origin from what are manifest gods, [984d] end finally in us men. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

But there is one point which every Greek should bear in mind ó that of all Greeks we have a situation which is about the most favorable to human excellence. The praiseworthy thing in it that we have to mention is that it may be taken as midway between a wintry and a summery climate ; and our climate, being inferior in its summer to that in the region over there, as we said, has been so much later in imparting the cognizance of these cosmic deities. And let us note that [987e] whatever Greeks acquire from foreigners is finally turned by them into something nobler ; and moreover the same thing must be borne in mind regarding our present statements ó that although it is hard to discover everything of this kind beyond dispute, there is hope, [988a] both strong and noble, that a really nobler and juster respect than is in the combined repute and worship which came from foreigners will be paid to all these gods by the Greeks, who have the benefit of their various education, their prophecies from Delphi, and the whole system of worship under their laws. And let none of the Greeks ever be apprehensive that being mortals we should never have dealings with divine affairs ; they should rather be of the quite opposite opinion, that the divine is never either unintelligent or in any ignorance of [988b] human nature, but knows that if it teaches us we shall follow its guidance and learn what is taught us. That it so teaches us, and that we learn number and numeration, it knows of course : for it would be most utterly unintelligent if it were ignorant of this ; since it would truly, as the saying is, be ignorant of itself, vexed with that which was able to learn, instead of whole-heartedly rejoicing with one who became good by Godís help. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

So, listen first [3.316c] to the origin of the first of the accusations I have mentioned. It was on your invitation and Dionís that I came to Syracuse. Dion was a tried comrade of mine and a guest-friend of old standing, and he was a man of staid middle age, ó qualities that are specially required by men who possess even a particle of sense when they intend to advise concerning affairs so important as yours then were. You, on the other hand, were extremely young, and in your case I was quite without experience of those points regarding which experience was required, [3.316d] as I was totally unacquainted with you. Thereafter, some man or god or chance, with your assistance, cast out Dion, and you were left alone. Do you suppose, then, that I took any part with you in your political acts, when I had lost my wise partner and saw the unwise one left behind in the company of a crowd of evil men, not ruling himself, but being ruled by men of that sort, while fancying himself the ruler ? In these circumstances what ought I to have done ? Was I not bound to do as I did, ó to bid farewell for the future to politics, [3.316e] shunning the slanders which proceed from envy, and to use every endeavor to make you and Dion as friendly to each other as possible, separated though you were and at variance with each other ? Yea, you yourself also are a witness of this, that I have never yet ceased to strive for this very object. And it was agreed between us ó although with difficulty ó that I should sail home, [3.317a] since you were engaged in war, and that, when peace was restored, Dion and I should go to Syracuse and that you should invite us. And that was how things took place as regards my first sojourn at Syracuse and my safe return home again. But on the second occasion, when peace was restored, you did not keep to our agreement in the invitation you gave me but wrote that I should come alone, and stated that you would send for Dion later on. On this account I did not go ; and, moreover, I was vexed also with Dion ; [3.317b] for he was of opinion that it was better for me to go and to yield to your wishes. Subsequently, after a yearís interval, a trireme arrived with letters from you, and the first words written in the letters were to the effect that if I came I should find that Dionís affairs would all proceed as I desired, but the opposite if I failed to come. And indeed I am ashamed to say how many letters came at that time from Italy and Sicily from you and [3.317c] from others on your account, or to how many of my friends and acquaintances they were addressed, all enjoining me to go and beseeching me to trust you entirely. It was the firm opinion of everyone, beginning with Dion, that it was my duty to make the voyage and not be faint-hearted. But I always made my age an excuse ; and as for you, I kept assuring them that you would not be able to withstand those who slander us and desire that we should quarrel ; for I saw then, as I see now, that, as a rule, when great and exorbitant wealth is in the hands either of private citizens or of monarchs, [3.317d] the greater it is, the greater and more numerous are the slanderers it breeds and the hordes of parasites and wastrels ó than which there is no greater evil generated by wealth or by the other privileges of power. Notwithstanding, I put aside all these considerations and went, resolving that none of my friends should lay it to my charge that owing to my lack of energy all their fortunes were ruined when they might have been saved from ruin. [3.317e] On my arrival ó for you know, to be sure, all that subsequently took place ó I, of course, requested, in accordance with the agreement in your letters, that you should, in the first place, recall Dion on terms of friendship ó which terms I mentioned ; and if you had then yielded to this request, things would probably have turned out better than they have done now both for you and Syracuse and for the rest of Greece ó that, at least, is my own intuitive belief. Next, I requested that Dionís family should have possession of his property, [3.318a] instead of the distributors, whom you wot of, having the distribution of it. And further, I deemed it right that the revenue which was usually paid over to him year by year should be forwarded to him all the more, rather than all the less, because of my presence. None of these requests being granted, I asked leave to depart. Thereupon you kept urging me to stop for the year, declaring that you would sell all Dionís property and send one half of the proceeds to Corinth and retain the other half for his son. [3.318b] And I could mention many other promises none of which you fulfilled ; but the number of them is so great that I cut it short. For when you had sold all the goods, without Dionís consent ó though you had declared that without his consent you would not dispose of them ó you put the coping-stone on all your promises, my admirable friend, in a most outrageous way : you invented a plan that was neither noble nor ingenious nor just nor profitable ó namely, to scare me off from so much as [3.318c] seeking for the dispatch of the money, as being in ignorance of the events then going on. For when you sought to expel Heracleides unjustly, as it seemed to the Syracusans as well as to myself ó because I had joined with Theodotes and Eurybius in entreating you not to do so, you took this as an ample excuse, and asserted that it had long been plain to you that I paid no regard to you, but only to Dion and Dionís friends and connections, and now that Theodotes and Heracleides, who were Dionís connections, were the subjects of accusations, I was using every means to prevent their paying the just penalty. LETTERS LETTER III

My own opinion, so far as the young men were concerned, and the probable line which their conduct would take, was full of apprehension ó for young men are quick in forming desires, which often take directions conflicting with one another. But I knew that the character of Dionís mind was naturally a stable one and had also the advantage of somewhat advanced years. LETTERS LETTER VII

After this, it seems, Archytes came to the court of Dionysios. Before my departure I had brought him and his Tarentine circle into friendly relations with Dionysios. There were some others in Syracuse who had received some instruction from Dion, and others had learnt from these, getting their heads full of erroneous teaching on philosophical questions. These, it seems, were attempting to hold discussions with Dionysios on questions connected with such subjects, in the idea that he had been fully instructed in my views. Now is not at all devoid of natural gifts for learning, and he has a great craving for honour and glory. What was said probably pleased him, and he felt some shame when it became clear that he had not taken advantage of my teaching during my visit. For these reasons he conceived a desire for more definite instruction, and his love of glory was an additional incentive to him. The real reasons why he had learnt nothing during my previous visit have just been set forth in the preceding narrative. Accordingly, now that I was safe at home and had refused his second invitation, as I just now related, Dionysios seems to have felt all manner of anxiety lest certain people should suppose that I was unwilling to visit him again because I had formed a poor opinion of his natural gifts and character, and because, knowing as I did his manner of life, I disapproved of it. LETTERS LETTER VII

It is right for me to speak the truth, and make no complaint if anyone, after hearing the facts, forms a poor opinion of my philosophy, and thinks that the tyrant was in the right. Dionysios now invited me for the third time, sending a trireme to ensure me comfort on the voyage ; he sent also Archedemos ó one of those who had spent some time with Archytes, and of whom he supposed that I had a higher opinion than of any of the Sicilian Greeks ó and, with him, other men of repute in Sicily. These all brought the same report, that Dionysios had made progress in philosophy. He also sent a very long letter, knowing as he did my relations with Dion and Dionís eagerness also that I should take ship and go to Syracuse. The letter was framed in its opening sentences to meet all these conditions, and the tenor of it was as follows : “Dionysios to Plato,” here followed the customary greeting and immediately after it he said, “If in compliance with our request you come now, in the first place, Dionís affairs will be dealt with in whatever way you yourself desire ; I know that you will desire what is reasonable, and I shall consent to it. But if not, none of Dionís affairs will have results in accordance with your wishes, with regard either to Dion himself or to other matters.” This he said in these words ; the rest it would be tedious and inopportune to quote. Other letters arrived from Archytes and the Tarentines, praising the philosophical studies of Dionysios and saying that, if I did not now come, I should cause a complete rupture in their friendship with Dionysios, which had been brought about by me and was of no small importance to their political interests. LETTERS LETTER VII

For everything that exists there are three instruments by which the knowledge of it is necessarily imparted ; fourth, there is the knowledge itself, and, as fifth, we must count the thing itself which is known and truly exists. The first is the name, the, second the definition, the third. the image, and the fourth the knowledge. If you wish to learn what I mean, take these in the case of one instance, and so understand them in the case of all. A circle is a thing spoken of, and its name is that very word which we have just uttered. The second thing belonging to it is its definition, made up names and verbal forms. For that which has the name “round,” “annular,” or, “circle,” might be defined as that which has the distance from its circumference to its centre everywhere equal. Third, comes that which is drawn and rubbed out again, or turned on a lathe and broken up ó none of which things can happen to the circle itself ó to which the other things, mentioned have reference ; for it is something of a different order from them. Fourth, comes knowledge, intelligence and right opinion about these things. Under this one head we must group everything which has its existence, not in words nor in bodily shapes, but in souls ó from which it is dear that it is something different from the nature of the circle itself and from the three things mentioned before. Of these things intelligence comes closest in kinship and likeness to the fifth, and the others are farther distant. LETTERS LETTER VII

I wrote to you before that in view of all that you say it is of great importance that you yourself should come to Athens. But since you say that this is impossible, the second best course would have been that I, if possible, or Socrates should go to you, as in fact you said in your letter. At present, however, Socrates [11.358e] is laid up with an attack of strangury ; while if I were to go there, it would be humiliating if I failed to succeed in the task for which you are inviting me. But I myself have no great hopes of success (as to my reasons for this, another long letter would be required to explain them in full), and moreover, because of my age, I am not physically fit to go wandering about and to run such risks as one encounters both by sea and land ; and at present there is nothing but danger for travellers everywhere. [11.359a] I am able, however, to give you and the settlers advice which may seem to be, as Hesiod says, “Trivial when uttered by me, but hard to be understanded.” For they are mistaken if they believe that a constitution could ever be well established by any kind of legislation whatsoever without the existence of some authority in the State which supervises the daily life both of slaves and freemen, to see that it is both temperate and manly. And this condition might be secured if you already possess men who are worthy of such authority. [11.359b] If, however, you require someone to train them, you do not, in my opinion, possess either the trainer or the pupils to be trained ; so it only remains for you to pray to the gods. For, in truth, the earlier States also were mostly organized in this way ; and they came to have a good constitution at a later date, as a result of their being confronted with grave troubles, either through war or other difficulties, whenever there arose in their midst at such a crisis a man of noble character in possession of great power. So it is both right and necessary that you should at first be eager for these results, [11.359c] but also that you should conceive of them in the way I suggest, and not be so foolish as to suppose that you will readily accomplish anything. Good-fortune attend you ! LETTERS LETTER XI

Let this greeting not only commence my letter but serve at the same time as a token that it is from me. Once when you were feasting the Locrian youths and were seated at a distance from me, you got up and came over to me and in a friendly spirit made some remark [13.360b] which I thought excellent, as also did my neighbor at the table, who was one of the beautiful youths. And he then said ó “No doubt, Dionysius, you find Plato of great benefit as regards philosophy !” And you replied ó “Yes, and in regard to much else ; since from the very moment of my inviting him I derived benefit at once from the very fact that I had invited him.” This tone, then, should be carefully preserved, in order that the mutual benefit we derive from one another may always go on increasing. So by way of helping towards this end I am now sending you some of the Pythagorean works and of the “Divisions,” and also, as we arranged at that time, a man of whom [13.360c] you and Archytas ó if Archytas has come to your court ó may be able to make use. His name is Helicon, he is a native of Cyzicus, and he is a pupil of Eudoxus and exceedingly well versed in all his doctrine. Moreover, he has associated with one of the pupils of Isocrates   and with Polyxenus, one of Brysonís companions ; and, what is rare in these cases, he is not without charm of address nor is he of a churlish disposition ; rather he would seem to be gay and [13.360d] good-tempered. This, however, I say with trepidation, since I am uttering an opinion about a man, and man though not a worthless is an inconstant creature, save in very few instances and in few respects. For even in this manís case my fears and suspicions were such that, when I met him, I observed him carefully myself and I made inquiry also from his fellow-citizens, and no one had anything bad to say of the man. But do you yourself also keep him under observation and be cautious. It were best, then, if you have any leisure at all, [13.360e] to take lessons from him in addition to your other studies in philosophy ; but if not, get someone else thoroughly taught so that you may learn from him when you have leisure, and thereby make progress and gain glory, ó that so the benefit you gain from me may still continue. So much, then, for this subject. LETTERS LETTER XIII

How admirable are his words ! And the great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally ; and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes ; and therefore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest. THE REPUBLIC   BOOK I

I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is “doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.” THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been ; but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice has not yet been made clear. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just ó if what they say is true, Socrates, since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears ; and, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by anyone in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself ; then I shall be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this ; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more : There is another side to Glauconís argument about the praise and censure of justice and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just ; but why ? not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation ; in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others ; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious ; and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says that the gods make the oaks of the just ó THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honorable, but grievous and toilsome ; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty ; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honor them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods : they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich menís doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a manís own or his ancestorís sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts ; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost ; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod : THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Yes, I said, now I understand : the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created ; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas and tables and other furniture ; also dainties and perfumes and incense and courtesans and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety. We must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses and clothes and shoes ; the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

I entirely agree with you, he said ; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Certainly. Gymnastics as well as music should begin in early years ; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief is ó and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is ó not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other ; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice : the virtuous, and not the vicious, man has wisdom ó in my opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them ; and this is what you term courage. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of what nature, which the law implants through education ; and I mean by the words “under all circumstances” to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this opinion. Shall I give you an illustration ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was in selecting our soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastics ; we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the color of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasure ó mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye ; or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other solvents. And this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage, unless you disagree. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

But I agree, he replied ; for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slave ó this, in your opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another name. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject ó the quality, I mean, of everyone doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm ó the question is not so easily answered. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

There is no difference, in my opinion, he said. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned, however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man : for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others ó he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself ; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals ó when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business ; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Yes, he said ; but what is right in this particular case, like everything else, requires to be explained ; for community may be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort of community you mean. We have been long expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your citizens ó how they will bring children into the world, and rear them when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of women and children ó for we are of opinion that the right or wrong management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the State for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and you are taking in hand another State, we have resolved, as you heard, not to let you go until you give an account of all this. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watch-dogs of the herd. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Very true, he replied. Yet, having begun, we must go forward to the rough places of the law ; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper ; and when first the Cretans, and then the Lacedaemonians, introduced the custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians ; they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about “mine” and “not mine ;” each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pleasures and pains ; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend toward a common end. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Do we admit the existence of opinion ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And is opinion also a faculty ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Certainly, he said ; for opinion is that with which we are able to form an opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not the same as opinion ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct spheres or subject-matters ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And opinion is to have an opinion ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And do we know what we opine ? or is the subject-matter of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven ; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject-matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be the subject-matter of opinion ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Yes, something else. Well, then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion ? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being ? Reflect : when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something ? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple ; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty ó the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty ó in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold ó he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is one ó to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly ; or of the just, which will not be found unjust ; or of the holy, which will not also be unholy ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Yes ; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge ; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither ; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like ó such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion ? The latter are the same, as I dare say you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colors, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

I cannot tell, he replied ; but I should like to know what is your opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

Hear my answer ; I am of opinion that they are quite right. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion ; but now hear the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination : for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it ; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering ó everyone is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces anyone who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them ; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captainís senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores ; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captainís hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing ; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not ó the possibility of this union of authority with the steererís art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded ? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite faction ; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless ; in which opinion I agreed. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame ó at such a time will not a young manís heart, as they say, leap within him ? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion ? or will he be carried away by the stream ? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have ó he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly ; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion ó I speak, my friend, of human virtue only ; what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included : for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power of God, as we may truly say. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies ; and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him ó he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated ; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honorable and that dishonorable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights, and evil to be that which he dislikes ; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others, the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such a one be a rare educator ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

Nothing more on that subject, he replied ; but I should like to know which of the governments now existing is in your opinion the one adapted to her. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble sentiments ; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

My opinion agrees with yours, he said. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the multitude ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty ; he has no right to do that : but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

And the soul is like the eye : when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with intelligence ; but when turned toward the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

I understand you, he replied ; not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is really tremendous ; but, at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only : these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses : yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding, and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument ; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upward to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed ó whether rightly or wrongly, God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort ; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual ; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton : but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upward, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science ; his soul is looking downward, not upward, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats or only lies on his back. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure ; the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upward ; and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science : and this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider ? Why, indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with clearness ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions ; two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being ; and so to make a proportion : “As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows.” But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long inquiry, many times longer than this has been. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument ó unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good ; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion, and not by science ; dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, be also the most miserable ? and he who has tyrannized longest and most, most continually and truly miserable ; although this may not be the opinion of men in general ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will at once inquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may perhaps have a few retainers about him ; but let us go as we ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

No man of any sense will dispute your words. Come, then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, and in what order the others follow : there are five of them in all ó they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And the lover of honor ó what will be his opinion ? Will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence, in your judgment ó those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue ? Put the question in this way : Which has a more pure being ó that which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found in such natures ; or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself variable and mortal ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. “Sweet sir,” we will say to him, “what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble ? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man ? and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast ?” He can hardly avoid saying, Yes ó can he, now ? Not if he has any regard for my opinion. But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another question : “Then how would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst ? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received ? And will anyone say that he is not a miserable caitiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable ? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husbandís life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin.” THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

But will the imitator have either ? Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful ? or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just : for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. Do you remember ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X