Jowett: wisdom

  

Wisdom

Socrates   : Do you regard madness as the opposite of wisdom ? ALCIBIADES II  

Socrates : Well then, do you hold the same view about wisdom and unwisdom ? ALCIBIADES II  

Socrates : And you remember that you admitted that madness is the opposite of wisdom ? ALCIBIADES II

Socrates : So you see it is not safe either to accept casually what one is given, or to pray for one’s own advancement, if one is going to be injured in consequence, or deprived of one’s life altogether. Yet we could tell of [141d] many ere now who, having desired sovereignty, and endeavored to secure it, with the idea of working for their good, have lost their lives by plots which their sovereignty has provoked. And I expect you are not unacquainted with certain events "of a day or two ago", when Archelaus, the monarch of Macedonia, was slain, by his favorite, who was as much in love with the monarchy as Archelaus was with him, and who killed his lover [141e] with the expectation of being not only the monarch, but also a happy man : but after holding the monarchy for three or four days he was plotted against by others in his turn, and perished. You have only to look at some of our own citizens — and these are examples that we know, not by hearsay, but by personal observation — who in their time have desired to hold military command [142a] and have obtained it, and see how some to this very day are exiles from our city, while others have lost their lives. And even those who are deemed to be faring best have not only gone through many dangers and terrors in holding their command, but on returning home have continued to be as sorely besieged by informers as they were by the enemy, so that some of them wished to heaven [142b] that they had been anything but commanders rather than have held such appointments. Of course, if these dangers and toils were conducive to our advantage, there would be some reason for them ; but the case is quite the contrary. And you will find it is just the same in regard to children : some people have been known to pray that they might have them, and when they have got them have fallen into the greatest disasters and pains. For some have had children that were utterly bad, and have spent their whole lives in repining ; while others, though they had good ones, [142c] were bereft of them by disasters that overtook them, and thus were cast into as great misfortune as the others, and wished that no children at all had been born to them. But nevertheless, with all this plain evidence, and a great deal more of a similar kind, before men’s eyes, it is rare to find anyone who has either declined what was offered to him or, when he was likely to gain something by prayer, refrained from praying. Most men would not decline the offer of either a monarchy or a generalship [142d] or any of the various other things which bring with them harm rather than benefit, but would even pray to be granted them in cases where they were lacking : but after a little while they often change their tune, and retract all their former prayers. I question therefore if men are not really wrong in blaming the gods as the authors of their ills, when "they themselves by their own presumption" — or unwisdom, shall we say ? — [142e] "have gotten them more than destined sorrows". It would seem, at any rate, Alcibiades, that one old poet had some wisdom ; for I conceive it was because he had some foolish friends, whom he saw working and praying for things that were not for their advantage, though supposed to be by them, that he made a common prayer on behalf of them all, in terms something like these : [143a] ALCIBIADES II

Socrates : It is very much to the point : but he, good sir, like almost every other poet, speaks in riddles. For poetry as a whole is by nature [147c] inclined to riddling, and it is not every man who can apprehend it. And furthermore, besides having this natural tendency, when it gets hold of a grudging person who wishes not to show forth to us his own wisdom but to conceal it as much as possible, we find it an extraordinarily difficult matter to make out whatever this or that one of them may mean. For surely you do not suppose that Homer, divinest and wisest of poets, did not know it was impossible to know ill ; for it is he who says of Margites that he knew many things, [147d] but knew them all ill : but it is a riddle, I think, in which he has made "ill" stand for "evil," and "knew" for "to know". So if we put it together, letting the meter go, indeed, but grasping his meaning, we get this : "Full many crafts he knew, but it was evil for him to know them all". Then clearly, if it was evil for him to know many things, he was in fact a paltry fellow, assuming we are to believe what we have previously argued. 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 : I mean my and your fellow-citizen, Pisistratus’s son Hipparchus  , of Philaidae, who was the eldest and wisest of Pisistratus’s sons, and who, among the many goodly proofs of wisdom that he showed, first brought the poems of Homer into this country of ours, and compelled the rhapsodes at the Panathenaea to recite them in relay, one man following on another, as [228c] they still do now. He dispatched a fifty-oared galley for Anacreon of Teos, and brought him into our city. Simonides of Ceos he always had about him, prevailing on him by plenteous fees and gifts. All this he did from a wish to educate the citizens, in order that he might have subjects of the highest excellence ; for he thought it not right to grudge wisdom to any, so noble and good was he. And when his people in the city had been educated and were admiring him for his wisdom, [228d] he proceeded next, with the design of educating those of the countryside, to set up figures of Hermes for them along the roads in the midst of the city and every district town ; and then, after selecting from his own wise lore, both learnt from others and discovered for himself, the things that he considered the wisest, he threw these into elegiac form and inscribed them on the figures as verses of his own and testimonies of his wisdom, so that in the first place [228e] his people should not admire those wise Delphic legends of "Know thyself" and "Nothing overmuch", and the other sayings of the sort, but should rather regard as wise the utterances of Hipparchus ; and that in the second place, through passing up and down and reading his words and acquiring a taste for his wisdom, they might resort hither from the country for the completion of their education. There are two such inscriptions of his : on the left side [229a] of each Hermes there is one in which the god says that he stands in the midst of the city or the township, while on the right side he says : HIPPARCHUS

[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 — whichever one ought to call it — 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  

[123b] Socrates : Well, what you said to him before was spoken, as it were, without witnesses ; but now you shall take me as a witness, and declare before me what is this wisdom that you desire. Come now ; suppose you desired the wisdom whereby men steer a ship, and I happened to put this further question to you : Theages, what wisdom is it that you lack, when you blame your father for refusing to place you with people who would enable you to become wise ? What answer would you have given me ? What wisdom would you name ? The steersman’s art, would you not ? THEAGES

[123c] Socrates : And if a desire to be wise in the wisdom whereby they steer chariots led you to blame your father, and I asked what wisdom this was, what would you name in reply ? The charioteer’s art, would you not ? THEAGES

[123d] Theages : What other name, Socrates, can one give it but wisdom ? THEAGES

Socrates : And the driver’s art too is wisdom ? Or do you think it is ignorance ? THEAGES

Socrates : You call it wisdom ? THEAGES

Socrates : And the steersman’s art too is wisdom ? THEAGES

Socrates : And the wisdom that you so desire, what is it ? [123e] That whereby we know how to govern whom ? THEAGES

Socrates : But perhaps it is that whereby we govern, not only all these, but farmers themselves also, and carpenters, and all craftsmen and ordinary people, whether men or women : that, perhaps, is the wisdom you mean. THEAGES

[125a] Socrates : You scoundrel ! So you were desiring to govern us, all the time that you were blaming your father for not sending you to some seminary of despots ! And you, Demodocus, are you not ashamed of having known all the time what he is desiring, and though you could have sent him where you would have made him an expert in the wisdom which he desires, actually grudging it to him and refusing to send him ? But now, look here, as he has declared against you in my presence, shall you and I consult together on the question of whose school we shall send him to, and whose classes will help him to become a wise despot ? THEAGES

Socrates : Why, do you not say that you desire that wisdom which will enable you to govern all the citizens ? And in doing that, will you be anything else but a despot ? THEAGES

Socrates : And what if you wished to become wise in javelin-throwing ? Would you not expect to get this wisdom by having resorted to those javelin-masters who have javelins and who constantly use javelins, [126c] both other people’s and their own, in great numbers ? THEAGES

Socrates : Then pray tell me, since it is your wish to become wise in state-matters, do you expect to get your wisdom by resorting to any other persons than those statesmen, who not only have their own ability in state-matters, but have constant dealings with other cities besides their own, by their intercourse alike with Greek cities and with foreign peoples ? Or do you think to get wisdom in their business by resorting to any other persons than these particular men ? THEAGES

[126d] Theages : Well, Socrates, I have heard of the argument that you are said to put forward — 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 : And the wise are wise by wisdom ? MINOS  

[364a] Socrates : You are in a state of blessedness, Hippias, if at every Olympiad you come to the sanctuary with fair hopes concerning your soul and its wisdom ; and I should be surprised if any of the physical athletes when he goes to that same place to take part in the contests, has such fearless confidence in his body as you have in your intellect. LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : That is splendid, Hippias ! Your reputation will be a monument of wisdom for the city of Elis and your parents. [364b] But now what do you say about Achilles and Odysseus ? Which do you say is the better and in what respect ? For when there were many of us in the room, and you were making your exhibition, I could not keep up with what you were saying : for I hesitated to ask questions, because there was a great crowd in the room, also for fear of hindering your exhibition by doing so ; but now, since we are fewer and Eudicus here urges me to question you, speak and tell us clearly [364c] what you said about these two men ; how did you distinguish them ? LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Come now, Hippias, consider generally in this way concerning all the sciences, [368b] whether this is the case, or not. Certainly you are the wisest of men in the greatest number of arts, as I once heard you boast, recounting your great and enviable wisdom in the market-place at the tables of the moneychangers. You said that once, when you went to Olympia, everything you had on your person was your own work ; first the ring — for you began with that — [368c] which you had was your own work, showing that you knew how to engrave rings, and another seal was your work, and a strigil and an oil-flask were your works ; then you said that you yourself had made the sandals you had on, and had woven your cloak and tunic ; and, what seemed to every one most unusual and proof of the most wisdom, was when you said that the girdle you wore about your tunic was like the Persian girdles of the costliest kind, and that you had made it yourself. And in addition you said that you brought with you poems, both epics and tragedies and dithyrambs, and many writings of all sorts composed in prose ; [368d] and that you were there excelling all others in knowledge of the arts of which I was speaking just now, and of the correctness of rhythms and harmonies and letters, and many other things besides, as I seem to remember ; and yet I forgot your art of memory, as it seems, in which you think you are most brilliant ; [368e] and I fancy I have forgotten a great many other things. But, as I say, look both at your own arts — and there are plenty of them — and at those of others, and tell me if you find, in accordance with the agreements you and I have reached, any point where one man is true and another false, where they are separate and not the same. Look for this in any branch whatsoever of wisdom or shrewdness or whatever you choose to call it ; [369a] but you will not find it, my friend, for it does not exist ; just tell me. LESSER HIPPIAS

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 — 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 — for I could not follow you — 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 : That’s what it is, Hippias, to be a truly wise and perfect man ! For you are both in your private capacity able to earn much money from the young [281c] and to confer upon them still greater benefits than you receive, and in public affairs you are able to benefit your own state, as a man must who is to be not despised but held in high repute among the many. And yet, Hippias, what in the world is the reason why those men of old whose names are called great in respect to wisdom — Pittacus, and Bias, and the Milesian Thales with his followers and also the later ones, down to Anaxagoras, are all, [281d] or most of them, found to refrain from affairs of state ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Hippias : What else do you suppose, Socrates, than that they were not able to compass by their wisdom both public and private matters ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Then for Heaven’s sake, just as the other arts have progressed, and the ancients are of no account in comparison with the artisans of today, shall we say that your art also has progressed and those of the ancients who were concerned with wisdom are of no account in comparison with you ? GREATER 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 : That’s a fine thing you say, Hippias, and strong testimony to your wisdom [283a] and that of the men of today and to their great superiority to the ancients. For the earlier sophists of the school of Anaxagoras must have been very ignorant to judge from what is said, according to your view ; for they say that what happened to Anaxagoras was the opposite of what happens to you ; for though much money was left him, he neglected it and lost it all so senseless was his wisdom. And they tell similar tales about others among the ancients. So this seems to me fine testimony that you adduce for the wisdom of the men of today as compared with the earlier men, [283b] and many people agree with me that the wise man must be wise for himself especially ; and the test of this is, who makes the most money. Well, so much for that. But tell me this : at which of the cities that you go to did you make the most money ? Or are we to take it that it was at Lacedaemon, where your visits have been most frequent ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : That is a prodigious marvel that you tell, Hippias ; and say now : is not your wisdom such as to make those who are in contact with it and learn it, better men in respect to virtue ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : "Then, too, by wisdom the wise are wise and by the good all things are good, are they not ?" GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : "And justice, wisdom, and so forth are something ; for the just, wise, and so forth would not be such by them, if they were not something." GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Listen then. For I am sure that after this he will say : "Yes, but, Socrates, if we compare maidens with gods, [289b] will not the same thing happen to them that happened to pots when compared with maidens ? Will not the most beautiful maiden appear ugly ? Or does not Heracleitus, whom you cite, mean just this, that the wisest of men, if compared with a god, will appear a monkey, both in wisdom and in beauty and in everything else ?" Shall we agree, Hippias, that the most beautiful maiden is ugly if compared with the gods ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Quite right, my friend ; for it would not be appropriate for you to be filled up with such words, you who are so beautifully clad, so beautifully shod, and so famous for your wisdom among all the Greeks ; but for me it doesn’t matter if I do associate with the fellow ; [291b] so instruct me and for my sake answer him. "For if the wooden one is more appropriate than the golden one," the fellow will say, "would it not be more beautiful, since you agreed, Socrates, that the appropriate is more beautiful than that which is not appropriate ?" Shall we not agree, Hippias, that the wooden one is more beautiful than the golden ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Good ! Then, for Heaven’s sake, Hippias, is wisdom also for this reason the most beautiful of all things and ignorance the most disgraceful of all things ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : If, then, the beautiful is the cause of good, the good would come into being through the beautiful ; and this is why we are eager for wisdom and all the other beautiful things, because their offspring, the good, is worthy of eagerness, and, from what we are finding, it looks as if the beautiful were a sort of father of the good. GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : And certainly many such cases appear before my mind, but I mistrust them because they do not appear to you, [300d] a man who has made more money by wisdom than anyone now living, but to me who never made any money at all ; and the thought disturbs me that you are playing with me and purposely deceiving me, they appear to me in such numbers and with such force. GREATER HIPPIAS

He replied, laughing : Yes, indeed he has, Socrates, of the wisdom which he keeps from me. PROTAGORAS

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 ? — how should we answer him ? PROTAGORAS

When I heard this, I said : Protagoras, I do not at all wonder at hearing you say this ; even at your age, and with all your wisdom, if any one were to teach you what you did not know before, you would become better no doubt : but please to answer in a different way — I will explain how by an example. Let me suppose that Hippocrates, instead of desiring your acquaintance, wished to become acquainted with the young man Zeuxippus of Heraclea, who has lately been in Athens, and he had come to him as he has come to you, and had heard him say, as he has heard you say, that every day he would grow and become better if he associated with him : and then suppose that he were to ask him, "In what shall I become better, and in what shall I grow ?" — Zeuxippus would answer, "In painting." And suppose that he went to Orthagoras the Theban, and heard him say the same thing, and asked him, "In what shall I become better day by day ?" he would reply, "In flute-playing." Now I want you to make the same sort of answer to this young man and to me, who am asking questions on his account. When you say that on the first day on which he associates with you he will return home a better man, and on every day will grow in like manner, — In what, Protagoras, will he be better ? and about what ? 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 — carpenter, tinker, cobbler, sailor, passenger ; rich and poor, high and low — 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 ? PROTAGORAS

Once upon a time there were gods only, and no mortal creatures. But when the time came that these also should be created, the gods fashioned them out of earth and fire and various mixtures of both elements in the interior of the earth ; and when they were about to bring them into the light of day, they ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to equip them, and to distribute to them severally their proper qualities. Epimetheus said to Prometheus : "Let me distribute, and do you inspect." This was agreed, and Epimetheus made the distribution. There were some to whom he gave strength without swiftness, while he equipped the weaker with swiftness ; some he armed, and others he left unarmed ; and devised for the latter some other means of preservation, making some large, and having their size as a protection, and others small, whose nature was to fly in the air or burrow in the ground ; this was to be their way of escape. Thus did he compensate them with the view of preventing any race from becoming extinct. And when he had provided against their destruction by one another, he contrived also a means of protecting them against the seasons of heaven ; clothing them with close hair and thick skins sufficient to defend them against the winter cold and able to resist the summer heat, so that they might have a natural bed of their own when they wanted to rest ; also he furnished them with hoofs and hair and hard and callous skins under their feet. Then he gave them varieties of food-herb of the soil to some, to others fruits of trees, and to others roots, and to some again he gave other animals as food. And some he made to have few young ones, while those who were their prey were very prolific ; and in this manner the race was preserved. Thus did Epimetheus, who, not being very wise, forgot that he had distributed among the brute animals all the qualities which he had to give — and when he came to man, who was still unprovided, he was terribly perplexed. Now while he was in this perplexity, Prometheus came to inspect the distribution, and he found that the other animals were suitably furnished, but that man alone was naked and shoeless, and had neither bed nor arms of defence. The appointed hour was approaching when man in his turn was to go forth into the light of day ; and Prometheus, not knowing how he could devise his salvation, stole the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and Athene, and fire with them (they could neither have been acquired nor used without fire), and gave them to man. Thus man had the wisdom necessary to the support of life, but political wisdom he had not ; for that was in the keeping of Zeus, and the power of Prometheus did not extend to entering into the citadel of heaven, where Zeus dwelt, who moreover had terrible sentinels ; but he did enter by stealth into the common workshop of Athene and Hephaestus, in which they used to practise their favourite arts, and carried off Hephaestus’ art of working by fire, and also the art of Athene, and gave them to man. And in this way man was supplied with the means of life. But Prometheus is said to have been afterwards prosecuted for theft, owing to the blunder of Epimetheus. PROTAGORAS

And this is the reason, Socrates, why the Athenians and mankind in general, when the question relates to carpentering or any other mechanical art, allow but a few to share in their deliberations ; and when any one else interferes, then, as you say, they object, if he be not of the favoured few ; which, as I reply, is very natural. But when they meet to deliberate about political virtue, which proceeds only by way of justice and wisdom, they are patient enough of any man who speaks of them, as is also natural, because they think that every man ought to share in this sort of virtue, and that states could not exist if this were otherwise. I have explained to you, Socrates, the reason of this phenomenon. PROTAGORAS

You would not deny, then, that courage and wisdom are also parts of virtue ? PROTAGORAS

Most undoubtedly they are, he answered ; and wisdom is the noblest of the parts. PROTAGORAS

And is not wisdom the. very opposite of folly ? PROTAGORAS

And do you remember that folly has already been acknowledged by us to be the opposite of wisdom ? PROTAGORAS

Then, Protagoras, which of the two assertions shall we renounce ? One says that everything has but one opposite ; the other that wisdom is distinct from temperance, and that both of them are parts of virtue ; and that they are not only distinct, but dissimilar, both in themselves and in their functions, like the parts of a face. Which of these two assertions shall we renounce ? For both of them together are certainly not in harmony ; they do not accord or agree : for how can they be said to agree if everything is assumed to have only one opposite and not more than one, and yet folly, which is one, has clearly the two opposites wisdom and temperance ? Is not that true, Protagoras ? What else would you say ? PROTAGORAS

Then temperance and wisdom are the same, as before justice and holiness appeared to us to be nearly the same. And now, Protagoras, I said, we must finish the enquiry, and not faint. Do you think that an unjust man can be temperate in his injustice ? PROTAGORAS

I saw that he was not satisfied with his previous answers, and that he would not play the part of answerer any more if he could help ; and I considered that there was no call upon me to continue the conversation ; so I said : Protagoras, I do not wish to force the conversation upon you if you had rather not, but when you are willing to argue with me in such a way that I can follow you, then I will argue with you. Now you, as is said of you by others and as you say of yourself, are able to have discussions in shorter forms of speech as well as in longer, for you are a master of wisdom ; but I cannot manage these long speeches : I only wish that I could. You, on the other hand, who are capable of either, ought to speak shorter as I beg you, and then we might converse. But I see that you are disinclined, and as I have an engagement which will prevent my staying to hear you at greater length (for I have to be in another place), I will depart ; although I should have liked to have heard you. PROTAGORAS

Prodicus added : That, Critias  , seems to me to be well said, for those who are present at such discussions ought to be impartial hearers of both the speakers ; remembering, however, that impartiality is not the same as equality, for both sides should be impartially heard, and yet an equal meed should not be assigned to both of them ; but to the wiser a higher meed should be given, and a lower to the less wise. And I as well as Critias would beg you, Protagoras and Socrates, to grant our request, which is, that you will argue with one another and not wrangle ; for friends argue with friends out of goodwill, but only adversaries and enemies wrangle. And then our meeting will be delightful ; for in this way you, who are the speakers, will be most likely to win esteem, and not praise only, among us who are your audience ; for esteem is a sincere conviction of the hearers’ souls, but praise is often an insincere expression of men uttering falsehoods contrary to their conviction. And thus we who are the hearers will be gratified and not pleased ; for gratification is of the mind when receiving wisdom and knowledge, but pleasure is of the body when eating or experiencing some other bodily delight. Thus spoke Prodicus, and many of the company applauded his words. PROTAGORAS

Hippias the sage spoke next. He said : All of you who are here present I reckon to be kinsmen and friends and fellow-citizens, by nature and not by law ; for by nature like is akin to like, whereas law is the tyrant of mankind, and often compels us to do many things which are against nature. How great would be the disgrace then, if we, who know the nature of things, and are the wisest of the Hellenes, and as such are met together in this city, which is the metropolis of wisdom, and in the greatest and most glorious house of this city, should have nothing to show worthy of this height of dignity, but should only quarrel with one another like the meanest of mankind I pray and advise you, Protagoras, and you, Socrates, to agree upon a compromise. Let us be your peacemakers. And do not you, Socrates, aim at this precise and extreme brevity in discourse, if Protagoras objects, but loosen and let go the reins of speech, that your words may be grander and more becoming to you. Neither do you, Protagoras, go forth on the gale with every sail set out of sight of land into an ocean of words, but let there be a mean observed by both of you. Do as I say. And let me also persuade you to choose an arbiter or overseer or president ; he will keep watch over your words and will prescribe their proper length. PROTAGORAS

Well, I said, and how fortunate are we in having Prodicus among us, at the right moment ; for he has a wisdom, Protagoras, which, as I imagine, is more than human and of very ancient date, and may be as old as Simonides or even older. Learned as you are in many things, you appear to know nothing of this ; but I know, for I am a disciple of his. And now, if I am not mistaken, you do not understand the word "hard" (chalepon) in the sense which Simonides intended ; and I must correct you, as Prodicus corrects me when I use the word "awful" (deinon) as a term of praise. If I say that Protagoras or any one else is an "awfully" wise man, he asks me if I am not ashamed of calling that which is good "awful" ; and then he explains to me that the term "awful" is always taken in a bad sense, and that no one speaks of being "awfully" healthy or wealthy, or "awful" peace, but of "awful" disease, "awful" war, "awful" poverty, meaning by the term "awful," evil. And I think that Simonides and his countrymen the Ceans, when they spoke of "hard" meant "evil," or something which you do not understand. Let us ask Prodicus, for he ought to be able to answer questions about the dialect of Simonides. What did he mean, Prodicus, by the term "hard ?" 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 — in this they are like the Cretans — 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 men’s mouths — "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much." PROTAGORAS

Why do I say all this ? I am explaining that this Lacedaemonian brevity was the style of primitive philosophy. Now there was a saying of Pittacus which was privately circulated and received the approbation of the wise, "Hard is it to be good." And Simonides, who was ambitious of the fame of wisdom, was aware that if he could overthrow this saying, then, as if he had won a victory over some famous athlete, he would carry off the palm among his contemporaries. And if I am not mistaken, he composed the entire poem with the secret intention of damaging Pittacus and his saying. 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 ? — 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

And those, I said, who are thus confident without knowledge are really not courageous, but mad ; and in that case the wisest are also the most confident, and being the most confident are also the bravest, and upon that view again wisdom will be courage. PROTAGORAS

Nay, Socrates, he replied, you are mistaken in your remembrance of what was said by me. When you asked me, I certainly did say that the courageous are the confident ; but I was never asked whether the confident are the courageous ; if you had asked me, I should have answered "Not all of them" : and what I did answer you have not proved to be false, although you proceeded to show that those who have knowledge are more courageous than they were before they had knowledge, and more courageous than others who have no knowledge, and were then led on to think that courage is the same as wisdom. But in this way of arguing you might come to imagine that strength is wisdom. You might begin by asking whether the strong are able, and I should say "Yes" ; and then whether those who know how to wrestle are not more able to wrestle than those who do not know how to wrestle, and more able after than before they had learned, and I should assent. And when I had admitted this, you might use my admissions in such a way as to prove that upon my view wisdom is strength ; whereas in that case I should not have admitted, any more than in the other, that the able are strong, although I have admitted that the strong are able. For there is a difference between ability and strength ; the former is given by knowledge as well as by madness or rage, but strength comes from nature and a healthy state of the body. And in like manner I say of confidence and courage, that they are not the same ; and I argue that the courageous are confident, but not all the confident courageous. For confidence may be given to men by art, and also, like ability, by madness and rage ; but courage comes to them from nature and the healthy state of the soul. PROTAGORAS

May I employ an illustration ? I said. Suppose some one who is enquiring into the health or some other bodily quality of another : — 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 : — 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, — 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

I agree with you, Socrates, said Protagoras ; and not only so, but I, above all other men, am bound to say that wisdom and knowledge are the highest of human things. PROTAGORAS

Then, I said, if the pleasant is the good, nobody does anything under the idea or conviction that some other thing would be better and is also attainable, when he might do the better. And this inferiority of a man to himself is merely ignorance, as the superiority of a man to himself is wisdom. PROTAGORAS

Then the wisdom which knows what are and are not dangers is opposed to the ignorance of them ? PROTAGORAS

As little foundation is there for the report that I am a teacher, and take money ; that is no more true than the other. Although, if a man is able to teach, I honor him for being paid. There is Gorgias of Leontium, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis, who go the round of the cities, and are able to persuade the young men to leave their own citizens, by whom they might be taught for nothing, and come to them, whom they not only pay, but are thankful if they may be allowed to pay them. There is actually a Parian philosopher residing in Athens, of whom I have heard ; and I came to hear of him in this way : — I met a man who has spent a world of money on the Sophists, Callias the son of Hipponicus, and knowing that he had sons, I asked him : "Callias," I said, "if your two sons were foals or calves, there would be no difficulty in finding someone to put over them ; we should hire a trainer of horses or a farmer probably who would improve and perfect them in their own proper virtue and excellence ; but as they are human beings, whom are you thinking of placing over them ? Is there anyone who understands human and political virtue ? You must have thought about this as you have sons ; is there anyone ?" "There is," he said. "Who is he ?" said I, "and of what country ? and what does he charge ?" "Evenus the Parian," he replied ; "he is the man, and his charge is five minae." Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he really has this wisdom, and teaches at such a modest charge. Had I the same, I should have been very proud and conceited ; but the truth is that I have no knowledge of the kind. APOLOGY

I dare say, Athenians, that someone among you will reply, "Why is this, Socrates, and what is the origin of these accusations of you : for there must have been something strange which you have been doing ? All this great fame and talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men : tell us, then, why this is, as we should be sorry to judge hastily of you." Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavor to explain to you the origin of this name of "wise," and of this evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of you may think I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, such wisdom as is attainable by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise ; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom, which I may fail to describe, because I have it not myself ; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit, and will tell you about my wisdom — whether I have any, and of what sort — and that witness shall be the god of Delphi. You must have known Chaerephon ; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether — as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt — he asked the oracle to tell him whether there was anyone wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself, but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of this story. APOLOGY

Why do I mention this ? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean ? and what is the interpretation of this riddle ? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men ? And yet he is a god and cannot lie ; that would be against his nature. After a long consideration, I at last thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, "Here is a man who is wiser than I am ; but you said that I was the wisest." Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed to him — his name I need not mention ; he was a politician whom I selected for examination — and the result was as follows : When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself ; and I went and tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise ; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away : Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is — for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another, who had still higher philosophical pretensions, and my conclusion was exactly the same. I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him. APOLOGY

After this I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this : but necessity was laid upon me — the word of God, I thought, ought to be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear ! — for I must tell you the truth — the result of my mission was just this : I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish ; and that some inferior men were really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the "Herculean" labors, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. When I left the politicians, I went to the poets ; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be detected ; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them — thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe me ? I am almost ashamed to speak of this, but still I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. That showed me in an instant that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration ; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. And the poets appeared to me to be much in the same case ; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians. APOLOGY

At last I went to the artisans, for I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things ; and in this I was not mistaken, for they did know many things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets ; because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom — therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both ; and I made answer to myself and the oracle that I was better off as I was. APOLOGY

This investigation has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has given occasion also to many calumnies, and I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others : but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise ; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing ; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name as an illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go my way, obedient to the god, and make inquisition into the wisdom of anyone, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise ; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise ; and this occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god. APOLOGY

But you have just admitted that the good do their neighbors good, and the evil do them evil. Now is that a truth which your superior wisdom has recognized thus early in life, and am I, at my age, in such darkness and ignorance as not to know that if a man with whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him, and yet I corrupt him, and intentionally, too ; — that is what you are saying, and of that you will never persuade me or any other human being. But either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally, so that on either view of the case you lie. If my offence is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offences : you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me ; for if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally — no doubt I should ; whereas you hated to converse with me or teach me, but you indicted me in this court, which is a place not of instruction, but of punishment. APOLOGY

Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I who, when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man, facing death ; if, I say, now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfil the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear ; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death : then I should be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown ; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance ? And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men, — that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know : but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil. And therefore if you let me go now, and reject the counsels of Anytus, who said that if I were not put to death I ought not to have been prosecuted, and that if I escape now, your sons will all be utterly ruined by listening to my words — if you say to me, Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and will let you off, but upon one condition, that are to inquire and speculate in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing this again you shall die ; — if this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply : Men of Athens, I honor and love you ; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying : O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all ? Are you not ashamed of this ? And if the person with whom I am arguing says : Yes, but I do care ; I do not depart or let him go at once ; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less. And this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For this is the command of God, as I would have you know ; and I believe that to this day no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed. But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not ; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times. APOLOGY

But I shall be asked, Why do people delight in continually conversing with you ? I have told you already, Athenians, the whole truth about this : they like to hear the cross-examination of the pretenders to wisdom ; there is amusement in this. And this is a duty which the God has imposed upon me, as I am assured by oracles, visions, and in every sort of way in which the will of divine power was ever signified to anyone. This is true, O Athenians ; or, if not true, would be soon refuted. For if I am really corrupting the youth, and have corrupted some of them already, those of them who have grown up and have become sensible that I gave them bad advice in the days of their youth should come forward as accusers and take their revenge ; and if they do not like to come themselves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers, or other kinsmen, should say what evil their families suffered at my hands. Now is their time. Many of them I see in the court. There is Crito  , who is of the same age and of the same deme with myself ; and there is Critobulus his son, whom I also see. Then again there is Lysanias of Sphettus, who is the father of Aeschines — he is present ; and also there is Antiphon of Cephisus, who is the father of Epignes ; and there are the brothers of several who have associated with me. There is Nicostratus the son of Theosdotides, and the brother of Theodotus (now Theodotus himself is dead, and therefore he, at any rate, will not seek to stop him) ; and there is Paralus the son of Demodocus, who had a brother Theages ; and Adeimantus the son of Ariston, whose brother Plato is present ; and Aeantodorus, who is the brother of Apollodorus, whom I also see. I might mention a great many others, any of whom Meletus should have produced as witnesses in the course of his speech ; and let him still produce them, if he has forgotten — I will make way for him. And let him say, if he has any testimony of the sort which he can produce. Nay, Athenians, the very opposite is the truth. For all these are ready to witness on behalf of the corrupter, of the destroyer of their kindred, as Meletus and Anytus call me ; not the corrupted youth only — there might have been a motive for that — but their uncorrupted elder relatives. Why should they too support me with their testimony ? Why, indeed, except for the sake of truth and justice, and because they know that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus is lying. APOLOGY

Well, Athenians, this and the like of this is nearly all the defence which I have to offer. Yet a word more. Perhaps there may be someone who is offended at me, when he calls to mind how he himself, on a similar or even a less serious occasion, had recourse to prayers and supplications with many tears, and how he produced his children in court, which was a moving spectacle, together with a posse of his relations and friends ; whereas I, who am probably in danger of my life, will do none of these things. Perhaps this may come into his mind, and he may be set against me, and vote in anger because he is displeased at this. Now if there be such a person among you, which I am far from affirming, I may fairly reply to him : My friend, I am a man, and like other men, a creature of flesh and blood, and not of wood or stone, as Homer says ; and I have a family, yes, and sons. O Athenians, three in number, one of whom is growing up, and the two others are still young ; and yet I will not bring any of them hither in order to petition you for an acquittal. And why not ? Not from any self-will or disregard of you. Whether I am or am not afraid of death is another question, of which I will not now speak. But my reason simply is that I feel such conduct to be discreditable to myself, and you, and the whole state. One who has reached my years, and who has a name for wisdom, whether deserved or not, ought not to debase himself. At any rate, the world has decided that Socrates is in some way superior to other men. And if those among you who are said to be superior in wisdom and courage, and any other virtue, demean themselves in this way, how shameful is their conduct ! I have seen men of reputation, when they have been condemned, behaving in the strangest manner : they seemed to fancy that they were going to suffer something dreadful if they died, and that they could be immortal if you only allowed them to live ; and I think that they were a dishonor to the state, and that any stranger coming in would say of them that the most eminent men of Athens, to whom the Athenians themselves give honor and command, are no better than women. And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us who are of reputation ; and if they are done, you ought not to permit them ; you ought rather to show that you are more inclined to condemn, not the man who is quiet, but the man who gets up a doleful scene, and makes the city ridiculous. APOLOGY

And so he proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens ? Clearly that which is my due. And what is that which I ought to pay or to receive ? What shall be done to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life ; but has been careless of what the many care about — wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to follow in this way and live, I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself ; but where I could do the greatest good privately to everyone of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the state before he looks to the interests of the state ; and that this should be the order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such a one ? Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward ; and the good should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, who desires leisure that he may instruct you ? There can be no more fitting reward than maintenance in the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in want, and he has enough ; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty justly, I say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return. Perhaps you may think that I am braving you in saying this, as in what I said before about the tears and prayers. But that is not the case. I speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged anyone, although I cannot convince you of that — for we have had a short conversation only ; but if there were a law at Athens, such as there is in other cities, that a capital cause should not be decided in one day, then I believe that I should have convinced you ; but now the time is too short. I cannot in a moment refute great slanders ; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I ? Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes ? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil ? Shall I say imprisonment ? And why should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year — of the Eleven ? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid ? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and I cannot pay. And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life if I were to consider that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you would fain have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, living in ever-changing exile, and always being driven out ! For I am quite sure that into whatever place I go, as here so also there, the young men will come to me ; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their desire : and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes. APOLOGY

Alcibiades : Yes, you know, Socrates, they say he did not get his wisdom independently, but consorted with many wise men, such as Pythocleides and Anaxagoras ; and now, old as he is, he still confers with Damon for that very purpose. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : Yes, and mine, noble Alcibiades, to Daedalus, and Daedalus to Hephaestus, son of Zeus ! But take the lines of those people, going back from them : you have a succession of kings reaching to Zeus — on the one hand, kings of Argos and Sparta ; on the other, of Persia, which they have always ruled, and frequently Asia also, as at present ; whereas we are private persons ourselves, and so were our fathers. And then, [121b] suppose that you had to make what show you could of your ancestors, and of Salamis as the native land of Eurysaces, or of Aegina as the home of the yet earlier Aeacus, to impress Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, how you must expect to be laughed at ! Why, I am afraid we are quite outdone by those persons in pride of birth and upbringing altogether. Or have you not observed how great are the advantages of the Spartan kings, and how their wives are kept under statutory ward of the ephors, in order that every possible precaution may be taken against the king being born [121c] of any but the Heracleidae ? And the Persian king so far surpasses us that no one has a suspicion that he could have been born of anybody but the king before him ; and hence the king’s wife has nothing to guard her except fear. When the eldest son, the heir to the throne, is born, first of all the king’s subjects who are in his palace have a feast, and then for ever after on that date the whole of Asia celebrates the king’s birthday with sacrifice and feasting : but when we are born, as the comic poet says, [121d] even the neighbors barely notice it, Alcibiades. After that comes the nurture of the child, not at the hands of a woman-nurse of little worth, but of the most highly approved eunuchs in the king’s service, who are charged with the whole tendance of the new-born child, and especially with the business of making him as handsome as possible by moulding his limbs into a correct shape ; and while doing this they are in high honor. [121e] When the boys are seven years old they are given horses and have riding lessons, and they begin to follow the chase. And when the boy reaches fourteen years he is taken over by the royal tutors, as they call them there : these are four men chosen as the most highly esteemed among the Persians of mature age, namely, the wisest one, the justest one, the most temperate one, [122a] and the bravest one. The first of these teaches him the magian lore of Zoroaster, son of Horomazes ; and that is the worship of the gods : he teaches him also what pertains to a king. The justest teaches him to be truthful all his life long ; the most temperate, not to be mastered by even a single pleasure, in order that he may be accustomed to be a free man and a veritable king, who is the master first of all that is in him, not the slave ; while the bravest trains him to be fearless and undaunted, telling him that to be daunted is to be enslaved. But you, [122b] Alcibiades, had a tutor set over you by Pericles from amongst his servants,who was old as to be the most useless of them, Zopyrus the Thracian. I might describe to you at length the nurture and education of your competitors, were it not too much of a task ; and besides, what I have said suffices to show the rest that follows thereon. But about your birth, Alcibiades, or nurture or education, or about those of any other Athenian, one may say that nobody cares, unless it be some lover whom you chance to have. And again, if you chose to glance at the wealth, the luxury, [122c] the robes with sweeping trains, the anointings with myrrh, the attendant troops of menials, and all the other refinements of the Persians, you would be ashamed at your own case, on perceiving its inferiority to theirs. Should you choose, again, to look at the temperance and orderliness, the facility and placidity, the magnanimity and discipline, the courage and endurance, and the toil-loving, success-loving, honor-loving spirit of the Spartans, you would count yourself but a child[122d] in all these things. If again you regard wealth, and think yourself something in that way, I must not keep silence on this point either, if you are to realize where you stand. For in this respect you have only to look at the wealth of the Spartans, and you will perceive that our riches here are far inferior to theirs. Think of all the land that they have both in their own and in the Messenian country : not one of our estates could compete with theirs in extent and excellence, nor again in ownership of slaves, and especially of those of the helot class, nor yet of horses, [122e] nor of all the flocks and herds that graze in Messene. However, I pass over all these things : but there is more gold and silver privately held in Lacedaemon than in the whole of Greece ; for during many generations treasure has been passing in to them from every part of Greece, and often from the barbarians also, but not passing out to anyone ; and just as in the fable of Aesop  , [123a] where the fox remarked to the lion on the direction of the footmarks, the traces of the money going into Lacedaemon are clear enough, but nowhere are any to be seen of it coming out ; so that one can be pretty sure that those people are the richest of the Greeks in gold and silver, and that among themselves the richest is the king ; for the largest and most numerous receipts of the kind are those of the kings, [123b] and besides there is the levy of the royal tribute in no slight amount, which the Spartans pay to their kings. Now, the Spartan fortunes, though great compared with the wealth of other Greeks, are nought beside that of the Persians and their king. For I myself was once told by a trustworthy person, who had been up to their court, that he traversed a very large tract of excellent land, nearly a day’s journey, which the inhabitants called the girdle of the king’s wife, and another which was similarly called her veil ; [123c] and many other fine and fertile regions reserved for the adornment of the consort ; and each of these regions was named after some part of her apparel. So I imagine, if someone should say to the king’s mother Amestris, who was wife of Xerxes, "The son of Deinomache intends to challenge your son ; the mother’s dresses are worth perhaps fifty minae at the outside, while the son has under three hundred acres at Erchiae," she would wonder to what on earth this [123d] Alcibiades could be trusting, that he proposed to contend against Artaxerxes ; and I expect she would remark — "The only possible things that the man can be trusting to for his enterprise are industry and wisdom ; for these are the only things of any account among the Greeks." Whereas if she were informed that this Alcibiades who is actually making such an attempt is, in the first place, as yet barely twenty years old, and secondly, altogether uneducated ; and further, that when his lover tells him that he must first learn, and take pains over himself, and practise, [123e] before he enters on a contest with the king, he refuses, and says he will do very well as he is ; I expect she would ask in surprise, "On what, then, can the youngster rely ?" And if we told her, "On beauty, stature, birth, wealth, and mental gifts," she would conclude we were mad, Alcibiades, when she compared the advantages of her own people in all these respects. And I imagine that even Lampido, daughter of Leotychides [124a] and wife of Archidamus and mother of Agis, who have all been kings, would wonder in the same way, when she compared her people’s resources, at your intention of having a contest with her son despite your bad upbringing. And yet, does it not strike you as disgraceful that our enemies’ wives should have a better idea of the qualities that we need for an attempt against them than we have ourselves ? Ah, my remarkable friend, listen to me and the Delphic motto, [124b] "Know thyself" ; for these people are our competitors, not those whom you think ; and there is nothing that will give us ascendancy over them save only pains and skill. If you are found wanting in these, you will be found wanting also in achievement of renown among Greeks and barbarians both ; and of this I observe you to be more enamored than anyone else ever was of anything. ALCIBIADES I

Socrates : And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul, and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul — wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this ? ALCIBIADES I

Then, when there had been enough of this, I, in my turn, began to make enquiries about matters at home — about the present state of philosophy, and about the youth. I asked whether any of them were remarkable for wisdom or beauty, or both. Critias, glancing at the door, invited my attention to some youths who were coming in, and talking noisily to one another, followed by a crowd. Of the beauties, Socrates, he said, I fancy that you will soon be able to form a judgment. For those who are just entering are the advanced guard of the great beauty, as he is thought to be, of the day, and he is likely to be not far off himself. CHARMIDES  

Then, as would seem, in doing good, he may act wisely or temperately, and be wise or temperate, but not know his own wisdom or temperance ? CHARMIDES

I am reflecting, I replied, and discover that temperance, or wisdom, if implying a knowledge of anything, must be a science, and a science of something. CHARMIDES

And if you were to ask me, what is the result or effect of architecture, which is the science of building, I should say houses, and so of other arts, which all have their different results. Now I want you, Critias, to answer a similar question about temperance, or wisdom, which, according to you, is the science of itself. Admitting this view, I ask of you, what good work, worthy of the name wise, does temperance or wisdom, which is the science of itself, effect ? Answer me. CHARMIDES

That is not the true way of pursuing the enquiry, Socrates, he said ; for wisdom is not like the other sciences, any more than they are like one another : but you proceed as if they were alike. For tell me, he said, what result is there of computation or geometry, in the same sense as a house is the result of building, or a garment of weaving, or any other work of any other art ? Can you show me any such result of them ? You cannot. CHARMIDES

Now, I want to know, what is that which is not wisdom, and of which wisdom is the science ? CHARMIDES

You are just falling into the old error, Socrates, he said. You come asking in what wisdom or temperance differs from the other sciences, and then you try to discover some respect in which they are alike ; but they are not, for all the other sciences are of something else, and not of themselves ; wisdom alone is a science of other sciences, and of itself. And of this, as I believe, you are very well aware : and that you are only doing what you denied that you were doing just now, trying to refute me, instead of pursuing the argument. CHARMIDES

Tell me, then, I said, what you mean to affirm about wisdom. CHARMIDES

I mean to say that wisdom is the only science which is the science of itself as well as of the other sciences. CHARMIDES

Then the wise or temperate man, and he only, will know himself, and be able to examine what he knows or does not know, and to see what others know and think that they know and do really know ; and what they do not know, and fancy that they know, when they do not. No other person will be able to do this. And this is wisdom and temperance and self-knowledge — for a man to know what he knows, and what he does not know. That is your meaning ? CHARMIDES

But in the case of hearing and sight, or in the power of self-motion, and the power of heat to burn, this relation to self will be regarded as incredible by some, but perhaps not by others. And some great man, my friend, is wanted, who will satisfactorily determine for us, whether there is nothing which has an inherent property of relation to self, or some things only and not others ; and whether in this class of self-related things, if there be such a class, that science which is called wisdom or temperance is included. I altogether distrust my own power of determining these matters : I am not certain whether there is such a science of science at all ; and even if there be, I should not acknowledge this to be wisdom or temperance, until I can also see whether such a science would or would not do us any good ; for I have an impression that temperance is a benefit and a good. And therefore, O son of Callaeschrus, as you maintain that temperance or wisdom is a science of science, and also of the absence of science, I will request you to show in the first place, as I was saying before, the possibility, and in the second place, the advantage, of such a science ; and then perhaps you may satisfy me that you are right in your view of temperance. CHARMIDES

Critias heard me say this, and saw that I was in a difficulty ; and as one person when another yawns in his presence catches the infection of yawning from him, so did he seem to be driven into a difficulty by my difficulty. But as he had a reputation to maintain, he was ashamed to admit before the company that he could not answer my challenge or determine the question at issue ; and he made an unintelligible attempt to hide his perplexity. In order that the argument might proceed, I said to him, Well then Critias, if you like, let us assume that there is this science of science ; whether the assumption is right or wrong may hereafter be investigated. Admitting the existence of it, will you tell me how such a science enables us to distinguish what we know or do not know, which, as we were saying, is self-knowledge or wisdom : so we were saying ? CHARMIDES

Then how will this knowledge or science teach him to know what he knows ? Say that he knows health ; — not wisdom or temperance, but the art of medicine has taught it to him ; and he has learned harmony from the art of music, and building from the art of building, neither, from wisdom or temperance : and the same of other things. CHARMIDES

How will wisdom, regarded only as a knowledge of knowledge or science of science, ever teach him that he knows health, or that he knows building ? CHARMIDES

Then wisdom or being wise appears to be not the knowledge of the things which we do or do not know, but only the knowledge that we know or do not know ? CHARMIDES

Then he who has this knowledge will not be able to examine whether a pretender knows or does not know that which he says that he knows : he will only know that he has a knowledge of some kind ; but wisdom will not show him of what the knowledge is ? CHARMIDES

And, on the other hand, the physician knows nothing of science, for this has been assumed to be the province of wisdom. CHARMIDES

Then, assuredly, wisdom or temperance, if only a science of science, and of the absence of science or knowledge, will not be able to distinguish the physician who knows from one who does not know but pretends or thinks that he knows, or any other professor of anything at all ; like any other artist, he will only know his fellow in art or wisdom, and no one else. CHARMIDES

But then what profit, Critias, I said, is there any longer in wisdom or temperance which yet remains, if this is wisdom ? If, indeed, as we were supposing at first, the wise man had been able to distinguish what he knew and did not know, and that he knew the one and did not know the other, and to recognize a similar faculty of discernment in others, there would certainly have been a great advantage in being wise ; for then we should never have made a mistake, but have passed through life the unerring guides of ourselves and of those who are under us ; and we should not have attempted to do what we did not know, but we should have found out those who knew, and have handed the business over to them and trusted in them ; nor should we have allowed those who were under us to do anything which they were not likely to do well and they would be likely to do well just that of which they had knowledge ; and the house or state which was ordered or administered under the guidance of wisdom, and everything else of which wisdom was the lord, would have been well ordered ; for truth guiding, and error having been eliminated, in all their doings, men would have done well, and would have been happy. Was not this, Critias, what we spoke of as the great advantage of wisdom to know what is known and what is unknown to us ? CHARMIDES

May we assume then, I said, that wisdom, viewed in this new light merely as a knowledge of knowledge and ignorance, has this advantage : — that he who possesses such knowledge will more easily learn anything which he learns ; and that everything will be clearer to him, because, in addition to the knowledge of individuals, he sees the science, and this also will better enable him to test the knowledge which others have of what he knows himself ; whereas the enquirer who is without this knowledge may be supposed to have a feebler and weaker insight ? Are not these, my friend, the real advantages which are to be gained from wisdom ? And are not we looking and seeking after something more than is to be found in her ? CHARMIDES

That is very likely, I said ; and very likely, too, we have been enquiring to no purpose ; as I am led to infer, because I observe that if this is wisdom, some strange consequences would follow. Let us, if you please, assume the possibility of this science of sciences, and further admit and allow, as was originally suggested, that wisdom is the knowledge of what we know and do not know. Assuming all this, still, upon further consideration, I am doubtful, Critias, whether wisdom, such as this, would do us much good. For we were wrong, I think, in supposing, as we were saying just now, that such wisdom ordering the government of house or state would be a great benefit. CHARMIDES

By the dog of Egypt, I said, there I agree with you ; and I was thinking as much just now when I said that strange consequences would follow, and that I was afraid we were on the wrong track ; for however ready we may be to admit that this is wisdom, I certainly cannot make out what good this sort of thing does to us. CHARMIDES

Hear, then, I said, my own dream ; whether coming through the horn or the ivory gate, I cannot tell. The dream is this : Let us suppose that wisdom is such as we are now defining, and that she has absolute sway over us ; then each action will be done according to the arts or sciences, and no one professing to be a pilot when he is not, or any physician or general, or any one else pretending to know matters of which he is ignorant, will deceive or elude us ; our health will be improved ; our safety at sea, and also in battle, will be assured ; our coats and shoes, and all other instruments and implements will be skilfully made, because the workmen will be good and true. Aye, and if you please, you may suppose that prophecy, which is the knowledge of the future, will be under the control of wisdom, and that she will deter deceivers and set up the true prophets in their place as the revealers of the future. Now I quite agree that mankind, thus provided, would live and act according to knowledge, for wisdom would watch and prevent ignorance from intruding on us. But whether by acting according to knowledge we shall act well and be happy, my dear Critias, — this is a point which we have not yet been able to determine. CHARMIDES

But that science is not wisdom or temperance, but a science of human advantage ; not a science of other sciences, or of ignorance, but of good and evil : and if this be of use, then wisdom or temperance will not be of use. CHARMIDES

And why, he replied, will not wisdom be of use ? For, however much we assume that wisdom is a science of sciences, and has a sway over other sciences, surely she will have this particular science of the good under her control, and in this way will benefit us. CHARMIDES

And will wisdom give health ? I said ; is not this rather the effect of medicine ? Or does wisdom do the work any of the other arts, do they not each of them do their own work ? Have we not long ago asseverated that wisdom is only the knowledge of knowledge and of ignorance, and of nothing else ? CHARMIDES

Then wisdom will not be the producer of health. CHARMIDES

Nor does wisdom give advantage, my good friend ; for that again we have just now been attributing to another art. CHARMIDES

How then can wisdom be advantageous, when giving no advantage ? CHARMIDES

You see then, Critias, that I was not far wrong in fearing that I could have no sound notion about wisdom ; I was quite right in depreciating myself ; for that which is admitted to be the best of all things would never have seemed to us useless, if I had been good for anything at an enquiry. But now I have been utterly defeated, and have failed to discover what that is to which the imposer of names gave this name of temperance or wisdom. And yet many more admissions were made by us than could be fairly granted ; for we admitted that there was a science of science, although the argument said No, and protested against us ; and we admitted further, that this science knew the works of the other sciences (although this too was denied by the argument), because we wanted to show that the wise man had knowledge of what he knew and did not know ; also we nobly disregarded, and never even considered, the impossibility of a man knowing in a sort of way that which he does not know at all ; for our assumption was, that he knows that which he does not know ; than which nothing, as I think, can be more irrational. And yet, after finding us so easy and good-natured, the enquiry is still unable to discover the truth ; but mocks us to a degree, and has gone out of its way to prove the inutility of that which we admitted only by a sort of supposition and fiction to be the true definition of temperance or wisdom : which result, as far as I am concerned, is not so much to be lamented, I said. But for your sake, Charmides, I am very sorry — that you, having such beauty and such wisdom and temperance of soul, should have no profit or good in life from your wisdom and temperance. And still more am I grieved about the charm which I learned with so much pain, and to so little profit, from the Thracian, for the sake of a thing which is nothing worth. I think indeed that there is a mistake, and that I must be a bad enquirer, for wisdom or temperance I believe to be really a great good ; and happy are you, Charmides, if you certainly possess it. Wherefore examine yourself, and see whether you have this gift and can do without the charm ; for if you can, I would rather advise you to regard me simply as a fool who is never able to reason out anything ; and to rest assured that the more wise and temperate you are, the happier you will be. CHARMIDES

Charmides said : I am sure that I do not know, Socrates, whether I have or have not this gift of wisdom and temperance ; for how can I know whether I have a thing, of which even you and Critias are, as you say, unable to discover the nature ? — (not that I believe you.) And further, I am sure, Socrates, that I do need the charm, and as far as I am concerned, I shall be willing to be charmed by you daily, until you say that I have had enough. CHARMIDES

Nic. Because you seem not to be aware that any one who has an intellectual affinity to Socrates and enters into conversation with him is liable to be drawn into an argument ; and whatever subject he may start, he will be continually carried round and round by him, until at last he finds that he has to give an account both of his present and past life ; and when he is once entangled, Socrates will not let him go until he has completely and thoroughly sifted him. Now I am used to his ways ; and I know that he will certainly do as I say, and also that I myself shall be the sufferer ; for I am fond of his conversation, Lysimachus. And I think that there is no harm in being reminded of any wrong thing which we are, or have been, doing : he who does not fly from reproof will be sure to take more heed of his after-life ; as Solon says, he will wish and desire to be learning so long as he lives, and will not think that old age of itself brings wisdom. To me, to be cross examined by Socrates is neither unusual nor unpleasant ; indeed, I knew all along that where Socrates was, the argument would soon pass from our sons to ourselves ; and therefore, I say that for my part, I am quite willing to discourse with Socrates in his own manner ; but you had better ask our friend Laches what his feeling may be. 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. Again, take the case of one who endures in war, and is willing to fight, and wisely calculates and knows that others will help him, and that there will be fewer and inferior men against him than there are with him ; and suppose that he has also advantages of position ; would you say of such a one who endures with all this wisdom and preparation, that he, or some man in the opposing army who is in the opposite circumstances to these and yet endures and remains at his post, is the braver ? LACHES

Soc. I think that I understand him ; and he appears to me to mean that courage is a sort of wisdom. LACHES

Soc. Tell him then, Nicias, what you mean by this wisdom ; for you surely do not mean the wisdom which plays the flute ? LACHES

Soc. Nor the wisdom which plays the lyre ? LACHES

La. I think that you put the question to him very well, Socrates ; and I would like him to say what is the nature of this knowledge or wisdom. LACHES

La. Why, surely courage is one thing, and wisdom another. LACHES

Soc. Clearly not, Nicias ; not even such a big pig as the Crommyonian sow would be called by you courageous. And this I say not as a joke, but because I think that he who assents to your doctrine, that courage is the knowledge of the grounds of fear and hope, cannot allow that any wild beast is courageous, unless he admits that a lion, or a leopard, or perhaps a boar, or any other animal, has such a degree of wisdom that he knows things which but a few human beings ever know by reason of their difficulty. He who takes your view of courage must affirm that a lion, and a stag, and a bull, and a monkey, have equally little pretensions to courage. LACHES

Soc. Do not answer him, Laches ; I rather fancy that you are not aware of the source from which his wisdom is derived. He has got all this from my friend Damon, and Damon is always with Prodicus, who, of all the Sophists, is considered to be the best puller to pieces of words of this sort. LACHES

La. And yet, friend Nicias,l imagined that you would have made the discovery, when you were so contemptuous of the answers which I made to Socrates. I had very great hopes that you would have been enlightened by the wisdom of Damon. LACHES

Will not the Athenian people, too, entrust their affairs to you when they see that you have wisdom enough to manage them ? LYSIS  

And you, Lysis, if you require a teacher, have not yet attained to wisdom. LYSIS

Then they are not lovers of horses, whom the horses do not love in return ; nor lovers of quails, nor of dogs, nor of wine, nor of gymnastic exercises, who have no return of love ; no, nor of wisdom, unless wisdom loves them in return. Or shall we say that they do love them, although they are not beloved by them ; and that the poet was wrong who sings — LYSIS

I was pleased at the interest which was shown by Lysis, and I wanted to give Menexenus   a rest, so I turned to him and said, I think, Lysis, that what you say is true, and that, if we had been right, we should never have gone so far wrong ; let us proceed no further in this direction (for the road seems to be getting troublesome), but take the other path into which we turned, and see what the poets have to say ; for they are to us in a manner the fathers and authors of wisdom, and they speak of friends in no light or trivial manner, but God himself, as they say, makes them and draws them to one another ; and this they express, if I am not mistaken, in the following words : — LYSIS

And therefore we say that those who are already wise, whether Gods or men, are no longer lovers of wisdom ; nor can they be lovers of wisdom who are ignorant to the extent of being evil, for no evil or ignorant person is a lover of wisdom. There remain those who have the misfortune to be ignorant, but are not yet hardened in their ignorance, or void of understanding, and do not as yet fancy that they know what they do not know : and therefore those who are the lovers of wisdom are as yet neither good nor bad. But the bad do not love wisdom any more than the good ; for, as we have already seen, neither is unlike the friend of unlike, nor like of like. You remember that ? LYSIS

Soc. Their laughter, friend Euthyphro  , is not a matter of much consequence. For a man may be thought wise ; but the Athenians, I suspect, do not much trouble themselves about him until he begins to impart his wisdom to others, and then for some reason or other, perhaps, as you say, from jealousy, they are angry. EUTHYPHRO

Soc. I dare say not, for you are reserved in your behaviour, and seldom impart your wisdom. But I have a benevolent habit of pouring out myself to everybody, and would even pay for a listener, and I am afraid that the Athenians may think me too talkative. Now if, as I was saying, they would only laugh at me, as you say that they laugh at you, the time might pass gaily enough in the court ; but perhaps they may be in earnest, and then what the end will be you soothsayers only can predict. EUTHYPHRO

Soc. By the powers, Euthyphro ! how little does the common herd know of the nature of right and truth. A man must be an extraordinary man, and have made great strides in wisdom, before he could have seen his way to bring such an action. EUTHYPHRO

Soc. May not this be the reason, Euthyphro, why I am charged with impiety — that I cannot away with these stories about the gods ? and therefore I suppose that people think me wrong. But, as you who are well informed about them approve of them, I cannot do better than assent to your superior wisdom. What else can I say, confessing as I do, that I know nothing about them ? Tell me, for the love of Zeus, whether you really believe that they are true. 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. Then I must be a greater than Daedalus : for whereas he only made his own inventions to move, I move those of other people as well. And the beauty of it is, that I would rather not. For I would give the wisdom of Daedalus, and the wealth of Tantalus, to be able to detain them and keep them fixed. But enough of this. As I perceive that you are lazy, I will myself endeavor to show you how you might instruct me in the nature of piety ; and I hope that you will not grudge your labour. Tell me, then — Is not that which is pious necessarily just ? EUTHYPHRO

Soc. And yet I know that you are as much wiser than I am, as you are younger. But, as I was saying, revered friend, the abundance of your wisdom makes you lazy. Please to exert yourself, for there is no real difficulty in understanding me. What I mean I may explain by an illustration of what I do not mean. The poet (Stasinus) sings — EUTHYPHRO

Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of wisdom. GORGIAS

Soc. Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the opinions which my soul forms, I have at last found the truth indeed. For I consider that if a man is to make a complete trial of the good or evil of the soul, he ought to have three qualities — knowledge, good-will, outspokenness, which are all possessed by you. Many whom I meet are unable to make trial of me, because they are not wise as you are ; others are wise, but they will not tell me the truth, because they have not the same interest in me which you have ; and these two strangers, Gorgias and Polus, are undoubtedly wise men and my very good friends, but they are not outspoken enough, and they are too modest. Why, their modesty is so great that they are driven to contradict themselves, first one and then the other of them, in the face of a large company, on matters of the highest moment. But you have all the qualities in which these others are deficient, having received an excellent education ; to this many Athenians can testify. And are my friend. Shall I tell you why I think so ? I know that you, Callicles, and Tisander of Aphidnae, and Andron the son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of the deme of Cholarges, studied together : there were four of you, and I once heard you advising with one another as to the extent to which the pursuit of philosophy should be carried, and, as I know, you came to the conclusion that the study should not be pushed too much into detail. You were cautioning one another not to be overwise ; you were afraid that too much wisdom might unconsciously to yourselves be the ruin of you. And now when I hear you giving the same advice to me which you then gave to your most intimate friends, I have a sufficient evidence of your real goodwill to me. And of the frankness of your nature and freedom from modesty I am assured by yourself, and the assurance is confirmed by your last speech. Well then, the inference in the present case clearly is, that if you agree with me in an argument about any point, that point will have been sufficiently tested by us, and will not require to be submitted to any further test. For you could not have agreed with me, either from lack of knowledge or from superfluity of modesty, nor yet from a desire to deceive me, for you are my friend, as you tell me yourself. And therefore when you and I are agreed, the result will be the attainment of perfect truth. Now there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that which you censure me for making, — What ought the character of a man to be, and what his pursuits, and how far is he to go, both in maturer years and in youth ? For be assured that if I err in my own conduct I do not err intentionally, but from ignorance. Do not then desist from advising me, now that you have begun, until I have learned clearly what this is which I am to practise, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me assenting to your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I assented, call me "dolt," and deem me unworthy of receiving further instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindar   mean by natural justice : Do you not mean that the superior should take the property of the inferior by force ; that the better should rule the worse, the noble have more than the mean ? Am I not right in my recollection ? GORGIAS

Cal. Not the same, O man of wisdom. GORGIAS

[246d] "O children, that ye are born of valiant sires is clearly shown by the facts now before you : we, who might have ignobly lived choose rather to die nobly, before we bring you and those after you to disgrace, and before we bring shame upon our own fathers and all our earlier forebears, since we deem that life is unworthy to be lived for the man who brings shame upon his own, and that such an one has no friend amongst gods or man, either here on earth, or under the earth when he is dead. Wherefore ye must bear in mind our words, [246e] and whatsoever else ye practice ye must practice it in union with valor, being well assured that when divorced from this all possessions and pursuits are base and ignoble. For neither does wealth bring honor to its possessor if combined with cowardice — for such an one is rich for another rather than for himself, — nor do beauty and strength appear comely, but rather uncomely, when they are attached to one that is cowardly and base, since they make their possessor more conspicuous and show up his cowardice ; and every form of knowledge [247a] when sundered from justice and the rest of virtue is seen to be plain roguery rather than wisdom. For these reasons do ye make it your endeavor, first and last and always, in every way to show all zeal that ye may exceed, if possible, both us and those who went before us in renown ; but if not, be ye well assured that if we vanquish you in virtue our victory brings us shame, whereas, if we are defeated, our defeat brings happiness. And most of all would we be the vanquished, you the victors, if ye are careful in your conduct not to trade upon the glory of your ancestors [247b] nor yet to squander it, believing that for a man who holds himself of some account there is nothing more shameful than to find himself held in honor not for his own sake but because of the glory of his ancestors. In the honors which belong to their parents, the children truly possess a noble and splendid treasure ; but to use up one’s treasure, whether of wealth or of honor, and bequeath none to one’s children, is the base and unmanly act of one who lacks all wealth and distinctions of his own. And if ye practise these precepts [247c] ye will come unto us as friends unto friends whensoever the appointed doom shall convey you hither ; but if ye neglect them and play the coward, ye will be welcomed graciously by none. Let such, then, be the words we address to our children. MENEXENUS

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 Gorgias’ 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

Men. Courage and temperance and wisdom and magnanimity are virtues ; and there are many others. MENO

"For in the ninth year Persephone sends the souls of those from whom she has received the penalty of ancient crime back again from beneath into the light of the sun above, and these are they who become noble kings and mighty men and great in wisdom and are called saintly heroes in after ages." MENO

Soc. And in general, all that the attempts or endures, when under the guidance of wisdom, ends in happiness ; but when she is under the guidance of folly, in the opposite ? MENO

Soc. If then virtue is a quality of the soul, and is admitted to be profitable, it must be wisdom or prudence, since none of the things of the soul are either profitable or hurtful in themselves, but they are all made profitable or hurtful by the addition of wisdom or of folly ; and therefore and therefore if virtue is profitable, virtue must be a sort of wisdom or prudence ? MENO

Soc. And the other goods, such as wealth and the like, of which we were just now saying that they are sometimes good and sometimes evil, do not they also become profitable or hurtful, accordingly as the soul guides and uses them rightly or wrongly ; just as the things of the soul herself are benefited when under the guidance of wisdom and harmed by folly ? MENO

Soc. And is not this universally true of human nature ? All other things hang upon the soul, and the things of the soul herself hang upon wisdom, if they are to be good ; and so wisdom is inferred to be that which profits — and virtue, as we say, is profitable ? MENO

Soc. And thus we arrive at the conclusion that virtue is either wholly or partly wisdom ? MENO

Soc. Very good. And now you are in a position to advise with me about my friend Meno. He has been telling me, Anytus, that he desires to attain that kind of wisdom and virtue by which men order the state or the house, and honour their parents, and know when to receive and when to send away citizens and strangers, as a good man should. Now, to whom should he go in order that he may learn this virtue ? Does not the previous argument imply clearly that we should send him to those who profess and avouch that they are the common teachers of all Hellas, and are ready to impart instruction to any one who likes, at a fixed price ? MENO

Soc. And did not he train his son Lysimachus better than any other Athenian in all that could be done for him by the help of masters ? But what has been the result ? Is he a bit better than any other mortal ? He is an acquaintance of yours, and you see what he is like. There is Pericles, again, magnificent in his wisdom ; and he, as you are aware, had two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus. MENO

Soc. If virtue was wisdom [or knowledge], then, as we thought, it was taught ? MENO

Soc. And if it was taught it was wisdom ? MENO

Soc. Then we acknowledged that it was not taught, and was not wisdom ? MENO

Soc. And therefore not by any wisdom, and not because they were wise, did Themistocles and those others of whom Anytus spoke govern states. This was the reason why they were unable to make others like themselves — because their virtue was not grounded on knowledge. MENO

Cri. Neither of them are known to me, Socrates ; they are a new importation of Sophists, as I should imagine. Of what country are they, and what is their line of wisdom ? EUTHYDEMUS  

Soc. As to their origin, I believe that they are natives of this part of the world, and have migrated from Chios to Thurii ; they were driven out of Thurii, and have been living for many years past in these regions. As to their wisdom, about which you ask, Crito, they are wonderful-consummate ! I never knew what the true pancratiast was before ; they are simply made up of fighting, not like the two Acarnanian brothers who fight with their bodies only, but this pair of heroes, besides being perfect in the use of their bodies, are invincible in every sort of warfare ; for they are capital at fighting in armour, and will teach the art to any one who pays them ; and also they are most skilful in legal warfare ; they will plead themselves and teach others to speak and to compose speeches which will have an effect upon the courts. And this was only the beginning of their wisdom, but they have at last carried out the pancratiastic art to the very end, and have mastered the only mode of fighting which had been hitherto neglected by them ; and now no one dares even to stand up against them : such is their skill in the war of words, that they can refute any proposition whether true or false. Now I am thinking, Crito, of placing myself in their hands ; for they say that in a short time they can impart their skill to any one. EUTHYDEMUS

Soc. Certainly not, Crito ; as I will prove to you, for I have the consolation of knowing that they began this art of disputation which I covet, quite, as I may say, in old age ; last year, or the year before, they had none of their new wisdom. I am only apprehensive that I may bring the two strangers into disrepute, as I have done Connus the son of Metrobius, the harp-player, who is still my music-master ; for when the boys who go to him see me going with them, they laugh at me and call him grandpapa’s master. Now I should not like the strangers to experience similar treatment ; the fear of ridicule may make them unwilling to receive me ; and therefore, Crito, I shall try and persuade some old men to accompany me to them, as I persuaded them to go with me to Connus, and I hope that you will make one : and perhaps we had better take your sons as a bait ; they will want to have them as pupils, and for the sake of them willing to receive us. EUTHYDEMUS

Cri. I see no objection, Socrates, if you like ; but first I wish that you would give me a description of their wisdom, that I may know beforehand what we are going to learn. EUTHYDEMUS

Soc. In less than no time you shall hear ; for I cannot say that I did not attend — I paid great attention to them, and I remember and will endeavour to repeat the whole story. Providentially I was sitting alone in the dressing-room of the Lyceum where you saw me, and was about to depart ; when I was getting up I recognized the familiar divine sign : so I sat down again, and in a little while the two brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus came in, and several others with them, whom I believe to be their disciples, and they walked about in the covered court ; they had not taken more than two or three turns when Cleinias entered, who, as you truly say, is very much improved : he was followed by a host of lovers, one of whom was Ctesippus the Paeanian, a well-bred youth, but also having the wildness of youth. Cleinias saw me from the entrance as I was sitting alone, and at once came and sat down on the right hand of me, as you describe ; and Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, when they saw him, at first stopped and talked with one another, now and then glancing at us, for I particularly watched them ; and then Euthydemus came and sat down by the youth, and the other by me on the left hand ; the rest anywhere. I saluted the brothers, whom I had not seen for a long time ; and then I said to Cleinias : Here are two wise men, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, Cleinias, wise not in a small but in a large way of wisdom, for they know all about war, — all that a good general ought to know about the array and command of an army, and the whole art of fighting in armour : and they know about law too, and can teach a man how to use the weapons of the courts when he is injured. EUTHYDEMUS

Then I think you happier in having such a treasure than the great king is in the possession of his kingdom. And please to tell me whether you intend to exhibit your wisdom ; or what will you do ? EUTHYDEMUS

But I can promise you, I said, that every unvirtuous person will want to learn. I shall be the first ; and there is the youth Cleinias, and Ctesippus : and here are several others, I said, pointing to the lovers of Cleinias, who were beginning to gather round us. Now Ctesippus was sitting at some distance from Cleinias ; and when Euthydemus leaned forward in talking with me, he was prevented from seeing Cleinias, who was between us ; and so, partly because he wanted to look at his love, and also because he was interested, he jumped up and stood opposite to us : and all the other admirers of Cleinias, as well as the disciples of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, followed his example. And these were the persons whom I showed to Euthydemus, telling him that they were all eager to learn : to which Ctesippus and all of them with one voice vehemently assented, and bid him exhibit the power of his wisdom. Then I said : O Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, I earnestly request you to do myself and the company the favour to exhibit. There may be some trouble in giving the whole exhibition ; but tell me one thing, — can you make a good man of him only who is already convinced that he ought to learn of you, or of him also who is not convinced, either because he imagines that virtue is a thing which cannot be taught at all, or that you are not the teachers of it ? Has your art power to persuade him, who is of the latter temper of mind, that virtue can be taught ; and that you are the men from whom he will best learn it ? EUTHYDEMUS

What followed, Crito, how can I rightly narrate ? For not slight is the task of rehearsing infinite wisdom, and therefore, like the poets, I ought to commence my relation with an invocation to Memory and the Muses. Now Euthydemus, if I remember rightly, began nearly as follows : O Cleinias, are those who learn the wise or the ignorant ? EUTHYDEMUS

Then once more the admirers of the two heroes, in an ecstasy at their wisdom, gave vent to another peal of laughter, while the rest of us were silent and amazed. Euthydemus, observing this, determined to persevere with the youth ; and in order to heighten the effect went on asking another similar question, which might be compared to the double turn of an expert dancer. Do those, said he, who learn, learn what they know, or what they do not know ? EUTHYDEMUS

Euthydemus was proceeding to give the youth a third fall ; but I knew that he was in deep water, and therefore, as I wanted to give him a respite lest he should be disheartened, I said to him consolingly : You must not be surprised, Cleinias, at the singularity of their mode of speech : this I say because you may not understand what the two strangers are doing with you ; they are only initiating you after the manner of the Corybantes in the mysteries ; and this answers to the enthronement, which, if you have ever been initiated, is, as you will know, accompanied by dancing and sport ; and now they are just prancing and dancing about you, and will next proceed to initiate you ; imagine then that you have gone through the first part of the sophistical ritual, which, as Prodicus says, begins with initiation into the correct use of terms. The two foreign gentlemen, perceiving that you did not know, wanted to explain to you that the word "to learn" has two meanings, and is used, first, in the sense of acquiring knowledge of some matter of which you previously have no knowledge, and also, when you have the knowledge, in the sense of reviewing this matter, whether something done or spoken by the light of this newly-acquired knowledge ; the latter is generally called "knowing" rather than "learning," but the word "learning" is also used ; and you did not see, as they explained to you, that the term is employed of two opposite sorts of men, of those who know, and of those who do not know. There was a similar trick in the second question, when they asked you whether men learn what they know or what they do not know. These parts of learning are not serious, and therefore I say that the gentlemen are not serious, but are only playing with you. For if a man had all that sort of knowledge that ever was, he would not be at all the wiser ; he would only be able to play with men, tripping them up and over setting them with distinctions of words. He would be like a person who pulls away a stool from some one when he is about to sit down, and then laughs and makes merry at the sight of his friend overturned and laid on his back. And you must regard all that has hitherto passed between you and them as merely play. But in what is to follow I am certain that they will exhibit to you their serious purpose, and keep their promise (I will show them how) ; for they promised to give me a sample of the hortatory philosophy, but I suppose that they wanted to have a game with you first. And now, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, I think that we have had enough of this. Will you let me see you explaining to the young man how he is to apply himself to the study of virtue and wisdom ? And I will first show you what I conceive to be the nature of the task, and what sort of a discourse I desire to hear ; and if I do this in a very inartistic and ridiculous manner, do not laugh at me, for I only venture to improvise before you because I am eager to hear your wisdom : and I must therefore ask you and your disciples to refrain from laughing. And now, O son of Axiochus, let me put a question to you : Do not all men desire happiness ? And yet, perhaps, this is one of those ridiculous questions which I am afraid to ask, and which ought not to be asked by a sensible man : for what human being is there who does not desire happiness ? EUTHYDEMUS

Very well, I said ; and where in the company shall we find a place for wisdom — among the goods or not ? EUTHYDEMUS

He asked what was the meaning of this, and I replied : Surely wisdom is good-fortune ; even a child may know that. EUTHYDEMUS

Then wisdom always makes men fortunate : for by wisdom no man would ever err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer. EUTHYDEMUS

We contrived at last, somehow or other, to agree in a general conclusion, that he who had wisdom had no need of fortune. I then recalled to his mind the previous state of the question. You remember, I said, our making the admission that we should be happy and fortunate if many good things were present with us ? EUTHYDEMUS

And tell me, I said, O tell me, what do possessions profit a man, if he have neither good sense nor wisdom ? Would a man be better off, having and doing many things without wisdom, or a few things with wisdom ? Look at the matter thus : If he did fewer things would he not make fewer mistakes ? if he made fewer mistakes would he not have fewer misfortunes ? and if he had fewer misfortunes would he not be less miserable ? EUTHYDEMUS

Then, I said, Cleinias, the sum of the matter appears to be that the goods of which we spoke before are not to be regarded as goods in themselves, but the degree of good and evil in them depends on whether they are or are not under the guidance of knowledge : under the guidance of ignorance, they are greater evils than their opposites, inasmuch as they are more able to minister to the evil principle which rules them ; and when under the guidance of wisdom and prudence, they are greater goods : but in themselves are nothing ? EUTHYDEMUS

What then is the result of what has been said ? Is not this the result — that other things are indifferent, and that wisdom is the only good, and ignorance the only evil ? EUTHYDEMUS

And when a man thinks that he ought to obtain this treasure, far more than money, from a father or a guardian or a friend or a suitor, whether citizen or stranger — the eager desire and prayer to them that they would impart wisdom to you, is not at all dishonourable, Cleinias ; nor is any one to be blamed for doing any honourable service or ministration to any man, whether a lover or not, if his aim is to get wisdom. Do you agree ? I said. EUTHYDEMUS

Yes, I said, Cleinias, if only wisdom can be taught, and does not come to man spontaneously ; for this is a point which has still to be considered, and is not yet agreed upon by you and me — EUTHYDEMUS

But I think, Socrates, that wisdom can be taught, he said. EUTHYDEMUS

Best of men, I said, I am delighted to hear you say so ; and I am also grateful to you for having saved me from a long and tiresome investigation as to whether wisdom can be taught or not. But now, as you think that wisdom can be taught, and that wisdom only can make a man happy and fortunate will you not acknowledge that all of us ought to love wisdom, and you individually will try to love her ? EUTHYDEMUS

I was pleased at hearing this ; and I turned to Dionysodorus and Euthydemus and said : That is an example, clumsy and tedious I admit, of the sort of exhortations which I would have you give ; and I hope that one of you will set forth what I have been saying in a more artistic style : or at least take up the enquiry where I left off, and proceed to show the youth whether he should have all knowledge ; or whether there is one sort of knowledge only which will make him good and happy, and what that is. For, as I was saying at first, the improvement of this young man in virtue and wisdom is a matter which we have very much at heart. EUTHYDEMUS

Thus I spoke, Crito, and was all attention to what was coming. I wanted to see how they would approach the question, and where they would start in their exhortation to the young man that he should practise wisdom and virtue. Dionysodorus, who was the elder, spoke first. Everybody’s eyes were directed towards him, perceiving that something wonderful might shortly be expected. And certainly they were not far wrong ; for the man, Crito, began a remarkable discourse well worth hearing, and wonderfully persuasive regarded as an exhortation to virtue. 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 — that is what you mean ? EUTHYDEMUS

Why, because I was stupid and made a mistake. And yet, perhaps, I was right after all in saying that words have a sense ; — what do you say, wise man ? If I was not in error, even you will not refute me, and all your wisdom will be non-plussed ; but if I did fall into error, then again you are wrong in saying that there is no error, — and this remark was made by you not quite a year ago. I am inclined to think, however, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, that this argument lies where it was and is not very likely to advance : even your skill in the subtleties of logic, which is really amazing, has not found out the way of throwing another and not falling yourself, now any more than of old. EUTHYDEMUS

But I hope that you will be of that mind, reverend Euthydemus, I said, if you are really speaking the truth, and yet I a little doubt your power to make good your words unless you have the help of your brother Dionysodorus ; then you may do it. Tell me now, both of you, for although in the main I cannot doubt that I really do know all things, when I am told so by men of your prodigious wisdom — how can I say that I know such things, Euthydemus, as that the good are unjust ; come, do I know that or not ? EUTHYDEMUS

I suppose that I had best answer you, Dionysodorus, I said, for you will insist on asking that I pretty well know — out of envy, in order to prevent me from learning the wisdom of Euthydemus. EUTHYDEMUS

I should have far more reason to beat yours, said Ctesippus ; what could he have been thinking of when he begat such wise sons ? much good has this father of you and your brethren the puppies got out of this wisdom of yours. EUTHYDEMUS

Not when I pass a smithy ; for then the iron bars make a tremendous noise and outcry if they are touched : so that here your wisdom is strangely mistaken, please, however, to tell me how you can be silent when speaking (I thought that Ctesippus was put upon his mettle because Cleinias was present). EUTHYDEMUS

Here Ctesippus, as his manner was, burst into a roar of laughter ; he said, That brother of yours, Euthydemus, has got into a dilemma ; all is over with him. This delighted Cleinias, whose laughter made Ctesippus ten times as uproarious ; but I cannot help thinking that the rogue must have picked up this answer from them ; for there has been no wisdom like theirs in our time. Why do you laugh, Cleinias, I said, at such solemn and beautiful things ? EUTHYDEMUS

Poseidon, I said, this is the crown of wisdom ; can I ever hope to have such wisdom of my own ? EUTHYDEMUS

And would you be able, Socrates, to recognize this wisdom when it has become your own ? EUTHYDEMUS

Yes, I do, subject to your correction ; for you are the bottom, and Euthydemus is the top, of all my wisdom. 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 — whether of the many, or of the grave and reverend seigniors — 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 ; — you should be careful of this ; — 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

Soc. Now I understand, Crito ; he is one of an amphibious class, whom I was on the point of mentioning — one of those whom Prodicus describes as on the border-ground between philosophers and statesmen — 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

Soc. Yes, Crito, there is more speciousness than truth ; they cannot be made to understand the nature of intermediates. For all persons or things, which are intermediate between two other things, and participate in both of them — if one of these two things is good and the other evil, are better than the one and worse than the other ; but if they are in a mean between two good things which do not tend to the same end, they fall short of either of their component elements in the attainment of their ends. Only in the case when the two component elements which do not tend to the same end are evil is the participant better than either. Now, if philosophy and political action are both good, but tend to different ends, and they participate in both, and are in a mean between them, then they are talking nonsense, for they are worse than either ; or, if the one be good and the other evil, they are better than the one and worse than the other ; only on the supposition that they are both evil could there be any truth in what they say. I do not think that they will admit that their two pursuits are either wholly or partly evil ; but the truth is, that these philosopher-politicians who aim at both fall short of both in the attainment of their respective ends, and are really third, although they would like to stand first. There is no need, however, to be angry at this ambition of theirs — which may be forgiven ; for every man ought to be loved who says and manfully pursues and works out anything which is at all like wisdom : at the same time we shall do well to see them as they really are. EUTHYDEMUS

Soc. And if, on the other hand, wisdom and folly are really distinguishable, you will allow, I think, that the assertion of Protagoras can hardly be correct. For if what appears to each man is true to him, one man cannot in reality be wiser than another. CRATYLUS  

Soc. The true way is to have the assistance of those who know, and you must pay them well both in money and in thanks ; these are the Sophists, of whom your brother, Callias, has — rather dearly — bought the reputation of wisdom. But you have not yet come into your inheritance, and therefore you had better go to him, and beg and entreat him to tell you what he has learnt from Protagoras about the fitness of names. CRATYLUS

Soc. Many terrible misfortunes are said to have happened to him in his life — last of all, came the utter ruin of his country ; and after his death he had the stone suspended (talanteia) over his head in the world below — all this agrees wonderfully well with his name. You might imagine that some person who wanted to call him Talantatos (the most weighted down by misfortune), disguised the name by altering it into Tantalus ; and into this form, by some accident of tradition, it has actually been transmuted. The name of Zeus, who is his alleged father, has also an excellent meaning, although hard to be understood, because really like a sentence, which is divided into two parts, for some call him Zena, and use the one half, and others who use the other half call him Dia ; the two together signify the nature of the God, and the business of a name, as we were saying, is to express the nature. For there is none who is more the author of life to us and to all, than the lord and king of all. Wherefore we are right in calling him Zena and Dia, which are one name, although divided, meaning the God through whom all creatures always have life (di on zen aei pasi tois zosin uparchei). There is an irreverence, at first sight, in calling him son of Cronos (who is a proverb for stupidity), and we might rather expect Zeus to be the child of a mighty intellect. Which is the fact ; for this is the meaning of his father’s name : Kronos quasi Koros (Choreo, to sweep), not in the sense of a youth, but signifying to chatharon chai acheraton tou nou, the pure and garnished mind (sc. apo tou chorein). He, as we are informed by tradition, was begotten of Uranus, rightly so called (apo tou oran ta ano) from looking upwards ; which, as philosophers tell us, is the way to have a pure mind, and the name Uranus is therefore correct. If I could remember the genealogy of Hesiod, I would have gone on and tried more conclusions of the same sort on the remoter ancestors of the Gods, — then I might have seen whether this wisdom, which has come to me all in an instant, I know not whence, will or will not hold good to the end. CRATYLUS

Soc. Yes, Hermogenes, and I believe that I caught the inspiration from the great Euthyphro of the Prospaltian deme, who gave me a long lecture which commenced at dawn : he talked and I listened, and his wisdom and enchanting ravishment has not only filled my ears but taken possession of my soul,and to-day I shall let his superhuman power work and finish the investigation of names — that will be the way ; but to-morrow, if you are so disposed, we will conjure him away, and make a purgation of him, if we can only find some priest or sophist who is skilled in purifications of this sort. CRATYLUS

Soc. And therefore I have the most entire conviction that he called them demons, because they were daemones (knowing or wise), and in our older Attic dialect the word itself occurs. Now he and other poets say truly, that when a good man dies he has honour and a mighty portion among the dead, and becomes a demon ; which is a name given to him signifying wisdom. And I say too, that every wise man who happens to be a good man is more than human (daimonion) both in life and death, and is rightly called a demon. CRATYLUS

Soc. My good friend, I have discovered a hive of wisdom. CRATYLUS

Soc. Demeter is e didousa meter, who gives food like a mother ; Here is the lovely one (erate) — for Zeus, according to tradition, loved and married her ; possibly also the name may have been given when the legislator was thinking of the heavens, and may be only a disguise of the air (aer), putting the end in the place of the beginning. You will recognize the truth of this if you repeat the letters of Here several times over. People dread the name of Pherephatta as they dread the name of Apollo — and with as little reason ; the fear, if I am not mistaken, only arises from their ignorance of the nature of names. But they go changing the name into Phersephone, and they are terrified at this ; whereas the new name means only that the Goddess is wise (sophe) ; for seeing that all things in the world are in motion (pheromenon), that principle which embraces and touches and is able to follow them, is wisdom. And therefore the Goddess may be truly called Pherepaphe (Pherepapha), or some name like it, because she touches that which is (tou pheromenon ephaptomene), herein showing her wisdom. And Hades, who is wise, consorts with her, because she is wise. They alter her name into Pherephatta now-a-days, because the present generation care for euphony more than truth. There is the other name, Apollo, which, as I was saying, is generally supposed to have some terrible signification. Have you remarked this fact ? CRATYLUS

Her. I should like very much to know, in the next place, how you would explain the virtues. What principle of correctness is there in those charming words — wisdom, understanding, justice, and the rest of them ? CRATYLUS

Soc. That is a tremendous class of names which you are disinterring ; still, as I have put on the lion’s skin, I must not be faint of heart ; and I suppose that I must consider the meaning of wisdom (phronesis) and understanding (sunesis), and judgment (gnome), and knowledge (episteme), and all those other charming words, as you call them ? CRATYLUS

Soc. Phronesis (wisdom), which may signify Phoras kai rhou noesis (perception of motion and flux), or perhaps Phoras onesis (the blessing of motion), but is at any rate connected with Pheresthai (motion) ; gnome (judgment), again, certainly implies the ponderation or consideration (nomesis) of generation, for to ponder is the same as to consider ; or, if you would rather, here is noesis, the very word just now mentioned, which is neou esis (the desire of the new) ; the word neos implies that the world is always in process of creation. The giver of the name wanted to express his longing of the soul, for the original name was neoesis, and not noesis. The word sophrosune is the salvation (soteria) of that wisdom (phronesis) which we were just now considering. Epioteme (knowledge) is akin to this, and indicates that the soul which is good for anything follows (epetai) the motion of things, neither anticipating them nor falling behind them ; wherefor the word should rather be read as epistemene, inserting en. Sunesis (understanding) may be regarded in like manner as a kind of conclusion ; the word is derived from sunienai (to go along with), and, like epistasthai (to know), implies the progression of the soul in company with the nature of things. Sophia (wisdom) is very dark, and appears not to be of native growth ; the meaning is, touching the motion or stream of things. You must remember that the poets, when they speak of the commencement of any rapid motion, often use the word esuthe (he rushed) ; and there was a famous Lacedaemonian who was named Sous (Rush), for by this word the Lacedaemonians signify rapid motion, and the touching (epaphe) of motion is expressed by sophia, for all things are supposed to be in motion. Good (agathon) is the name which is given to the admirable (agasto) in nature ; for, although all things move, still there are degrees of motion ; some are swifter, some slower ; but there are some things which are admirable for their swiftness, and this admirable part of nature is called agathon. Dikaiosune (justice) is clearly dikaiou sunesis (understanding of the just) ; but the actual word dikaion is more difficult : men are only agreed to a certain extent about justice, and then they begin to disagree. CRATYLUS

Soc. Excellent Cratylus, I have long been wondering at my own wisdom ; I cannot trust myself. And I think that I ought to stop and ask myself What am I saying ? for there is nothing worse than self-deception — when the deceiver is always at home and always with you — it is quite terrible, and therefore I ought often to retrace my steps and endeavour to "look fore and aft," in the words of the aforesaid Homer. And now let me see ; where are we ? Have we not been saying that the correct name indicates the nature of the thing : — has this proposition been sufficiently proven ? CRATYLUS

How I wish, said Socrates, taking his place as he was desired, that wisdom could be infused by touch, out of the fuller the emptier man, as water runs through wool out of a fuller cup into an emptier one ; if that were so, how greatly should I value the privilege of reclining at your side ! For you would have filled me full with a stream of wisdom plenteous and fair ; whereas my own is of a very mean and questionable sort, no better than a dream. But yours is bright and full of promise, and was manifested forth in all the splendour of youth the day before yesterday, in the presence of more than thirty thousand Hellenes. SYMPOSIUM  

You are mocking, Socrates, said Agathon, and ere long you and I will have to determine who bears off the palm of wisdom — of this Dionysus shall be the judge ; but at present you are better occupied with supper. SYMPOSIUM

For we have a custom, and according to our custom any one who does service to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either in wisdom, or, in some other particular of virtue — such a voluntary service, I say, is not to be regarded as a dishonour, and is not open to the charge of flattery. And these two customs, one the love of youth, and the other the practice of philosophy and virtue in general, ought to meet in one, and then the beloved may honourably indulge the lover. For when the lover and beloved come together, having each of them a law, and the lover thinks that he is right in doing any service which he can to his gracious loving one ; and the other that he is right in showing any kindness which he can to him who is making him wise and good ; the one capable of communicating wisdom and virtue, the other seeking to acquire them with a view to education and wisdom, when the two laws of love are fulfilled and meet in one — then, and then only, may the beloved yield with honour to the lover. Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived. For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same : for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one’s "uses base" for the sake of money ; but this is not honourable. And on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue ; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler. Thus noble in every case is the acceptance of another for the sake of virtue. This is that love which is the love of the heavenly godess, and is heavenly, and of great price to individuals and cities, making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the work of their own improvement. But all other loves are the offspring of the other, who is the common goddess. To you, Phaedrus  , I offer this my contribution in praise of love, which is as good as I could make extempore. SYMPOSIUM

Of his courage and justice and temperance I have spoken, but I have yet to speak of his wisdom — and according to the measure of my ability I must try to do my best. In the first place he is a poet (and here, like Eryximachus, I magnify my art), and he is also the source of poesy in others, which he could not be if he were not himself a poet. And at the touch of him every one becomes a poet, even though he had no music in him before ; this also is a proof that Love is a good poet and accomplished in all the fine arts ; for no one can give to another that which he has not himself, or teach that of which he has no knowledge. Who will deny that the creation of the animals is his doing ? Are they not all the works his wisdom, born and begotten of him ? And as to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame ? — he whom Love touches riot walks in darkness. The arts of medicine and archery and divination were discovered by Apollo, under the guidance of love and desire ; so that he too is a disciple of Love. Also the melody of the Muses, the metallurgy of Hephaestus, the weaving of Athene, the empire of Zeus over gods and men, are all due to Love, who was the inventor of them. And so Love set in order the empire of the gods — the love of beauty, as is evident, for with deformity Love has no concern. In the days of old, as I began by saying, dreadful deeds were done among the gods, for they were ruled by Necessity ; but now since the birth of Love, and from the Love of the beautiful, has sprung every good in heaven and earth. Therefore, Phaedrus, I say of Love that he is the fairest and best in himself, and the cause of what is fairest and best in all other things. And there comes into my mind a line of poetry in which he is said to be the god who 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 — 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 — 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

"What then is Love ?" I asked ; "Is he mortal ?" "No." "What then ?" "As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two." "What is he, Diotima ?" "He is a great spirit (daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And what," I said, "is his power ?" "He interprets," she replied, "between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods ; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man ; but through Love. all the intercourse, and converse of god with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual ; all other wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love. "And who," I said, "was his father, and who his mother ?" "The tale," she said, "will take time ; nevertheless I will tell you. On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came about the doors to beg. Now Plenty who was the worse for nectar (there was no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep, and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him ; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in ; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest ; and like his mother he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good ; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources ; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father’s nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth ; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is this : No god is a philosopher. or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already ; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after Wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself : he has no desire for that of which he feels no want." "But — who then, Diotima," I said, "are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish ?" "A child may answer that question," she replied ; "they are those who are in a mean between the two ; Love is one of them. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful ; and therefore Love is also a philosopher : or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of this too his birth is the cause ; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love. The error in your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and the beloved, which made you think that love was all beautiful. For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and blessed ; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have described." SYMPOSIUM

"Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further," she said, "what is the manner of the pursuit ? what are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love ? and what is the object which they have in view ? Answer me." "Nay, Diotima," I replied, "if I had known, I should not have wondered at your wisdom, neither should I have come to learn from you about this very matter." "Well," she said, "I will teach you : — The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, whether of body or, soul." "I do not understand you," I said ; "the oracle requires an explanation." "I will make my meaning dearer," she replied. "I mean to say, that all men are bringing to the birth in their bodies and in their souls. There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation — procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity ; and this procreation is the union of man and woman, and is a divine thing ; for conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal creature, and in the inharmonious they can never be. But the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious. Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides at birth, and therefore, when approaching beauty, the conceiving power is propitious, and diffusive, and benign, and begets and bears fruit : at the sight of ugliness she frowns and contracts and has a sense of pain, and turns away, and shrivels up, and not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full, there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of travail. For love, Socrates, is not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only." "What then ?" "The love of generation and of birth in beauty." "Yes," I said. "Yes, indeed," she replied. "But why of generation ?" "Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality," she replied ; "and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good : Wherefore love is of immortality." SYMPOSIUM

"Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children — this is the character of their love ; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant — for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions ? — wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring — for in deformity he will beget nothing — and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body ; above all when he finds fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man ; and he tries to educate him ; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends that which he brings forth ; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal. Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would not rather have their children than ordinary human ones ? Who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory ? Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say ? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws ; and many others there are in many other places, both among hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind ; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs ; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children. SYMPOSIUM

"These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter ; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms ; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only — out of that he should create fair thoughts ; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another ; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same ! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms ; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle ; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom ; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed ; please to give me your very best attention : 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 serpent’s 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 viper’s 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 serpent’s 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

What do you suppose must have been my feelings, after this rejection, at the thought of my own dishonour ? And yet I could not help wondering at his natural temperance and self-restraint and manliness. I never imagined that I could have met with a man such as he is in wisdom and endurance. And therefore I could not be angry with him or renounce his company, any more than I could hope to win him. For I well knew that if Ajax could not be wounded by steel, much less he by money ; and my only chance of captivating him by my personal attractions had faded. So I was at my wit’s end ; no one was ever more hopelessly enslaved by another. All this happened before he and I went on the expedition to Potidaea ; there we messed together, and I had the opportunity of observing his extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue. His endurance was simply marvellous when, being cut off from our supplies, we were compelled to go without food — on such occasions, which often happen in time of war, he was superior not only to me but to everybody ; there was no one to be compared to him. Yet at a festival he was the only person who had any real powers of enjoyment ; though not willing to drink, he could if compelled beat us all at that, — wonderful to relate ! no human being had ever seen Socrates drunk ; and his powers, if I am not mistaken, will be tested before long. His fortitude in enduring cold was also surprising. There was a severe frost, for the winter in that region is really tremendous, and everybody else either remained indoors, or if they went out had on an amazing quantity of clothes, and were well shod, and had their feet swathed in felt and fleeces : in the midst of this, Socrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his ordinary dress marched better than the other soldiers who had shoes, and they looked daggers at him because he seemed to despise them. SYMPOSIUM

And when they consider all this, must not true philosophers make a reflection, of which they will speak to one another in such words as these : We have found, they will say, a path of speculation which seems to bring us and the argument to the conclusion that while we are in the body, and while the soul is mingled with this mass of evil, our desire will not be satisfied, and our desire is of the truth. For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food ; and also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth : and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought. For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions ? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body ? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body ; and in consequence of all these things the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost. Moreover, if there is time and an inclination toward philosophy, yet the body introduces a turmoil and confusion and fear into the course of speculation, and hinders us from seeing the truth : and all experience shows that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body, and the soul in herself must behold all things in themselves : then I suppose that we shall attain that which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers, and that is wisdom, not while we live, but after death, as the argument shows ; for if while in company with the body the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things seems to follow — either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with other pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere ; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking. You will agree with me in that ? PHAEDO  

Then, Simmias, as the true philosophers are ever studying death, to them, of all men, death is the least terrible. Look at the matter in this way : how inconsistent of them to have been always enemies of the body, and wanting to have the soul alone, and when this is granted to them, to be trembling and repining ; instead of rejoicing at their departing to that place where, when they arrive, they hope to gain that which in life they loved (and this was wisdom), and at the same time to be rid of the company of their enemy. Many a man has been willing to go to the world below in the hope of seeing there an earthly love, or wife, or son, and conversing with them. And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that only in the world below he can worthily enjoy her, still repine at death ? Will he not depart with joy ? Surely he will, my friend, if he be a true philosopher. For he will have a firm conviction that there only, and nowhere else, he can find wisdom in her purity. And if this be true, he would be very absurd, as I was saying, if he were to fear death. PHAEDO

And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both ? PHAEDO

Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin for which all things ought to exchange ? — and that is wisdom ; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her ? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her ; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are a purgation of them. And I conceive that the founders of the mysteries had a real meaning and were not mere triflers when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For "many," as they say in the mysteries, "are the thyrsus bearers, but few are the mystics," — meaning, as I interpret the words, the true philosophers. In the number of whom I have been seeking, according to my ability, to find a place during my whole life ; whether I have sought in a right way or not, and whether I have succeeded or not, I shall truly know in a little while, if God will, when I myself arrive in the other world : that is my belief. And now, Simmias and Cebes, I have answered those who charge me with not grieving or repining at parting from you and my masters in this world ; and I am right in not repining, for I believe that I shall find other masters and friends who are as good in the world below. But all men cannot believe this, and I shall be glad if my words have any more success with you than with the judges of the Athenians. PHAEDO

But when returning into herself she reflects ; then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered ; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom ? PHAEDO

But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity ! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education ; which are indeed said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of its pilgrimage in the other world. PHAEDO

Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do in order to obtain virtue and wisdom in this life ? Fair is the prize, and the hope great. PHAEDO

He who is the victim of his passions and the slave of pleasure will of course desire to make his beloved as agreeable to himself as possible. Now to him who has a mind discased anything is agreeable which is not opposed to him, but that which is equal or superior is hateful to him, and therefore the lover Will not brook any superiority or equality on the part of his beloved ; he is always employed in reducing him to inferiority. And the ignorant is the inferior of the wise, the coward of the brave, the slow of speech of the speaker, the dull of the clever. These, and not these only, are the mental defects of the beloved ; — defects which, when implanted by nature, are necessarily a delight to the lover, and when not implanted, he must contrive to implant them in him, if he would not be deprived of his fleeting joy. And therefore he cannot help being jealous, and will debar his beloved from the advantages of society which would make a man of him, and especially from that society which would have given him wisdom, and thereby he cannot fail to do him great harm. That is to say, in his excessive fear lest he should come to be despised in his eyes he will be compelled to banish from him divine philosophy ; and there is no greater injury which he can inflict upon him than this. He will contrive that his beloved shall be wholly ignorant, and in everything shall look to him ; he is to be the delight of the lover’s heart, and a curse to himself. Verily, a lover is a profitable guardian and associate for him in all that relates to his mind. PHAEDRUS

And not only while his love continues is he mischievous and unpleasant, but when his love ceases he becomes a perfidious enemy of him on whom he showered his oaths and prayers and promises, and yet could hardly prevail upon him to tolerate the tedium of his company even from motives of interest. The hour of payment arrives, and now he is the servant of another master ; instead of love and infatuation, wisdom and temperance are his bosom’s lords ; but the beloved has not discovered the change which has taken place in him, when he asks for a return and recalls to his recollection former sayings and doings ; he believes himself to be speaking to the same person, and the other, not having the courage to confess the truth, and not knowing how to fulfil the oaths and promises which he made when under the dominion of folly, and having now grown wise and temperate, does not want to do as he did or to be as he was before. And so he runs away and is constrained to be a defaulter ; the oyster-shell has fallen with the other side uppermost — he changes pursuit into flight, while the other is compelled to follow him with passion and imprecation not knowing that he ought never from the first to have accepted a demented lover instead of a sensible non-lover ; and that in making such a choice he was giving himself up to a faithless, morose, envious, disagreeable being, hurtful to his estate, hurtful to his bodily health, and still more hurtful to the cultivation of his mind, than which there neither is nor ever will be anything more honoured in the eyes both of gods and men. Consider this, fair youth, and know that in the friendship of the lover there is no real kindness ; he has an appetite and wants to feed upon you : PHAEDRUS

The wing is the corporeal element which is most akin to the divine, and which by nature tends to soar aloft and carry that which gravitates downwards into the upper region, which is the habitation of the gods. The divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the like ; and by these the wing of the soul is nourished, and grows apace ; but when fed upon evil and foulness and the opposite of good, wastes and falls away. Zeus, the mighty lord, holding the reins of a winged chariot, leads the way in heaven, ordering all and taking care of all ; and there follows him the array of gods and demigods, marshalled in eleven bands ; Hestia alone abides at home in the house of heaven ; of the rest they who are reckoned among the princely twelve march in their appointed order. They see many blessed sights in the inner heaven, and there are many ways to and fro, along which the blessed gods are passing, every one doing his own work ; he may follow who will and can, for jealousy has no place in the celestial choir. But when they go to banquet and festival, then they move up the steep to the top of the vault of heaven. The chariots of the gods in even poise, obeying the rein, glide rapidly ; but the others labour, for the vicious steed goes heavily, weighing down the charioteer to the earth when his steed has not been thoroughly trained : — and this is the hour of agony and extremest conflict for the soul. For the immortals, when they are at the end of their course, go forth and stand upon the outside of heaven, and the revolution of the spheres carries them round, and they behold the things beyond. But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily ? It is such as I will describe ; for I must dare to speak the truth, when truth is my theme. There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned ; the colourless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul. The divine intelligence, being nurtured upon mind and pure knowledge, and the intelligence of every soul which is capable of receiving the food proper to it, rejoices at beholding reality, and once more gazing upon truth, is replenished and made glad, until the revolution of the worlds brings her round again to the same place. In the revolution she beholds justice, and temperance, and knowledge absolute, not in the form of generation or of relation, which men call existence, but knowledge absolute in existence absolute ; and beholding the other true existences in like manner, and feasting upon them, she passes down into the interior of the heavens and returns home ; and there the charioteer putting up his horses at the stall, gives them ambrosia to eat and nectar to drink. PHAEDRUS

But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms ; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses ; though not by that is wisdom seen ; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they had visible counterparts, would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight. Now he who is not newly initiated or who has become corrupted, does not easily rise out of this world to the sight of true beauty in the other ; he looks only at her earthly namesake, and instead of being awed at the sight of her, he is given over to pleasure, and like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy and beget ; he consorts with wantonness, and is not afraid or ashamed of pursuing pleasure in violation of nature. But he whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or form, which is the expression of divine beauty ; and at first a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe steals over him ; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god ; then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration ; for, as he receives the effluence of beauty through the eyes, the wing moistens and he warms. And as he warms, the parts out of which the wing grew, and which had been hitherto closed and rigid, and had prevented the wing from shooting forth, are melted, and as nourishment streams upon him, the lower end of the wings begins to swell and grow from the root upwards ; and the growth extends under the whole soul — for once the whole was winged. PHAEDRUS

Soc. Why, he begins in this manner : "Be it enacted by the senate, the people, or both, on the motion of a certain person," who is our author ; and so putting on a serious face, he proceeds to display his own wisdom to his admirers in what is often a long and tedious composition. Now what is that sort of thing but a regular piece of authorship ? PHAEDRUS

Soc. And if Adrastus the mellifluous or Pericles heard of these wonderful arts, brachylogies and eikonologies and all the hard names which we have been endeavouring to draw into the light of day, what would they say ? Instead of losing temper and applying uncomplimentary epithets, as you and I have been doing, to the authors of such an imaginary art, their superior wisdom would rather censure us, as well as them. "Have a little patience, Phaedrus and Socrates, they would say ; you should not be in such a passion with those who from some want of dialectical skill are unable to define the nature of rhetoric, and consequently suppose that they have found the art in the preliminary conditions of it, and when these have been taught by them to others, fancy that the whole art of rhetoric has been taught by them ; but as to using the several instruments of the art effectively, or making the composition a whole, — an application of it such as this is they regard as an easy thing which their disciples may make for themselves." PHAEDRUS

Soc. At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth ; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt ; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of the he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories ; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied : O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have ; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories ; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth ; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing ; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing ; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. PHAEDRUS

Soc. Wise, I may not call them ; for that is a great name which belongs to God alone, — lovers of wisdom or philosophers is their modest and befitting title. PHAEDRUS

Soc. But if he praises the virtue or wisdom which are the mental endowments of either of us, then he who hears the praises will naturally desire to examine him who is praised : and he again should be willing to exhibit himself. THEAETETUS  

Soc. And by wisdom the wise are wise ? THEAETETUS

Soc. Then wisdom and knowledge are the same ? THEAETETUS

Soc. You, Theodorus, are a lover of theories, and now you innocently fancy that I am a bag full of them, and can easily pull one out which will overthrow its predecessor. But you do not see that in reality none of these theories come from me ; they all come from him who talks with me. I only know just enough to extract them from the wisdom of another, and to receive them in a spirit of fairness. And now I shall say nothing myself, but shall endeavour to elicit something from our young friend. 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 — would not this have produced an over-powering effect ? For if truth is only sensation, and no man can discern another’s 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. Yes, my marvel, and there might have been yet worse things in store for you, if an opponent had gone on to ask whether you can have a sharp and also a dull knowledge, and whether you can know near, but not at a distance, or know the same thing with more or less intensity, and so on without end. Such questions might have been put to you by a light-armed mercenary, who argued for pay. He would have lain in wait for you, and when you took up the position, that sense is knowledge, he would have made an assault upon hearing, smelling, and the other senses ; — he would have shown you no mercy ; and while you were lost in envy and admiration of his wisdom, he would have got you into his net, out of which you would not have escaped until you had come to an understanding about the sum to be paid for your release. Well, you ask, and how will Protagoras reinforce his position ? Shall I answer for him ? THEAETETUS

And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise man have no existence ; but I say that the wise man is he who makes the evils which appear and are to a man, into goods which are and appear to him. And I would beg you not to my words in the letter, but to take the meaning of them as I will explain them. Remember what has been already said, — that to the sick man his food appears to be and is bitter, and to the man in health the opposite of bitter. Now I cannot conceive that one of these men can be or ought to be made wiser than the other : nor can you assert that the sick man because he has one impression is foolish, and the healthy man because he has another is wise ; but the one state requires to be changed into the other, the worse into the better. As in education, a change of state has to be effected, and the sophist accomplishes by words the change which the physician works by the aid of drugs. Not that any one ever made another think truly, who previously thought falsely. For no one can think what is not, or think anything different from that which he feels ; and this is always true. But as the inferior habit of mind has thoughts of kindred nature, so I conceive that a good mind causes men to have good thoughts ; and these which the inexperienced call true, I maintain to be only better, and not truer than others. And, O my dear Socrates, I do not call wise men tadpoles : far from it ; I say that they are the physicians of the human body, and the husbandmen of plants — for the husbandmen also take away the evil and disordered sensations of plants, and infuse into them good and healthy sensations — aye and true ones ; and the wise and good rhetoricians make the good instead of the evil to seem just to states ; for whatever appears to a state to be just and fair, so long as it is regarded as such, is just and fair to it ; but the teacher of wisdom causes the good to take the place of the evil, both in appearance and in reality. And in like manner the Sophist who is able to train his pupils in this spirit is a wise man, and deserves to be well paid by them. And so one man is wiser than another ; and no one thinks falsely, and you, whether you will or not, must endure to be a measure. On these foundations the argument stands firm, which you, Socrates, may, if you please, overthrow by an opposite argument, or if you like you may put questions to me — a method to which no intelligent person will object, quite the reverse. But I must beg you to put fair questions : for there is great inconsistency in saying that you have a zeal for virtue, and then always behaving unfairly in argument. The unfairness of which I complain is that you do not distinguish between mere disputation and dialectic : the disputer may trip up his opponent as often as he likes, and make fun ; but the dialectician will be in earnest, and only correct his adversary when necessary, telling him the errors into which he has fallen through his own fault, or that of the company which he has previously kept. If you do so, your adversary will lay the blame of his own confusion and perplexity on himself, and not on you ; will follow and love you, and will hate himself, and escape from himself into philosophy, in order that he may become different from what he was. But the other mode of arguing, which is practised by the many, will have just the opposite effect upon him ; and as he grows older, instead of turning philosopher, he will come to hate philosophy. I would recommend you, therefore, as I said before, not to encourage yourself in this polemical and controversial temper, but to find out, in a friendly and congenial spirit, what we really mean when we say that all things are in motion, and that to every individual and state what appears, is. In this manner you will consider whether knowledge and sensation are the same or different, but you will not argue, as you were just now doing, from the customary use of names and words, which the vulgar pervert in all sorts of ways, causing infinite perplexity to one another. THEAETETUS

Soc. In the first place, let us return to our old objection, and see whether we were right in blaming and taking offence at Protagoras on the ground that he assumed all to be equal and sufficient in wisdom ; although he admitted that there was a better and worse, and that in respect of this, some who as he said were the wise excelled others. 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. In the leisure spoken of by you, which a freeman can always command : he has his talk, out in peace, and, like ourselves, he wanders at will from one subject to another, and from a second to a third, — if the fancy takes him he begins again, as we are doing now, caring not whether his words are many or few ; his only aim is to attain the truth. But the lawyer is always in a hurry ; there is the water of the clepsydra driving him on, and not allowing him to expatiate at will : and there is his adversary standing over him, enforcing his rights ; the indictment, which in their phraseology is termed the affidavit, is recited at the time : and from this he must not deviate. He is a servant, and is continually disputing about a fellow servant before his master, who is seated, and has the cause in his hands ; the trial is never about some indifferent matter, but always concerns himself ; and often the race is for his life. The consequence has been, that he has become keen and shrewd ; he has learned how to flatter his master in word and indulge him in deed ; but his soul is small and unrighteous. His condition, which has been that of a slave from his youth upwards, has deprived him of growth and uprightness and independence ; dangers and fears, which were too much for his truth and honesty, came upon him in early years, when the tenderness of youth was unequal to them, and he has been driven into crooked ways ; from the first he has practised deception and retaliation, and has become stunted and warped. And so he has passed out of youth into manhood, having no soundness in him ; and is now, as he thinks, a master in wisdom. Such is the lawyer, Theodorus. Will you have the companion picture of the philosopher, who is of our brotherhood ; or shall we return to the argument ? Do not let us abuse the freedom of digression which we claim. THEAETETUS

Soc. Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away ; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal nature, and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can ; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible ; and to become like him, is to become holy, just, and wise. But, O my friend, you cannot easily convince mankind that they should pursue virtue or avoid vice, not merely in order that a man may seem to be good, which is the reason given by the world, and in my judgment is only a repetition of an old wives fable. Whereas, the truth is that God is never in any way unrighteous — he is perfect righteousness ; and he of us who is the most righteous is most like him. Herein is seen the true cleverness of a man, and also his nothingness and want of manhood. For to know this is true wisdom and virtue, and ignorance of this is manifest folly and vice. All other kinds of wisdom or cleverness, which seem only, such as the wisdom of politicians, or the wisdom of the arts, are coarse and vulgar. The unrighteous man, or the sayer and doer of unholy things, had far better not be encouraged in the illusion that his roguery is clever ; for men glory in their shame — they fancy that they hear others saying of them, "These are not mere good-for-nothing persons, mere burdens of the earth, but such as men should be who mean to dwell safely in a state." Let us tell them that they are all the more truly what they do not think they are because they do not know it ; for they do not know the penalty of injustice, which above all things they ought to know — not stripes and death, as they suppose, which evil-doers often escape, but a penalty which cannot be escaped. THEAETETUS

Soc. Quite right too ; but as touching the aforesaid problem, have we not heard from the ancients, who concealed their wisdom from the many in poetical figures, that Oceanus and Tethys, the origin of all things, are streams, and that nothing is at rest ? And now the moderns, in their superior wisdom, have declared the same openly, that the cobbler too may hear and learn of them, and no longer foolishly imagine that some things are at rest and others in motion — having learned that all is motion, he will duly honour his teachers. I had almost forgotten the opposite doctrine, Theodorus, THEAETETUS

Zeno   answered with a smile : — Let us make our petition to Parmenides   himself, who is quite right in saying that you are hardly aware of the extent of the task which you are imposing on him ; and if there were more of us I should not ask him, for these are not subjects which any one, especially at his age, can well speak of before a large audience ; most people are not aware that this round-about progress through all things is the only way in which the mind can attain truth and wisdom. And therefore, Parmenides, I join in the request of Socrates, that I may hear the process again which I have not heard for a long time. PARMENIDES

Str. How do the Sophists make young men believe in their supreme and universal wisdom ? For if they neither disputed nor were thought to dispute rightly, or being thought to do so were deemed no wiser for their controversial skill, then, to quote your own observation, no one would give them money or be willing to learn their art. SOPHIST

Str. And that the just and wise soul becomes just and wise by the possession of justice and wisdom, and the opposite under opposite circumstances ? SOPHIST

Str. And, allowing that justice, wisdom, the other virtues, and their opposites exist, as well as a soul in which they inhere, do they affirm any of them to be visible and tangible, or are they all invisible ? SOPHIST

Theaet. They would distinguish : the soul would be said by them to have a body ; but as to the other qualities of justice, wisdom, and the like, about which you asked, they would not venture either to deny their existence, or to maintain that they were all corporeal. SOPHIST

Str. And thus we provide a rich feast for tyros, whether young or old ; for there is nothing easier than to argue that the one cannot be many, or the many one ; and great is their delight in denying that a man is good ; for man, they insist, is man and good is good. I dare say that you have met with persons who take an interest in such matters — they are often elderly men, whose meagre sense is thrown into amazement by these discoveries of theirs, which they believe to be the height of wisdom. SOPHIST

Str. Very good, Socrates ; and, if you continue to be not too particular about names, you will be all the richer   in wisdom when you are an old man. And now, as you say, leaving the discussion of the name, — can you see a way in which a person, by showing the art of herding to be of two kinds, may cause that which is now sought amongst twice the number of things, to be then sought amongst half that number ? STATESMAN

Str. Suppose that the nurslings of Cronos, having this boundless leisure, and the power of holding intercourse, not only with men, but with the brute creation, had used all these advantages with a view to philosophy, conversing with the brutes as well as with one another, and learning of every nature which was gifted with any special power, and was able to contribute some special experience to the store of wisdom there would be no difficulty in deciding that they would be a thousand times happier than the men of our own day. Or, again, if they had merely eaten and drunk until they were full, and told stories to one another and to the animals — such stories as are now attributed to them — in this case also, as I should imagine, the answer would be easy. But until some satisfactory witness can be found of the love of that age for knowledge and : discussion, we had better let the matter drop, and give the reason why we have unearthed this tale, and then we shall be able to get on. STATESMAN

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. And whether with a view to the public good they purge the State by killing some, or exiling some ; whether they reduce the size of the body corporate by sending out from the hive swarms of citizens, or, by introducing persons from without, increase it ; while they act according to the rules of wisdom and justice, and use their power with a view to the general security and improvement, the city over which they rule, and which has these characteristics, may be described as the only true State. All other governments are not genuine or real ; but only imitations of this, and some of them are better and some of them are worse ; the better are said to be well governed, but they are mere imitations like the others. STATESMAN

Str. There can be no doubt that legislation is in a manner the business of a king, and yet the best thing of all is not that the law should rule, but that a man should rule, supposing him to have wisdom and royal power. Do you see why this is ? STATESMAN

Str. To go against the laws, which are based upon long experience, and the wisdom of counsellors who have graciously recommended them and persuaded the multitude to pass them, would be a far greater and more ruinous error than any adherence to written law ? STATESMAN

Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. "You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old. As touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and of their most famous action ; the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others ; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix ; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen ; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits ; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. All this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city ; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods. TIMAEUS  

The part of the soul which desires meats and drinks and the other things of which it has need by reason of the bodily nature, they placed between the midriff and the boundary of the navel, contriving in all this region a sort of manger for the food of the body ; and there they bound it down like a wild animal which was chained up with man, and must be nourished if man was to exist. They appointed this lower creation his place here in order that he might be always feeding at the manger, and have his dwelling as far as might be from the council-chamber, making as little noise and disturbance as possible, and permitting the best part to advise quietly for the good of the whole. And knowing that this lower principle in man would not comprehend reason, and even if attaining to some degree of perception would never naturally care for rational notions, but that it would be led away by phantoms and visions night and day — to be a remedy for this, God combined with it the liver, and placed it in the house of the lower nature, contriving that it should be solid and smooth, and bright and sweet, and should also have a bitter quality, in order that the power of thought, which proceeds from the mind, might be reflected as in a mirror which receives likenesses of objects and gives back images of them to the sight ; and so might strike terror into the desires, when, making use of the bitter part of the liver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and invading, and diffusing this bitter element swiftly through the whole liver produces colours like bile, and contracting every part makes it wrinkled and rough ; and twisting out of its right place and contorting the lobe and closing and shutting up the vessels and gates, causes pain and loathing. And the converse happens when some gentle inspiration of the understanding pictures images of an opposite character, and allays the bile and bitterness by refusing to stir or touch the nature opposed to itself, but by making use of the natural sweetness of the liver, corrects all things and makes them to be right and smooth and free, and renders the portion of the soul which resides about the liver happy and joyful, enabling it to pass the night in peace, and to practise divination in sleep, inasmuch as it has no share in mind and reason. For the authors of our being, remembering the command of their father when he bade them create the human race as good as they could, that they might correct our inferior parts and make them to attain a measure of truth, placed in the liver the seat of divination. And herein is a proof that God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but to the foolishness of man. No man, when in his wits, attains prophetic truth and inspiration ; but when he receives the inspired word, either his intelligence is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or possession. And he who would understand what he remembers to have been said, whether in a dream or when he was awake, by the prophetic and inspired nature, or would determine by reason the meaning of the apparitions which he has seen, and what indications they afford to this man or that, of past, present or future good and evil, must first recover his wits. But, while he continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions which he sees or the words which he utters ; the ancient saying is very true, that "only a man who has his wits can act or judge about himself and his own affairs." And for this reason it is customary to appoint interpreters to be judges of the true inspiration. Some persons call them prophets ; they are quite unaware that they are only the expositors of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be called prophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy. 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

There is a corresponding enquiry concerning the mode of treatment by which the mind and the body are to be preserved, about which it is meet and right that I should say a word in turn ; for it is more our duty to speak of the good than of the evil. Everything that is good is fair, and the animal fair is not without proportion, and the animal which is to be fair must have due proportion. Now we perceive lesser symmetries or proportions and reason about them, but of the highest and greatest we take no heed ; for there is no proportion or disproportion more productive of health and disease, and virtue and vice, than that between soul and body. This however we do not perceive, nor do we reflect that when a weak or small frame is the vehicle of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little soul is encased in a large body, then the whole animal is not fair, for it lacks the most important of all symmetries ; but the due proportion of mind and body is the fairest and loveliest of all sights to him who has the seeing eye. Just as a body which has a leg too long, or which is unsymmetrical in some other respect, is an unpleasant sight, and also, when doing its share of work, is much distressed and makes convulsive efforts, and often stumbles through awkwardness, and is the cause of infinite evil to its own self — in like manner we should conceive of the double nature which we call the living being ; and when in this compound there is an impassioned soul more powerful than the body, that soul, I say, convulses and fills with disorders the whole inner nature of man ; and when eager in the pursuit of some sort of learning or study, causes wasting ; or again, when teaching or disputing in private or in public, and strifes and controversies arise, inflames and dissolves the composite frame of man and introduces rheums ; and the nature of this phenomenon is not understood by most professors of medicine, who ascribe it to the opposite of the real cause. And once more, when body large and too strong for the soul is united to a small and weak intelligence, then inasmuch as there are two desires natural to man, — one of food for the sake of the body, and one of wisdom for the sake of the diviner part of us — then, I say, the motions of the stronger, getting the better and increasing their own power, but making the soul dull, and stupid, and forgetful, engender ignorance, which is the greatest of diseases. There is one protection against both kinds of disproportion : — that we should not move the body without the soul or the soul without the body, and thus they will be on their guard against each other, and be healthy and well balanced. And therefore the mathematician or any one else whose thoughts are much absorbed in some intellectual pursuit, must allow his body also to have due exercise, and practise gymnastic ; and he who is careful to fashion the body, should in turn impart to the soul its proper motions, and should cultivate music and all philosophy, if he would deserve to be called truly fair and truly good. And the separate parts should be treated in the same manner, in imitation of the pattern of the universe ; for as the body is heated and also cooled within by the elements which enter into it, and is again dried up and moistened by external things, and experiences these and the like affections from both kinds of motions, the result is that the body if given up to motion when in a state of quiescence is overmastered and perishes ; but if any one, in imitation of that which we call the foster  -mother and nurse of the universe, will not allow the body ever to be inactive, but is always producing motions and agitations through its whole extent, which form the natural defence against other motions both internal and external, and by moderate exercise reduces to order according to their affinities the particles and affections which are wandering about the body, as we have already said when speaking of the universe, he will not allow enemy placed by the side of enemy to stir up wars and disorders in the body, but he will place friend by the side of friend, so as to create health. TIMAEUS

And we should consider that God gave the sovereign part of the human soul to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as we say, dwells at the top of the body, inasmuch as we are a plant not of an earthly but of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our kindred who are in heaven. And in this we say truly ; for the divine power suspended the head and root of us from that place where the generation of the soul first began, and thus made the whole body upright. When a man is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become such, he must be mortal every whit, because he has cherished his mortal part. But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal ; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happy. Now there is only one way of taking care of things, and this is to give to each the food and motion which are natural to it. And the motions which are naturally akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. These each man should follow, and correct the courses of the head which were corrupted at our birth, and by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, should assimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his original nature, and having assimilated them should attain to that perfect life which the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and the future. TIMAEUS

Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the race of birds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who, although their minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight ; these were remodelled and transformed into birds, and they grew feathers instead of hair. The race of wild pedestrian animals, again, came from those who had no philosophy in any of their thoughts, and never considered at all about the nature of the heavens, because they had ceased to use the courses of the head, but followed the guidance of those parts of the soul which are in the breast. In consequence of these habits of theirs they had their front-legs and their heads resting upon the earth to which they were drawn by natural affinity ; and the crowns of their heads were elongated and of all sorts of shapes, into which the courses of the soul were crushed by reason of disuse. And this was the reason why they were created quadrupeds and polypods : God gave the more senseless of them the more support that they might be more attracted to the earth. And the most foolish of them, who trail their bodies entirely upon the ground and have no longer any need of feet, he made without feet to crawl upon the earth. The fourth class were the inhabitants of the water : these were made out of the most entirely senseless and ignorant of all, whom the transformers did not think any longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which was made impure by all sorts of transgression ; and instead of the subtle and pure medium of air, they gave them the deep and muddy sea to be their element of respiration ; and hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and other aquatic animals, which have received the most remote habitations as a punishment of their outlandish ignorance. These are the laws by which animals pass into one another, now, as ever, changing as they lose or gain wisdom and folly. TIMAEUS

In the days of old the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment. There was no quarrelling ; for you cannot rightly suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have, or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by contention that which more properly belonged to others. They all of them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled their own districts ; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurselings and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like pilots from the stern of the vessel, which is an easy way of guiding animals, holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure ; — thus did they guide all mortal creatures. Now different gods had their allotments in different places which they set in order. Hephaestus and Athene, who were brother and sister, and sprang from the same father, having a common nature, and being united also in the love of philosophy and art, both obtained as their common portion this land, which was naturally adapted for wisdom and virtue ; and there they implanted brave children of the soil, and put into their minds the order of government ; their names are preserved, but their actions have disappeared by reason of the destruction of those who received the tradition, and the lapse of ages. For when there were any survivors, as I have already said, they were men who dwelt in the mountains ; and they were ignorant of the art of writing, and had heard only the names of the chiefs of the land, but very little about their actions. The names they were willing enough to give to their children ; but the virtues and the laws of their predecessors, they knew only by obscure traditions ; and as they themselves and their children lacked for many generations the necessaries of life, they directed their attention to the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the neglect of events that had happened in times long past ; for mythology and the enquiry into antiquity are first introduced into cities when they begin to have leisure, and when they see that the necessaries of life have already been provided, but not before. And this is reason why the names of the ancients have been preserved to us and not their actions. This I infer because Solon said that the priests in their narrative of that war mentioned most of the names which are recorded prior to the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, and Erechtheus, and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, and the names of the women in like manner. Moreover, since military pursuits were then common to men and women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the time set up a figure and image of the goddess in full armour, to be a testimony that all animals which associate together, male as well as female, may, if they please, practise in common the virtue which belongs to them without distinction of sex. CRITIAS

Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis ; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the following reasons, as tradition tells : For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were ; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them ; neither were they intoxicated by luxury ; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control ; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them ; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts ; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows — 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

Soc. And you say that pleasure and I say that wisdom, is such a state ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And what if there be a third state, which is better than either ? Then both of us are vanquished — are we not ? But if this life, which really has the power of making men happy, turn out to be more akin to pleasure than to wisdom, the life of pleasure may still have the advantage over the life of wisdom. PHILEBUS

Soc. Or suppose that the better life is more nearly allied to wisdom, then wisdom conquers, and pleasure is defeated ; — do you agree ? PHILEBUS

Soc. The awe which I always feel, Protarchus, about the names of the gods is more than human — it exceeds all other fears. And now I would not sin against Aphrodite by naming her amiss ; let her be called what she pleases. But Pleasure I know to be manifold, and with her, as I was just now saying, we must begin, and consider what her nature is. She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one ; and yet surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance — that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom ? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these opposite pleasures are severally alike ! PHILEBUS

Soc. Ask me whether wisdom and science and mind, and those other qualities which I, when asked by you at first what is the nature of the good, affirmed to be good, are not in the same case with the pleasures of which you spoke. PHILEBUS

Soc. And let us have no concealment, Protarchus, of the differences between my good and yours ; but let us bring them to the light in the hope that, in the process of testing them, they may show whether pleasure is to be called the good, or wisdom, or some third quality ; for surely we are not now simply contending in order that my view or that yours may prevail, but I presume that we ought both of us to be fighting for the truth. PHILEBUS

Soc. We say that the one and many become identified by thought, and that now, as in time past, they run about together, in and out of every word which is uttered, and that this union of them will never cease, and is not now beginning, but is, as I believe, an everlasting quality of thought itself, which never grows old. Any young man, when he first tastes these subtleties, is delighted, and fancies that he has found a treasure of wisdom ; in the first enthusiasm of his joy he leaves no stone, or rather no thought unturned, now rolling up the many into the one, and kneading them together, now unfolding and dividing them ; he puzzles himself first and above all, and then he proceeds to puzzle his neighbours, whether they are older or younger, or of his own age — that makes no difference ; neither father nor mother does he spare ; no human being who has ears is safe from him, hardly even his dog, and a barbarian would have no chance of escaping him, if an interpreter could only be found. PHILEBUS

Soc. Did we not begin by enquiring into the comparative eligibility of pleasure and wisdom ? PHILEBUS

Pro. That is a very serious question, Philebus, to which Socrates has ingeniously brought us round, and please to consider which of us shall answer him ; there may be something ridiculous in my being unable to answer, and therefore imposing the task upon you, when I have undertaken the whole charge of the argument, but if neither of us were able to answer, the result methinks would be still more ridiculous. Let us consider, then, what we are to do : — Socrates, if I understood him rightly, is asking whether there are not kinds of pleasure, and what is the number and nature of them, and the same of wisdom. PHILEBUS

Soc. I remember to have heard long ago certain discussions about pleasure and wisdom, whether awake or in a dream I cannot tell ; they were to the effect that neither the one nor the other of them was the good, but some third thing, which was different from them, and better than either. If this be clearly established, then pleasure will lose the victory, for the good will cease to be identified with her : — Am I not right ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Now let us part off the life of pleasure from the life of wisdom, and pass them in review. PHILEBUS

Soc. Let there be no wisdom in the life of pleasure, nor any pleasure in the life of wisdom, for if either of them is the chief good, it cannot be supposed to want anything, but if either is shown to want anything, then it cannot really be the chief good. PHILEBUS

Soc. Reflect ; would you not want wisdom and intelligence and forethought, and similar qualities ? would you not at any rate want sight ? PHILEBUS

Soc. I want to know whether any one of us would consent to live, having wisdom and mind and knowledge and memory of all things, but having no sense of pleasure or pain, and wholly unaffected by these and the like feelings ? PHILEBUS

Pro. Out of the union, that is, of pleasure with mind and wisdom ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And now what is the next question, and how came we hither ? Were we not enquiring whether the second place belonged to pleasure or wisdom ? PHILEBUS

Soc. We said, if you remember, that the mixed life of pleasure and wisdom was the conqueror — did we not ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Nor would pain, Philebus, be perfectly evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that element which imparts to pleasure some degree of good. But now — admitting, if you like, that pleasure is of the nature of the infinite — in which of the aforesaid classes, O Protarchus and Philebus, can we without irreverence place wisdom and knowledge and mind ? And let us be careful, for I think that the danger will be very serious if we err on this point. PHILEBUS

Soc. Whether all this which they call the universe is left to the guidance of unreason and chance medley, or, on the contrary, as our fathers have declared, ordered and governed by a marvellous intelligence and wisdom. PHILEBUS

Soc. Why, yes, Protarchus ; for surely we cannot imagine that of the four classes, the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two, and the cause, the fourth, which enters into all things, giving to our bodies souls, and the art of self-management, and of healing disease, and operating in other ways to heal and organize, having too all the attributes of wisdom ; — we cannot, I say, imagine that whereas the self-same elements exist, both in the entire heaven and in great provinces of the heaven, only fairer and purer, this last should not also in that higher sphere have designed the noblest and fairest things ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Then if this be denied, should we not be wise in adopting the other view and maintaining that there is in the universe a mighty infinite and an adequate limit, of which we have often spoken, as well as a presiding cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges years and seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom and mind ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And wisdom and mind cannot exist without soul ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Why, you know that if a man chooses the life of wisdom, there is no reason why he should not live in this neutral state. PHILEBUS

Soc. Yes ; and if I remember rightly, when the lives were compared, no degree of pleasure, whether great or small, was thought to be necessary to him who chose the life of thought and wisdom. PHILEBUS

Soc. And of all the virtues, is not wisdom the one which the mass of mankind are always claiming, and which most arouses in them a spirit of contention and lying conceit of wisdom ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And the three kinds of vain conceit in our friends which we enumerated — the vain conceit of beauty, of wisdom, and of wealth, are ridiculous if they are weak, and detestable when they are powerful : May we not say, as I was saying before, that our friends who are in this state of mind, when harmless to others, are simply ridiculous ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And are not mind and wisdom the names which are to be honoured most ? PHILEBUS

Soc. In the next place, as to the mixture, here are the ingredients, pleasure and wisdom, and we may be compared to artists who have their materials ready to their hands. PHILEBUS

Soc. Philebus says that pleasure is the true end of all living beings, at which all ought to aim, and moreover that it is the chief good of all, and that the two names "good" and "pleasant" are correctly given to one thing and one nature ; Socrates, on the other hand, begins by denying this, and further says, that in nature as in name they are two, and that wisdom partakes more than pleasure of the good. Is not and was not this what we were saying, Protarchus ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And did we not endeavour to make an imaginary separation of wisdom and pleasure, assigning to each a distinct life, so that pleasure was wholly excluded from wisdom, and wisdom in like manner had no part whatever in pleasure ? 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 — 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, — 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. Are not we the cup-bearers ? and here are two fountains which are flowing at our side : one, which is pleasure, may be likened to a fountain of honey ; the other, wisdom, a sober draught in which no wine mingles, is of water unpleasant but healthful ; out of these we must seek to make the fairest of all possible mixtures. PHILEBUS

Soc. Tell me first ; — should we be most likely to succeed if we mingled every sort of pleasure with every sort of wisdom ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Do not ask me, Protarchus ; but ask the daughters of pleasure and wisdom to answer for themselves. PHILEBUS

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

Soc. Very true. And now let us go back and interrogate wisdom and mind : Would you like to have any pleasures in the mixture ? And they will reply : — "What pleasures do you mean ?" PHILEBUS

Soc. And now, Protarchus, any man could decide well enough whether pleasure or wisdom is more akin to the highest good, and more honourable among gods and men. PHILEBUS

Soc. Shall we next consider measure, in like manner, and ask whether pleasure has more of this than wisdom, or wisdom than pleasure ? PHILEBUS

Pro. No one, Socrates, either awake or dreaming, ever saw or imagined mind or wisdom to be in aught unseemly, at any time, past, present, or future. PHILEBUS

Soc. And if you reckon in the third dass mind and wisdom, you will not be far wrong, if I divine aright. PHILEBUS

And such an one is far better, as we affirm, than the other in a more difficult kind of war, much in the same degree as justice and temperance and wisdom, when united with courage, are better than courage only ; for a man cannot be faithful and good in civil strife without having all virtue. But in the war of which Tyrtaeus speaks, many a mercenary soldier will take his stand and be ready to die at his post, and yet they are generally and almost without exception insolent, unjust, violent men, and the most senseless of human beings. You will ask what the conclusion is, and what I am seeking to prove : I maintain that the divine legislator of Crete, like any other who is worthy of consideration, will always and above all things in making laws have regard to the greatest virtue ; which, according to Theognis, is loyalty in the hour of danger, and may be truly called perfect justice. Whereas, that virtue which Tyrtaeus highly praises is well enough, and was praised by the poet at the right time, yet in place and dignity may be said to be only fourth rate. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. You ought to have said, Stranger — 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 — 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

Ath. Pleasure and pain I maintain to be the first perceptions of children, and I say that they are the forms under which virtue and vice are originally present to them. As to wisdom and true and fixed opinions, happy is the man who acquires them, even when declining in years ; and we may say that he who possesses them, and the blessings which are contained in them, is a perfect man. Now I mean by education that training which is given by suitable habits to the first instincts of virtue in children ; — when pleasure, and friendship, and pain, and hatred, are rightly implanted in souls not yet capable of understanding the nature of them, and who find them, after they have attained reason, to be in harmony with her. This harmony of the soul, taken as a whole, is virtue ; but the particular training in respect of pleasure and pain, which leads you always to hate what you ought to hate, and love what you ought to love from the beginning of life to the end, may be separated off ; and, in my view, will be rightly called education. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. Thus far I too should agree with the many, that the excellence of music is to be measured by pleasure. But the pleasure must not be that of chance persons ; the fairest music is that which delights the best and best educated, and especially that which delights the one man who is pre-eminent in virtue and education. And therefore the judges must be men of character, for they will require both wisdom and courage ; the true judge must not draw his inspiration from the theatre, nor ought he to be unnerved by the clamour of the many and his own incapacity ; nor again, knowing the truth, ought he through cowardice and unmanliness carelessly to deliver a lying judgment, with the very same lips which have just appealed to the Gods before he judged. He is sitting not as the disciple of the theatre, but, in his proper place, as their instructor, and he ought to be the enemy of all pandering to the pleasure of the spectators. The ancient and common custom of Hellas, which still prevails in Italy and Sicily, did certainly leave the judgment to the body of spectators, who determined the victor by show of hands. But this custom has been the destruction of the poets ; for they are now in the habit of composing with a view to please the bad taste of their judges, and the result is that the spectators instruct themselves ; — and also it has been the ruin of the theatre ; they ought to be having characters put before them better than their own, and so receiving a higher pleasure, but now by their own act the opposite result follows. What inference is to be drawn from all this ? Shall I tell you ? LAWS BOOK II

Ath. Would not all implements have then perished and every other excellent invention of political or any other sort of wisdom have utterly disappeared ? LAWS BOOK III

Meg. I understand you to mean that a man should not desire or be in a hurry to have all things according to his wish, for his wish may be at variance with his reason. But every state and every individual ought to pray and strive for wisdom. LAWS BOOK III

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 — 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. Well, then, proceeding in the same train of thought, I say that the greatest ignorance was the ruin of the Dorian power, and that now, as then, ignorance is ruin. And if this be true, the legislator must endeavour to implant wisdom in states, and banish ignorance to the utmost of his power. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. Let us, then, in the first place declare and affirm that the citizen who does not know these things ought never to have any kind of authority entrusted to him : he must be stigmatized as ignorant, even though he be versed in calculation and skilled in all sorts of accomplishments, and feats of mental dexterity ; and the opposite are to be called wise, even although, in the words of the proverb, they know neither how to read nor how to swim ; and to them, as to men of sense, authority is to be committed. For, O my friends, how can there be the least shadow of wisdom when there is no harmony ? There is none ; but the noblest and greatest of harmonies may be truly said to be the greatest wisdom ; and of this he is a partaker who lives according to reason ; whereas he who is devoid of reason is the destroyer of his house and the very opposite of a saviour of the state : he is utterly ignorant of political wisdom. Let this, then, as I was saying, be laid down by us. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. Is it not palpable that the chief aim of the kings of that time was to get the better of the established laws, and that they were not in harmony with the principles which they had agreed to observe by word and oath ? This want of harmony may have had the appearance of wisdom, but was really, as we assert, the greatest ignorance, and utterly overthrew the whole empire by dissonance and harsh discord. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. Good ; and what measures ought the legislator to have then taken in order to avert this calamity ? Truly there is no great wisdom in knowing, and no great difficulty in telling, after the evil has happened ; but to have foreseen the remedy at the time would have taken a much wiser head than ours. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. A God, who watched over Sparta, seeing into the future, gave you two families of kings instead of one ; and thus brought you more within the limits of moderation. In the next place, some human wisdom mingled with divine power, observing that the constitution of your government was still feverish and excited, tempered your inborn strength and pride of birth with the moderation which comes of age, making the power of your twenty-eight elders equal with that of the kings in the most important matters. But your third saviour, perceiving that your government was still swelling and foaming, and desirous to impose a curb upon it, instituted the Ephors, whose power he made to resemble that of magistrates elected by lot ; and by this arrangement the kingly office, being compounded of the right elements and duly moderated, was preserved, and was the means of preserving all the rest. Since, if there had been only the original legislators, Temenus, Cresphontes, and their contemporaries, as far as they were concerned not even the portion of Aristodemus would have been preserved ; for they had no proper experience in legislation, or they would surely not have imagined that oaths would moderate a youthful spirit invested with a power which might be converted into a tyranny. Now that God has instructed us what sort of government would have been or will be lasting, there is no wisdom, as I have already said, in judging after the event ; there is no difficulty in learning from an example which has already occurred. But if any one could have foreseen all this at the time, and had been able to moderate the government of the three kingdoms and unite them into one, he might have saved all the excellent institutions which were then conceived ; and no Persian or any other armament would have dared to attack us, or would have regarded Hellas as a power to be despised. 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. Hear me, then : there are two mother forms of states from which the rest may be truly said to be derived ; and one of them may be called monarchy and the other democracy : the Persians have the highest form of the one, and we of the other ; almost all the rest, as I was saying, are variations of these. Now, if you are to have liberty and the combination of friendship with wisdom, you must have both these forms of government in a measure ; the argument emphatically declares that no city can be well governed which is not made up of both. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. Hear, then : — There was a time when the Persians had more of the state which is a mean between slavery and freedom. In the reign of Cyrus they were freemen and also lords of many others : the rulers gave a share of freedom to the subjects, and being treated as equals, the soldiers were on better terms with their generals, and showed themselves more ready in the hour of danger. And if there was any wise man among them, who was able to give good counsel, he imparted his wisdom to the public ; for the king was not jealous, but allowed him full liberty of speech, and gave honour to those who could advise him in any matter. And the nation waxed in all respects, because there was freedom and friendship and communion of mind among them. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. The difficulty is to find the divine love of temperate and just institutions existing in any powerful forms of government, whether in a monarchy or oligarchy of wealth or of birth. You might as well hope to reproduce the character of Nestor, who is said to have excelled all men in the power of speech, and yet more in his temperance. This, however, according to the tradition, was in the times of Troy ; in our own days there is nothing of the sort ; but if such an one either has or ever shall come into being, or is now among us, blessed is he and blessed are they who hear the wise words that flow from his lips. And this may be said of power in general : When the supreme power in man coincides with the greatest wisdom and temperance, then the best laws and the best constitution come into being ; but in no other way. And let what I have been saying be regarded as a kind of sacred legend or oracle, and let this be our proof that, in one point of view, there may be a difficulty for a city to have good laws, but that there is another point of view in which nothing can be easier or sooner effected, granting our supposition. LAWS BOOK IV

Ath. The proposal appears to me to be of some value ; and I think that a person will listen with more gentleness and good-will to the precepts addressed to him by the legislator, when his soul is not altogether unprepared to receive them. Even a little done in the way of conciliation gains his ear, and is always worth having. For there is no great inclination or readiness on the part of mankind to be made as good, or as quickly good, as possible. The case of the many proves the wisdom of Hesiod, who says that the road to wickedness is smooth and can be travelled without perspiring, because it is so very short : LAWS BOOK IV

Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both to Gods and men ; and he who would be blessed and happy, should be from the first a partaker of the truth, that he may live a true man as long as possible, for then he can be trusted ; but he is not to be trusted who loves voluntary falsehood, and he who loves involuntary falsehood is a fool. Neither condition is enviable, for the untrustworthy and ignorant has no friend, and as time advances he becomes known, and lays up in store for himself isolation in crabbed age when life is on the wane : so that, whether his children or friends are alive or not, he is equally solitary. — Worthy of honour is he who does no injustice, and of more than twofold honour, if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any ; the first may count as one man, the second is worth many men, because he informs the rulers of the injustice of others. And yet more highly to be esteemed is he who co-operates with the rulers in correcting the citizens as far as he can — he shall be proclaimed the great and perfect citizen, and bear away the palm of virtue. The same praise may be given about temperance and wisdom, and all other goods which may be imparted to others, as well as acquired by a man for himself ; he who imparts them shall be honoured as the man of men, and he who is willing, yet is not able, may be allowed the second place ; but he who is jealous and will not, if he can help, allow others to partake in a friendly way of any good, is deserving of blame : the good, however, which he has, is not to be undervalued by us because it is possessed by him, but must be acquired by us also to the utmost of our power. Let every man, then, freely strive for the prize of virtue, and let there be no envy. For the unenvious nature increases the greatness of states — he himself contends in the race, blasting the fair fame of no man ; but the envious, who thinks that he ought to get the better by defaming others, is less energetic himself in the pursuit of true virtue, and reduces his rivals to despair by his unjust slanders of them. And so he makes the whole city to enter the arena untrained in the practice of virtue, and diminishes her glory as far as in him lies. Now every man should be valiant, but he should also be gentle. From the cruel, or hardly curable, or altogether incurable acts of injustice done to him by others, a man can only escape by fighting and defending himself and conquering, and by never ceasing to punish them ; and no man who is not of a noble spirit is able to accomplish this. As to the actions of those who do evil, but whose evil is curable, in the first place, let us remember that the unjust man is not unjust of his own free will. For no man of his own free will would choose to possess the greatest of evils, and least of all in the most honourable part of himself. And the soul, as we said, is of a truth deemed by all men the most honourable. In the soul, then, which is the most honourable part of him, no one, if he could help, would admit, or allow to continue the greatest of evils. The unrighteous and vicious are always to be pitied in any case ; and one can afford to forgive as well as pity him who is curable, and refrain and calm one’s anger, not getting into a passion, like a woman, and nursing ill-feeling. But upon him who is incapable of reformation and wholly evil, the vials of our wrath should be poured out ; wherefore I say that good men ought, when occasion demands, to be both gentle and passionate. LAWS BOOK V

Of all evils the greatest is one which in the souls of most men is innate, and which a man is always excusing in himself and never correcting ; mean, what is expressed in the saying that "Every man by nature is and ought to be his own friend." Whereas the excessive love of self is in reality the source to each man of all offences ; for the lover is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges wrongly of the just, the good, and the honourable, and thinks that he ought always to prefer himself to the truth. But he who would be a great man ought to regard, not himself or his interests, but what is just, whether the just act be his own or that of another. Through a similar error men are induced to fancy that their own ignorance is wisdom, and thus we who may be truly said to know nothing, think that we know all things ; and because we will not let others act for us in what we do not know, we are compelled to act amiss ourselves. Wherefore let every man avoid excess of self-love, and condescend to follow a better man than himself, not allowing any false shame to stand in the way. There are also minor precepts which are often repeated, and are quite as useful ; a man should recollect them and remind himself of them. For when a stream is flowing out, there should be water flowing in too ; and recollection flows in while wisdom is departing. Therefore I say that a man should refrain from excess either of laughter or tears, and should exhort his neighbour to do the same ; he should veil his immoderate sorrow or joy, and seek to behave with propriety, whether the genius of his good fortune remains with him, or whether at the crisis of his fate, when he seems to be mounting high and steep places, the Gods oppose him in some of his enterprises. Still he may ever hope, in the case of good men, that whatever afflictions are to befall them in the future God will lessen, and that present evils he will change for the better ; and as to the goods which are the opposite of these evils, he will not doubt that they will be added to them, and that they will be fortunate. Such should be men’s hopes, and such should be the exhortations with which they admonish one another, never losing an opportunity, but on every occasion distinctly reminding themselves and others of all these things, both in jest and earnest. LAWS BOOK V

Having determined that there is to be a distribution into twelve parts, let us now see in what way this may be accomplished. There is no difficulty in perceiving that the twelve parts admit of the greatest number of divisions of that which they include, or in seeing the other numbers which are consequent upon them, and are produced out of them up to 5040 ; wherefore the law ought to order phratries and demes and villages, and also military ranks and movements, as well as coins and measures, dry and liquid, and weights, so as to be commensurable and agreeable to one another. Nor should we fear the appearance of minuteness, if the law commands that all the vessels which a man possesses should have a common measure, when we consider generally that the divisions and variations of numbers have a use in respect of all the variations of which they are susceptible, both in themselves and as measures of height and depth, and in all sounds, and in motions, as well those which proceed in a straight direction, upwards or downwards, as in those which go round and round. The legislator is to consider all these things and to bid the citizens, as far as possible, not to lose sight of numerical order ; for no single instrument of youthful education has such mighty power, both as regards domestic economy and politics, and in the arts, as the study of arithmetic. Above all, arithmetic stirs up him who is by nature sleepy and dull, and makes him quick to learn, retentive, shrewd, and aided by art divine he makes progress quite beyond his natural powers. All such things, if only the legislator, by other laws and institutions, can banish meanness and covetousness from the souls of men, so that they can use them properly and to their own good, will be excellent and suitable instruments of education. But if he cannot, he will unintentionally create in them, instead of wisdom, the habit of craft, which evil tendency may be observed in the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and many other races, through the general vulgarity of their pursuits and acquisitions, whether some unworthy legislator theirs has been the cause, or some impediment of chance or nature. For we must not fail to observe, O Megillus and Cleinias, that there is a difference in places, and that some beget better men and others worse ; and we must legislate accordingly. Some places are subject to strange and fatal influences by reason of diverse winds and violent heats, some by reason of waters ; or, again, from the character of the food given by the earth, which not only affects the bodies of men for good or evil, but produces similar results in their souls. And in all such qualities those spots excel in which there is a divine inspiration, and in which the demi-gods have their appointed lots, and are propitious, not adverse, to the settlers in them. To all these matters the legislator, if he have any sense in him, will attend as far as man can, and frame his laws accordingly. And this is what you, Cleinias, must do, and to matters of this kind you must turn your mind since you are going to colonize a new country. LAWS BOOK V

Ath. The friendship which arises from contraries is horrible and coarse, and has often no tie of communion ; but that which, arises from likeness is gentle, and has a tie of communion which lasts through life. As to the mixed sort which is made up of them both, there is, first of all, a in determining what he who is possessed by this third love desires ; moreover, he is drawn different ways, and is in doubt between the two principles ; the one exhorting him to enjoy the beauty of youth, and the other forbidding him. For the one is a lover of the body, and hungers after beauty, like ripe fruit, and would fain satisfy himself without any regard to the character of the beloved ; the other holds the desire of the body to be a secondary matter, and looking rather than loving and with his soul desiring the soul of the other in a becoming manner, regards the satisfaction of the bodily love as wantonness ; he reverences and respects temperance and courage and magnanimity and wisdom, and wishes to live chastely with the chaste object of his affection. Now the sort of love which is made up of the other two is that which we have described as the third. Seeing then that there are these three sorts of love, ought the law to prohibit and forbid them all to exist among us ? Is it not rather clear that we should wish to have in the state the love which is of virtue and which desires the beloved youth to be the best possible ; and the other two, if possible, we should hinder ? What do you say, friend Megillus ? LAWS BOOK VIII

With respect to the gathering in of the fruits of the soil, let a man, if he pleases, carry his own fruits through any place in which he either does no harm to any one, or himself gains three times as much as his neighbour loses. Now of these things the magistrates should be cognisant, as of all other things in which a man intentionally does injury to another or to the property of another, by fraud or force, in the use which he makes of his own property. All these matters a man should lay before the magistrates, and receive damages, supposing the injury to be not more than three minae ; or if he have a charge against another which involves a larger amount, let him bring his suit into the public courts and have the evil-doer punished. But if any of the magistrates appear to adjudge the penalties which he imposes in an unjust spirit, let him be liable to pay double to the injured party. Any one may bring the offences of magistrates, in any particular case, before the public courts. There are innumerable little matters relating to the modes of punishment, and applications for suits, and summonses and the witnesses to summonses — for example, whether two witnesses should be required for a summons, or how many — and all such details, which cannot be omitted in legislation, but are beneath the wisdom of an aged legislator. These lesser matters, as they indeed are in comparison with the greater ones, let a younger generation regulate by law, after the patterns which have preceded, and according to their own experience of the usefulness and necessity of such laws ; and when they are duly regulated let there be no alteration, but let the citizens live in the observance of them. LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. A man may truly say that ignorance is a third cause of crimes. Ignorance, however, may be conveniently divided by the legislator into two sorts : there is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offences, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom ; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he knows all about matters of which he knows nothing. This second kind of ignorance, when possessed of power and strength, will be held by the legislator to be the source of great and monstrous times, but when attended with weakness, will only result in the errors of children and old men ; and these he will treat as errors, and will make laws accordingly for those who commit them, which will be the mildest and most merciful of all laws. LAWS BOOK IX

Ath. A very grievous sort of ignorance which is imagined to be the greatest wisdom. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. At Athens there are tales preserved in writing which the virtue of your state, as I am informed, refuses to admit. They speak of the Gods in prose as well as verse, and the oldest of them tell of the origin of the heavens and of the world, and not far from the beginning of their story they proceed to narrate the birth of the Gods, and how after they were born they behaved to one another. Whether these stories have in other ways a good or a bad influence, I should not like to be severe upon them, because they are ancient ; but, looking at them with reference to the duties of children to their parents, I cannot praise them, or think that they are useful, or at all true. Of the words of the ancients I have nothing more to say ; and I should wish to say of them only what is pleasing to the Gods. But as to our younger generation and their wisdom, I cannot let them off when they do mischief. For do but mark the effect of their words : when you and I argue for the existence of the Gods, and produce the sun, moon, stars, and earth, claiming for them a divine being, if we would listen to the aforesaid philosophers we should say that they are earth and stones only, which can have no care at all of human affairs, and that all religion is a cooking up of words and a make-believe. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Shall we say then that it is the soul which controls heaven and earth, and the whole world ? — that it is a principle of wisdom and virtue, or a principle which has neither wisdom nor virtue ? Suppose that we make answer as follows : — LAWS BOOK X

Ath. And to what earthly rulers can they be compared, or who to them ? How in the less can we find an image of the greater ? Are they charioteers of contending pairs of steeds, or pilots of vessels ? Perhaps they might be compared to the generals of armies, or they might be likened to physicians providing against the diseases which make war upon the body, or to husbandmen observing anxiously the effects of the seasons on the growth of plants ; or I perhaps, to shepherds of flocks. For as we acknowledge the world to be full of many goods and also of evils, and of more evils than goods, there is, as we affirm, an immortal conflict going on among us, which requires marvellous watchfulness ; and in that conflict the Gods and demigods are our allies, and we are their property. Injustice and insolence and folly are the destruction of us, and justice and temperance and wisdom are our salvation ; and the place of these latter is in the life of the Gods, although some vestige of them may occasionally be discerned among mankind. But upon this earth we know that there dwell souls possessing an unjust spirit, who may be compared to brute animals, which fawn upon their keepers, whether dogs or shepherds, or the best and most perfect masters ; for they in like manner, as the voices of the wicked declare, prevail by flattery and prayers and incantations, and are allowed to make their gains with impunity. And this sin, which is termed dishonesty, is an evil of the same kind as what is termed disease in living bodies or pestilence in years or seasons of the year, and in cities and governments has another name, which is injustice. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. Ask me what is that one thing which call virtue, and then again speak of as two, one part being courage and the other wisdom. I will tell you how that occurs : — One of them has to do with fear ; in this the beasts also participate, and quite young children — I mean courage ; for a courageous temper is a gift of nature and not of reason. But without reason there never has been, or is, or will be a wise and understanding soul ; it is of a different nature. LAWS BOOK XII

Ath. And is there anything greater to the legislator and the guardian of the law, and to him who thinks that he excels all other men in virtue, and has won the palm of excellence, that these very qualities of which we are now speaking — courage, temperance, wisdom, justice ? LAWS BOOK XII

[973a] Cleinias : True to our agreement, good sir, we have come all three — you and I and Megillus here — to consider in what terms we ought to describe that part of understanding which we say produces, when it so intends, the most excellent disposition of the human being for wisdom which is possible for man. For we claim that we have described all the other matters [973b] connected with law-giving ; but the most important thing for us to discover and state — what it is that mortal man should learn in order to be wise — this we have neither stated nor discovered. Let us, however, now try to make good this defect : else we shall practically leave incomplete the quest on which we all set out, with the purpose of making our subject clear from beginning to end. EPINOMIS   BOOK XII

And what, pray, is my evidence for this ? It is that such is the nature of the matter now under inquiry [974b] in our discussion. We are inquiring, you know, in what way we shall become wise, presuming that each of us has this power in some sort or other : but it evades and escapes us as soon as we attempt any knowledge of reputed arts or knowledges or any of the ordinary sciences, as we suppose them to be ; for none of them is worthy to be called by the title of the wisdom that pertains to these human affairs. Yet the soul firmly believes and divines that in some fashion she has it, [974c] but what it is that she has, or when, or how, she is quite unable to discover. Is not this a fair picture of our puzzle about wisdom and the inquiry that we have to make — a greater one than any of us could expect who are found able to examine ourselves and others intelligently and consistently by every kind and manner of argument ? Is the case not so, or shall we agree that so it is ? EPINOMIS BOOK XII

Athenian : Then first we must go through the other sciences, which are reputed as such, but do not render him wise who acquires and possesses them ; in order that, having put them out of the way, we may try to bring forward those that we require, and having brought them forward, to learn them.First, therefore, let us observe that while the sciences which are first needs of the human race [974e] are about the most necessary and truly the first, yet he who acquires a knowledge of them, though in the beginning he may have been regarded as wise in some sort, is now not reputed wise at all, but rather incurs reproach [975a] by the knowledge he has got. Now we must mention what they are, and that almost everyone who makes it his aim to be thought likely to prove himself in the end as good a man as possible avoids them, in order to gain the acquirements of understanding and study. So first let us take the practice among animate beings of eating each other, which, as the story goes, has made us refrain entirely from some, while it has settled us in the lawful eating of others. May the men of old time be gracious to us, as they are : for we must take our leave of whatever men were the first of those we were just mentioning ; but at any rate [975b] the making of barley-meal and flour, with the sustenance thereof, is noble and good indeed, yet it is never like to produce a perfectly wise man. For this very name of making must produce an irksomeness in the actual things that are made. Nor can it well be husbandry of land in general : for it is not by art but by a natural gift from Heaven, it seems, that we all have the earth put into our hands. Nor again is it the fabrication of dwellings and building in general, nor the production of all sorts of appliances — smiths’ work, [975c] and the supply of carpenters’, moulders’, plaiters’, and, in fine, all kinds of implements ; for this is of advantage to the public, but is not accounted for virtue. Nor again the whole practice of hunting, which although grown extensive and a matter of skilled art, gives no return of magnificence with its wisdom. Nor surely can it be divination or interpretation as a whole ; for these only know what is said, but have not learnt whether it be true. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

[975e] And when all these have been performed, there may yet remain assistance, in countless forms and countless cases : the greatest and most useful is called warfare, the art of generalship ; most glorified in time of need, requiring most good fortune, and assigned rather to a natural valor than to wisdom. 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

There still remains, as a claimant to the name of wisdom, a certain strange power, which most people would call a natural gift rather than wisdom, appearing when one perceives someone learning this or that lesson with ease, or remembering a great many things [976c] securely ; or when one recalls what is suitable to each person, what should properly be done, and does it quickly. Some people will describe all this as nature, others as wisdom, and others as a natural readiness of mind : but no sensible person will ever call a man really wise for any of these gifts. 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 men’s 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 — 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

Moreover, let us turn back some little way in our discussion [977c] and recall how entirely right we were in conceiving that if we should deprive human nature of number we should never attain to any understanding. For then the soul of that creature which could not tell things would never any more be able, one may say, to attain virtue in general ; and the creature that did not know two and three, or odd or even, and was completely ignorant of number, could never clearly tell of things about which it had only acquired sensations and memories. From the attainment of ordinary virtue — [977d] courage and temperance — it is certainly not debarred : but if a man is deprived of true telling he can never become wise, and he who has not the acquirement of wisdom — the greatest part of virtue as a whole — can no more achieve the perfect goodness which may make him happy. Thus it is absolutely necessary to postulate number ; and why this is necessary can be shown by a still fuller argument than any that has been advanced. But here is one that will be particularly correct — that of the properties of the other arts, which we recounted just now in granting the existence of all the arts, [977e] not a single one can remain, but all of them are utterly defective, when once you remove numeration. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

Now in our inquiry about laws, you know we decided that all other things that are best for men are easy to discover, and that everyone may become competent both to understand and to perform what he is told, if he discovers what is that which is likely to profit him, and what is not profitable : well, we decided, and we are still of the same mind, that all other studies [979c] are not very difficult, but that this of learning in what way we should become good men is one of the utmost difficulty. Everything else, again, that is good, as they say, is both possible and not difficult to acquire, and the amount of property that is wanted or not wanted, and the kind of body that is wanted or not : everyone agrees that a good soul is wanted, and agrees, moreover, as to the manner of its goodness, that for this again it must be just and temperate and brave ; but whereas everyone says it must be wise, no one any longer agrees at all with anyone else, in most cases — we have just now [979d] explained — as to what its wisdom should be. So now we are discovering, besides all those former kinds, a wisdom of no mean worth for this very purpose of showing how he is wise who has learnt the things that we have explained. And if he is wise who has knowledge of these things and is good at them, we must now take account of him. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

[980a] Athenian : Thank you. To begin with, then, we must necessarily state first, it would seem best of all, in a single word, if we are able so to put it — what is that which we suppose to be wisdom ; but if we are utterly unable to do this, we must say in the second place what and how many kinds of it there are that a man must have acquired, if he is to be wise according to our story. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

Athenian : It is necessary, then, it seems, that I should first portray in better terms, according to our previous statement, the generation of gods and of living creatures, which has been ill portrayed by those before us ; I must resume the statement which I have attempted [980d] in speaking against the impious, declaring that there are gods who have a care for all things, small and greater, and who are well-nigh inexorable in what relates to the justice of things : that is, if you remember, Cleinias ; for you did take memoranda besides, and indeed what then was spoken was very true. And the most important part of it was that every soul was senior to each body : do you remember ? Or in any case, surely, this must be so ? For that which is better and more ancient and more godlike is credibly so [980e] in comparison with the young, the junior, and the less emancipated ; and altogether, a thing governing is senior to a thing governed, and the driver every way senior to the driven. So much, then, let us conclude — that soul is senior to body ; and if this is the case, [981a] what came first in that which first was born will more credibly seem almost to have been original. So let us take it that the beginning of the beginning is more august in state, and that we are most correctly entering upon wisdom in the greatest matters relating to the generation of the gods. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

And now after this it remains for us to say how many and who these beings are : [986e] for we shall never be found to have spoken falsely. Thus far, at least, I asseverate with certainty : I say, once more, that there are eight of them, and that while three of the eight have been told, five yet remain. The fourth in motion and transit together, and the fifth, are almost equal to the sun in speed, and on the whole are neither slower nor swifter. These being three, must be so regarded by him who has sufficient mind. So let us speak of them as powers of the sun and of Lucifer, and of a third, such that we cannot express it in a name because it is not known ; and he is to blame for this who first beheld these things, since he was a foreigner : for it was an ancient custom that nurtured those who first [987a] remarked these things owing to the fairness of the summer season which Egypt and Syria amply possess, so that they constantly beheld the whole mass, one may say, of stars revealed to their sight, since they had got then, continually without obstruction of clouds and rains in the sky ; whence they have emerged in every direction and in ours likewise, after having been examined for thousands of years, nay, for an infinite time. And therefore we should not hesitate to include them in the scope of our laws ; for to have divine things lacking honor, while other things are honored, [987b] is clearly a sign of witlessness ; and as to their having got no names, the cause of it should be stated as we have done. For indeed they have received titles of gods : thus, that Lucifer, or Hesperus(which is the same), should almost belong to Aphrodite, is reasonable, and quite befitting a Syrian lawgiver ; and that that which follows the same course as the sun and this together should almost belong to Hermes. Let us also note three motions of bodies travelling to the right with the moon and the sun. One must be mentioned, the eighth, which we may especially address as the world-order, and which travels in opposition to the whole company of the others, not impelling them, as might appear to mankind in the scant knowledge that they have of these matters. But we are bound to state, [987c] and do state, so much as adequate knowledge tells us. For real wisdom shows herself in some such way as this to him who has got even a little share of right and divine meditation. And now there remain three stars, of which one is distinguished from the others by its slowness, and some speak of it under the title of Saturn ; the next after it in slowness is to be cited as Jupiter ; and the next after this, as Mars, which has the ruddiest hue of all. Nothing in all this is hard to understand [987d] when someone expresses it ; but it is through learning, as we declare, that one must believe it. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

All this we have stated in accordance with justice, which wreaks vengeance on the impious : but now, as regards the matter under examination, it is not possible for us to disbelieve that we must deem the good man [989a] to be wise ; and let us see if we may perhaps be able, either by education or by art, to perceive this wisdom which we have all this while been seeking ; for if we fall behind the just in failing to know it, our condition will be that of ignorant persons. Such, then, seems our case to me, and I must say so : for I have sought this wisdom high and low, and so far as it has been revealed to me I will try to render it plain to you. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

And what we said at the beginning, and stands now also unchanged as a really true statement, that it is not possible for men to be completely blessed and happy, except a few, has been correctly spoken. For as many as are divine and temperate also, and partakers of virtue as a whole in their nature, [992d] and have acquired besides all that pertains to blessed study — and this we have explained — are the only persons by whom all the spiritual gifts are fully obtained and held. Those then who have thus worked through all these tasks we speak of privately, and publicly establish by law, as the men to whom, when they have attained the fullness of seniority, the highest offices should be entrusted, while the rest should follow their lead, giving praise to all gods and goddesses ; and we should most rightly invite the Nocturnal Council to this wisdom, when we have duly distinguished and approved [992e] all its members. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

I hear from Archedemus that you think that not only I myself should keep quiet but my friends also from doing or saying anything bad about you ; and that "you except Dion only." [2.310c] Now your saying this, that Dion is excepted, implies that I have no control over my friends ; for had I had this control over you and Dion, as well as the rest, more blessings would have come to us all and to the rest of the Greeks also, as I affirm. But as it is, my greatness consists in making myself follow my own instructions. However, I do not say this as though what Cratistolus and Polyxenus have told you is to be trusted ; for it is said that [2.310d] one of these men declares that at Olympia he heard quite a number of my companions maligning you. No doubt his hearing is more acute than mine ; for I certainly heard no such thing. For the future, whenever anyone makes such a statement about any of us, what you ought, I think, to do is to send me a letter of inquiry ; for I shall tell the truth without scruple or shame. Now as for you and me, the relation in which we stand towards each other is really this. There is not a single Greek, one may say, to whom we are unknown, and our intercourse is a matter of common talk ; [2.310e] and you may be sure of this, that it will be common talk also in days to come, because so many have heard tell of it owing to its duration and its publicity. What, now, is the point of this remark ? I will go back to the beginning and tell you. It is natural for wisdom and great power to come together, and they are for ever pursuing and seeking each other and consorting together. Moreover, these are qualities which people delight in discussing themselves in private conversation and hearing others discuss [2.311a] in their poems. For example, when men talk about Hiero or about Pausanias the Lacedaemonian they delight to bring in their meeting with Simonides and what he did and said to them ; and they are wont to harp on Periander of Corinth and Thales of Miletus, and on Pericles and Anaxagoras, and on Croesus also and Solon as wise men with Cyrus as potentate. The poets, too, follow their example, and bring together Creon and Tiresias, [2.311b] Polyeidus and Minos, Agamemnon and Nestor, Odysseus and Palamedes ; and so it was, I suppose, that the earliest men also brought together Prometheus and Zeus. And of these some were — as the poets tell — at feud with each other, and others were friends ; while others again were now friends and now foes, and partly in agreement and partly in disagreement. Now my object in saying all this is to make it clear, that when we ourselves die [2.311c] men’s talk about us will not likewise be silenced ; so that we must be careful about it. We must necessarily, it seems, have a care also for the future, seeing that, by some law of nature, the most slavish men pay no regard to it, whereas the most upright do all they can to ensure that they shall be well spoken of in the future. Now I count this as a proof that the dead have some perception of things here on earth ; for the best souls divine that this is so, [2.311d] while the worst deny it ; and the divinings of men who are godlike are of more authority than those of men who are not. I certainly think that, had it been in their power to rectify what was wrong in their intercourse, those men of the past whom I have mentioned would have striven to the utmost to ensure a better report of themselves than they now have. In our case, then — if God so grant — it still remains possible to put right whatever has been amiss in word or deed during our intercourse in the past. For I maintain that, as regards [2.311e] the true philosophy, men will think and speak well of it if we ourselves are upright, and ill if we are base. And in truth we could do nothing more pious than to give attention to this matter, nothing more impious than to disregard it. How this result should be brought about, and what is the just course to pursue, I will now explain. I came to Sicily with the reputation of being by far the most eminent of those engaged in philosophy ; and I desired, on my arrival [2.312a] in Syracuse, to gain your testimony as well, in order that I might get philosophy held in honor even by the multitude. In this, however, I was disappointed. But the reason I give for this is not that which is commonly given ; rather it was because you showed that you did not fully trust me but wished rather to get rid of me somehow and invite others in my place ; and owing, as I believe, to your distrust of me, you showed yourself inquisitive as to what my business was. Thereupon it was proclaimed aloud by many that you utterly despised me [2.312b] and were devoted to other affairs. This certainly was the story noised abroad. And now I will tell you what it is right to do after this, that so I may reply also to your question how you and I ought to behave towards each other. If you altogether despise philosophy, leave it alone. If, again, you have been taught by someone else or have yourself invented better doctrines than mine, hold them in honor. But if you are contented with my doctrines, then you should hold me also in special honor. So now, just as at the beginning, do you lead the way and I will follow. If I am honored [2.312c] by you, I will honor you ; but if I am not honored I will keep to myself. Moreover, if you honor me and take the lead in so doing, you will be thought to be honoring philosophy ; and the very fact that you have studied other systems as well will gain you the credit, in the eyes of many, of being a philosopher yourself. But if I honor you, while you do not honor me, I shall be deemed to be a man who worships and pursues after wealth ; and to such conduct everyone, we know, gives a bad name. So, to sum it all up, if you pay the honor, it will be a credit to both of us, but if I pay it a disgrace to both. [2.312d] So much, then, about this subject. As to the globe, there is something wrong with it ; and Archedemus will point it out to you when he arrives. There is also another matter — much more valuable and divine than the globe — which he most certainly must explain, as you were puzzled about it when you sent him. For, according to his report, you say that you have not had a sufficient demonstration of the doctrine concerning the nature of "the First." Now I must expound it to you in a riddling way in order that, should the tablet come to any harm "in folds of ocean or of earth," he that readeth may not understand. The matter stands thus : Related to [2.312e] the King of All are all things, and for his sake they are, and of all things fair He is the cause. And related to the Second are the second things and related to the Third the third. About these, then, the human soul strives to learn, looking to the things that are akin to itself, [2.313a] whereof none is fully perfect. But as to the King and the objects I have mentioned, they are of quite different quality. In the next place the soul inquires — "Well then, what quality have they ?" But the cause of all the mischief, O son of Dionysius and Doris, lies in this very question, or rather in the travail which this question creates in the soul ; and unless a man delivers himself from this he will never really attain the truth. You, however, declared to me in the garden, under the laurels, that you had formed this notion yourself and that it was a discovery of your own ; [2.313b] and I made answer that if it was plain to you that this was so, you would have saved me from a long discourse. I said, however, that I had never met with any other person who had made this discovery ; on the contrary most of the trouble I had was about this very problem. So then, after you had either, as is probable, got the true solution from someone else, or had possibly (by Heaven’s favor) hit on it yourself, you fancied you had a firm grip on the proofs of it, and so you omitted to make them fast ; thus your view of the truth sways now this way, now that, round about the apparent object ; whereas the true object is wholly different. [2.313c] Nor are you alone in this experience ; on the contrary, there has never yet been anyone, I assure you, who has not suffered the same confusion at the beginning, when he first learnt this doctrine from me ; and they all overcome it with difficulty, one man having more trouble and another less, but scarcely a single one of them escapes with but little. So now that this has occurred, and things are in this state, we have pretty well found an answer, as I think, to the question how we ought to behave towards each other. For seeing that you are testing my doctrines both by attending the lectures of other teachers and [2.313d] by examining my teaching side by side with theirs, as well as by itself, then, if the test you make is a true one, not only will these doctrines implant themselves now in your mind, but you also will be devoted both to them and to us. How, then, will this, and all that I have said, be brought to pass ? You have done right now in sending Archedemus ; and in the future also, after he returns to you and reports my answer, you will probably be beset later on with fresh perplexities. Then, if you are rightly advised, you will send Archedemus back to me, and he with his cargo will return to you again. [2.313e] And if you do this twice or thrice, and fully test the doctrines I send you, I shall be surprised if your present difficulties do not assume quite a new aspect. Do you, therefore, act so, and with confidence ; for there is no merchandise more fair than this or dearer to Heaven which you can ever dispatch or Archedemus transport. [2.314a] Beware, however, lest these doctrines be ever divulged to uneducated people. For there are hardly any doctrines, I believe, which sound more absurd than these to the vulgar, or, on the other hand, more admirable and inspired to men of fine disposition. For it is through being repeated and listened to frequently for many years that these doctrines are refined at length, like gold, with prolonged labor. But listen now to the most remarkable result of all. Quite a number of men there are [2.314b] who have listened to these doctrines — men capable of learning and capable also of holding them in mind and judging them by all sorts of tests — and who have been hearers of mine for no less than thirty years and are now quite old ; and these men now declare that the doctrines that they once held to be most incredible appear to them now the most credible, and what they then held most credible now appears the Opposite. So, bearing this in mind, have a care lest one day you should repent of what has now been divulged improperly. The greatest safeguard is to avoid writing and to learn by heart ; [2.314c] for it is not possible that what is written down should not get divulged. For this reason I myself have never yet written anything on these subjects, and no treatise by Plato exists or will exist, but those which now bear his name belong to a Socrates become fair and young. Fare thee well, and give me credence ; and now, to begin with, read this letter over repeatedly and then burn it up. LETTERS LETTER II

With these thoughts in my mind I came to Italy and Sicily on my first visit. My first impressions on arrival were those of strong disapproval — disapproval of the kind of life which was there called the life of happiness, stuffed full as it was with the banquets of the Italian Greeks and Syracusans, who ate to repletion twice every day, and were never without a partner for the night ; and disapproval of the habits which this manner of life produces. For with these habits formed early in life, no man under heaven could possibly attain to wisdom — human nature is not capable of such an extraordinary combination. Temperance also is out of the question for such a man ; and the same applies to virtue generally. No city could remain in a state of tranquillity under any laws whatsoever, when men think it right to squander all their property in extravagant, and consider it a duty to be idle in everything else except eating and drinking and the laborious prosecution of debauchery. It follows necessarily that the constitutions of such cities must be constantly changing, tyrannies, oligarchies and democracies succeeding one another, while those who hold the power cannot so much as endure the name of any form of government which maintains justice and equality of rights. LETTERS LETTER VII

It was by urging these and other like truths that I convinced Dion, and it is I who have the best right to be angered with his murderers in much the same way as I have with Dionysios. For both they and he have done the greatest injury to me, and I might almost say to all mankind, they by slaying the man that was willing to act righteously, and he by refusing to act righteously during the whole of his rule, when he held supreme power, in which rule if philosophy and power had really met together, it would have sent forth a light to all men, Greeks and barbarians, establishing fully for all the true belief that there can be no happiness either for the community or for the individual man, unless he passes his life under the rule of righteousness with the guidance of wisdom, either possessing these virtues in himself, or living under the rule of godly men and having received a right training and education in morals. These were the aims which Dionysios injured, and for me everything else is a trifling injury compared with this. LETTERS LETTER VII

The next point which requires to be made clear to anyone who wishes to discover how things really happened, is the reason why it came about that I did not continue my teaching in a second and third lesson and yet oftener. Does Dionysios, after a single lesson, believe himself to know the matter, and has he an adequate knowledge of it, either as having discovered it for himself or learnt it before from others, or does he believe my teaching to be worthless, or, thirdly, to be beyond his range and too great for him, and himself to be really unable to live as one who gives his mind to wisdom and virtue ? For if he thinks it worthless, he will have to contend with many who say the opposite, and who would be held in far higher repute as judges than Dionysios, if on the other hand, he thinks he has discovered or learnt the things and that they are worth having as part of a liberal education, how could he, unless he is an extraordinary person, have so recklessly dishonoured the master who has led the way in these subjects ? How he dishonoured him, I will now state. LETTERS LETTER VII

This course Dion actually followed, thinking it preferable to suffer iniquitous deeds rather than to do them ; but, while taking precautions against them, he nevertheless, when he had reached the climax of victory over his enemies, took a false step and fell, a catastrophe not at all surprising. For a man of piety, temperance and wisdom, when dealing with the impious, would not be entirely blind to the character of such men, but it would perhaps not be surprising if he suffered the catastrophe that might befall a good ship’s captain, who would not be entirely unaware of the approach of a storm, but might be unaware of its extraordinary and startling violence, and might therefore be overwhelmed by its force. The same thing caused Dion’s downfall. For he was not unaware that his assailants were thoroughly bad men, but he was unaware how high a pitch of infatuation and of general wickedness and greed they had reached. This was the cause of his downfall, which has involved Sicily in countless sorrows. LETTERS LETTER VII

Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and Thrasymachus, as anyone might see, was in reality eager to speak ; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist on my answering ; at length he consented to begin. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates ; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says, Thank you. THE REPUBLIC   BOOK I

You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus — whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself ; we are a large party ; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong ; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I replied ; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable ground ; for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might have been given to you on received principles ; but now I perceive that you will call injustice honorable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them, but with extreme reluctance ; it was a hot summer’s day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents ; and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point : THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance ; this can no longer be questioned by anyone. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way : You would not deny that a State may be unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other States, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice ; but if I am right, then without justice. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural power ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle toward me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained ; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that inquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly ; and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

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 — in my opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters — I doubt if it is ever done ; nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself, the whole State, being thus constituted according to nature, will be wise ; and this, which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Very true. These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State ; and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in a part only, the one making the State wise and the other valiant ; not so temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom, or power, or numbers, or wealth, or anything else. Most truly then may we deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior, as to the right to rule of either, both in States and individuals. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted ; and, that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative ; and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth, or remaining one. 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 — the quality, I mean, of everyone doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm — the question is not so easily answered. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. 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 — 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 — 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

"A fruit of unripe wisdom," THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

I said : "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day." Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant ; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole ? 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

And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood ? 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 — 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

And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or in music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing ? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honorable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and make an alliance with her who is in a rank above them, what sort of ideas and opinions are likely to be generated ? Will they not be sophisms captivating to the ear, having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true wisdom ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts ; and distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity him ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable ; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue — how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end ; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

Yes, my friend, I said ; and there lies the point. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State ; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas, if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be ; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

After this manner : A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken ; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last forever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution : In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth’s surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain ; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number, but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. The base of these (3) with a third added (4), when combined with five (20) and raised to the third power, furnishes two harmonies ; the first a square which is 100 times as great (400 = 4 x 100), and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of 100 numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i.e., omitting fractions), the side of which is five (7 x 7 = 49 x 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100) ; and 100 cubes of three (27 x 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessor, still they will be unworthy to hold their father’s places, and when they come into power as guardians they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the muses, first by undervaluing music ; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastics ; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod’s, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising ; and this is their answer to us. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

"Lover of wisdom," "lover of knowledge," are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men — lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, lovers of gain ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Well, but what ought to be the criterion ? Is any better than experience, and wisdom, and reason ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honor, or the lover of honor of the pleasures of wisdom ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges — THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Unquestionably. Those, then, who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean ; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world ; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron ; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honor, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth ; and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant of the best, in whom the Divine rules ; not, as Thrasymachus supposed, to the injury of the servant, but because everyone had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him ; or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished ? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized ; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength, and health, in proportion as the soul is more honorable than the body. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any ? Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity a Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras  , who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine ; also how different she would become if, wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things in this life as they are termed : then you would see her as she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many, or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think that we have now said enough. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X

All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice : this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each ; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity ; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure ; and then toward evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold ; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary ; and each one as he drank forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there were a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upward in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say ; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X