I decided to collect all of Plato’s work in a single volume
,which I hope is the most complete and precise compilation of the
corpus platonicum available in ebook format.
The dialogues are arranged in chronological order, Benjamin Jowett’s
prefaces and introductions are included as well , for most of the
dialogues.
Please feel free to send me any comments or inquiries ,and most
important of all , please share this book with as many people as you can
Wishing you a great read
Dr Mohamed Elwany
The Dialogues of Plato
Translated into English with Analyses and Introductions by
B. Jowett, M.A.
Master of Balliol College Regius Professor of Greek in the University of
Oxford
Doctor in Theology of the University of Leyden
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The additions and alterations which have been made, both in the
Introductions and in the Text of this Edition, affect at least a third
of the work.
Having regard to the extent of these alterations, and to the annoyance
which is naturally felt by the owner of a book at the possession of it
in an inferior form, and still more keenly by the writer himself, who
must always desire to be read as he is at his best, I have thought that
the possessor of either of the former Editions (1870 and 1876) might
wish to exchange it for the present one. I have therefore arranged that
those who would like to make this exchange, on depositing a perfect and
undamaged copy of the first or second Edition with any agent of the
Clarendon Press, shall be entitled to receive a copy of a new Edition at
half-price.
Preface to the First Edition.
The Text which has been mostly followed in this Translation of Plato is
the latest 8vo.
edition of Stallbaum; the principal deviations are noted at the bottom
of the page.
I have to acknowledge many obligations to old friends and pupils. These
are:—Mr. John Purves, Fellow of Balliol College, with whom I have
revised about half of the entire Translation; the Rev. Professor
Campbell, of St. Andrews, who has helped me in the revision of several
parts of the work, especially of the Theaetetus, Sophist, and Politicus;
Mr. Robinson Ellis, Fellow of Trinity College, and Mr. Alfred Robinson,
Fellow of New College, who read with me the Cratylus and the Gorgias;
Mr. Paravicini, Student of Christ Church, who assisted me in the
Symposium; Mr. Raper, Fellow of Queen’s College, Mr. Monro, Fellow of
Oriel College, and Mr. Shadwell, Student of Christ Church, who gave me
similar assistance in the Laws. Dr. Greenhill, of Hastings, has also
kindly sent me remarks on the physiological part of the Timaeus, which I
have inserted as corrections under the head of errata at the end of the
Introduction. The degree of accuracy which I have been enabled to
attain is in great measure due to these gentlemen, and I heartily thank
them for the pains and time which they have bestowed on my work.
I have further to explain how far I have received help from other
labourers in the same field. The books which I have found of most use
are Steinhart and Muller’s German Translation of Plato with
Introductions; Zeller’s ‘Philosophie der Griechen,’ and
‘Platonische Studien;’ Susemihl’s ‘Genetische Entwickelung der
Paltonischen Philosophie;’ Hermann’s ‘Geschichte der Platonischen
Philosophie;’ Bonitz, ‘Platonische Studien;’ Stallbaum’s Notes and
Introductions; Professor Campbell’s editions of the
‘Theaetetus,’ the ‘Sophist,’ and the ‘Politicus;’ Professor Thompson’s
‘Phaedrus;’ Th.
Martin’s ‘Etudes sur le Timee;’ Mr. Poste’s edition and translation of
the ‘Philebus;’ the Translation of the ‘Republic,’ by Messrs. Davies and
Vaughan, and the Translation of the
‘Gorgias,’ by Mr. Cope.
I have also derived much assistance from the great work of Mr. Grote,
which contains excellent analyses of the Dialogues, and is rich in
original thoughts and observations. I agree with him in rejecting as
futile the attempt of Schleiermacher and others to arrange the Dialogues
of Plato into a harmonious whole. Any such arrangement appears to me
not only to be unsupported by evidence, but to involve an anachronism in
the history of philosophy. There is a common spirit in the writings of
Plato, but not a unity of design in the whole, nor perhaps a perfect
unity in any single Dialogue. The hypothesis of a general plan which is
worked out in the successive Dialogues is an after-thought of the
critics who have attributed a system to writings belonging to an age
when system had not as yet taken possession of philosophy.
If Mr. Grote should do me the honour to read any portion of this work he
will probably remark that I have endeavoured to approach Plato from a
point of view which is opposed to his own. The aim of the Introductions
in these volumes has been to represent Plato as the father of Idealism,
who is not to be measured by the standard of utilitarianism or any other
modern philosophical system. He is the poet or maker of ideas,
satisfying the wants of his own age, providing the instruments of
thought for future generations. He is no dreamer, but a great
philosophical genius struggling with the unequal conditions of light and
knowledge under which he is living. He may be illustrated by the
writings of moderns, but he must be interpreted by his own, and by his
place in the history of philosophy. We are not concerned to determine
what is the residuum of truth which remains for ourselves. His truth may
not be our truth, and nevertheless may have an extraordinary value and
interest for us.
I cannot agree with Mr. Grote in admitting as genuine all the writings
commonly attributed to Plato in antiquity, any more than with
Schaarschmidt and some other German critics who reject nearly half of
them. The German critics, to whom I refer, proceed chiefly on grounds of
internal evidence; they appear to me to lay too much stress on the
variety of doctrine and style, which must be equally acknowledged as a
fact, even in the Dialogues regarded by Schaarschmidt as genuine, e.g.
in the Phaedrus, or Symposium, when compared with the Laws. He who
admits works so different in style and matter to have been the
composition of the same author, need have no difficulty in admitting the
Sophist or the Politicus. (The negative argument adduced by the same
school of critics, which is based on the silence of Aristotle, is not
worthy of much consideration. For why should Aristotle, because he has
quoted several Dialogues of Plato, have quoted them all? Something must
be allowed to chance, and to the nature of the subjects treated of in
them.) On the other hand, Mr. Grote trusts mainly to the Alexandrian
Canon. But I hardly think that we are justified in attributing much
weight
to the authority of the Alexandrian librarians in an age when there was
no regular publication of books, and every temptation to forge them; and
in which the writings of a school were naturally attributed to the
founder of the school. And even without intentional fraud, there was an
inclination to believe rather than to enquire. Would Mr.
Grote accept as genuine all the writings which he finds in the lists of
learned ancients attributed to Hippocrates, to Xenophon, to Aristotle?
The Alexandrian Canon of the Platonic writings is deprived of credit by
the admission of the Epistles, which are not only unworthy of Plato, and
in several passages plagiarized from him, but flagrantly at variance
with historical fact. It will be seen also that I do not agree with Mr.
Grote’s views about the Sophists; nor with the low estimate which he has
formed of Plato’s Laws; nor with his opinion respecting Plato’s
doctrine of the rotation of the earth. But I
‘am not going to lay hands on my father Parmenides’ (Soph.), who will, I
hope, forgive me for differing from him on these points. I cannot close
this Preface without expressing my deep respect for his noble and
gentle character, and the great services which he has rendered to Greek
Literature.
Balliol College, January, 1871.
Preface to the Second and Third Editions.
In publishing a Second Edition (1875) of the Dialogues of Plato in
English, I had to acknowledge the assistance of several friends: of the
Rev. G.G. Bradley, Master of University College, now Dean of
Westminster, who sent me some valuable remarks on the Phaedo; of Dr.
Greenhill, who had again revised a portion of the Timaeus; of Mr.
R.L. Nettleship, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, to whom I was
indebted for an excellent criticism of the Parmenides; and, above all,
of the Rev. Professor Campbell of St. Andrews, and Mr. Paravicini, late
Student of Christ Church and Tutor of Balliol College, with whom I had
read over the greater part of the translation. I was also indebted to
Mr. Evelyn Abbott, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, for a complete
and accurate index.
In this, the Third Edition, I am under very great obligations to Mr.
Matthew Knight, who has not only favoured me with valuable suggestions
throughout the work, but has largely extended the Index (from 61 to 175
pages) and translated the Eryxias and Second Alcibiades; and to Mr Frank
Fletcher, of Balliol College, my Secretary. I am also considerably
indebted to Mr. J.W. Mackail, late Fellow of Balliol College, who read
over the Republic in the Second Edition and noted several inaccuracies.
In both editions the Introductions to the Dialogues have been enlarged,
and essays on subjects having an affinity to the Platonic Dialogues have
been introduced into several of them. The analyses have been corrected,
and innumerable alterations have been made in the Text. There have been
added also, in the Third Edition, headings to the pages and a marginal
analysis to the text of each dialogue.
At the end of a long task, the translator may without impropriety point
out the difficulties which he has had to encounter. These have been far
greater than he would have anticipated; nor is he at all sanguine that
he has succeeded in overcoming them.
Experience has made him feel that a translation, like a picture, is
dependent for its effect on very minute touches; and that it is a work
of infinite pains, to be returned to in many moods and viewed in
different lights.
I. An English translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not
only to the scholar, but to the unlearned reader. Its object should not
simply be to render the words of one
language into the words of another or to preserve the construction and
order of the original;—this is the ambition of a schoolboy, who wishes
to show that he has made a good use of his Dictionary and Grammar; but
is quite unworthy of the translator, who seeks to produce on his reader
an impression similar or nearly similar to that produced by the
original. To him the feeling should be more important than the exact
word. He should remember Dryden’s quaint admonition not to ‘lacquey by
the side of his author, but to mount up behind him.’ (Dedication to the
Aeneis.) He must carry in his mind a comprehensive view of the whole
work, of what has preceded and of what is to follow,—
as well as of the meaning of particular passages. His version should be
based, in the first instance, on an intimate knowledge of the text; but
the precise order and arrangement of the words may be left to fade out
of sight, when the translation begins to take shape. He must form a
general idea of the two languages, and reduce the one to the terms of
the other. His work should be rhythmical and varied, the right admixture
of words and syllables, and even of letters, should be carefully
attended to; above all, it should be equable in style. There must also
be quantity, which is necessary in prose as well as in verse: clauses,
sentences, paragraphs, must be in due proportion. Metre and even rhyme
may be rarely admitted; though neither is a legitimate element of prose
writing, they may help to lighten a cumbrous expression (Symp.). The
translation should retain as far as possible the characteristic
qualities of the ancient writer—his freedom, grace, simplicity,
stateliness, weight, precision; or the best part of him will be lost to
the English reader. It should read as an original work, and should also
be the most faithful transcript which can be made of the language from
which the translation is taken, consistently with the first requirement
of all, that it be English. Further, the translation being English, it
should also be perfectly intelligible in itself without reference to the
Greek, the English being really the more lucid and exact of the two
languages. In some respects it may be maintained that ordinary English
writing, such as the newspaper article, is superior to Plato: at any
rate it is couched in language which is very rarely obscure. On the
other hand, the greatest writers of Greece, Thucydides, Plato,
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, Demosthenes, are generally those which are
found to be most difficult and to diverge most widely from the English
idiom. The translator will often have to convert the more abstract Greek
into the more concrete English, or vice versa, and he ought not to
force upon one language the character of another. In some cases, where
the order is confused, the expression feeble, the emphasis misplaced, or
the sense somewhat faulty, he will not strive in his rendering to
reproduce these
characteristics, but will re-write the passage as his author would have
written it at first, had he not been ‘nodding’; and he will not hesitate
to supply anything which, owing to the genius of the language or some
accident of composition, is omitted in the Greek, but is necessary to
make the English clear and consecutive.
It is difficult to harmonize all these conflicting elements. In a
translation of Plato what may be termed the interests of the Greek and
English are often at war with one another.
In framing the English sentence we are insensibly diverted from the
exact meaning of the Greek; when we return to the Greek we are apt to
cramp and overlay the English. We substitute, we compromise, we give and
take, we add a little here and leave out a little there. The translator
may sometimes be allowed to sacrifice minute accuracy for the sake of
clearness and sense. But he is not therefore at liberty to omit words
and turns of expression which the English language is quite capable of
supplying. He must be patient and self-controlled; he must not be easily
run away with. Let him never allow the attraction of a favourite
expression, or a sonorous cadence, to overpower his better judgment, or
think much of an ornament which is out of keeping with the general
character of his work. He must ever be casting his eyes upwards from the
copy to the original, and down again from the original to the copy
(Rep.). His calling is not held in much honour by the world of scholars;
yet he himself may be excused for thinking it a kind of glory to have
lived so many years in the companionship of one of the greatest of human
intelligences, and in some degree, more perhaps than others, to have
had the privilege of understanding him (Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Lectures:
Disc. xv.).
There are fundamental differences in Greek and English, of which some
may be managed while others remain intractable. (1). The structure of
the Greek language is partly adversative and alternative, and partly
inferential; that is to say, the members of a sentence are either
opposed to one another, or one of them expresses the cause or effect or
condition or reason of another. The two tendencies may be called the
horizontal and perpendicular lines of the language; and the opposition
or inference is often much more one of words than of ideas. But modern
languages have rubbed off this adversative and inferential form: they
have fewer links of connection, there is less mortar in the interstices,
and they are content to place sentences side by side, leaving their
relation to one another to be gathered from their position or from the
context. The difficulty of preserving the effect of the Greek is
increased by the want of adversative and inferential
particles in English, and by the nice sense of tautology which
characterizes all modern languages. We cannot have two ‘buts’ or two
‘fors’ in the same sentence where the Greek repeats (Greek). There is a
similar want of particles expressing the various gradations of objective
and subjective thought—(Greek) and the like, which are so thickly
scattered over the Greek page. Further, we can only realize to a very
imperfect degree the common distinction between (Greek), and the
combination of the two suggests a subtle shade of negation which cannot
be expressed in English. And while English is more dependent than Greek
upon the apposition of clauses and sentences, yet there is a difficulty
in using this form of construction owing to the want of case endings.
For the same reason there cannot be an equal variety in the order of
words or an equal nicety of emphasis in English as in Greek.
(2) The formation of the sentence and of the paragraph greatly differs
in Greek and English. The lines by which they are divided are generally
much more marked in modern languages than in ancient. Both sentences and
paragraphs are more precise and definite—they do not run into one
another. They are also more regularly developed from within. The
sentence marks another step in an argument or a narrative or a
statement; in reading a paragraph we silently turn over the page and
arrive at some new view or aspect of the subject. Whereas in Plato we
are not always certain where a sentence begins and ends; and paragraphs
are few and far between. The language is distributed in a different way,
and less articulated than in English. For it was long before the true
use of the period was attained by the classical writers both in poetry
or prose; it was (Greek).
The balance of sentences and the introduction of paragraphs at suitable
intervals must not be neglected if the harmony of the English language
is to be preserved. And still a caution has to be added on the other
side, that we must avoid giving it a numerical or mechanical character.
(3) This, however, is not one of the greatest difficulties of the
translator; much greater is that which arises from the restriction of
the use of the genders. Men and women in English are masculine and
feminine, and there is a similar distinction of sex in the words
denoting animals; but all things else, whether outward objects or
abstract ideas, are relegated to the class of neuters. Hardly in some
flight of poetry do we ever endue any of them with the characteristics
of a sentient being, and then only by speaking of them in the feminine
gender. The virtues may be pictured in female forms, but they are
not so described in language; a ship is humorously supposed to be the
sailor’s bride; more doubtful are the personifications of church and
country as females. Now the genius of the Greek language is the opposite
of this. The same tendency to personification which is seen in the
Greek mythology is common also in the language; and genders are
attributed to things as well as persons according to their various
degrees of strength and weakness; or from fanciful resemblances to the
male or female form, or some analogy too subtle to be discovered. When
the gender of any object was once fixed, a similar gender was naturally
assigned to similar objects, or to words of similar formation. This use
of genders in the denotation of objects or ideas not only affects the
words to which genders are attributed, but the words with which they are
construed or connected, and passes into the general character of the
style. Hence arises a difficulty in translating Greek into English which
cannot altogether be overcome. Shall we speak of the soul and its
qualities, of virtue, power, wisdom, and the like, as feminine or
neuter? The usage of the English language does not admit of the former,
and yet the life and beauty of the style are impaired by the latter.
Often the translator will have recourse to the repetition of the word,
or to the ambiguous ‘they,’ ‘their,’ etc.; for fear of spoiling the
effect of the sentence by introducing ‘it.’ Collective nouns in Greek
and English create a similar but lesser awkwardness.
(4) To use of relation is far more extended in Greek than in English.
Partly the greater variety of genders and cases makes the connexion of
relative and antecedent less ambiguous: partly also the greater number
of demonstrative and relative pronouns, and the use of the article, make
the correlation of ideas simpler and more natural. The Greek appears to
have had an ear or intelligence for a long and complicated sentence
which is rarely to be found in modern nations; and in order to bring the
Greek down to the level of the modern, we must break up the long
sentence into two or more short ones. Neither is the same precision
required in Greek as in Latin or English, nor in earlier Greek as in
later; there was nothing shocking to the contemporary of Thucydides and
Plato in anacolutha and repetitions. In such cases the genius of the
English language requires that the translation should be more
intelligible than the Greek. The want of more distinctions between the
demonstrative pronouns is also greatly felt. Two genitives dependent on
one another, unless familiarised by idiom, have an awkward effect in
English. Frequently the noun has to take the place of the pronoun.
‘This’ and ‘that’ are found repeating themselves to weariness in the
rough draft of a translation. As in the
previous case, while the feeling of the modern language is more opposed
to tautology, there is also a greater difficulty in avoiding it.
(5) Though no precise rule can be laid down about the repetition of
words, there seems to be a kind of impertinence in presenting to the
reader the same thought in the same words, repeated twice over in the
same passage without any new aspect or modification of it. And the
evasion of tautology—that is, the substitution of one word of precisely
the same meaning for another—is resented by us equally with the
repetition of words. Yet on the other hand the least difference of
meaning or the least change of form from a substantive to an adjective,
or from a participle to a verb, will often remedy the unpleasant effect.
Rarely and only for the sake of emphasis or clearness can we allow an
important word to be used twice over in two successive sentences or even
in the same paragraph. The particles and pronouns, as they are of most
frequent occurrence, are also the most troublesome. Strictly speaking,
except a few of the commonest of them, ‘and,’
‘the,’ etc., they ought not to occur twice in the same sentence. But the
Greek has no such precise rules; and hence any literal translation of a
Greek author is full of tautology. The tendency of modern languages is
to become more correct as well as more perspicuous than ancient. And,
therefore, while the English translator is limited in the power of
expressing relation or connexion, by the law of his own language
increased precision and also increased clearness are required of him.
The familiar use of logic, and the progress of science, have in these
two respects raised the standard. But modern languages, while they have
become more exacting in their demands, are in many ways not so well
furnished with powers of expression as the ancient classical ones.
Such are a few of the difficulties which have to be overcome in the work
of translation; and we are far from having exhausted the list. (6) The
excellence of a translation will consist, not merely in the faithful
rendering of words, or in the composition of a sentence only, or yet of a
single paragraph, but in the colour and style of the whole work.
Equability of tone is best attained by the exclusive use of familiar and
idiomatic words.
But great care must be taken; for an idiomatic phrase, if an exception
to the general style, is of itself a disturbing element. No word,
however expressive and exact, should be employed, which makes the reader
stop to think, or unduly attracts attention by difficulty and
peculiarity, or disturbs the effect of the surrounding language. In
general the style of one author is not appropriate to another; as in
society, so in letters, we
expect every man to have ‘a good coat of his own,’ and not to dress
himself out in the rags of another. (a) Archaic expressions are
therefore to be avoided. Equivalents may be occasionally drawn from
Shakspere, who is the common property of us all; but they must be used
sparingly. For, like some other men of genius of the Elizabethan and
Jacobean age, he outdid the capabilities of the language, and many of
the expressions which he introduced have been laid aside and have
dropped out of use. (b) A similar principle should be observed in the
employment of Scripture. Having a greater force and beauty than other
language, and a religious association, it disturbs the even flow of the
style. It may be used to reproduce in the translation the quaint effect
of some antique phrase in the original, but rarely; and when adopted, it
should have a certain freshness and a suitable ‘entourage.’ It is
strange to observe that the most effective use of Scripture phraseology
arises out of the application of it in a sense not intended by the
author. (c) Another caution: metaphors differ in different languages,
and the translator will often be compelled to substitute one for
another, or to paraphrase them, not giving word for word, but diffusing
over several words the more concentrated thought of the original.
The Greek of Plato often goes beyond the English in its imagery: compare
Laws, (Greek); Rep.; etc. Or again the modern word, which in substance
is the nearest equivalent to the Greek, may be found to include
associations alien to Greek life: e.g.
(Greek), ‘jurymen,’ (Greek), ‘the bourgeoisie.’ (d) The translator has
also to provide expressions for philosophical terms of very indefinite
meaning in the more definite language of modern philosophy. And he must
not allow discordant elements to enter into the work. For example, in
translating Plato, it would equally be an anachronism to intrude on him
the feeling and spirit of the Jewish or Christian Scriptures or the
technical terms of the Hegelian or Darwinian philosophy.
(7) As no two words are precise equivalents (just as no two leaves of
the forest are exactly similar), it is a mistaken attempt at precision
always to translate the same Greek word by the same English word. There
is no reason why in the New Testament (Greek) should always be rendered
‘righteousness,’ or (Greek) ‘covenant.’ In such cases the translator may
be allowed to employ two words—sometimes when the two meanings occur in
the same passage, varying them by an ‘or’—e.g. (Greek), ‘science’ or
‘knowledge,’ (Greek), ‘idea’ or ‘class,’ (Greek), ‘temperance’ or
‘prudence,’—at the point where the change of meaning occurs. If
translations are intended not for the Greek
scholar but for the general reader, their worst fault will be that they
sacrifice the general effect and meaning to the over-precise rendering
of words and forms of speech.
(8) There is no kind of literature in English which corresponds to the
Greek Dialogue; nor is the English language easily adapted to it. The
rapidity and abruptness of question and answer, the constant repetition
of (Greek), etc., which Cicero avoided in Latin (de Amicit), the
frequent occurrence of expletives, would, if reproduced in a
translation, give offence to the reader. Greek has a freer and more
frequent use of the Interrogative, and is of a more passionate and
emotional character, and therefore lends itself with greater readiness
to the dialogue form. Most of the so-called English Dialogues are but
poor imitations of Plato, which fall very far short of the original. The
breath of conversation, the subtle adjustment of question and answer,
the lively play of fancy, the power of drawing characters, are wanting
in them. But the Platonic dialogue is a drama as well as a dialogue, of
which Socrates is the central figure, and there are lesser performers as
well:—the insolence of Thrasymachus, the anger of Callicles and Anytus,
the patronizing style of Protagoras, the self-consciousness of Prodicus
and Hippias, are all part of the entertainment. To reproduce this
living image the same sort of effort is required as in translating
poetry. The language, too, is of a finer quality; the mere prose English
is slow in lending itself to the form of question and answer, and so
the ease of conversation is lost, and at the same time the dialectical
precision with which the steps of the argument are drawn out is apt to
be impaired.
II. In the Introductions to the Dialogues there have been added some
essays on modern philosophy, and on political and social life. The chief
subjects discussed in these are Utility, Communism, the Kantian and
Hegelian philosophies, Psychology, and the Origin of Language. (There
have been added also in the Third Edition remarks on other subjects. A
list of the most important of these additions is given at the end of
this Preface.)
Ancient and modern philosophy throw a light upon one another: but they
should be compared, not confounded. Although the connexion between them
is sometimes accidental, it is often real. The same questions are
discussed by them under different conditions of language and
civilization; but in some cases a mere word has survived, while nothing
or hardly anything of the pre-Socratic, Platonic, or Aristotelian
meaning is retained. There are other questions familiar to the moderns,
which have no place in
ancient philosophy. The world has grown older in two thousand years, and
has enlarged its stock of ideas and methods of reasoning. Yet the germ
of modern thought is found in ancient, and we may claim to have
inherited, notwithstanding many accidents of time and place, the spirit
of Greek philosophy. There is, however, no continuous growth of the one
into the other, but a new beginning, partly artificial, partly arising
out of the questionings of the mind itself, and also receiving a
stimulus from the study of ancient writings.
Considering the great and fundamental differences which exist in ancient
and modern philosophy, it seems best that we should at first study them
separately, and seek for the interpretation of either, especially of
the ancient, from itself only, comparing the same author with himself
and with his contemporaries, and with the general state of thought and
feeling prevalent in his age. Afterwards comes the remoter light which
they cast on one another. We begin to feel that the ancients had the
same thoughts as ourselves, the same difficulties which characterize all
periods of transition, almost the same opposition between science and
religion. Although we cannot maintain that ancient and modern philosophy
are one and continuous (as has been affirmed with more truth respecting
ancient and modern history), for they are separated by an interval of a
thousand years, yet they seem to recur in a sort of cycle, and we are
surprised to find that the new is ever old, and that the teaching of the
past has still a meaning for us.
III. In the preface to the first edition I expressed a strong opinion at
variance with Mr.
Grote’s, that the so-called Epistles of Plato were spurious. His friend
and editor, Professor Bain, thinks that I ought to give the reasons why I
differ from so eminent an authority. Reserving the fuller discussion of
the question for another place, I will shortly defend my opinion by the
following arguments:—
(a) Because almost all epistles purporting to be of the classical age of
Greek literature are forgeries. (Compare Bentley’s Works (Dyce’s
Edition).) Of all documents this class are the least likely to be
preserved and the most likely to be invented. The ancient world swarmed
with them; the great libraries stimulated the demand for them; and at a
time when there was no regular publication of books, they easily crept
into the world.
(b) When one epistle out of a number is spurious, the remainder of the
series cannot be admitted to be genuine, unless there be some
independent ground for thinking them so:
when all but one are spurious, overwhelming evidence is required of the
genuineness of the one: when they are all similar in style or motive,
like witnesses who agree in the same tale, they stand or fall together.
But no one, not even Mr. Grote, would maintain that all the Epistles of
Plato are genuine, and very few critics think that more than one of them
is so. And they are clearly all written from the same motive, whether
serious or only literary. Nor is there an example in Greek antiquity of a
series of Epistles, continuous and yet coinciding with a succession of
events extending over a great number of years.
The external probability therefore against them is enormous, and the
internal probability is not less: for they are trivial and unmeaning,
devoid of delicacy and subtlety, wanting in a single fine expression.
And even if this be matter of dispute, there can be no dispute that
there are found in them many plagiarisms, inappropriately borrowed,
which is a common note of forgery. They imitate Plato, who never
imitates either himself or any one else; reminiscences of the Republic
and the Laws are continually recurring in them; they are too like him
and also too unlike him, to be genuine (see especially Karsten,
Commentio Critica de Platonis quae feruntur Epistolis).
They are full of egotism, self-assertion, affectation, faults which of
all writers Plato was most careful to avoid, and into which he was least
likely to fall. They abound in obscurities, irrelevancies, solecisms,
pleonasms, inconsistencies, awkwardnesses of construction, wrong uses of
words. They also contain historical blunders, such as the statement
respecting Hipparinus and Nysaeus, the nephews of Dion, who are said to
‘have been well inclined to philosophy, and well able to dispose the
mind of their brother Dionysius in the same course,’ at a time when they
could not have been more than six or seven years of age— also foolish
allusions, such as the comparison of the Athenian empire to the empire
of Darius, which show a spirit very different from that of Plato; and
mistakes of fact, as e.g. about the Thirty Tyrants, whom the writer of
the letters seems to have confused with certain inferior magistrates,
making them in all fifty-one.
These palpable errors and absurdities are absolutely irreconcileable
with their genuineness. And as they appear to have a common parentage,
the more they are studied, the more they will be found to furnish
evidence against themselves. The Seventh, which is thought to be the
most important of these Epistles, has affinities with the Third and the
Eighth, and is quite as impossible and inconsistent as the rest. It is
therefore involved in the same condemnation.—The final conclusion is
that neither the
Seventh nor any other of them, when carefully analyzed, can be imagined
to have proceeded from the hand or mind of Plato. The other testimonies
to the voyages of Plato to Sicily and the court of Dionysius are all of
them later by several centuries than the events to which they refer. No
extant writer mentions them older than Cicero and Cornelius Nepos. It
does not seem impossible that so attractive a theme as the meeting of a
philosopher and a tyrant, once imagined by the genius of a Sophist, may
have passed into a romance which became famous in Hellas and the world.
It may have created one of the mists of history, like the Trojan war or
the legend of Arthur, which we are unable to penetrate. In the age of
Cicero, and still more in that of Diogenes Laertius and Appuleius, many
other legends had gathered around the personality of Plato,—more
voyages, more journeys to visit tyrants and Pythagorean philosophers.
But if, as we agree with Karsten in supposing, they are the forgery of
some rhetorician or sophist, we cannot agree with him in also supposing
that they are of any historical value, the rather as there is no early
independent testimony by which they are supported or with which they can
be compared.
IV. There is another subject to which I must briefly call attention,
lest I should seem to have overlooked it. Dr. Henry Jackson, of Trinity
College, Cambridge, in a series of articles which he has contributed to
the Journal of Philology, has put forward an entirely new explanation of
the Platonic ‘Ideas.’ He supposes that in the mind of Plato they took,
at different times in his life, two essentially different forms:—an
earlier one which is found chiefly in the Republic and the Phaedo, and a
later, which appears in the Theaetetus, Philebus, Sophist, Politicus,
Parmenides, Timaeus. In the first stage of his philosophy Plato
attributed Ideas to all things, at any rate to all things which have
classes or common notions: these he supposed to exist only by
participation in them. In the later Dialogues he no longer included in
them manufactured articles and ideas of relation, but restricted them to
‘types of nature,’ and having become convinced that the many cannot be
parts of the one, for the idea of participation in them he substituted
imitation of them. To quote Dr. Jackson’s own expressions,—‘whereas in
the period of the Republic and the Phaedo, it was proposed to pass
through ontology to the sciences, in the period of the Parmenides and
the Philebus, it is proposed to pass through the sciences to ontology’:
or, as he repeats in nearly the same words,— ‘whereas in the Republic
and in the Phaedo he had dreamt of passing through ontology to the
sciences, he is now content to pass through the sciences to ontology.’
This theory is supposed to be based on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, a
passage containing an account of the ideas, which hitherto scholars have
found impossible to reconcile with the statements of Plato himself. The
preparations for the new departure are discovered in the Parmenides and
in the Theaetetus; and it is said to be expressed under a different
form by the (Greek) and the (Greek) of the Philebus. The (Greek) of the
Philebus is the principle which gives form and measure to the (Greek);
and in the ‘Later Theory’ is held to be the (Greek) or (Greek) which
converts the Infinite or Indefinite into ideas. They are neither (Greek)
nor (Greek), but belong to the (Greek) which partakes of both.
With great respect for the learning and ability of Dr. Jackson, I find
myself unable to agree in this newly fashioned doctrine of the Ideas,
which he ascribes to Plato. I have not the space to go into the question
fully; but I will briefly state some objections which are, I think,
fatal to it.
(1) First, the foundation of his argument is laid in the Metaphysics of
Aristotle. But we cannot argue, either from the Metaphysics, or from any
other of the philosophical treatises of Aristotle, to the dialogues of
Plato until we have ascertained the relation in which his so-called
works stand to the philosopher himself. There is of course no doubt of
the great influence exercised upon Greece and upon the world by
Aristotle and his philosophy. But on the other hand almost every one who
is capable of understanding the subject acknowledges that his writings
have not come down to us in an authentic form like most of the dialogues
of Plato. How much of them is to be ascribed to Aristotle’s own hand,
how much is due to his successors in the Peripatetic School, is a
question which has never been determined, and probably never can be,
because the solution of it depends upon internal evidence only. To ‘the
height of this great argument’ I do not propose to ascend. But one
little fact, not irrelevant to the present discussion, will show how
hopeless is the attempt to explain Plato out of the writings of
Aristotle. In the chapter of the Metaphysics quoted by Dr. Jackson,
about two octavo pages in length, there occur no less than seven or
eight references to Plato, although nothing really corresponding to them
can be found in his extant writings:—a small matter truly; but what a
light does it throw on the character of the entire book in which they
occur! We can hardly escape from the conclusion that they are not
statements of Aristotle respecting Plato, but of a later generation of
Aristotelians respecting a later generation of Platonists. (Compare the
striking remark of the great Scaliger respecting the Magna
Moralia:—Haec non sunt Aristotelis, tamen utitur auctor Aristotelis
nomine tanquam suo.)
(2) There is no hint in Plato’s own writings that he was conscious of
having made any change in the Doctrine of Ideas such as Dr. Jackson
attributes to him, although in the Republic the platonic Socrates speaks
of ‘a longer and a shorter way’, and of a way in which his disciple
Glaucon ‘will be unable to follow him’; also of a way of Ideas, to which
he still holds fast, although it has often deserted him (Philebus,
Phaedo), and although in the later dialogues and in the Laws the
reference to Ideas disappears, and Mind claims her own (Phil.; Laws). No
hint is given of what Plato meant by the ‘longer way’
(Rep.), or ‘the way in which Glaucon was unable to follow’; or of the
relation of Mind to the Ideas. It might be said with truth that the
conception of the Idea predominates in the first half of the Dialogues,
which, according to the order adopted in this work, ends with the
Republic, the ‘conception of Mind’ and a way of speaking more in
agreement with modern terminology, in the latter half. But there is no
reason to suppose that Plato’s theory, or, rather, his various theories,
of the Ideas underwent any definite change during his period of
authorship. They are substantially the same in the twelfth Book of the
Laws as in the Meno and Phaedo; and since the Laws were written in the
last decade of his life, there is no time to which this change of
opinions can be ascribed. It is true that the theory of Ideas takes
several different forms, not merely an earlier and a later one, in the
various Dialogues. They are personal and impersonal, ideals and ideas,
existing by participation or by imitation, one and many, in different
parts of his writings or even in the same passage. They are the
universal definitions of Socrates, and at the same time ‘of more than
mortal knowledge’ (Rep.). But they are always the negations of sense, of
matter, of generation, of the particular: they are always the subjects
of knowledge and not of opinion; and they tend, not to diversity, but to
unity. Other entities or intelligences are akin to them, but not the
same with them, such as mind, measure, limit, eternity, essence
(Philebus; Timaeus): these and similar terms appear to express the same
truths from a different point of view, and to belong to the same sphere
with them. But we are not justified, therefore, in attempting to
identify them, any more than in wholly opposing them. The great
oppositions of the sensible and intellectual, the unchangeable and the
transient, in whatever form of words expressed, are always maintained in
Plato. But the lesser logical distinctions, as we should call them,
whether of ontology or predication, which troubled the pre-Socratic
philosophy and came to the
front in Aristotle, are variously discussed and explained. Thus far we
admit inconsistency in Plato, but no further. He lived in an age before
logic and system had wholly permeated language, and therefore we must
not always expect to find in him systematic arrangement or logical
precision:—‘poema magis putandum.’ But he is always true to his own
context, the careful study of which is of more value to the interpreter
than all the commentators and scholiasts put together.
(3) The conclusions at which Dr. Jackson has arrived are such as might
be expected to follow from his method of procedure. For he takes words
without regard to their connection, and pieces together different parts
of dialogues in a purely arbitrary manner, although there is no
indication that the author intended the two passages to be so combined,
or that when he appears to be experimenting on the different points of
view from which a subject of philosophy may be regarded, he is secretly
elaborating a system. By such a use of language any premises may be made
to lead to any conclusion. I am not one of those who believe Plato to
have been a mystic or to have had hidden meanings; nor do I agree with
Dr. Jackson in thinking that ‘when he is precise and dogmatic, he
generally contrives to introduce an element of obscurity into the
expostion’
(J. of Philol.). The great master of language wrote as clearly as he
could in an age when the minds of men were clouded by controversy, and
philosophical terms had not yet acquired a fixed meaning. I have just
said that Plato is to be interpreted by his context; and I do not deny
that in some passages, especially in the Republic and Laws, the context
is at a greater distance than would be allowable in a modern writer. But
we are not therefore justified in connecting passages from different
parts of his writings, or even from the same work, which he has not
himself joined. We cannot argue from the Parmenides to the Philebus, or
from either to the Sophist, or assume that the Parmenides, the Philebus,
and the Timaeus were ‘written simultaneously,’ or ‘were intended to be
studied in the order in which they are here named (J. of Philol.) We
have no right to connect statements which are only accidentally similar.
Nor is it safe for the author of a theory about ancient philosophy to
argue from what will happen if his statements are rejected. For those
consequences may never have entered into the mind of the ancient writer
himself; and they are very likely to be modern consequences which would
not have been understood by him. ‘I cannot think,’ says Dr. Jackson,
‘that Plato would have changed his opinions, but have nowhere explained
the nature of the change.’
But is it not much more improbable that he should have changed his
opinions, and not
stated in an unmistakable manner that the most essential principle of
his philosophy had been reversed? It is true that a few of the
dialogues, such as the Republic and the Timaeus, or the Theaetetus and
the Sophist, or the Meno and the Apology, contain allusions to one
another. But these allusions are superficial and, except in the case of
the Republic and the Laws, have no philosophical importance. They do not
affect the substance of the work. It may be remarked further that
several of the dialogues, such as the Phaedrus, the Sophist, and the
Parmenides, have more than one subject. But it does not therefore follow
that Plato intended one dialogue to succeed another, or that he begins
anew in one dialogue a subject which he has left unfinished in another,
or that even in the same dialogue he always intended the two parts to be
connected with each other. We cannot argue from a casual statement
found in the Parmenides to other statements which occur in the Philebus.
Much more truly is his own manner described by himself when he says
that ‘words are more plastic than wax’ (Rep.), and ‘whither the wind
blows, the argument follows’. The dialogues of Plato are like poems,
isolated and separate works, except where they are indicated by the
author himself to have an intentional sequence.
It is this method of taking passages out of their context and placing
them in a new connexion when they seem to confirm a preconceived theory,
which is the defect of Dr.
Jackson’s procedure. It may be compared, though not wholly the same with
it, to that method which the Fathers practised, sometimes called ‘the
mystical interpretation of Scripture,’ in which isolated words are
separated from their context, and receive any sense which the fancy of
the interpreter may suggest. It is akin to the method employed by
Schleiermacher of arranging the dialogues of Plato in chronological
order according to what he deems the true arrangement of the ideas
contained in them. (Dr. Jackson is also inclined, having constructed a
theory, to make the chronology of Plato’s writings dependent upon it
(See J. of Philol.and elsewhere.).) It may likewise be illustrated by
the ingenuity of those who employ symbols to find in Shakespeare a
hidden meaning. In the three cases the error is nearly the same:—words
are taken out of their natural context, and thus become destitute of any
real meaning.
(4) According to Dr. Jackson’s ‘Later Theory,’ Plato’s Ideas, which were
once regarded as the summa genera of all things, are now to be
explained as Forms or Types of some things only,—that is to say, of
natural objects: these we conceive imperfectly, but are
always seeking in vain to have a more perfect notion of them. He says
(J. of Philol.) that
‘Plato hoped by the study of a series of hypothetical or provisional
classifications to arrive at one in which nature’s distribution of kinds
is approximately represented, and so to attain approximately to the
knowledge of the ideas. But whereas in the Republic, and even in the
Phaedo, though less hopefully, he had sought to convert his provisional
definitions into final ones by tracing their connexion with the summum
genus, the (Greek), in the Parmenides his aspirations are less
ambitious,’ and so on. But where does Dr. Jackson find any such notion
as this in Plato or anywhere in ancient philosophy? Is it not an
anachronism, gracious to the modern physical philosopher, and the more
acceptable because it seems to form a link between ancient and modern
philosophy, and between physical and metaphysical science; but really
unmeaning?
(5) To this ‘Later Theory’ of Plato’s Ideas I oppose the authority of
Professor Zeller, who affirms that none of the passages to which Dr.
Jackson appeals (Theaet.; Phil.; Tim.; Parm.) ‘in the smallest degree
prove his point’; and that in the second class of dialogues, in which
the ‘Later Theory of Ideas’ is supposed to be found, quite as clearly as
in the first, are admitted Ideas, not only of natural objects, but of
properties, relations, works of art, negative notions (Theaet.; Parm.;
Soph.); and that what Dr. Jackson distinguishes as the first class of
dialogues from the second equally assert or imply that the relation of
things to the Ideas, is one of participation in them as well as of
imitation of them (Prof.
Zeller’s summary of his own review of Dr. Jackson, Archiv fur Geschichte
der Philosophie.)
In conclusion I may remark that in Plato’s writings there is both unity,
and also growth and development; but that we must not intrude upon him
either a system or a technical language.
Balliol College, October, 1891.
NOTE
The chief additions to the Introductions in the Third Edition consist of
Essays on the following subjects:—
1. Language.
2. The decline of Greek Literature.
3. The ‘Ideas’ of Plato and Modern Philosophy.
4. The myths of Plato.
5. The relation of the Republic, Statesman and Laws.
6. The legend of Atlantis.
7. Psychology.
8. Comparison of the Laws of Plato with Spartan and Athenian Laws and
Institutions.
The Apology
by
Plato
Translated with an
introduction by
Benjamin Jowett
Introduction.
In what relation the Apology of Plato stands to the real defence of
Socrates, there are no means of determining. It certainly agrees in tone
and character with the description of Xenophon, who says in the
Memorabilia that Socrates might have been acquitted ‘if in any moderate
degree he would have conciliated the favour of the dicasts;’ and who
informs us in another passage, on the testimony of Hermogenes, the
friend of Socrates, that he had no wish to live; and that the divine
sign refused to allow him to prepare a defence, and also that Socrates
himself declared this to be unnecessary, on the ground that all his life
long he had been preparing against that hour. For the speech breathes
throughout a spirit of defiance, (ut non supplex aut reus sed magister
aut dominus videretur esse judicum’ (Cic. de Orat.); and the loose and
desultory style is an imitation of the ‘accustomed manner’ in which
Socrates spoke in ‘the agora and among the tables of the
money-changers.’ The allusion in the Crito may, perhaps, be adduced as a
further evidence of the literal accuracy of some parts. But in the main
it must be regarded as the ideal of Socrates, according to Plato’s
conception of him, appearing in the greatest and most public scene of
his life, and in the height of his triumph, when he is weakest, and yet
his mastery over mankind is greatest, and his habitual irony acquires a
new meaning and a sort of tragic pathos in the face of death. The facts
of his life are summed up, and the features of his character are brought
out as if by accident in the course of the defence. The conversational
manner, the seeming want of arrangement, the ironical simplicity, are
found to result in a perfect work of art, which is the portrait of
Socrates.
Yet some of the topics may have been actually used by Socrates; and the
recollection of his very words may have rung in the ears of his
disciple. The Apology of Plato may be compared generally with those
speeches of Thucydides in which he has embodied his conception of the
lofty character and policy of the great Pericles, and which at the same
time furnish a commentary on the situation of affairs from the point of
view of the historian. So in the Apology there is an ideal rather than a
literal truth; much is said which was not said, and is only Plato’s
view of the situation. Plato was not, like Xenophon, a chronicler of
facts; he does not appear in any of his writings to have aimed at
literal accuracy. He is not therefore to be supplemented from the
Memorabilia and Symposium of Xenophon, who belongs to an entirely
different class of writers. The Apology of Plato is not the report of
what Socrates said, but an elaborate composition,
quite as much so in fact as one of the Dialogues. And we may perhaps
even indulge in the fancy that the actual defence of Socrates was as
much greater than the Platonic defence as the master was greater than
the disciple. But in any case, some of the words used by him must have
been remembered, and some of the facts recorded must have actually
occurred. It is significant that Plato is said to have been present at
the defence (Apol.), as he is also said to have been absent at the last
scene in the Phaedo. Is it fanciful to suppose that he meant to give the
stamp of authenticity to the one and not to the other?—especially when
we consider that these two passages are the only ones in which Plato
makes mention of himself. The circumstance that Plato was to be one of
his sureties for the payment of the fine which he proposed has the
appearance of truth.
More suspicious is the statement that Socrates received the first
impulse to his favourite calling of cross-examining the world from the
Oracle of Delphi; for he must already have been famous before Chaerephon
went to consult the Oracle (Riddell), and the story is of a kind which
is very likely to have been invented. On the whole we arrive at the
conclusion that the Apology is true to the character of Socrates, but we
cannot show that any single sentence in it was actually spoken by him.
It breathes the spirit of Socrates, but has been cast anew in the mould
of Plato.
There is not much in the other Dialogues which can be compared with the
Apology. The same recollection of his master may have been present to
the mind of Plato when depicting the sufferings of the Just in the
Republic. The Crito may also be regarded as a sort of appendage to the
Apology, in which Socrates, who has defied the judges, is nevertheless
represented as scrupulously obedient to the laws. The idealization of
the sufferer is carried still further in the Gorgias, in which the
thesis is maintained, that ‘to suffer is better than to do evil;’ and
the art of rhetoric is described as only useful for the purpose of
self-accusation. The parallelisms which occur in the so-called Apology
of Xenophon are not worth noticing, because the writing in which they
are contained is manifestly spurious. The statements of the Memorabilia
respecting the trial and death of Socrates agree generally with Plato;
but they have lost the flavour of Socratic irony in the narrative of
Xenophon.
The Apology or Platonic defence of Socrates is divided into three parts:
1st. The defence properly so called; 2nd. The shorter address in
mitigation of the penalty; 3rd. The last words of prophetic rebuke and
exhortation.
The first part commences with an apology for his colloquial style; he
is, as he has always been, the enemy of rhetoric, and knows of no
rhetoric but truth; he will not falsify his character by making a
speech. Then he proceeds to divide his accusers into two classes; first,
there is the nameless accuser—public opinion. All the world from their
earliest years had heard that he was a corrupter of youth, and had seen
him caricatured in the Clouds of Aristophanes. Secondly, there are the
professed accusers, who are but the mouth-piece of the others. The
accusations of both might be summed up in a formula.
The first say, ‘Socrates is an evil-doer and a curious person, searching
into things under the earth and above the heaven; and making the worse
appear the better cause, and teaching all this to others.’ The second,
‘Socrates is an evil-doer and corrupter of the youth, who does not
receive the gods whom the state receives, but introduces other new
divinities.’ These last words appear to have been the actual indictment
(compare Xen.
Mem.); and the previous formula, which is a summary of public opinion,
assumes the same legal style.
The answer begins by clearing up a confusion. In the representations of
the Comic poets, and in the opinion of the multitude, he had been
identified with the teachers of physical science and with the Sophists.
But this was an error. For both of them he professes a respect in the
open court, which contrasts with his manner of speaking about them in
other places. (Compare for Anaxagoras, Phaedo, Laws; for the Sophists,
Meno, Republic, Tim., Theaet., Soph., etc.) But at the same time he
shows that he is not one of them. Of natural philosophy he knows
nothing; not that he despises such pursuits, but the fact is that he is
ignorant of them, and never says a word about them. Nor is he paid for
giving instruction—that is another mistaken notion:—he has nothing to
teach. But he commends Evenus for teaching virtue at such a ‘moderate’
rate as five minae. Something of the ‘accustomed irony,’ which may
perhaps be expected to sleep in the ear of the multitude, is lurking
here.
He then goes on to explain the reason why he is in such an evil name.
That had arisen out of a peculiar mission which he had taken upon
himself. The enthusiastic Chaerephon (probably in anticipation of the
answer which he received) had gone to Delphi and asked the oracle if
there was any man wiser than Socrates; and the answer was, that there
was no man wiser. What could be the meaning of this—that he who knew
nothing, and knew that he knew nothing, should be declared by the oracle
to be the
wisest of men? Reflecting upon the answer, he determined to refute it by
finding ‘a wiser;’ and first he went to the politicians, and then to
the poets, and then to the craftsmen, but always with the same result—he
found that they knew nothing, or hardly anything more than himself; and
that the little advantage which in some cases they possessed was more
than counter-balanced by their conceit of knowledge. He knew nothing,
and knew that he knew nothing: they knew little or nothing, and imagined
that they knew all things. Thus he had passed his life as a sort of
missionary in detecting the pretended wisdom of mankind; and this
occupation had quite absorbed him and taken him away both from public
and private affairs. Young men of the richer sort had made a pastime of
the same pursuit, ‘which was not unamusing.’ And hence bitter enmities
had arisen; the professors of knowledge had revenged themselves by
calling him a villainous corrupter of youth, and by repeating the
commonplaces about atheism and materialism and sophistry, which are the
stock-accusations against all philosophers when there is nothing else to
be said of them.
The second accusation he meets by interrogating Meletus, who is present
and can be interrogated. ‘If he is the corrupter, who is the improver of
the citizens?’ (Compare Meno.) ‘All men everywhere.’ But how absurd,
how contrary to analogy is this! How inconceivable too, that he should
make the citizens worse when he has to live with them.
This surely cannot be intentional; and if unintentional, he ought to
have been instructed by Meletus, and not accused in the court.
But there is another part of the indictment which says that he teaches
men not to receive the gods whom the city receives, and has other new
gods. ‘Is that the way in which he is supposed to corrupt the youth?’
‘Yes, it is.’ ‘Has he only new gods, or none at all?’ ‘None at all.’
‘What, not even the sun and moon?’ ‘No; why, he says that the sun is a
stone, and the moon earth.’ That, replies Socrates, is the old confusion
about Anaxagoras; the Athenian people are not so ignorant as to
attribute to the influence of Socrates notions which have found their
way into the drama, and may be learned at the theatre. Socrates
undertakes to show that Meletus (rather unjustifiably) has been
compounding a riddle in this part of the indictment: ‘There are no gods,
but Socrates believes in the existence of the sons of gods, which is
absurd.’
Leaving Meletus, who has had enough words spent upon him, he returns to
the original accusation. The question may be asked, Why will he persist
in following a profession
which leads him to death? Why?—because he must remain at his post where
the god has placed him, as he remained at Potidaea, and Amphipolis, and
Delium, where the generals placed him. Besides, he is not so overwise as
to imagine that he knows whether death is a good or an evil; and he is
certain that desertion of his duty is an evil. Anytus is quite right in
saying that they should never have indicted him if they meant to let him
go. For he will certainly obey God rather than man; and will continue
to preach to all men of all ages the necessity of virtue and
improvement; and if they refuse to listen to him he will still persevere
and reprove them. This is his way of corrupting the youth, which he
will not cease to follow in obedience to the god, even if a thousand
deaths await him.
He is desirous that they should let him live—not for his own sake, but
for theirs; because he is their heaven-sent friend (and they will never
have such another), or, as he may be ludicrously described, he is the
gadfly who stirs the generous steed into motion. Why then has he never
taken part in public affairs? Because the familiar divine voice has
hindered him; if he had been a public man, and had fought for the right,
as he would certainly have fought against the many, he would not have
lived, and could therefore have done no good. Twice in public matters he
has risked his life for the sake of justice—
once at the trial of the generals; and again in resistance to the
tyrannical commands of the Thirty.
But, though not a public man, he has passed his days in instructing the
citizens without fee or reward—this was his mission. Whether his
disciples have turned out well or ill, he cannot justly be charged with
the result, for he never promised to teach them anything.
They might come if they liked, and they might stay away if they liked:
and they did come, because they found an amusement in hearing the
pretenders to wisdom detected.
If they have been corrupted, their elder relatives (if not themselves)
might surely come into court and witness against him, and there is an
opportunity still for them to appear.
But their fathers and brothers all appear in court (including ‘this’
Plato), to witness on his behalf; and if their relatives are corrupted,
at least they are uncorrupted; ‘and they are my witnesses. For they know
that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus is lying.’
This is about all that he has to say. He will not entreat the judges to
spare his life; neither will he present a spectacle of weeping children,
although he, too, is not made of
‘rock or oak.’ Some of the judges themselves may have complied with this
practice on
similar occasions, and he trusts that they will not be angry with him
for not following their example. But he feels that such conduct brings
discredit on the name of Athens: he feels too, that the judge has sworn
not to give away justice; and he cannot be guilty of the impiety of
asking the judge to break his oath, when he is himself being tried for
impiety.
As he expected, and probably intended, he is convicted. And now the tone
of the speech, instead of being more conciliatory, becomes more lofty
and commanding. Anytus proposes death as the penalty: and what
counter-proposition shall he make? He, the benefactor of the Athenian
people, whose whole life has been spent in doing them good, should at
least have the Olympic victor’s reward of maintenance in the Prytaneum.
Or why should he propose any counter-penalty when he does not know
whether death, which Anytus proposes, is a good or an evil? And he is
certain that imprisonment is an evil, exile is an evil. Loss of money
might be an evil, but then he has none to give; perhaps he can make up a
mina. Let that be the penalty, or, if his friends wish, thirty minae;
for which they will be excellent securities.
(He is condemned to death.)
He is an old man already, and the Athenians will gain nothing but
disgrace by depriving him of a few years of life. Perhaps he could have
escaped, if he had chosen to throw down his arms and entreat for his
life. But he does not at all repent of the manner of his defence; he
would rather die in his own fashion than live in theirs. For the penalty
of unrighteousness is swifter than death; that penalty has already
overtaken his accusers as death will soon overtake him.
And now, as one who is about to die, he will prophesy to them. They have
put him to death in order to escape the necessity of giving an account
of their lives. But his death
‘will be the seed’ of many disciples who will convince them of their
evil ways, and will come forth to reprove them in harsher terms, because
they are younger and more inconsiderate.
He would like to say a few words, while there is time, to those who
would have acquitted him. He wishes them to know that the divine sign
never interrupted him in the course of his defence; the reason of which,
as he conjectures, is that the death to which he is going
is a good and not an evil. For either death is a long sleep, the best of
sleeps, or a journey to another world in which the souls of the dead
are gathered together, and in which there may be a hope of seeing the
heroes of old—in which, too, there are just judges; and as all are
immortal, there can be no fear of any one suffering death for his
opinions.
Nothing evil can happen to the good man either in life or death, and his
own death has been permitted by the gods, because it was better for him
to depart; and therefore he forgives his judges because they have done
him no harm, although they never meant to do him any good.
He has a last request to make to them—that they will trouble his sons as
he has troubled them, if they appear to prefer riches to virtue, or to
think themselves something when they are nothing.
...
‘Few persons will be found to wish that Socrates should have defended
himself otherwise,’—if, as we must add, his defence was that with which
Plato has provided him.
But leaving this question, which does not admit of a precise solution,
we may go on to ask what was the impression which Plato in the Apology
intended to give of the character and conduct of his master in the last
great scene? Did he intend to represent him (1) as employing
sophistries; (2) as designedly irritating the judges? Or are these
sophistries to be regarded as belonging to the age in which he lived and
to his personal character, and this apparent haughtiness as flowing
from the natural elevation of his position?
For example, when he says that it is absurd to suppose that one man is
the corrupter and all the rest of the world the improvers of the youth;
or, when he argues that he never could have corrupted the men with whom
he had to live; or, when he proves his belief in the gods because he
believes in the sons of gods, is he serious or jesting? It may be
observed that these sophisms all occur in his cross-examination of
Meletus, who is easily foiled and mastered in the hands of the great
dialectician. Perhaps he regarded these answers as good enough for his
accuser, of whom he makes very light. Also there is a touch of irony in
them, which takes them out of the category of sophistry. (Compare
Euthyph.)
That the manner in which he defends himself about the lives of his
disciples is not satisfactory, can hardly be denied. Fresh in the memory
of the Athenians, and detestable as they deserved to be to the newly
restored democracy, were the names of Alcibiades, Critias, Charmides. It
is obviously not a sufficient answer that Socrates had never professed
to teach them anything, and is therefore not justly chargeable with
their crimes. Yet the defence, when taken out of this ironical form, is
doubtless sound: that his teaching had nothing to do with their evil
lives. Here, then, the sophistry is rather in form than in substance,
though we might desire that to such a serious charge Socrates had given a
more serious answer.
Truly characteristic of Socrates is another point in his answer, which
may also be regarded as sophistical. He says that ‘if he has corrupted
the youth, he must have corrupted them involuntarily.’ But if, as
Socrates argues, all evil is involuntary, then all criminals ought to be
admonished and not punished. In these words the Socratic doctrine of
the involuntariness of evil is clearly intended to be conveyed. Here
again, as in the former instance, the defence of Socrates is untrue
practically, but may be true in some ideal or transcendental sense. The
commonplace reply, that if he had been guilty of corrupting the youth
their relations would surely have witnessed against him, with which he
concludes this part of his defence, is more satisfactory.
Again, when Socrates argues that he must believe in the gods because he
believes in the sons of gods, we must remember that this is a refutation
not of the original indictment, which is consistent enough—‘Socrates
does not receive the gods whom the city receives, and has other new
divinities’ —but of the interpretation put upon the words by Meletus,
who has affirmed that he is a downright atheist. To this Socrates fairly
answers, in accordance with the ideas of the time, that a downright
atheist cannot believe in the sons of gods or in divine things. The
notion that demons or lesser divinities are the sons of gods is not to
be regarded as ironical or sceptical. He is arguing ‘ad hominem’
according to the notions of mythology current in his age. Yet he
abstains from saying that he believed in the gods whom the State
approved. He does not defend himself, as Xenophon has defended him, by
appealing to his practice of religion. Probably he neither wholly
believed, nor disbelieved, in the existence of the popular gods; he had
no means of knowing about them. According to Plato (compare Phaedo;
Symp.), as well as Xenophon (Memor.), he was punctual in the performance
of the least religious duties;
and he must have believed in his own oracular sign, of which he seemed
to have an internal witness. But the existence of Apollo or Zeus, or the
other gods whom the State approves, would have appeared to him both
uncertain and unimportant in comparison of the duty of self-examination,
and of those principles of truth and right which he deemed to be the
foundation of religion. (Compare Phaedr.; Euthyph.; Republic.) The
second question, whether Plato meant to represent Socrates as braving or
irritating his judges, must also be answered in the negative. His
irony, his superiority, his audacity, ‘regarding not the person of man,’
necessarily flow out of the loftiness of his situation. He is not
acting a part upon a great occasion, but he is what he has been all his
life long, ‘a king of men.’ He would rather not appear insolent, if he
could avoid it (ouch os authadizomenos touto lego). Neither is he
desirous of hastening his own end, for life and death are simply
indifferent to him. But such a defence as would be acceptable to his
judges and might procure an acquittal, it is not in his nature to make.
He will not say or do anything that might pervert the course of justice;
he cannot have his tongue bound even ‘in the throat of death.’ With his
accusers he will only fence and play, as he had fenced with other
‘improvers of youth,’ answering the Sophist according to his sophistry
all his life long. He is serious when he is speaking of his own mission,
which seems to distinguish him from all other reformers of mankind, and
originates in an accident. The dedication of himself to the improvement
of his fellow-citizens is not so remarkable as the ironical spirit in
which he goes about doing good only in vindication of the credit of the
oracle, and in the vain hope of finding a wiser man than himself. Yet
this singular and almost accidental character of his mission agrees with
the divine sign which, according to our notions, is equally accidental
and irrational, and is nevertheless accepted by him as the guiding
principle of his life. Socrates is nowhere represented to us as a
freethinker or sceptic. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity when
he speculates on the possibility of seeing and knowing the heroes of the
Trojan war in another world. On the other hand, his hope of immortality
is uncertain;—he also conceives of death as a long sleep (in this
respect differing from the Phaedo), and at last falls back on
resignation to the divine will, and the certainty that no evil can
happen to the good man either in life or death. His absolute
truthfulness seems to hinder him from asserting positively more than
this; and he makes no attempt to veil his ignorance in mythology and
figures of speech. The gentleness of the first part of the speech
contrasts with the aggravated, almost threatening, tone of the
conclusion. He characteristically
remarks that he will not speak as a rhetorician, that is to say, he will
not make a regular defence such as Lysias or one of the orators might
have composed for him, or, according to some accounts, did compose for
him. But he first procures himself a hearing by conciliatory words. He
does not attack the Sophists; for they were open to the same charges as
himself; they were equally ridiculed by the Comic poets, and almost
equally hateful to Anytus and Meletus. Yet incidentally the antagonism
between Socrates and the Sophists is allowed to appear. He is poor and
they are rich; his profession that he teaches nothing is opposed to
their readiness to teach all things; his talking in the marketplace to
their private instructions; his tarry-at-home life to their wandering
from city to city. The tone which he assumes towards them is one of real
friendliness, but also of concealed irony. Towards Anaxagoras, who had
disappointed him in his hopes of learning about mind and nature, he
shows a less kindly feeling, which is also the feeling of Plato in other
passages (Laws). But Anaxagoras had been dead thirty years, and was
beyond the reach of persecution.
It has been remarked that the prophecy of a new generation of teachers
who would rebuke and exhort the Athenian people in harsher and more
violent terms was, as far as we know, never fulfilled. No inference can
be drawn from this circumstance as to the probability of the words
attributed to him having been actually uttered. They express the
aspiration of the first martyr of philosophy, that he would leave behind
him many followers, accompanied by the not unnatural feeling that they
would be fiercer and more inconsiderate in their words when emancipated
from his control.
The above remarks must be understood as applying with any degree of
certainty to the Platonic Socrates only. For, although these or similar
words may have been spoken by Socrates himself, we cannot exclude the
possibility, that like so much else, e.g. the wisdom of Critias, the
poem of Solon, the virtues of Charmides, they may have been due only to
the imagination of Plato. The arguments of those who maintain that the
Apology was composed during the process, resting on no evidence, do not
require a serious refutation. Nor are the reasonings of Schleiermacher,
who argues that the Platonic defence is an exact or nearly exact
reproduction of the words of Socrates, partly because Plato would not
have been guilty of the impiety of altering them, and also because many
points of the defence might have been improved and strengthened, at all
more conclusive. (See English Translation.) What effect the death of
Socrates produced on the
mind of Plato, we cannot certainly determine; nor can we say how he
would or must have written under the circumstances. We observe that the
enmity of Aristophanes to Socrates does not prevent Plato from
introducing them together in the Symposium engaged in friendly
intercourse. Nor is there any trace in the Dialogues of an attempt to
make Anytus or Meletus personally odious in the eyes of the Athenian
public.
THE APOLOGY
How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell;
but I know that they almost made me forget who I was—so persuasively did
they speak; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth. But of
the many falsehoods told by them, there was one which quite amazed me;—I
mean when they said that you should be upon your guard and not allow
yourselves to be deceived by the force of my eloquence. To say this,
when they were certain to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and
proved myself to be anything but a great speaker, did indeed appear to
me most shameless—unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force
of truth; for is such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent. But
in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they have
scarcely spoken the truth at all; but from me you shall hear the whole
truth: not, however, delivered after their manner in a set oration duly
ornamented with words and phrases. No, by heaven! but I shall use the
words and arguments which occur to me at the moment; for I am confident
in the justice of my cause (Or, I am certain that I am right in taking
this course.): at my time of life I ought not to be appearing before
you, O
men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator—let no one expect
it of me. And I must beg of you to grant me a favour:—If I defend myself
in my accustomed manner, and you hear me using the words which I have
been in the habit of using in the agora, at the tables of the
money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be surprised,
and not to interrupt me on this account. For I am more than seventy
years of age, and appearing now for the first time in a court of law, I
am quite a stranger to the language of the place; and therefore I would
have you regard me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse
if he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his
country:—Am I making an unfair request of you? Never mind the manner,
which may or may not be good; but think only of the truth of my words,
and give heed to that: let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide
justly.
And first, I have to reply to the older charges and to my first
accusers, and then I will go on to the later ones. For of old I have had
many accusers, who have accused me falsely to you during many years;
and I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates,
who are dangerous, too, in their own way. But far more dangerous are the
others, who began when you were children, and took possession of your
minds with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who
speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath,
and made the worse appear the better cause. The disseminators of this
tale are the accusers whom I dread; for their hearers are apt to fancy
that such enquirers do not believe in the existence of the gods. And
they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and
they were made by them in the days when you were more impressible than
you are now—in childhood, or it may have been in youth—and the cause
when heard went by default, for there was none to answer.
And hardest of all, I do not know and cannot tell the names of my
accusers; unless in the chance case of a Comic poet. All who from envy
and malice have persuaded you—some of them having first convinced
themselves—all this class of men are most difficult to deal with; for I
cannot have them up here, and cross-examine them, and therefore I must
simply fight with shadows in my own defence, and argue when there is no
one who answers. I will ask you then to assume with me, as I was saying,
that my opponents are of two kinds; one recent, the other ancient: and I
hope that you will see the propriety of my answering the latter first,
for these accusations you heard long before the others, and much
oftener.
Well, then, I must make my defence, and endeavour to clear away in a
short time, a slander which has lasted a long time. May I succeed, if to
succeed be for my good and yours, or likely to avail me in my cause!
The task is not an easy one; I quite understand the nature of it. And so
leaving the event with God, in obedience to the law I will now make my
defence.
I will begin at the beginning, and ask what is the accusation which has
given rise to the slander of me, and in fact has encouraged Meletus to
proof this charge against me. Well, what do the slanderers say? They
shall be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their words in an affidavit:
‘Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into
things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the
better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.’ Such is
the nature of the accusation: it is just what you have yourselves seen
in the comedy of Aristophanes (Aristoph., Clouds.), who has introduced a
man whom he calls Socrates, going about and saying that he walks in
air, and talking a deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I do not
pretend to know
either much or little—not that I mean to speak disparagingly of any one
who is a student of natural philosophy. I should be very sorry if
Meletus could bring so grave a charge against me. But the simple truth
is, O Athenians, that I have nothing to do with physical speculations.
Very many of those here present are witnesses to the truth of this, and
to them I appeal. Speak then, you who have heard me, and tell your
neighbours whether any of you have ever known me hold forth in few words
or in many upon such matters...You hear their answer. And from what
they say of this part of the charge you will be able to judge of the
truth of the rest.
As little foundation is there for the report that I am a teacher, and
take money; this accusation has no more truth in it than the other.
Although, if a man were really able to instruct mankind, to receive
money for giving instruction would, in my opinion, be an honour to him.
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 at this time a Parian philosopher
residing in Athens, of whom I have heard; and I came to hear of him in
this way:—I came across 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 some one 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
any one who understands human and political virtue? You must have
thought about the matter, for you have sons; is there any one?’ ‘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 moderate 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.
I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply, ‘Yes,
Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are brought
against you; there must have been something strange which you have been
doing? All these rumours and this talk about you would never have arisen
if you had been like other men: tell us, then, what is the
cause of them, for we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.’ Now I
regard this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavour to explain to you
the reason why I am called wise and have such an evil fame. Please to
attend then. And although some of you may think that 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, wisdom such as may perhaps
be attained 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; that witness shall be the God of Delphi—he will tell you about
my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must have known
Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours,
for he shared in the recent 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 anyone was 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 what I am
saying.
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 his riddle? for I know
that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then 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 long consideration, I 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 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 still wiser by himself; and
thereupon I 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
pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon
I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.
Then 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 others less esteemed were really wiser and
better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the ‘Herculean’
labours, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the
oracle irrefutable. After the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic,
dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be
instantly 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 confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly
a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry
than they did themselves. Then I knew 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. 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.
At last I went to the artisans. I was conscious that I knew nothing at
all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and
here 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; and 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 to the oracle that I was better off as I was.
This inquisition 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 by his answer he intends to show that
the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of
Socrates, he is only using my name by way of 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 about the world, obedient
to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one,
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 my 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.
There is another thing:—young men of the richer classes, who have not
much to do, come about me of their own accord; they like to hear the
pretenders examined, and they often imitate me, and proceed to examine
others; there are plenty of persons, as they quickly discover, who think
that they know something, but really know little or nothing; and then
those who are examined by them instead of being angry with themselves
are angry with me: This confounded Socrates, they say; this villainous
misleader of youth!—
and then if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practise or
teach? they do not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they may not
appear to be at a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are
used against all philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and
under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the
better cause; for they do not like to confess that their pretence of
knowledge has been detected— which is the truth; and as they are
numerous and ambitious and energetic, and are drawn up in battle array
and have persuasive tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud
and inveterate calumnies. And this is the reason why my three
accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, have set upon me; Meletus, who
has a quarrel with me on behalf of the poets; Anytus, on behalf of the
craftsmen and politicians; Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians: and as I
said at the beginning, I cannot expect to get rid of such a mass of
calumny all in a moment. And this, O men of Athens, is the truth and the
whole truth; I have concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing. And
yet, I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is
their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?—Hence has arisen
the prejudice against me; and this is the reason of it, as you will find
out either in this or in any future enquiry.
I have said enough in my defence against the first class of my accusers;
I turn to the second class. They are headed by Meletus, that good man
and true lover of his country, as he calls himself. Against these, too, I
must try to make a defence:—Let their affidavit be read: it contains
something of this kind: It says that Socrates is a doer of evil, who
corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of the state,
but has other new divinities of his own. Such is the charge; and now let
us examine the particular counts.
He says that I am a doer of evil, and corrupt the youth; but I say, O
men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evil, in that he pretends to be
in earnest when he is only in jest, and is so eager to bring men to
trial from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he
really never had the smallest interest. And the truth of this I will
endeavour to prove to you.
Come hither, Meletus, and let me ask a question of you. You think a
great deal about the improvement of youth?
Yes, I do.
Tell the judges, then, who is their improver; for you must know, as you
have taken the pains to discover their corrupter, and are citing and
accusing me before them. Speak, then, and tell the judges who their
improver is.—Observe, Meletus, that you are silent, and have nothing to
say. But is not this rather disgraceful, and a very considerable proof
of what I was saying, that you have no interest in the matter? Speak up,
friend, and tell us who their improver is.
The laws.
But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to know who the person
is, who, in the first place, knows the laws.
The judges, Socrates, who are present in court.
What, do you mean to say, Meletus, that they are able to instruct and
improve youth?
Certainly they are.
What, all of them, or some only and not others?
All of them.
By the goddess Here, that is good news! There are plenty of improvers,
then. And what do you say of the audience,—do they improve them?
Yes, they do.
And the senators?
Yes, the senators improve them.
But perhaps the members of the assembly corrupt them?—or do they too
improve them?
They improve them.
Then every Athenian improves and elevates them; all with the exception
of myself; and I alone am their corrupter? Is that what you affirm?
That is what I stoutly affirm.
I am very unfortunate if you are right. But suppose I ask you a
question: How about horses? Does one man do them harm and all the world
good? Is not the exact opposite the truth? One man is able to do them
good, or at least not many;—the trainer of horses, that is to say, does
them good, and others who have to do with them rather injure them?
Is not that true, Meletus, of horses, or of any other animals? Most
assuredly it is; whether you and Anytus say yes or no. Happy indeed
would be the condition of youth if
they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their
improvers. But you, Meletus, have sufficiently shown that you never had a
thought about the young: your carelessness is seen in your not caring
about the very things which you bring against me.
And now, Meletus, I will ask you another question—by Zeus I will: Which
is better, to live among bad citizens, or among good ones? Answer,
friend, I say; the question is one which may be easily answered. Do not
the good do their neighbours good, and the bad do them evil?
Certainly.
And is there anyone who would rather be injured than benefited by those
who live with him? Answer, my good friend, the law requires you to
answer— does any one like to be injured?
Certainly not.
And when you accuse me of corrupting and deteriorating the youth, do you
allege that I corrupt them intentionally or unintentionally?
Intentionally, I say.
But you have just admitted that the good do their neighbours 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—so you say, although neither I nor any
other human being is ever likely to be convinced by you. But either I do
not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally; and 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; but you would have nothing to say to me and refused to
teach me. And now you bring me up in this court, which is a place not of
instruction, but of punishment.
It will be very clear to you, Athenians, as I was saying, that Meletus
has no care at all, great or small, about the matter. But still I should
like to know, Meletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the young. I
suppose you mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not
to acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges, but some other
new divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the
lessons by which I corrupt the youth, as you say.
Yes, that I say emphatically.
Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me and the
court, in somewhat plainer terms, what you mean! for I do not as yet
understand whether you affirm that I teach other men to acknowledge some
gods, and therefore that I do believe in gods, and am not an entire
atheist—this you do not lay to my charge,—but only you say that they are
not the same gods which the city recognizes—the charge is that they are
different gods. Or, do you mean that I am an atheist simply, and a
teacher of atheism?
I mean the latter—that you are a complete atheist.
What an extraordinary statement! Why do you think so, Meletus? Do you
mean that I do not believe in the godhead of the sun or moon, like other
men?
I assure you, judges, that he does not: for he says that the sun is
stone, and the moon earth.
Friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing Anaxagoras: and you have
but a bad opinion of the judges, if you fancy them illiterate to such a
degree as not to know that these doctrines are found in the books of
Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, which are full of them. And so, forsooth,
the youth are said to be taught them by Socrates, when there are not
unfrequently exhibitions of them at the theatre (Probably in allusion to
Aristophanes who caricatured, and to Euripides who borrowed the notions
of Anaxagoras, as well as to other dramatic poets.) (price of admission
one drachma at the most); and they might pay their money, and laugh at
Socrates if he pretends to father these extraordinary views. And so,
Meletus, you really think that I do not believe in any god?
I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.
Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty sure that you do not
believe yourself. I cannot help thinking, men of Athens, that Meletus is
reckless and impudent, and that he has written this indictment in a
spirit of mere wantonness and youthful bravado. Has he not compounded a
riddle, thinking to try me? He said to himself:—I shall see whether the
wise Socrates will discover my facetious contradiction, or whether I
shall be able to deceive him and the rest of them. For he certainly does
appear to me to contradict himself in the indictment as much as if he
said that Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and yet of
believing in them—but this is not like a person who is in earnest.
I should like you, O men of Athens, to join me in examining what I
conceive to be his inconsistency; and do you, Meletus, answer. And I
must remind the audience of my request that they would not make a
disturbance if I speak in my accustomed manner: Did ever man, Meletus,
believe in the existence of human things, and not of human beings?...I
wish, men of Athens, that he would answer, and not be always trying to
get up an interruption. Did ever any man believe in horsemanship, and
not in horses? or in flute-playing, and not in flute-players? No, my
friend; I will answer to you and to the court, as you refuse to answer
for yourself. There is no man who ever did. But now please to answer the
next question: Can a man believe in spiritual and divine agencies, and
not in spirits or demigods?
He cannot.
How lucky I am to have extracted that answer, by the assistance of the
court! But then you swear in the indictment that I teach and believe in
divine or spiritual agencies (new or old, no matter for that); at any
rate, I believe in spiritual agencies,—so you say and swear in the
affidavit; and yet if I believe in divine beings, how can I help
believing in spirits or demigods;—must I not? To be sure I must; and
therefore I may assume that your silence gives consent. Now what are
spirits or demigods? Are they not either gods or the sons of gods?
Certainly they are.
But this is what I call the facetious riddle invented by you: the
demigods or spirits are gods, and you say first that I do not believe in
gods, and then again that I do believe in
gods; that is, if I believe in demigods. For if the demigods are the
illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the nymphs or by any other
mothers, of whom they are said to be the sons—what human being will ever
believe that there are no gods if they are the sons of gods? You might
as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and
asses. Such nonsense, Meletus, could only have been intended by you to
make trial of me. You have put this into the indictment because you had
nothing real of which to accuse me. But no one who has a particle of
understanding will ever be convinced by you that the same men can
believe in divine and superhuman things, and yet not believe that there
are gods and demigods and heroes.
I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate
defence is unnecessary, but I know only too well how many are the
enmities which I have incurred, and this is what will be my destruction
if I am destroyed;—not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and
detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and
will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being
the last of them.
Some one will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of
life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end? To him I may
fairly answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything
ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to
consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong—acting the
part of a good man or of a bad. Whereas, upon your view, the heroes who
fell at Troy were not good for much, and the son of Thetis above all,
who altogether despised danger in comparison with disgrace; and when he
was so eager to slay Hector, his goddess mother said to him, that if he
avenged his companion Patroclus, and slew Hector, he would die
himself—‘Fate,’ she said, in these or the like words, ‘waits for you
next after Hector;’ he, receiving this warning, utterly despised danger
and death, and instead of fearing them, feared rather to live in
dishonour, and not to avenge his friend. ‘Let me die forthwith,’ he
replies, ‘and be avenged of my enemy, rather than abide here by the
beaked ships, a laughing-stock and a burden of the earth.’ Had Achilles
any thought of death and danger? For wherever a man’s place is, whether
the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a
commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not
think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And this, O men of
Athens, is a true saying.
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 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, fancying that I was wise when I was not wise.
For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real
wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows
whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest
evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a
disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows
what he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to
differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they
are:—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 dishonourable, and I will never fear or
avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil. And therefore if you
let me go now, and are not convinced by Anytus, who said that since I
had been prosecuted I must be put to death; (or if not that I ought
never to have been prosecuted at all); 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 you shall be let
off, but upon one condition, that you are not to enquire and speculate
in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing so again you
shall die;—
if this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply: Men of
Athens, I honour 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 any one whom I meet and saying to
him after my manner: You, my friend,—a citizen of the great and mighty
and wise city of Athens,—are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest
amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about
wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you
never regard or heed at all?
And if the person with whom I am arguing, says: Yes, but I do care; then
I do not leave him or let him go at once; but I proceed to interrogate
and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue
in him, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the
greater, and overvaluing the less. And I shall repeat the same words to
every one whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially
to the
citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For know that this is the
command of God; and I believe that 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 or 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 comes 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, I am a mischievous person. But if any
one 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 whichever you do,
understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die
many times.
Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me; there was an understanding
between us that you should hear me to the end: I have something more to
say, at which you may be inclined to cry out; but I believe that to
hear me will be good for you, and therefore I beg that you will not cry
out. I would have you know, that if you kill such an one as I am, you
will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Nothing will injure
me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus—they cannot, for a bad man is not
permitted to injure a better than himself. I do not deny that Anytus
may, perhaps, kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil
rights; and he may imagine, and others may imagine, that he is
inflicting a great injury upon him: but there I do not agree. For the
evil of doing as he is doing—the evil of unjustly taking away the life
of another—is greater far.
And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may
think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning
me, who am his gift to you.
For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I
may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given
to the state by God; and the state is a great and noble steed who is
tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred
into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all
day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and
persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like
me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me. I dare say that you
may feel out of temper (like a person who is suddenly awakened from
sleep), and you think that you might easily strike me dead as Anytus
advises, and then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives,
unless God
in his care of you sent you another gadfly. When I say that I am given
to you by God, the proof of my mission is this:—if I had been like other
men, I should not have neglected all my own concerns or patiently seen
the neglect of them during all these years, and have been doing yours,
coming to you individually like a father or elder brother, exhorting you
to regard virtue; such conduct, I say, would be unlike human nature. If
I had gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would
have been some sense in my doing so; but now, as you will perceive, not
even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted
or sought pay of any one; of that they have no witness. And I have a
sufficient witness to the truth of what I say—my poverty.
Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying
myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward
in public and advise the state. I will tell you why. You have heard me
speak at sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign which
comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the
indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to
me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do
anything which I am going to do.
This is what deters me from being a politician. And rightly, as I think.
For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I
should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to
myself. And do not be offended at my telling you the truth: for the
truth is, that no man who goes to war with you or any other multitude,
honestly striving against the many lawless and unrighteous deeds which
are done in a state, will save his life; he who will fight for the
right, if he would live even for a brief space, must have a private
station and not a public one.
I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, not words only, but
what you value far more—actions. Let me relate to you a passage of my
own life which will prove to you that I should never have yielded to
injustice from any fear of death, and that ‘as I should have refused to
yield’ I must have died at once. I will tell you a tale of the courts,
not very interesting perhaps, but nevertheless true. The only office of
state which I ever held, O
men of Athens, was that of senator: the tribe Antiochis, which is my
tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the generals who had not taken
up the bodies of the slain after the battle of Arginusae; and you
proposed to try them in a body, contrary to law, as you all thought
afterwards; but at the time I was the only one of the Prytanes who was
opposed to the illegality, and I gave my vote against you; and when the
orators
threatened to impeach and arrest me, and you called and shouted, I made
up my mind that I would run the risk, having law and justice with me,
rather than take part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment
and death. This happened in the days of the democracy. But when the
oligarchy of the Thirty was in power, they sent for me and four others
into the rotunda, and bade us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as
they wanted to put him to death. This was a specimen of the sort of
commands which they were always giving with the view of implicating as
many as possible in their crimes; and then I showed, not in word only
but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an expression, I
cared not a straw for death, and that my great and only care was lest I
should do an unrighteous or unholy thing. For the strong arm of that
oppressive power did not frighten me into doing wrong; and when we came
out of the rotunda the other four went to Salamis and fetched Leon, but I
went quietly home. For which I might have lost my life, had not the
power of the Thirty shortly afterwards come to an end. And many will
witness to my words.
Now do you really imagine that I could have survived all these years, if
I had led a public life, supposing that like a good man I had always
maintained the right and had made justice, as I ought, the first thing?
No indeed, men of Athens, neither I nor any other man. But I have been
always the same in all my actions, public as well as private, and never
have I yielded any base compliance to those who are slanderously termed
my disciples, or to any other. Not that I have any regular disciples.
But if any one likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission,
whether he be young or old, he is not excluded. Nor do I converse only
with those who pay; but any one, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and
answer me and listen to my words; and whether he turns out to be a bad
man or a good one, neither result can be justly imputed to me; for I
never taught or professed to teach him anything. And if any one says
that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all
the world has not heard, let me tell you that he is lying.
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
matter: they like to hear the cross-examination of the pretenders to
wisdom; there is amusement in it. Now this duty of cross-examining other
men has been imposed upon me by God; and has been signified to me by
oracles, visions, and in every way in which the will of divine power
was ever intimated to any one. This is true, O Athenians, or, if not
true, would be soon refuted. If I am or have been corrupting the youth,
those of them who are now 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; or if they do not like to come
themselves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers, or other
kinsmen, should say what evil their families have 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 Epigenes; 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, some 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 injurer 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 a liar.
Well, Athenians, this and the like of this is all the defence which I
have to offer. Yet a word more. Perhaps there may be some one who is
offended at me, when he calls to mind how he himself on a similar, or
even a less serious occasion, prayed and entreated the judges with many
tears, and how he produced his children in court, which was a moving
spectacle, together with a host of relations and friends; whereas I, who
am probably in danger of my life, will do none of these things. The
contrast may occur to his mind, and he may be set against me, and vote
in anger because he is displeased at me on this account. Now if there be
such a person among you,—mind, I do not say that there is,—to him I may
fairly reply: 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 almost a man,
and two others who 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-assertion or want of respect for you. Whether I am or am not
afraid of death is another question, of which I will not now speak. But,
having regard to public opinion, I feel that such conduct would be
discreditable to myself, and to you, and to the whole state. One who has
reached my years, and who has a name for wisdom, ought not to demean
himself. Whether this opinion of me be deserved or not, 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 such are a dishonour to the state, and that any stranger coming in
would have said of them that the most eminent men of Athens, to whom the
Athenians themselves give honour and command, are no better than women.
And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us who
have a reputation; and if they are done, you ought not to permit them;
you ought rather to show that you are far more disposed to condemn the
man who gets up a doleful scene and makes the city ridiculous, than him
who holds his peace.
But, setting aside the question of public opinion, there seems to be
something wrong in asking a favour of a judge, and thus procuring an
acquittal, instead of informing and convincing him. For his duty is, not
to make a present of justice, but to give judgment; and he has sworn
that he will judge according to the laws, and not according to his own
good pleasure; and we ought not to encourage you, nor should you allow
yourselves to be encouraged, in this habit of perjury—there can be no
piety in that. Do not then require me to do what I consider
dishonourable and impious and wrong, especially now, when I am being
tried for impiety on the indictment of Meletus. For if, O men of Athens,
by force of persuasion and entreaty I could overpower your oaths, then I
should be teaching you to believe that there are no gods, and in
defending should simply convict myself of the charge of not believing in
them. But that is not so—far otherwise. For I do believe that there are
gods, and in a sense higher than that in which any of my accusers
believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my cause, to be
determined by you as is best for you and me.
...
There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O men of Athens, at the
vote of condemnation. I expected it, and am only surprised that the
votes are so nearly equal; for I had thought that the majority against
me would have been far larger; but now, had thirty votes gone over to
the other side, I should have been acquitted. And I may say, I think,
that I have escaped Meletus. I may say more; for without the assistance
of Anytus and Lycon, any one may see that he would not have had a fifth
part of the votes, as the law requires, in which case he would have
incurred a fine of a thousand drachmae.
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 my due?
What return shall be made 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
for— 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 be a politician 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 every one 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 an 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, and who
desires leisure that he may instruct you? There can be no reward so
fitting as 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 fairly, I should say that
maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return.
Perhaps you think that I am braving you in what I am saying now, as in
what I said before about the tears and prayers. But this is not so. I
speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged
any one, although I cannot convince you—
the time has been too short; if there were a law at Athens, 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 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 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 am so irrational as to
expect that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my
discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that
you will have no more of 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, ever changing my place of
exile, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that wherever I
go, there, as here, the young men will flock to me; and if I drive them
away, their elders will drive me out at their request; and if I let
them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes.
Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and
then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you?
Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this.
For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to the
God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe
that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about
virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining
myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined
life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I
say what is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to
persuade you. Also, I have never been accustomed to think that I deserve
to suffer any harm. Had I money I might have estimated the offence at
what I was able to pay, and not have been
much the worse. But I have none, and therefore I must ask you to
proportion the fine to my means. Well, perhaps I could afford a mina,
and therefore I propose that penalty: Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and
Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be
the sureties. Let thirty minae be the penalty; for which sum they will
be ample security to you.
...
Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name
which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that
you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise, even
although I am not wise, when they want to reproach you. If you had
waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the
course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive,
and not far from death. I am speaking now not to all of you, but only to
those who have condemned me to death.
And I have another thing to say to them: you think that I was convicted
because I had no words of the sort which would have procured my
acquittal—I mean, if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone or
unsaid. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of
words— certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence or
inclination to address you as you would have liked me to do, weeping and
wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have
been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I maintain, are
unworthy of me. I thought at the time that I ought not to do anything
common or mean when in danger: nor do I now repent of the style of my
defence; I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in
your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought I or any
man to use every way of escaping death. Often in battle there can be no
doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees
before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are
other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do
anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to
avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. I am old and
move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are
keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has
overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the
penalty of death,—they too go their ways condemned by the truth to
suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my
award—let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these things may be
regarded as fated,—and I think that they are well.
And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for I
am about to die, and in the hour of death men are gifted with prophetic
power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately
after my departure punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me
will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape
the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not
be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more
accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have
restrained: and as they are younger they will be more inconsiderate with
you, and you will be more offended at them. If you think that by
killing men you can prevent some one from censuring your evil lives, you
are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or
honourable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling
others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I
utter before my departure to the judges who have condemned me.
Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you
about the thing which has come to pass, while the magistrates are busy,
and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then a little,
for we may as well talk with one another while there is time. You are my
friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which
has happened to me. O my judges—for you I may truly call judges—I should
like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the divine
faculty of which the internal oracle is the source has constantly been
in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a
slip or error in any matter; and now as you see there has come upon me
that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and
worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either when I
was leaving my house in the morning, or when I was on my way to the
court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say;
and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now in
nothing I either said or did touching the matter in hand has the oracle
opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this silence? I will
tell you. It is an intimation that what has happened to me is a good,
and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. For
the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil
and not to good.
Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great
reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things—either death
is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say,
there is a change and migration of the soul from this
world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but
a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death
will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in
which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare
with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell
us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life
better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will
not say a private man, but even the great king will not find many such
days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death be of such a
nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single
night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men
say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be
greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world
below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and
finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and
Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were
righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What
would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and
Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I
myself, too, shall have a wonderful interest in there meeting and
conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and any other
ancient hero who has suffered death through an unjust judgment; and
there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own
sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall then be able to continue my
search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the
next; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and
is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the
leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or
numberless others, men and women too!
What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking
them questions! In another world they do not put a man to death for
asking questions: assuredly not. For besides being happier than we are,
they will be immortal, if what is said is true.
Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a
certainty, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or
after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own
approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that the time
had arrived when it was better for me to die and be released from
trouble; wherefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason, also, I am
not angry with my
condemners, or with my accusers; they have done me no harm, although
they did not mean to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame
them.
Still I have a favour to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would
ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble
them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or
anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something
when they are really nothing,—then reprove them, as I have reproved you,
for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking
that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do
this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you
to live. Which is better God only knows.
Crito
by
Plato
Translated with an
introduction by
Benjamin Jowett
INTRODUCTION.
The Crito seems intended to exhibit the character of Socrates in one
light only, not as the philosopher, fulfilling a divine mission and
trusting in the will of heaven, but simply as the good citizen, who
having been unjustly condemned is willing to give up his life in
obedience to the laws of the state...
The days of Socrates are drawing to a close; the fatal ship has been
seen off Sunium, as he is informed by his aged friend and contemporary
Crito, who visits him before the dawn has broken; he himself has been
warned in a dream that on the third day he must depart. Time is
precious, and Crito has come early in order to gain his consent to a
plan of escape. This can be easily accomplished by his friends, who will
incur no danger in making the attempt to save him, but will be
disgraced for ever if they allow him to perish. He should think of his
duty to his children, and not play into the hands of his enemies. Money
is already provided by Crito as well as by Simmias and others, and he
will have no difficulty in finding friends in Thessaly and other places.
Socrates is afraid that Crito is but pressing upon him the opinions of
the many: whereas, all his life long he has followed the dictates of
reason only and the opinion of the one wise or skilled man. There was a
time when Crito himself had allowed the propriety of this. And although
some one will say ‘the many can kill us,’ that makes no difference; but a
good life, in other words, a just and honourable life, is alone to be
valued. All considerations of loss of reputation or injury to his
children should be dismissed: the only question is whether he would be
right in attempting to escape. Crito, who is a disinterested person not
having the fear of death before his eyes, shall answer this for him.
Before he was condemned they had often held discussions, in which they
agreed that no man should either do evil, or return evil for evil, or
betray the right. Are these principles to be altered because the
circumstances of Socrates are altered? Crito admits
that they remain the same. Then is his escape consistent with the
maintenance of them?
To this Crito is unable or unwilling to reply.
Socrates proceeds:—Suppose the Laws of Athens to come and remonstrate
with him: they will ask ‘Why does he seek to overturn them?’ and if he
replies, ‘they have injured him,’ will not the Laws answer, ‘Yes, but
was that the agreement? Has he any objection to make to them which would
justify him in overturning them? Was he not brought into the world and
educated by their help, and are they not his parents? He might have left
Athens and gone where he pleased, but he has lived there for seventy
years more constantly than any other citizen.’ Thus he has clearly shown
that he acknowledged the agreement, which he cannot now break without
dishonour to himself and danger to his friends. Even in the course of
the trial he might have proposed exile as the penalty, but then he
declared that he preferred death to exile. And whither will he direct
his footsteps? In any well-ordered state the Laws will consider him as
an enemy. Possibly in a land of misrule like Thessaly he may be welcomed
at first, and the unseemly narrative of his escape will be regarded by
the inhabitants as an amusing tale. But if he offends them he will have
to learn another sort of lesson. Will he continue to give lectures in
virtue? That would hardly be decent. And how will his children be the
gainers if he takes them into Thessaly, and deprives them of Athenian
citizenship? Or if he leaves them behind, does he expect that they will
be better taken care of by his friends because he is in Thessaly? Will
not true friends care for them equally whether he is alive or dead?
Finally, they exhort him to think of justice first, and of life and
children afterwards. He may now depart in peace and innocence, a
sufferer and not a doer of evil. But if he breaks agreements, and
returns evil for evil, they will be angry with him while he lives; and
their brethren the Laws of the world below will receive him as an enemy.
Such is the mystic voice which is always murmuring in his ears.
That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made against him
during his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later ages. The
crimes of Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been his pupils,
were still recent in the memory of the now restored democracy. The fact
that he had been neutral in the death-struggle of Athens was not likely
to conciliate popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next
generation, undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this
particular, not to the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the
world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and
the proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented
far more than that (Phaedr.); and in the selection of Crito, the aged
friend, as the fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem
to recognize the hand of the artist. Whether any one who has been
subjected by the laws of his country to an unjust judgment is right in
attempting to escape, is a thesis about which casuists might disagree.
Shelley (Prose Works) is of opinion that Socrates ‘did well to die,’ but
not for the ‘sophistical’ reasons which Plato has put into his mouth.
And there would be no difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have
lived and preferred to a glorious death the good which he might still be
able to perform. ‘A rhetorician would have had much to say upon that
point.’ It may be observed however that Plato never intended to answer
the question of casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient
virtue which refuses to do the least evil in order to avoid the
greatest, and to show his master maintaining in death the opinions which
he had professed in his life. Not ‘the world,’ but the ‘one wise man,’
is still the paradox of Socrates in his last hours. He must be guided by
reason, although her conclusions may be fatal to him. The remarkable
sentiment that the wicked can do neither good nor evil is true, if taken
in the sense, which he means, of moral evil; in his own words, ‘they
cannot make a man wise or foolish.’
This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting
the ‘common principle,’ there is no escaping from the conclusion. It is
anticipated at the beginning by the dream of Socrates and the parody of
Homer. The personification of the Laws, and of their brethren the Laws
in the world below, is one of the noblest and boldest figures of speech
which occur in Plato.
CRITO
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Crito.
SCENE: The Prison of Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why have you come at this hour, Crito? it must be quite early.
CRITO: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: What is the exact time?
CRITO: The dawn is breaking.
SOCRATES: I wonder that the keeper of the prison would let you in.
CRITO: He knows me because I often come, Socrates; moreover. I have done
him a kindness.
SOCRATES: And are you only just arrived?
CRITO: No, I came some time ago.
SOCRATES: Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at once
awakening me?
CRITO: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great
trouble and unrest as you are—indeed I should not: I have been watching
with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not
awake you, because I wished to minimize the pain. I have always thought
you to be of a happy disposition; but never did I see anything like the
easy, tranquil manner in which you bear this calamity.
SOCRATES: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be
repining at the approach of death.
CRITO: And yet other old men find themselves in similar misfortunes, and
age does not prevent them from repining.
SOCRATES: That is true. But you have not told me why you come at this
early hour.
CRITO: I come to bring you a message which is sad and painful; not, as I
believe, to yourself, but to all of us who are your friends, and
saddest of all to me.
SOCRATES: What? Has the ship come from Delos, on the arrival of which I
am to die?
CRITO: No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she will probably be
here to-day, as persons who have come from Sunium tell me that they have
left her there; and therefore to-morrow, Socrates, will be the last day
of your life.
SOCRATES: Very well, Crito; if such is the will of God, I am willing;
but my belief is that there will be a delay of a day.
CRITO: Why do you think so?
SOCRATES: I will tell you. I am to die on the day after the arrival of
the ship?
CRITO: Yes; that is what the authorities say.
SOCRATES: But I do not think that the ship will be here until to-morrow;
this I infer from a vision which I had last night, or rather only just
now, when you fortunately allowed me to sleep.
CRITO: And what was the nature of the vision?
SOCRATES: There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, fair and comely,
clothed in bright raiment, who called to me and said: O Socrates,
‘The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go.’ (Homer, Il.)
CRITO: What a singular dream, Socrates!
SOCRATES: There can be no doubt about the meaning, Crito, I think.
CRITO: Yes; the meaning is only too clear. But, oh! my beloved Socrates,
let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape. For if you
die I shall not only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there
is another evil: people who do not know you and me will believe that I
might have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did
not care. Now, can there be a worse disgrace than this—that I should be
thought to value money more than the life of a friend? For the many
will not be persuaded that I wanted you to escape, and that you refused.
SOCRATES: But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of
the many?
Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will
think of these things truly as they occurred.
CRITO: But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be
regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest
evil to any one who has lost their good opinion.
SOCRATES: I only wish it were so, Crito; and that the many could do the
greatest evil; for then they would also be able to do the greatest good—
and what a fine thing this would be! But in reality they can do
neither; for they cannot make a man either wise or foolish; and whatever
they do is the result of chance.
CRITO: Well, I will not dispute with you; but please to tell me,
Socrates, whether you are not acting out of regard to me and your other
friends: are you not afraid that if you escape from prison we may get
into trouble with the informers for having stolen you away, and lose
either the whole or a great part of our property; or that even a worse
evil may happen to us? Now, if you fear on our account, be at ease; for
in order to save you, we ought surely to run this, or even a greater
risk; be persuaded, then, and do as I say.
SOCRATES: Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, but by no
means the only one.
CRITO: Fear not—there are persons who are willing to get you out of
prison at no great cost; and as for the informers they are far from
being exorbitant in their demands—a little money will satisfy them. My
means, which are certainly ample, are at your service, and if you have a
scruple about spending all mine, here are strangers who will give you
the use of theirs; and one of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a
large sum of money for this very purpose; and Cebes and many others are
prepared to spend their money in helping you to escape. I say,
therefore, do not hesitate on our account, and do not say, as you did in
the court (compare Apol.), that you will have a difficulty in knowing
what to do with yourself anywhere else. For men will love you in other
places to which you may go, and not in Athens only; there are friends of
mine in Thessaly, if you like to go to them, who will value and protect
you, and no Thessalian will give you any trouble. Nor can I think that
you are at all justified, Socrates, in betraying your own life
when you might be saved; in acting thus you are playing into the hands
of your enemies, who are hurrying on your destruction. And further I
should say that you are deserting your own children; for you might bring
them up and educate them; instead of which you go away and leave them,
and they will have to take their chance; and if they do not meet with
the usual fate of orphans, there will be small thanks to you. No man
should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to
the end in their nurture and education. But you appear to be choosing
the easier part, not the better and manlier, which would have been more
becoming in one who professes to care for virtue in all his actions,
like yourself. And indeed, I am ashamed not only of you, but of us who
are your friends, when I reflect that the whole business will be
attributed entirely to our want of courage. The trial need never have
come on, or might have been managed differently; and this last act, or
crowning folly, will seem to have occurred through our negligence and
cowardice, who might have saved you, if we had been good for anything;
and you might have saved yourself, for there was no difficulty at all.
See now, Socrates, how sad and discreditable are the consequences, both
to us and you. Make up your mind then, or rather have your mind already
made up, for the time of deliberation is over, and there is only one
thing to be done, which must be done this very night, and if we delay at
all will be no longer practicable or possible; I beseech you therefore,
Socrates, be persuaded by me, and do as I say.
SOCRATES: Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if
wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the danger; and therefore we
ought to consider whether I shall or shall not do as you say. For I am
and always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason,
whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the
best; and now that this chance has befallen me, I cannot repudiate my
own words: the principles which I have hitherto honoured and revered I
still honour, and unless we can at once find other and better
principles, I am certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the
power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments,
confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin
terrors (compare Apol.). What will be the fairest way of considering the
question? Shall I return to your old argument about the opinions of
men?—we were saying that some of them are to be regarded, and others
not. Now were we right in maintaining this before I was condemned? And
has the argument which was once good now proved to be talk for the sake
of talking—mere childish nonsense? That is what I want to consider with
your help,
Crito:—whether, under my present circumstances, the argument appears to
be in any way different or not; and is to be allowed by me or
disallowed. That argument, which, as I believe, is maintained by many
persons of authority, was to the effect, as I was saying, that the
opinions of some men are to be regarded, and of other men not to be
regarded.
Now you, Crito, are not going to die to-morrow—at least, there is no
human probability of this, and therefore you are disinterested and not
liable to be deceived by the circumstances in which you are placed. Tell
me then, whether I am right in saying that some opinions, and the
opinions of some men only, are to be valued, and that other opinions,
and the opinions of other men, are not to be valued. I ask you whether I
was right in maintaining this?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The good are to be regarded, and not the bad?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the opinions of the wise are good, and the opinions of the
unwise are evil?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what was said about another matter? Is the pupil who
devotes himself to the practice of gymnastics supposed to attend to the
praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of one man only—his
physician or trainer, whoever he may be?
CRITO: Of one man only.
SOCRATES: And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the praise of
that one only, and not of the many?
CRITO: Clearly so.
SOCRATES: And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in the way
which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than
according to the opinion of all other men put together?
CRITO: True.
SOCRATES: And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of
the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding,
will he not suffer evil?
CRITO: Certainly he will.
SOCRATES: And what will the evil be, whither tending and what affecting,
in the disobedient person?
CRITO: Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed by the
evil.
SOCRATES: Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which
we need not separately enumerate? In questions of just and unjust, fair
and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present
consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear
them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding? ought we not
to fear and reverence him more than all the rest of the world: and if we
desert him shall we not destroy and injure that principle in us which
may be assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated by
injustice;—there is such a principle?
CRITO: Certainly there is, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Take a parallel instance:—if, acting under the advice of those
who have no understanding, we destroy that which is improved by health
and is deteriorated by disease, would life be worth having? And that
which has been destroyed is—the body?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Could we live, having an evil and corrupted body?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be
destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice? Do we
suppose that principle, whatever it may be in man, which has to do with
justice and injustice, to be inferior to the body?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: More honourable than the body?
CRITO: Far more.
SOCRATES: Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us:
but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will
say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when
you advise that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and
unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable.—‘Well,’
some one will say, ‘but the many can kill us.’
CRITO: Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer.
SOCRATES: And it is true; but still I find with surprise that the old
argument is unshaken as ever. And I should like to know whether I may
say the same of another proposition—that not life, but a good life, is
to be chiefly valued?
CRITO: Yes, that also remains unshaken.
SOCRATES: And a good life is equivalent to a just and honorable one—that
holds also?
CRITO: Yes, it does.
SOCRATES: From these premisses I proceed to argue the question whether I
ought or ought not to try and escape without the consent of the
Athenians: and if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make the
attempt; but if not, I will abstain. The other considerations which you
mention, of money and loss of character and the duty of educating one’s
children, are, I fear, only the doctrines of the multitude, who would be
as ready to restore people to life, if they were able, as they are to
put them to death—and with as little reason. But now, since the argument
has thus far prevailed, the only question which remains to be
considered is, whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or in
suffering others to aid in our escape and paying them in money and
thanks, or whether in reality we shall not do rightly; and if the
latter, then death or any other calamity which may ensue on my remaining
here must not be allowed to enter into the calculation.
CRITO: I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we proceed?
SOCRATES: Let us consider the matter together, and do you either refute
me if you can, and I will be convinced; or else cease, my dear friend,
from repeating to me that I ought to escape against the wishes of the
Athenians: for I highly value your attempts to persuade me to do so, but
I may not be persuaded against my own better judgment. And now please
to consider my first position, and try how you can best answer me.
CRITO: I will.
SOCRATES: Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong, or
that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do wrong, or
is doing wrong always evil and dishonorable, as I was just now saying,
and as has been already acknowledged by us? Are all our former
admissions which were made within a few days to be thrown away? And have
we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one another all our
life long only to discover that we are no better than children? Or, in
spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether
better or worse, shall we insist on the truth of what was then said,
that injustice is always an evil and dishonour to him who acts unjustly?
Shall we say so or not?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we must do no wrong?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine; for we
must injure no one at all? (E.g. compare Rep.)
CRITO: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Again, Crito, may we do evil?
CRITO: Surely not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the
morality of the many—is that just or not?
CRITO: Not just.
SOCRATES: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?
CRITO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any
one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would have you
consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this
opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable
number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not
agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one
another when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you
agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor
retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that
be the premiss of our argument? Or do you decline and dissent from this?
For so I have ever thought, and continue to think; but, if you are of
another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you
remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.
CRITO: You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.
SOCRATES: Then I will go on to the next point, which may be put in the
form of a question:—Ought a man to do what he admits to be right, or
ought he to betray the right?
CRITO: He ought to do what he thinks right.
SOCRATES: But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving the
prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do I
not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the
principles which were acknowledged by us to be just—
what do you say?
CRITO: I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.
SOCRATES: Then consider the matter in this way:—Imagine that I am about
to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like),
and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: ‘Tell us,
Socrates,’ they say; ‘what are you about?
are you not going by an act of yours to overturn us—the laws, and the
whole state, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a state can
subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no
power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals?’
What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Any one,
and especially a rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on behalf of
the law which requires a sentence to be carried out. He will argue that
this law should not be set aside; and shall we reply,
‘Yes; but the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence.’
Suppose I say that?
CRITO: Very good, Socrates.
SOCRATES: ‘And was that our agreement with you?’ the law would answer;
‘or were you to abide by the sentence of the state?’ And if I were to
express my astonishment at their words, the law would probably add:
‘Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes—
you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us,—What
complaint have you to make against us which justifies you in attempting
to destroy us and the state? In the first place did we not bring you
into existence? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat
you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who
regulate marriage?’ None, I should reply. ‘Or against those of us who
after birth regulate the nurture and education of children, in which you
also were trained? Were not the laws, which have the charge of
education, right in commanding your father to train you in music and
gymnastic?’ Right, I should reply. ‘Well then, since you were brought
into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the
first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were
before you? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor
can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to
you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil
to your father or your master, if you had one, because you have been
struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands?—you
would not say this? And because we think right to destroy you, do you
think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country
as far as in you lies? Will you, O professor of true virtue, pretend
that you are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to
discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far
than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the
eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? also to be soothed, and
gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and
either to be persuaded, or if not persuaded, to be obeyed? And when we
are punished by
her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be
endured in silence; and if she lead us to wounds or death in battle,
thither we follow as is right; neither may any one yield or retreat or
leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any
other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he
must change their view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to
his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.’ What
answer shall we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do
they not?
CRITO: I think that they do.
SOCRATES: Then the laws will say: ‘Consider, Socrates, if we are
speaking truly that in your present attempt you are going to do us an
injury. For, having brought you into the world, and nurtured and
educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every
good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by the
liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has
become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our
acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him.
None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any one who does
not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to
any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property. But he
who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and
administer the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied
contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is,
as we maintain, thrice wrong: first, because in disobeying us he is
disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his
education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he
will duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us
that our commands are unjust; and we do not rudely impose them, but give
him the alternative of obeying or convincing us;—that is what we offer,
and he does neither.
‘These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you,
Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above
all other Athenians.’ Suppose now I ask, why I rather than anybody else?
they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have
acknowledged the agreement. ‘There is clear proof,’ they will say,
‘Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all
Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which,
as you never leave, you may be supposed to love (compare Phaedr.). For
you never went out of the city either to see the
games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place
unless when you were on military service; nor did you travel as other
men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other states or their laws:
your affections did not go beyond us and our state; we were your
especial favourites, and you acquiesced in our government of you; and
here in this city you begat your children, which is a proof of your
satisfaction.
Moreover, you might in the course of the trial, if you had liked, have
fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let you go
now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred
death to exile (compare Apol.), and that you were not unwilling to die.
And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to
us the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what only a
miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the
compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all
answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be
governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true or
not?’ How shall we answer, Crito? Must we not assent?
CRITO: We cannot help it, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then will they not say: ‘You, Socrates, are breaking the
covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in
any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but after you have had
seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to
leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants
appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone
either to Lacedaemon or Crete, both which states are often praised by
you for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign
state. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of
the state, or, in other words, of us her laws (and who would care about a
state which has no laws?), that you never stirred out of her; the halt,
the blind, the maimed, were not more stationary in her than you were.
And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if
you will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping
out of the city.
‘For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what
good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? That your
friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will
lose their property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly
to one of the neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara,
both of which are well governed, will come to them as an enemy,
Socrates, and their
government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an
evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in
the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you.
For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a
corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. Will you then
flee from well-ordered cities and virtuous men? and is existence worth
having on these terms? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to
them, Socrates? And what will you say to them? What you say here about
virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among
men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. But if you go away from
well-governed states to Crito’s friends in Thessaly, where there is
great disorder and licence, they will be charmed to hear the tale of
your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous particulars of the
manner in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise,
and metamorphosed as the manner is of runaways; but will there be no one
to remind you that in your old age you were not ashamed to violate the
most sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life? Perhaps
not, if you keep them in a good temper; but if they are out of temper
you will hear many degrading things; you will live, but how?—as the
flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men; and doing what?—
eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you
may get a dinner.
And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and virtue? Say
that you wish to live for the sake of your children—you want to bring
them up and educate them—will you take them into Thessaly and deprive
them of Athenian citizenship? Is this the benefit which you will confer
upon them? Or are you under the impression that they will be better
cared for and educated here if you are still alive, although absent from
them; for your friends will take care of them? Do you fancy that if you
are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care of them, and if you
are an inhabitant of the other world that they will not take care of
them? Nay; but if they who call themselves friends are good for
anything, they will—to be sure they will.
‘Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of
life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice
first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below.
For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or
juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now
you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim,
not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for
evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which
you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of
all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and
us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the
laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will
know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and
not to Crito.’
This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my
ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice,
I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other.
And I know that anything more which you may say will be vain. Yet speak,
if you have anything to say.
CRITO: I have nothing to say, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Leave me then, Crito, to fulfil the will of God, and to follow
whither he leads.
Charmides
or
Temperance
by
Plato
INTRODUCTION.
The subject of the Charmides is Temperance or (Greek), a peculiarly
Greek notion, which may also be rendered Moderation (Compare Cic. Tusc.
‘(Greek), quam soleo equidem tum temperantiam, tum moderationem
appellare, nonnunquam etiam modestiam.’), Modesty, Discretion, Wisdom,
without completely exhausting by all these terms the various
associations of the word. It may be described as ‘mens sana in corpore
sano,’ the harmony or due proportion of the higher and lower elements of
human nature which ‘makes a man his own master,’ according to the
definition of the Republic. In the accompanying translation the word has
been rendered in different places either Temperance or Wisdom, as the
connection seemed to require: for in the philosophy of Plato (Greek)
still retains an intellectual element (as Socrates is also said to have
identified (Greek) with (Greek): Xen. Mem.) and is not yet relegated to
the sphere of moral virtue, as in the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle.
The beautiful youth, Charmides, who is also the most temperate of human
beings, is asked by Socrates, ‘What is Temperance?’ He answers
characteristically, (1) ‘Quietness.’
‘But Temperance is a fine and noble thing; and quietness in many or most
cases is not so fine a thing as quickness.’ He tries again and says (2)
that temperance is modesty. But this again is set aside by a
sophistical application of Homer: for temperance is good as well as
noble, and Homer has declared that ‘modesty is not good for a needy
man.’ (3) Once more Charmides makes the attempt. This time he gives a
definition which he has heard, and of which Socrates conjectures that
Critias must be the author: ‘Temperance is doing one’s own business.’
But the artisan who makes another man’s shoes may be temperate, and yet
he is not doing his own business; and temperance defined thus would be
opposed to the division of labour which exists in every temperate or
well-ordered state. How is this riddle to be explained?
Critias, who takes the place of Charmides, distinguishes in his answer
between ‘making’
and ‘doing,’ and with the help of a misapplied quotation from Hesiod
assigns to the words ‘doing’ and ‘work’ an exclusively good sense:
Temperance is doing one’s own business;—(4) is doing good.
Still an element of knowledge is wanting which Critias is readily
induced to admit at the suggestion of Socrates; and, in the spirit of
Socrates and of Greek life generally, proposes as a fifth definition,
(5) Temperance is self-knowledge. But all sciences have a subject:
number is the subject of arithmetic, health of medicine—what is the
subject of temperance or wisdom? The answer is that (6) Temperance is
the knowledge of what a man knows and of what he does not know. But this
is contrary to analogy; there is no vision of vision, but only of
visible things; no love of loves, but only of beautiful things; how then
can there be a knowledge of knowledge? That which is older, heavier,
lighter, is older, heavier, and lighter than something else, not than
itself, and this seems to be true of all relative notions—the object of
relation is outside of them; at any rate they can only have relation to
themselves in the form of that object. Whether there are any such cases
of reflex relation or not, and whether that sort of knowledge which we
term Temperance is of this reflex nature, has yet to be determined by
the great metaphysician. But even if knowledge can know itself, how does
the knowledge of what we know imply the knowledge of what we do not
know? Besides, knowledge is an abstraction only, and will not inform us
of any particular subject, such as medicine, building, and the like. It
may tell us that we or other men know something, but can never tell us
what we know.
Admitting that there is a knowledge of what we know and of what we do
not know, which would supply a rule and measure of all things, still
there would be no good in this; and the knowledge which temperance gives
must be of a kind which will do us good; for temperance is a good. But
this universal knowledge does not tend to our happiness and good: the
only kind of knowledge which brings happiness is the knowledge of good
and evil. To this Critias replies that the science or knowledge of good
and evil, and all the other sciences, are regulated by the higher
science or knowledge of knowledge. Socrates replies by again dividing
the abstract from the concrete, and asks how this knowledge conduces to
happiness in the same definite way in which medicine conduces to health.
And now, after making all these concessions, which are really
inadmissible, we are still as far as ever from ascertaining the nature
of temperance, which Charmides has already discovered, and had therefore
better rest in the knowledge that the more temperate he is the happier
he will be, and not trouble himself with the speculations of Socrates.
In this Dialogue may be noted (1) The Greek ideal of beauty and
goodness, the vision of the fair soul in the fair body, realised in the
beautiful Charmides; (2) The true conception of medicine as a science of
the whole as well as the parts, and of the mind as well as the body,
which is playfully intimated in the story of the Thracian; (3) The
tendency of the age to verbal distinctions, which here, as in the
Protagoras and Cratylus, are ascribed to the ingenuity of Prodicus; and
to interpretations or rather parodies of Homer or Hesiod, which are
eminently characteristic of Plato and his contemporaries; (4) The germ
of an ethical principle contained in the notion that temperance is
‘doing one’s own business,’ which in the Republic (such is the shifting
character of the Platonic philosophy) is given as the definition, not of
temperance, but of justice; (5) The impatience which is exhibited by
Socrates of any definition of temperance in which an element of science
or knowledge is not included; (6) The beginning of metaphysics and logic
implied in the two questions: whether there can be a science of
science, and whether the knowledge of what you know is the same as the
knowledge of what you do not know; and also in the distinction between
‘what you know’ and ‘that you know,’
(Greek;) here too is the first conception of an absolute self-determined
science (the claims of which, however, are disputed by Socrates, who
asks cui bono?) as well as the first suggestion of the difficulty of the
abstract and concrete, and one of the earliest anticipations of the
relation of subject and object, and of the subjective element in
knowledge—a ‘rich banquet’ of metaphysical questions in which we ‘taste
of many things.’ (7) And still the mind of Plato, having snatched for a
moment at these shadows of the future, quickly rejects them: thus early
has he reached the conclusion that there can be no science which is a
‘science of nothing’ (Parmen.). (8) The conception of a science of good
and evil also first occurs here, an anticipation of the Philebus and
Republic as well as of moral philosophy in later ages.
The dramatic interest of the Dialogue chiefly centres in the youth
Charmides, with whom Socrates talks in the kindly spirit of an elder.
His childlike simplicity and ingenuousness are contrasted with the
dialectical and rhetorical arts of Critias, who is the grown-up man of
the world, having a tincture of philosophy. No hint is given, either
here or in the Timaeus, of the infamy which attaches to the name of the
latter in Athenian history. He is simply a cultivated person who, like
his kinsman Plato, is ennobled by the connection of his family with
Solon (Tim.), and had been the follower, if not the disciple, both of
Socrates and of the Sophists. In the argument he is not unfair, if
allowance is made for a slight rhetorical tendency, and for a natural
desire to save his reputation with the company; he is sometimes nearer
the truth than Socrates. Nothing in his language or behaviour is
unbecoming the guardian of the beautiful Charmides.
His love of reputation is characteristically Greek, and contrasts with
the humility of Socrates. Nor in Charmides himself do we find any
resemblance to the Charmides of history, except, perhaps, the modest and
retiring nature which, according to Xenophon, at one time of his life
prevented him from speaking in the Assembly (Mem.); and we are surprised
to hear that, like Critias, he afterwards became one of the thirty
tyrants. In the Dialogue he is a pattern of virtue, and is therefore in
no need of the charm which Socrates is unable to apply. With youthful
naivete, keeping his secret and entering into the spirit of Socrates, he
enjoys the detection of his elder and guardian Critias, who is easily
seen to be the author of the definition which he has so great an
interest in maintaining. The preceding definition, ‘Temperance is doing
one’s own business,’ is assumed to have been borrowed by Charmides from
another; and when the enquiry becomes more abstract he is superseded by
Critias (Theaet.; Euthyd.). Socrates preserves his accustomed irony to
the end; he is in the neighbourhood of several great truths, which he
views in various lights, but always either by bringing them to the test
of common sense, or by demanding too great exactness in the use of
words, turns aside from them and comes at last to no conclusion.
The definitions of temperance proceed in regular order from the popular
to the philosophical. The first two are simple enough and partially
true, like the first thoughts of an intelligent youth; the third, which
is a real contribution to ethical philosophy, is perverted by the
ingenuity of Socrates, and hardly rescued by an equal perversion on the
part of Critias. The remaining definitions have a higher aim, which is
to introduce the element of knowledge, and at last to unite good and
truth in a single science. But the time has not yet arrived for the
realization of this vision of metaphysical philosophy; and such a
science when brought nearer to us in the Philebus and the Republic will
not be called by the name of (Greek). Hence we see with surprise that
Plato, who in his other writings identifies good and knowledge, here
opposes them, and asks, almost in the spirit of Aristotle, how can there
be a knowledge of knowledge, and even if attainable, how can such a
knowledge be of any use?
The difficulty of the Charmides arises chiefly from the two senses of
the word (Greek), or temperance. From the ethical notion of temperance,
which is variously defined to be quietness, modesty, doing our own
business, the doing of good actions, the dialogue passes onto the
intellectual conception of (Greek), which is declared also to be the
science of self-knowledge, or of the knowledge of what we know and do
not know, or of the knowledge of good and evil. The dialogue represents a
stage in the history of philosophy in which knowledge and action were
not yet distinguished. Hence the confusion between them, and the easy
transition from one to the other. The definitions which are offered are
all rejected, but it is to be observed that they all tend to throw a
light on the nature of temperance, and that, unlike the distinction of
Critias between (Greek), none of them are merely verbal quibbles, it is
implied that this question, although it has not yet received a solution
in theory, has been already answered by Charmides himself, who has
learned to practise the virtue of self-knowledge which philosophers are
vainly trying to define in words. In a similar spirit we might say to a
young man who is disturbed by theological difficulties, ‘Do not trouble
yourself about such matters, but only lead a good life;’ and yet in
either case it is not to be denied that right ideas of truth may
contribute greatly to the improvement of character.
The reasons why the Charmides, Lysis, Laches have been placed together
and first in the series of Platonic dialogues, are: (i) Their shortness
and simplicity. The Charmides and the Lysis, if not the Laches, are of
the same ‘quality’ as the Phaedrus and Symposium: and it is probable,
though far from certain, that the slighter effort preceded the greater
one. (ii) Their eristic, or rather Socratic character; they belong to
the class called dialogues of search (Greek), which have no conclusion.
(iii) The absence in them of certain favourite notions of Plato, such as
the doctrine of recollection and of the Platonic ideas; the questions,
whether virtue can be taught; whether the virtues are one or many.
(iv) They have a want of depth, when compared with the dialogues of the
middle and later period; and a youthful beauty and grace which is
wanting in the later ones. (v) Their resemblance to one another; in all
the three boyhood has a great part. These reasons have various degrees
of weight in determining their place in the catalogue of the Platonic
writings, though they are not conclusive. No arrangement of the Platonic
dialogues can be strictly chronological. The order which has been
adopted is intended mainly for the convenience of the reader; at the
same time, indications of the date supplied either by Plato himself or
allusions found in the dialogues have not been lost
sight of. Much may be said about this subject, but the results can only
be probable; there are no materials which would enable us to attain to
anything like certainty.
The relations of knowledge and virtue are again brought forward in the
companion dialogues of the Lysis and Laches; and also in the Protagoras
and Euthydemus. The opposition of abstract and particular knowledge in
this dialogue may be compared with a similar opposition of ideas and
phenomena which occurs in the Prologues to the Parmenides, but seems
rather to belong to a later stage of the philosophy of Plato.
CHARMIDES, OR TEMPERANCE
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, who is the narrator, Charmides,
Chaerephon, Critias.
SCENE: The Palaestra of Taureas, which is near the Porch of the King
Archon.
Yesterday evening I returned from the army at Potidaea, and having been a
good while away, I thought that I should like to go and look at my old
haunts. So I went into the palaestra of Taureas, which is over against
the temple adjoining the porch of the King Archon, and there I found a
number of persons, most of whom I knew, but not all. My visit was
unexpected, and no sooner did they see me entering than they saluted me
from afar on all sides; and Chaerephon, who is a kind of madman, started
up and ran to me, seizing my hand, and saying, How did you escape,
Socrates?—(I should explain that an engagement had taken place at
Potidaea not long before we came away, of which the news had only just
reached Athens.)
You see, I replied, that here I am.
There was a report, he said, that the engagement was very severe, and
that many of our acquaintance had fallen.
That, I replied, was not far from the truth.
I suppose, he said, that you were present.
I was.
Then sit down, and tell us the whole story, which as yet we have only
heard imperfectly.
I took the place which he assigned to me, by the side of Critias the son
of Callaeschrus, and when I had saluted him and the rest of the
company, I told them the news from the army, and answered their several
enquiries.
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.
Who is he, I said; and who is his father?
Charmides, he replied, is his name; he is my cousin, and the son of my
uncle Glaucon: I rather think that you know him too, although he was not
grown up at the time of your departure.
Certainly, I know him, I said, for he was remarkable even then when he
was still a child, and I should imagine that by this time he must be
almost a young man.
You will see, he said, in a moment what progress he has made and what he
is like. He had scarcely said the word, when Charmides entered.
Now you know, my friend, that I cannot measure anything, and of the
beautiful, I am simply such a measure as a white line is of chalk; for
almost all young persons appear to be beautiful in my eyes. But at that
moment, when I saw him coming in, I confess that I was quite astonished
at his beauty and stature; all the world seemed to be enamoured of him;
amazement and confusion reigned when he entered; and a troop of lovers
followed him. That grown-up men like ourselves should have been affected
in this way was not surprising, but I observed that there was the same
feeling among the boys; all of them, down to the very least child,
turned and looked at him, as if he had been a statue.
Chaerephon called me and said: What do you think of him, Socrates? Has
he not a beautiful face?
Most beautiful, I said.
But you would think nothing of his face, he replied, if you could see
his naked form: he is absolutely perfect.
And to this they all agreed.
By Heracles, I said, there never was such a paragon, if he has only one
other slight addition.
What is that? said Critias.
If he has a noble soul; and being of your house, Critias, he may be
expected to have this.
He is as fair and good within, as he is without, replied Critias.
Then, before we see his body, should we not ask him to show us his soul,
naked and undisguised? he is just of an age at which he will like to
talk.
That he will, said Critias, and I can tell you that he is a philosopher
already, and also a considerable poet, not in his own opinion only, but
in that of others.
That, my dear Critias, I replied, is a distinction which has long been
in your family, and is inherited by you from Solon. But why do you not
call him, and show him to us? for even if he were younger than he is,
there could be no impropriety in his talking to us in the presence of
you, who are his guardian and cousin.
Very well, he said; then I will call him; and turning to the attendant,
he said, Call Charmides, and tell him that I want him to come and see a
physician about the illness of which he spoke to me the day before
yesterday. Then again addressing me, he added: He has been complaining
lately of having a headache when he rises in the morning: now why should
you not make him believe that you know a cure for the headache?
Why not, I said; but will he come?
He will be sure to come, he replied.
He came as he was bidden, and sat down between Critias and me. Great
amusement was occasioned by every one pushing with might and main at his
neighbour in order to make
a place for him next to themselves, until at the two ends of the row one
had to get up and the other was rolled over sideways. Now I, my friend,
was beginning to feel awkward; my former bold belief in my powers of
conversing with him had vanished. And when Critias told him that I was
the person who had the cure, he looked at me in such an indescribable
manner, and was just going to ask a question. And at that moment all the
people in the palaestra crowded about us, and, O rare! I caught a sight
of the inwards of his garment, and took the flame. Then I could no
longer contain myself. I thought how well Cydias understood the nature
of love, when, in speaking of a fair youth, he warns some one ‘not to
bring the fawn in the sight of the lion to be devoured by him,’ for I
felt that I had been overcome by a sort of wild-beast appetite. But I
controlled myself, and when he asked me if I knew the cure of the
headache, I answered, but with an effort, that I did know.
And what is it? he said.
I replied that it was a kind of leaf, which required to be accompanied
by a charm, and if a person would repeat the charm at the same time that
he used the cure, he would be made whole; but that without the charm
the leaf would be of no avail.
Then I will write out the charm from your dictation, he said.
With my consent? I said, or without my consent?
With your consent, Socrates, he said, laughing.
Very good, I said; and are you quite sure that you know my name?
I ought to know you, he replied, for there is a great deal said about
you among my companions; and I remember when I was a child seeing you in
company with my cousin Critias.
I am glad to find that you remember me, I said; for I shall now be more
at home with you and shall be better able to explain the nature of the
charm, about which I felt a difficulty before. For the charm will do
more, Charmides, than only cure the headache. I dare say that you have
heard eminent physicians say to a patient who comes to them with bad
eyes, that they cannot cure his eyes by themselves, but that if his eyes
are to be
cured, his head must be treated; and then again they say that to think
of curing the head alone, and not the rest of the body also, is the
height of folly. And arguing in this way they apply their methods to the
whole body, and try to treat and heal the whole and the part together.
Did you ever observe that this is what they say?
Yes, he said.
And they are right, and you would agree with them?
Yes, he said, certainly I should.
His approving answers reassured me, and I began by degrees to regain
confidence, and the vital heat returned. Such, Charmides, I said, is the
nature of the charm, which I learned when serving with the army from
one of the physicians of the Thracian king Zamolxis, who are said to be
so skilful that they can even give immortality. This Thracian told me
that in these notions of theirs, which I was just now mentioning, the
Greek physicians are quite right as far as they go; but Zamolxis, he
added, our king, who is also a god, says further, ‘that as you ought not
to attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the
body, so neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul;
and this,’ he said, ‘is the reason why the cure of many diseases is
unknown to the physicians of Hellas, because they are ignorant of the
whole, which ought to be studied also; for the part can never be well
unless the whole is well.’ For all good and evil, whether in the body or
in human nature, originates, as he declared, in the soul, and overflows
from thence, as if from the head into the eyes. And therefore if the
head and body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul; that is
the first thing.
And the cure, my dear youth, has to be effected by the use of certain
charms, and these charms are fair words; and by them temperance is
implanted in the soul, and where temperance is, there health is speedily
imparted, not only to the head, but to the whole body. And he who
taught me the cure and the charm at the same time added a special
direction: ‘Let no one,’ he said, ‘persuade you to cure the head, until
he has first given you his soul to be cured by the charm. For this,’ he
said, ‘is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body,
that physicians separate the soul from the body.’ And he added with
emphasis, at the same time making me swear to his words, ‘Let no one,
however rich, or noble, or fair, persuade you to give him the cure,
without the charm.’
Now I have sworn, and I must keep my oath, and therefore if you will
allow me to apply
the Thracian charm first to your soul, as the stranger directed, I will
afterwards proceed to apply the cure to your head. But if not, I do not
know what I am to do with you, my dear Charmides.
Critias, when he heard this, said: The headache will be an unexpected
gain to my young relation, if the pain in his head compels him to
improve his mind: and I can tell you, Socrates, that Charmides is not
only pre-eminent in beauty among his equals, but also in that quality
which is given by the charm; and this, as you say, is temperance?
Yes, I said.
Then let me tell you that he is the most temperate of human beings, and
for his age inferior to none in any quality.
Yes, I said, Charmides; and indeed I think that you ought to excel
others in all good qualities; for if I am not mistaken there is no one
present who could easily point out two Athenian houses, whose union
would be likely to produce a better or nobler scion than the two from
which you are sprung. There is your father’s house, which is descended
from Critias the son of Dropidas, whose family has been commemorated in
the panegyrical verses of Anacreon, Solon, and many other poets, as
famous for beauty and virtue and all other high fortune: and your
mother’s house is equally distinguished; for your maternal uncle,
Pyrilampes, is reputed never to have found his equal, in Persia at the
court of the great king, or on the continent of Asia, in all the places
to which he went as ambassador, for stature and beauty; that whole
family is not a whit inferior to the other. Having such ancestors you
ought to be first in all things, and, sweet son of Glaucon, your outward
form is no dishonour to any of them. If to beauty you add temperance,
and if in other respects you are what Critias declares you to be, then,
dear Charmides, blessed art thou, in being the son of thy mother. And
here lies the point; for if, as he declares, you have this gift of
temperance already, and are temperate enough, in that case you have no
need of any charms, whether of Zamolxis or of Abaris the Hyperborean,
and I may as well let you have the cure of the head at once; but if you
have not yet acquired this quality, I must use the charm before I give
you the medicine.
Please, therefore, to inform me whether you admit the truth of what
Critias has been saying;—have you or have you not this quality of
temperance?
Charmides blushed, and the blush heightened his beauty, for modesty is
becoming in youth; he then said very ingenuously, that he really could
not at once answer, either yes, or no, to the question which I had
asked: For, said he, if I affirm that I am not temperate, that would be a
strange thing for me to say of myself, and also I should give the lie
to Critias, and many others who think as he tells you, that I am
temperate: but, on the other hand, if I say that I am, I shall have to
praise myself, which would be ill manners; and therefore I do not know
how to answer you.
I said to him: That is a natural reply, Charmides, and I think that you
and I ought together to enquire whether you have this quality about
which I am asking or not; and then you will not be compelled to say what
you do not like; neither shall I be a rash practitioner of medicine:
therefore, if you please, I will share the enquiry with you, but I will
not press you if you would rather not.
There is nothing which I should like better, he said; and as far as I am
concerned you may proceed in the way which you think best.
I think, I said, that I had better begin by asking you a question; for
if temperance abides in you, you must have an opinion about her; she
must give some intimation of her nature and qualities, which may enable
you to form a notion of her. Is not that true?
Yes, he said, that I think is true.
You know your native language, I said, and therefore you must be able to
tell what you feel about this.
Certainly, he said.
In order, then, that I may form a conjecture whether you have temperance
abiding in you or not, tell me, I said, what, in your opinion, is
Temperance?
At first he hesitated, and was very unwilling to answer: then he said
that he thought temperance was doing things orderly and quietly, such
things for example as walking in the streets, and talking, or anything
else of that nature. In a word, he said, I should answer that, in my
opinion, temperance is quietness.
Are you right, Charmides? I said. No doubt some would affirm that the
quiet are the temperate; but let us see whether these words have any
meaning; and first tell me whether you would not acknowledge temperance
to be of the class of the noble and good?
Yes.
But which is best when you are at the writing-master’s, to write the
same letters quickly or quietly?
Quickly.
And to read quickly or slowly?
Quickly again.
And in playing the lyre, or wrestling, quickness or sharpness are far
better than quietness and slowness?
Yes.
And the same holds in boxing and in the pancratium?
Certainly.
And in leaping and running and in bodily exercises generally, quickness
and agility are good; slowness, and inactivity, and quietness, are bad?
That is evident.
Then, I said, in all bodily actions, not quietness, but the greatest
agility and quickness, is noblest and best?
Yes, certainly.
And is temperance a good?
Yes.
Then, in reference to the body, not quietness, but quickness will be the
higher degree of temperance, if temperance is a good?
True, he said.
And which, I said, is better—facility in learning, or difficulty in
learning?
Facility.
Yes, I said; and facility in learning is learning quickly, and
difficulty in learning is learning quietly and slowly?
True.
And is it not better to teach another quickly and energetically, rather
than quietly and slowly?
Yes.
And which is better, to call to mind, and to remember, quickly and
readily, or quietly and slowly?
The former.
And is not shrewdness a quickness or cleverness of the soul, and not a
quietness?
True.
And is it not best to understand what is said, whether at the
writing-master’s or the music-master’s, or anywhere else, not as quietly
as possible, but as quickly as possible?
Yes.
And in the searchings or deliberations of the soul, not the quietest, as
I imagine, and he who with difficulty deliberates and discovers, is
thought worthy of praise, but he who does so most easily and quickly?
Quite true, he said.
And in all that concerns either body or soul, swiftness and activity are
clearly better than slowness and quietness?
Clearly they are.
Then temperance is not quietness, nor is the temperate life quiet,—
certainly not upon this view; for the life which is temperate is
supposed to be the good. And of two things, one is true,—either never,
or very seldom, do the quiet actions in life appear to be better than
the quick and energetic ones; or supposing that of the nobler actions,
there are as many quiet, as quick and vehement: still, even if we grant
this, temperance will not be acting quietly any more than acting quickly
and energetically, either in walking or talking or in anything else;
nor will the quiet life be more temperate than the unquiet, seeing that
temperance is admitted by us to be a good and noble thing, and the quick
have been shown to be as good as the quiet.
I think, he said, Socrates, that you are right.
Then once more, Charmides, I said, fix your attention, and look within;
consider the effect which temperance has upon yourself, and the nature
of that which has the effect.
Think over all this, and, like a brave youth, tell me—What is
temperance?
After a moment’s pause, in which he made a real manly effort to think,
he said: My opinion is, Socrates, that temperance makes a man ashamed or
modest, and that temperance is the same as modesty.
Very good, I said; and did you not admit, just now, that temperance is
noble?
Yes, certainly, he said.
And the temperate are also good?
Yes.
And can that be good which does not make men good?
Certainly not.
And you would infer that temperance is not only noble, but also good?
That is my opinion.
Well, I said; but surely you would agree with Homer when he says,
‘Modesty is not good for a needy man’?
Yes, he said; I agree.
Then I suppose that modesty is and is not good?
Clearly.
But temperance, whose presence makes men only good, and not bad, is
always good?
That appears to me to be as you say.
And the inference is that temperance cannot be modesty—if temperance is a
good, and if modesty is as much an evil as a good?
All that, Socrates, appears to me to be true; but I should like to know
what you think about another definition of temperance, which I just now
remember to have heard from some one, who said, ‘That temperance is
doing our own business.’ Was he right who affirmed that?
You monster! I said; this is what Critias, or some philosopher has told
you.
Some one else, then, said Critias; for certainly I have not.
But what matter, said Charmides, from whom I heard this?
No matter at all, I replied; for the point is not who said the words,
but whether they are true or not.
There you are in the right, Socrates, he replied.
To be sure, I said; yet I doubt whether we shall ever be able to
discover their truth or falsehood; for they are a kind of riddle.
What makes you think so? he said.
Because, I said, he who uttered them seems to me to have meant one
thing, and said another. Is the scribe, for example, to be regarded as
doing nothing when he reads or writes?
I should rather think that he was doing something.
And does the scribe write or read, or teach you boys to write or read,
your own names only, or did you write your enemies’ names as well as
your own and your friends’?
As much one as the other.
And was there anything meddling or intemperate in this?
Certainly not.
And yet if reading and writing are the same as doing, you were doing
what was not your own business?
But they are the same as doing.
And the healing art, my friend, and building, and weaving, and doing
anything whatever which is done by art,—these all clearly come under the
head of doing?
Certainly.
And do you think that a state would be well ordered by a law which
compelled every man to weave and wash his own coat, and make his own
shoes, and his own flask and strigil, and other implements, on this
principle of every one doing and performing his own, and abstaining from
what is not his own?
I think not, he said.
But, I said, a temperate state will be a well-ordered state.
Of course, he replied.
Then temperance, I said, will not be doing one’s own business; not at
least in this way, or doing things of this sort?
Clearly not.
Then, as I was just now saying, he who declared that temperance is a man
doing his own business had another and a hidden meaning; for I do not
think that he could have been such a fool as to mean this. Was he a fool
who told you, Charmides?
Nay, he replied, I certainly thought him a very wise man.
Then I am quite certain that he put forth his definition as a riddle,
thinking that no one would know the meaning of the words ‘doing his own
business.’
I dare say, he replied.
And what is the meaning of a man doing his own business? Can you tell
me?
Indeed, I cannot; and I should not wonder if the man himself who used
this phrase did not understand what he was saying. Whereupon he laughed
slyly, and looked at Critias.
Critias had long been showing uneasiness, for he felt that he had a
reputation to maintain with Charmides and the rest of the company. He
had, however, hitherto managed to restrain himself; but now he could no
longer forbear, and I am convinced of the truth of the suspicion which I
entertained at the time, that Charmides had heard this answer about
temperance from Critias. And Charmides, who did not want to answer
himself, but to make Critias answer, tried to stir him up. He went on
pointing out that he had been refuted, at which Critias grew angry, and
appeared, as I thought, inclined to quarrel with him; just as a poet
might quarrel with an actor who spoiled his poems in repeating them; so
he looked hard at him and said—
Do you imagine, Charmides, that the author of this definition of
temperance did not understand the meaning of his own words, because you
do not understand them?
Why, at his age, I said, most excellent Critias, he can hardly be
expected to understand; but you, who are older, and have studied, may
well be assumed to know the meaning of them; and therefore, if you agree
with him, and accept his definition of temperance, I would much rather
argue with you than with him about the truth or falsehood of the
definition.
I entirely agree, said Critias, and accept the definition.
Very good, I said; and now let me repeat my question—Do you admit, as I
was just now saying, that all craftsmen make or do something?
I do.
And do they make or do their own business only, or that of others also?
They make or do that of others also.
And are they temperate, seeing that they make not for themselves or
their own business only?
Why not? he said.
No objection on my part, I said, but there may be a difficulty on his
who proposes as a definition of temperance, ‘doing one’s own business,’
and then says that there is no reason why those who do the business of
others should not be temperate.
Nay (The English reader has to observe that the word ‘make’ (Greek), in
Greek, has also the sense of ‘do’ (Greek).), said he; did I ever
acknowledge that those who do the business of others are temperate? I
said, those who make, not those who do.
What! I asked; do you mean to say that doing and making are not the
same?
No more, he replied, than making or working are the same; thus much I
have learned from Hesiod, who says that ‘work is no disgrace.’ Now do
you imagine that if he had meant by working and doing such things as you
were describing, he would have said that there was no disgrace in
them—for example, in the manufacture of shoes, or in selling pickles, or
sitting for hire in a house of ill-fame? That, Socrates, is not to be
supposed: but I conceive him to have distinguished making from doing and
work; and, while admitting that the making anything might sometimes
become a disgrace, when the employment was not honourable, to have
thought that work was never any disgrace at all. For things nobly and
usefully made he called works; and such makings he called workings, and
doings; and he must be supposed to have called such things only man’s
proper business, and what is hurtful, not his business: and in that
sense Hesiod, and any other wise man, may be reasonably supposed to call
him wise who does his own work.
O Critias, I said, no sooner had you opened your mouth, than I pretty
well knew that you would call that which is proper to a man, and that
which is his own, good; and that the makings (Greek) of the good you
would call doings (Greek), for I am no stranger to the endless
distinctions which Prodicus draws about names. Now I have no objection
to your giving names any signification which you please, if you will
only tell me what you mean by them. Please then to begin again, and be a
little plainer. Do you mean that this doing or making, or whatever is
the word which you would use, of good actions, is temperance?
I do, he said.
Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate?
Yes, he said; and you, friend, would agree.
No matter whether I should or not; just now, not what I think, but what
you are saying, is the point at issue.
Well, he answered; I mean to say, that he who does evil, and not good,
is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and not evil:
for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing of good actions.
And you may be very likely right in what you are saying; but I am
curious to know whether you imagine that temperate men are ignorant of
their own temperance?
I do not think so, he said.
And yet were you not saying, just now, that craftsmen might be temperate
in doing another’s work, as well as in doing their own?
I was, he replied; but what is your drift?
I have no particular drift, but I wish that you would tell me whether a
physician who cures a patient may do good to himself and good to another
also?
I think that he may.
And he who does so does his duty?
Yes.
And does not he who does his duty act temperately or wisely?
Yes, he acts wisely.
But must the physician necessarily know when his treatment is likely to
prove beneficial, and when not? or must the craftsman necessarily know
when he is likely to be benefited, and when not to be benefited, by the
work which he is doing?
I suppose not.
Then, I said, he may sometimes do good or harm, and not know what he is
himself doing, and yet, in doing good, as you say, he has done
temperately or wisely. Was not that your statement?
Yes.
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?
But that, Socrates, he said, is impossible; and therefore if this is, as
you imply, the necessary consequence of any of my previous admissions, I
will withdraw them, rather than admit that a man can be temperate or
wise who does not know himself; and I am not ashamed to confess that I
was in error. For self-knowledge would certainly be
maintained by me to be the very essence of knowledge, and in this I
agree with him who dedicated the inscription, ‘Know thyself!’ at Delphi.
That word, if I am not mistaken, is put there as a sort of salutation
which the god addresses to those who enter the temple; as much as to say
that the ordinary salutation of ‘Hail!’ is not right, and that the
exhortation ‘Be temperate!’ would be a far better way of saluting one
another. The notion of him who dedicated the inscription was, as I
believe, that the god speaks to those who enter his temple, not as men
speak; but, when a worshipper enters, the first word which he hears is
‘Be temperate!’ This, however, like a prophet he expresses in a sort of
riddle, for ‘Know thyself!’ and ‘Be temperate!’ are the same, as I
maintain, and as the letters imply (Greek), and yet they may be easily
misunderstood; and succeeding sages who added ‘Never too much,’ or,
‘Give a pledge, and evil is nigh at hand,’ would appear to have so
misunderstood them; for they imagined that ‘Know thyself!’ was a piece
of advice which the god gave, and not his salutation of the worshippers
at their first coming in; and they dedicated their own inscription under
the idea that they too would give equally useful pieces of advice.
Shall I tell you, Socrates, why I say all this?
My object is to leave the previous discussion (in which I know not
whether you or I are more right, but, at any rate, no clear result was
attained), and to raise a new one in which I will attempt to prove, if
you deny, that temperance is self-knowledge.
Yes, I said, Critias; but you come to me as though I professed to know
about the questions which I ask, and as though I could, if I only would,
agree with you. Whereas the fact is that I enquire with you into the
truth of that which is advanced from time to time, just because I do not
know; and when I have enquired, I will say whether I agree with you or
not. Please then to allow me time to reflect.
Reflect, he said.
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.
Yes, he said; the science of itself.
Is not medicine, I said, the science of health?
True.
And suppose, I said, that I were asked by you what is the use or effect
of medicine, which is this science of health, I should answer that
medicine is of very great use in producing health, which, as you will
admit, is an excellent effect.
Granted.
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.
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.
That is true, I said; but still each of these sciences has a subject
which is different from the science. I can show you that the art of
computation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical
relations to themselves and to each other. Is not that true?
Yes, he said.
And the odd and even numbers are not the same with the art of
computation?
They are not.
The art of weighing, again, has to do with lighter and heavier; but the
art of weighing is one thing, and the heavy and the light another. Do
you admit that?
Yes.
Now, I want to know, what is that which is not wisdom, and of which
wisdom is the science?
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.
And what if I am? How can you think that I have any other motive in
refuting you but what I should have in examining into myself? which
motive would be just a fear of my unconsciously fancying that I knew
something of which I was ignorant. And at this moment I pursue the
argument chiefly for my own sake, and perhaps in some degree also for
the sake of my other friends. For is not the discovery of things as they
truly are, a good common to all mankind?
Yes, certainly, Socrates, he said.
Then, I said, be cheerful, sweet sir, and give your opinion in answer to
the question which I asked, never minding whether Critias or Socrates
is the person refuted; attend only to the argument, and see what will
come of the refutation.
I think that you are right, he replied; and I will do as you say.
Tell me, then, I said, what you mean to affirm about wisdom.
I mean to say that wisdom is the only science which is the science of
itself as well as of the other sciences.
But the science of science, I said, will also be the science of the
absence of science.
Very true, he said.
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?
Yes, he said.
Now then, I said, making an offering of the third or last argument to
Zeus the Saviour, let us begin again, and ask, in the first place,
whether it is or is not possible for a person to know that he knows and
does not know what he knows and does not know; and in the second place,
whether, if perfectly possible, such knowledge is of any use.
That is what we have to consider, he said.
And here, Critias, I said, I hope that you will find a way out of a
difficulty into which I have got myself. Shall I tell you the nature of
the difficulty?
By all means, he replied.
Does not what you have been saying, if true, amount to this: that there
must be a single science which is wholly a science of itself and of
other sciences, and that the same is also the science of the absence of
science?
Yes.
But consider how monstrous this proposition is, my friend: in any
parallel case, the impossibility will be transparent to you.
How is that? and in what cases do you mean?
In such cases as this: Suppose that there is a kind of vision which is
not like ordinary vision, but a vision of itself and of other sorts of
vision, and of the defect of them, which in seeing sees no colour, but
only itself and other sorts of vision: Do you think that there is such a
kind of vision?
Certainly not.
Or is there a kind of hearing which hears no sound at all, but only
itself and other sorts of hearing, or the defects of them?
There is not.
Or take all the senses: can you imagine that there is any sense of
itself and of other senses, but which is incapable of perceiving the
objects of the senses?
I think not.
Could there be any desire which is not the desire of any pleasure, but
of itself, and of all other desires?
Certainly not.
Or can you imagine a wish which wishes for no good, but only for itself
and all other wishes?
I should answer, No.
Or would you say that there is a love which is not the love of beauty,
but of itself and of other loves?
I should not.
Or did you ever know of a fear which fears itself or other fears, but
has no object of fear?
I never did, he said.
Or of an opinion which is an opinion of itself and of other opinions,
and which has no opinion on the subjects of opinion in general?
Certainly not.
But surely we are assuming a science of this kind, which, having no
subject-matter, is a science of itself and of the other sciences?
Yes, that is what is affirmed.
But how strange is this, if it be indeed true: we must not however as
yet absolutely deny the possibility of such a science; let us rather
consider the matter.
You are quite right.
Well then, this science of which we are speaking is a science of
something, and is of a nature to be a science of something?
Yes.
Just as that which is greater is of a nature to be greater than
something else? (Socrates is intending to show that science differs from
the object of science, as any other relative differs from the object of
relation. But where there is comparison—greater, less, heavier,
lighter, and the like—a relation to self as well as to other things
involves an absolute contradiction; and in other cases, as in the case
of the senses, is hardly conceivable. The use of the genitive after the
comparative in Greek, (Greek), creates an unavoidable obscurity in the
translation.)
Yes.
Which is less, if the other is conceived to be greater?
To be sure.
And if we could find something which is at once greater than itself, and
greater than other great things, but not greater than those things in
comparison of which the others are greater, then that thing would have
the property of being greater and also less than itself?
That, Socrates, he said, is the inevitable inference.
Or if there be a double which is double of itself and of other doubles,
these will be halves; for the double is relative to the half?
That is true.
And that which is greater than itself will also be less, and that which
is heavier will also be lighter, and that which is older will also be
younger: and the same of other things; that which has a nature relative
to self will retain also the nature of its object: I mean to say, for
example, that hearing is, as we say, of sound or voice. Is that true?
Yes.
Then if hearing hears itself, it must hear a voice; for there is no
other way of hearing.
Certainly.
And sight also, my excellent friend, if it sees itself must see a
colour, for sight cannot see that which has no colour.
No.
Do you remark, Critias, that in several of the examples which have been
recited the notion of a relation to self is altogether inadmissible, and
in other cases hardly credible—inadmissible, for example, in the case
of magnitudes, numbers, and the like?
Very true.
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.
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?
Yes, Socrates, he said; and that I think is certainly true: for he who
has this science or knowledge which knows itself will become like the
knowledge which he has, in the same way that he who has swiftness will
be swift, and he who has beauty will be beautiful, and he who has
knowledge will know. In the same way he who has that knowledge which is
self-knowing, will know himself.
I do not doubt, I said, that a man will know himself, when he possesses
that which has self-knowledge: but what necessity is there that, having
this, he should know what he knows and what he does not know?
Because, Socrates, they are the same.
Very likely, I said; but I remain as stupid as ever; for still I fail to
comprehend how this knowing what you know and do not know is the same
as the knowledge of self.
What do you mean? he said.
This is what I mean, I replied: I will admit that there is a science of
science;—can this do more than determine that of two things one is and
the other is not science or knowledge?
No, just that.
But is knowledge or want of knowledge of health the same as knowledge or
want of knowledge of justice?
Certainly not.
The one is medicine, and the other is politics; whereas that of which we
are speaking is knowledge pure and simple.
Very true.
And if a man knows only, and has only knowledge of knowledge, and has no
further knowledge of health and justice, the probability is that he
will only know that he knows something, and has a certain knowledge,
whether concerning himself or other men.
True.
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.
That is evident.
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?
It is impossible.
Then he who is ignorant of these things will only know that he knows,
but not what he knows?
True.
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?
That is the inference.
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?
Plainly not.
Neither will he be able to distinguish the pretender in medicine from
the true physician, nor between any other true and false professor of
knowledge. Let us consider the matter in this way: If the wise man or
any other man wants to distinguish the true physician from the false,
how will he proceed? He will not talk to him about medicine; and that,
as we were saying, is the only thing which the physician understands.
True.
And, on the other hand, the physician knows nothing of science, for this
has been assumed to be the province of wisdom.
True.
And further, since medicine is science, we must infer that he does not
know anything of medicine.
Exactly.
Then the wise man may indeed know that the physician has some kind of
science or knowledge; but when he wants to discover the nature of this
he will ask, What is the subject-matter? For the several sciences are
distinguished not by the mere fact that they are sciences, but by the
nature of their subjects. Is not that true?
Quite true.
And medicine is distinguished from other sciences as having the
subject-matter of health and disease?
Yes.
And he who would enquire into the nature of medicine must pursue the
enquiry into health and disease, and not into what is extraneous?
True.
And he who judges rightly will judge of the physician as a physician in
what relates to these?
He will.
He will consider whether what he says is true, and whether what he does
is right, in relation to health and disease?
He will.
But can any one attain the knowledge of either unless he have a
knowledge of medicine?
He cannot.
No one at all, it would seem, except the physician can have this
knowledge; and therefore not the wise man; he would have to be a
physician as well as a wise man.
Very true.
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.
That is evident, he said.
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?
Very true, he said.
And now you perceive, I said, that no such science is to be found
anywhere.
I perceive, he said.
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?
That is very likely, he said.
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.
How so? he said.
Why, I said, we were far too ready to admit the great benefits which
mankind would obtain from their severally doing the things which they
knew, and committing the things of which they are ignorant to those who
were better acquainted with them.
Were we not right in making that admission?
I think not.
How very strange, Socrates!
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.
What do you mean? he said; I wish that you could make me understand what
you mean.
I dare say that what I am saying is nonsense, I replied; and yet if a
man has any feeling of what is due to himself, he cannot let the thought
which comes into his mind pass away unheeded and unexamined.
I like that, he said.
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.
Yet I think, he replied, that if you discard knowledge, you will hardly
find the crown of happiness in anything else.
But of what is this knowledge? I said. Just answer me that small
question. Do you mean a knowledge of shoemaking?
God forbid.
Or of working in brass?
Certainly not.
Or in wool, or wood, or anything of that sort?
No, I do not.
Then, I said, we are giving up the doctrine that he who lives according
to knowledge is happy, for these live according to knowledge, and yet
they are not allowed by you to be happy; but I think that you mean to
confine happiness to particular individuals who live according to
knowledge, such for example as the prophet, who, as I was saying, knows
the future. Is it of him you are speaking or of some one else?
Yes, I mean him, but there are others as well.
Yes, I said, some one who knows the past and present as well as the
future, and is ignorant of nothing. Let us suppose that there is such a
person, and if there is, you will allow that he is the most knowing of
all living men.
Certainly he is.
Yet I should like to know one thing more: which of the different kinds
of knowledge makes him happy? or do all equally make him happy?
Not all equally, he replied.
But which most tends to make him happy? the knowledge of what past,
present, or future thing? May I infer this to be the knowledge of the
game of draughts?
Nonsense about the game of draughts.
Or of computation?
No.
Or of health?
That is nearer the truth, he said.
And that knowledge which is nearest of all, I said, is the knowledge of
what?
The knowledge with which he discerns good and evil.
Monster! I said; you have been carrying me round in a circle, and all
this time hiding from me the fact that the life according to knowledge
is not that which makes men act rightly and be happy, not even if
knowledge include all the sciences, but one science only, that of good
and evil. For, let me ask you, Critias, whether, if you take away this,
medicine will not equally give health, and shoemaking equally produce
shoes, and the art of the weaver clothes?—whether the art of the pilot
will not equally save our lives at sea, and the art of the general in
war?
Quite so.
And yet, my dear Critias, none of these things will be well or
beneficially done, if the science of the good be wanting.
True.
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.
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.
And will wisdom give health? I said; is not this rather the effect of
medicine? Or does wisdom do the work of 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?
That is obvious.
Then wisdom will not be the producer of health.
Certainly not.
The art of health is different.
Yes, different.
Nor does wisdom give advantage, my good friend; for that again we have
just now been attributing to another art.
Very true.
How then can wisdom be advantageous, when giving no advantage?
That, Socrates, is certainly inconceivable.
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 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.
Very good, Charmides, said Critias; if you do this I shall have a proof
of your temperance, that is, if you allow yourself to be charmed by
Socrates, and never desert him at all.
You may depend on my following and not deserting him, said Charmides: if
you who are my guardian command me, I should be very wrong not to obey
you.
And I do command you, he said.
Then I will do as you say, and begin this very day.
You sirs, I said, what are you conspiring about?
We are not conspiring, said Charmides, we have conspired already.
And are you about to use violence, without even going through the forms
of justice?
Yes, I shall use violence, he replied, since he orders me; and therefore
you had better consider well.
But the time for consideration has passed, I said, when violence is
employed; and you, when you are determined on anything, and in the mood
of violence, are irresistible.
Do not you resist me then, he said.
I will not resist you, I replied.
Laches, or Courage
by
Plato
Introduction
Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, the son of the
elder Thucydides, two aged men who live together, are desirous of
educating their sons in the best manner.
Their own education, as often happens with the sons of great men, has
been neglected; and they are resolved that their children shall have
more care taken of them, than they received themselves at the hands of
their fathers.
At their request, Nicias and Laches have accompanied them to see a man
named Stesilaus fighting in heavy armour. The two fathers ask the two
generals what they think of this exhibition, and whether they would
advise that their sons should acquire the accomplishment. Nicias and
Laches are quite willing to give their opinion; but they suggest that
Socrates should be invited to take part in the consultation. He is a
stranger to Lysimachus, but is afterwards recognised as the son of his
old friend Sophroniscus, with whom he never had a difference to the hour
of his death. Socrates is also known to Nicias, to whom he had
introduced the excellent Damon, musician and sophist, as a tutor for his
son, and to Laches, who had witnessed his heroic behaviour at the
battle of Delium (compare Symp.).
Socrates, as he is younger than either Nicias or Laches, prefers to wait
until they have delivered their opinions, which they give in a
characteristic manner. Nicias, the tactician, is very much in favour of
the new art, which he describes as the gymnastics of war—useful when the
ranks are formed, and still more useful when they are broken; creating a
general interest in military studies, and greatly adding to the
appearance of the soldier in the field. Laches, the blunt warrior, is of
opinion that such an art is not knowledge, and cannot be of any value,
because the Lacedaemonians, those great masters of arms, neglect it. His
own experience in actual service has taught him that these pretenders
are useless and ridiculous. This man Stesilaus has been seen by him on
board ship making a very sorry exhibition of himself. The possession of
the art will make the coward rash, and subject the courageous, if he
chance to make a slip, to invidious remarks. And now let Socrates be
taken into counsel. As they differ he must decide.
Socrates would rather not decide the question by a plurality of votes:
in such a serious matter as the education of a friend’s children, he
would consult the one skilled person who has had masters, and has works
to show as evidences of his skill. This is not
himself; for he has never been able to pay the sophists for instructing
him, and has never had the wit to do or discover anything. But Nicias
and Laches are older and richer than he is: they have had teachers, and
perhaps have made discoveries; and he would have trusted them entirely,
if they had not been diametrically opposed.
Lysimachus here proposes to resign the argument into the hands of the
younger part of the company, as he is old, and has a bad memory. He
earnestly requests Socrates to remain;—in this showing, as Nicias says,
how little he knows the man, who will certainly not go away until he has
cross-examined the company about their past lives. Nicias has often
submitted to this process; and Laches is quite willing to learn from
Socrates, because his actions, in the true Dorian mode, correspond to
his words.
Socrates proceeds: We might ask who are our teachers? But a better and
more thorough way of examining the question will be to ask, ‘What is
Virtue?’—or rather, to restrict the enquiry to that part of virtue which
is concerned with the use of weapons—‘What is Courage?’ Laches thinks
that he knows this: (1) ‘He is courageous who remains at his post.’ But
some nations fight flying, after the manner of Aeneas in Homer; or as
the heavy-armed Spartans also did at the battle of Plataea. (2) Socrates
wants a more general definition, not only of military courage, but of
courage of all sorts, tried both amid pleasures and pains. Laches
replies that this universal courage is endurance. But courage is a good
thing, and mere endurance may be hurtful and injurious. Therefore (3)
the element of intelligence must be added. But then again unintelligent
endurance may often be more courageous than the intelligent, the bad
than the good. How is this contradiction to be solved? Socrates and
Laches are not set ‘to the Dorian mode’ of words and actions; for their
words are all confusion, although their actions are courageous. Still
they must ‘endure’ in an argument about endurance. Laches is very
willing, and is quite sure that he knows what courage is, if he could
only tell.
Nicias is now appealed to; and in reply he offers a definition which he
has heard from Socrates himself, to the effect that (1) ‘Courage is
intelligence.’ Laches derides this; and Socrates enquires, ‘What sort of
intelligence?’ to which Nicias replies, ‘Intelligence of things
terrible.’ ‘But every man knows the things to be dreaded in his own
art.’ ‘No they do not. They may predict results, but cannot tell whether
they are really terrible; only the courageous man can tell that.’
Laches draws the inference that the courageous man is either a
soothsayer or a god.
Again, (2) in Nicias’ way of speaking, the term ‘courageous’ must be
denied to animals or children, because they do not know the danger.
Against this inversion of the ordinary use of language Laches reclaims,
but is in some degree mollified by a compliment to his own courage.
Still, he does not like to see an Athenian statesman and general
descending to sophistries of this sort. Socrates resumes the argument.
Courage has been defined to be intelligence or knowledge of the
terrible; and courage is not all virtue, but only one of the virtues.
The terrible is in the future, and therefore the knowledge of the
terrible is a knowledge of the future. But there can be no knowledge of
future good or evil separated from a knowledge of the good and evil of
the past or present; that is to say, of all good and evil. Courage,
therefore, is the knowledge of good and evil generally.
But he who has the knowledge of good and evil generally, must not only
have courage, but also temperance, justice, and every other virtue.
Thus, a single virtue would be the same as all virtues (compare
Protagoras). And after all the two generals, and Socrates, the hero of
Delium, are still in ignorance of the nature of courage. They must go to
school again, boys, old men and all.
Some points of resemblance, and some points of difference, appear in the
Laches when compared with the Charmides and Lysis. There is less of
poetical and simple beauty, and more of dramatic interest and power.
They are richer in the externals of the scene; the Laches has more play
and development of character. In the Lysis and Charmides the youths are
the central figures, and frequent allusions are made to the place of
meeting, which is a palaestra. Here the place of meeting, which is also a
palaestra, is quite forgotten, and the boys play a subordinate part.
The seance is of old and elder men, of whom Socrates is the youngest.
First is the aged Lysimachus, who may be compared with Cephalus in the
Republic, and, like him, withdraws from the argument. Melesias, who is
only his shadow, also subsides into silence. Both of them, by their own
confession, have been ill-educated, as is further shown by the
circumstance that Lysimachus, the friend of Sophroniscus, has never
heard of the fame of Socrates, his son; they belong to different
circles. In the Meno their want of education in all but the arts of
riding and wrestling is adduced as a proof that virtue cannot be taught.
The recognition of Socrates by Lysimachus is extremely graceful; and
his military exploits naturally connect him with the two generals, of
whom one has witnessed them. The characters of Nicias and Laches are
indicated by their
opinions on the exhibition of the man fighting in heavy armour. The more
enlightened Nicias is quite ready to accept the new art, which Laches
treats with ridicule, seeming to think that this, or any other military
question, may be settled by asking, ‘What do the Lacedaemonians say?’
The one is the thoughtful general, willing to avail himself of any
discovery in the art of war (Aristoph. Aves); the other is the practical
man, who relies on his own experience, and is the enemy of innovation;
he can act but cannot speak, and is apt to lose his temper. It is to be
noted that one of them is supposed to be a hearer of Socrates; the other
is only acquainted with his actions. Laches is the admirer of the
Dorian mode; and into his mouth the remark is put that there are some
persons who, having never been taught, are better than those who have.
Like a novice in the art of disputation, he is delighted with the hits
of Socrates; and is disposed to be angry with the refinements of Nicias.
In the discussion of the main thesis of the Dialogue—‘What is Courage?’
the antagonism of the two characters is still more clearly brought out;
and in this, as in the preliminary question, the truth is parted between
them. Gradually, and not without difficulty, Laches is made to pass on
from the more popular to the more philosophical; it has never occurred
to him that there was any other courage than that of the soldier; and
only by an effort of the mind can he frame a general notion at all. No
sooner has this general notion been formed than it evanesces before the
dialectic of Socrates; and Nicias appears from the other side with the
Socratic doctrine, that courage is knowledge. This is explained to mean
knowledge of things terrible in the future. But Socrates denies that the
knowledge of the future is separable from that of the past and present;
in other words, true knowledge is not that of the soothsayer but of the
philosopher. And all knowledge will thus be equivalent to all virtue—a
position which elsewhere Socrates is not unwilling to admit, but which
will not assist us in distinguishing the nature of courage. In this part
of the Dialogue the contrast between the mode of cross-examination
which is practised by Laches and by Socrates, and also the manner in
which the definition of Laches is made to approximate to that of Nicias,
are worthy of attention.
Thus, with some intimation of the connexion and unity of virtue and
knowledge, we arrive at no distinct result. The two aspects of courage
are never harmonized. The knowledge which in the Protagoras is explained
as the faculty of estimating pleasures and pains is here lost in an
unmeaning and transcendental conception. Yet several true
intimations of the nature of courage are allowed to appear: (1) That
courage is moral as well as physical: (2) That true courage is
inseparable from knowledge, and yet (3) is based on a natural instinct.
Laches exhibits one aspect of courage; Nicias the other. The perfect
image and harmony of both is only realized in Socrates himself.
The Dialogue offers one among many examples of the freedom with which
Plato treats facts. For the scene must be supposed to have occurred
between B.C. 424, the year of the battle of Delium, and B.C. 418, the
year of the battle of Mantinea, at which Laches fell.
But if Socrates was more than seventy years of age at his trial in 399
(see Apology), he could not have been a young man at any time after the
battle of Delium.
Laches, or Courage
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Lysimachus, son of Aristides. Melesias, son of
Thucydides. Their sons. Nicias, Laches, Socrates.
LYSIMACHUS: You have seen the exhibition of the man fighting in armour,
Nicias and Laches, but we did not tell you at the time the reason why my
friend Melesias and I asked you to go with us and see him. I think that
we may as well confess what this was, for we certainly ought not to
have any reserve with you. The reason was, that we were intending to ask
your advice. Some laugh at the very notion of advising others, and when
they are asked will not say what they think. They guess at the wishes
of the person who asks them, and answer according to his, and not
according to their own, opinion. But as we know that you are good
judges, and will say exactly what you think, we have taken you into our
counsels. The matter about which I am making all this preface is as
follows: Melesias and I have two sons; that is his son, and he is named
Thucydides, after his grandfather; and this is mine, who is also called
after his grandfather, Aristides. Now, we are resolved to take the
greatest care of the youths, and not to let them run about as they like,
which is too often the way with the young, when they are no longer
children, but to begin at once and do the utmost that we can for them.
And knowing you to have sons of your own, we thought that you were most
likely to have attended to their training and improvement, and, if
perchance you have not attended to them, we may remind you that you
ought to have done so, and would invite you to assist us in the
fulfilment of a common duty. I will tell you, Nicias and Laches, even at
the risk of being tedious, how we came to think of this. Melesias and I
live together, and our sons live with us; and now, as I was saying at
first, we are going to confess to you. Both of us often talk to the lads
about the many noble deeds which our own fathers did in war and
peace—in the management of the allies, and in the administration of the
city; but neither of us has any deeds of his own which he can show. The
truth is that we are ashamed of this contrast being seen by them, and we
blame our fathers for letting us be spoiled in the days of our youth,
while they were occupied with the concerns of others; and we urge all
this upon the lads, pointing out to them that they will not grow up to
honour if they are rebellious and take no pains about themselves; but
that if they take pains they may, perhaps, become worthy of the names
which they bear. They, on their part, promise to comply with our wishes;
and our care is to discover what studies or pursuits are likely to be
most improving to them. Some one commended to us the art of fighting in
armour, which he thought an excellent accomplishment for a young man to
learn; and he praised the man whose exhibition you have seen, and told
us to go and see him. And we determined that we would go, and get you to
accompany us; and we were intending at the same time, if you did not
object, to take counsel with you about the education of our sons. That
is the matter which we wanted to talk over with you; and we hope that
you will give us your opinion about this art of fighting in armour, and
about any other studies or pursuits which may or may not be desirable
for a young man to learn. Please to say whether you agree to our
proposal.
NICIAS: As far as I am concerned, Lysimachus and Melesias, I applaud
your purpose, and will gladly assist you; and I believe that you,
Laches, will be equally glad.
LACHES: Certainly, Nicias; and I quite approve of the remark which
Lysimachus made about his own father and the father of Melesias, and
which is applicable, not only to them, but to us, and to every one who
is occupied with public affairs. As he says, such persons are too apt to
be negligent and careless of their own children and their private
concerns. There is much truth in that remark of yours, Lysimachus. But
why, instead of consulting us, do you not consult our friend Socrates
about the education of the youths?
He is of the same deme with you, and is always passing his time in
places where the youth have any noble study or pursuit, such as you are
enquiring after.
LYSIMACHUS: Why, Laches, has Socrates ever attended to matters of this
sort?
LACHES: Certainly, Lysimachus.
NICIAS: That I have the means of knowing as well as Laches; for quite
lately he supplied me with a teacher of music for my sons,—Damon, the
disciple of Agathocles, who is a most accomplished man in every way, as
well as a musician, and a companion of inestimable value for young men
at their age.
LYSIMACHUS: Those who have reached my time of life, Socrates and Nicias
and Laches, fall out of acquaintance with the young, because they are
generally detained at home by old age; but you, O son of Sophroniscus,
should let your fellow demesman have the benefit of any advice which you
are able to give. Moreover I have a claim upon you as an old friend of
your father; for I and he were always companions and friends, and to the
hour of his death there never was a difference between us; and now it
comes back to me,
at the mention of your name, that I have heard these lads talking to one
another at home, and often speaking of Socrates in terms of the highest
praise; but I have never thought to ask them whether the son of
Sophroniscus was the person whom they meant.
Tell me, my boys, whether this is the Socrates of whom you have often
spoken?
SON: Certainly, father, this is he.
LYSIMACHUS: I am delighted to hear, Socrates, that you maintain the name
of your father, who was a most excellent man; and I further rejoice at
the prospect of our family ties being renewed.
LACHES: Indeed, Lysimachus, you ought not to give him up; for I can
assure you that I have seen him maintaining, not only his father’s, but
also his country’s name. He was my companion in the retreat from Delium,
and I can tell you that if others had only been like him, the honour of
our country would have been upheld, and the great defeat would never
have occurred.
LYSIMACHUS: That is very high praise which is accorded to you, Socrates,
by faithful witnesses and for actions like those which they praise. Let
me tell you the pleasure which I feel in hearing of your fame; and I
hope that you will regard me as one of your warmest friends. You ought
to have visited us long ago, and made yourself at home with us; but now,
from this day forward, as we have at last found one another out, do as I
say—come and make acquaintance with me, and with these young men, that I
may continue your friend, as I was your father’s. I shall expect you to
do so, and shall venture at some future time to remind you of your
duty. But what say you of the matter of which we were beginning to
speak—the art of fighting in armour? Is that a practice in which the
lads may be advantageously instructed?
SOCRATES: I will endeavour to advise you, Lysimachus, as far as I can in
this matter, and also in every way will comply with your wishes; but as
I am younger and not so experienced, I think that I ought certainly to
hear first what my elders have to say, and to learn of them, and if I
have anything to add, then I may venture to give my opinion to them as
well as to you. Suppose, Nicias, that one or other of you begin.
NICIAS: I have no objection, Socrates; and my opinion is that the
acquirement of this art is in many ways useful to young men. It is an
advantage to them that among the favourite amusements of their leisure
hours they should have one which tends to improve and not to injure
their bodily health. No gymnastics could be better or harder exercise;
and this, and the art of riding, are of all arts most befitting to a
freeman; for they only who are thus trained in the use of arms are the
athletes of our military profession, trained in that on which the
conflict turns. Moreover in actual battle, when you have to fight in a
line with a number of others, such an acquirement will be of some use,
and will be of the greatest whenever the ranks are broken and you have
to fight singly, either in pursuit, when you are attacking some one who
is defending himself, or in flight, when you have to defend yourself
against an assailant. Certainly he who possessed the art could not meet
with any harm at the hands of a single person, or perhaps of several;
and in any case he would have a great advantage. Further, this sort of
skill inclines a man to the love of other noble lessons; for every man
who has learned how to fight in armour will desire to learn the proper
arrangement of an army, which is the sequel of the lesson: and when he
has learned this, and his ambition is once fired, he will go on to learn
the complete art of the general. There is no difficulty in seeing that
the knowledge and practice of other military arts will be honourable and
valuable to a man; and this lesson may be the beginning of them. Let me
add a further advantage, which is by no means a slight one,—that this
science will make any man a great deal more valiant and self-possessed
in the field. And I will not disdain to mention, what by some may be
thought to be a small matter;—he will make a better appearance at the
right time; that is to say, at the time when his appearance will strike
terror into his enemies. My opinion then, Lysimachus, is, as I say, that
the youths should be instructed in this art, and for the reasons which I
have given. But Laches may take a different view; and I shall be very
glad to hear what he has to say.
LACHES: I should not like to maintain, Nicias, that any kind of
knowledge is not to be learned; for all knowledge appears to be a good:
and if, as Nicias and as the teachers of the art affirm, this use of
arms is really a species of knowledge, then it ought to be learned; but
if not, and if those who profess to teach it are deceivers only; or if
it be knowledge, but not of a valuable sort, then what is the use of
learning it? I say this, because I think that if it had been really
valuable, the Lacedaemonians, whose whole life is passed in finding out
and practising the arts which give them an advantage over other
nations in war, would have discovered this one. And even if they had
not, still these professors of the art would certainly not have failed
to discover that of all the Hellenes the Lacedaemonians have the
greatest interest in such matters, and that a master of the art who was
honoured among them would be sure to make his fortune among other
nations, just as a tragic poet would who is honoured among ourselves;
which is the reason why he who fancies that he can write a tragedy does
not go about itinerating in the neighbouring states, but rushes hither
straight, and exhibits at Athens; and this is natural. Whereas I
perceive that these fighters in armour regard Lacedaemon as a sacred
inviolable territory, which they do not touch with the point of their
foot; but they make a circuit of the neighbouring states, and would
rather exhibit to any others than to the Spartans; and particularly to
those who would themselves acknowledge that they are by no means
firstrate in the arts of war. Further, Lysimachus, I have encountered a
good many of these gentlemen in actual service, and have taken their
measure, which I can give you at once; for none of these masters of
fence have ever been distinguished in war,—there has been a sort of
fatality about them; while in all other arts the men of note have been
always those who have practised the art, they appear to be a most
unfortunate exception. For example, this very Stesilaus, whom you and I
have just witnessed exhibiting in all that crowd and making such great
professions of his powers, I have seen at another time making, in sober
truth, an involuntary exhibition of himself, which was a far better
spectacle. He was a marine on board a ship which struck a transport
vessel, and was armed with a weapon, half spear, half scythe; the
singularity of this weapon was worthy of the singularity of the man. To
make a long story short, I will only tell you what happened to this
notable invention of the scythe spear. He was fighting, and the scythe
was caught in the rigging of the other ship, and stuck fast; and he
tugged, but was unable to get his weapon free. The two ships were
passing one another. He first ran along his own ship holding on to the
spear; but as the other ship passed by and drew him after as he was
holding on, he let the spear slip through his hand until he retained
only the end of the handle. The people in the transport clapped their
hands, and laughed at his ridiculous figure; and when some one threw a
stone, which fell on the deck at his feet, and he quitted his hold of
the scythe-spear, the crew of his own trireme also burst out laughing;
they could not refrain when they beheld the weapon waving in the air,
suspended from the transport. Now I do not deny that there may be
something in such an art, as Nicias asserts, but I tell you my
experience; and, as I said at first, whether this be an art of which the
advantage is so slight, or not an art at all, but only an imposition,
in either case such an acquirement is not worth having. For my opinion
is, that if the professor of this art be a coward, he will be likely to
become rash, and his character will be only more notorious; or if he be
brave, and fail ever so little, other men will be on the watch, and he
will be greatly traduced; for there is a jealousy of such pretenders;
and unless a man be pre-eminent in valour, he cannot help being
ridiculous, if he says that he has this sort of skill. Such is my
judgment, Lysimachus, of the desirableness of this art; but, as I said
at first, ask Socrates, and do not let him go until he has given you his
opinion of the matter.
LYSIMACHUS: I am going to ask this favour of you, Socrates; as is the
more necessary because the two councillors disagree, and some one is in a
manner still needed who will decide between them. Had they agreed, no
arbiter would have been required. But as Laches has voted one way and
Nicias another, I should like to hear with which of our two friends you
agree.
SOCRATES: What, Lysimachus, are you going to accept the opinion of the
majority?
LYSIMACHUS: Why, yes, Socrates; what else am I to do?
SOCRATES: And would you do so too, Melesias? If you were deliberating
about the gymnastic training of your son, would you follow the advice of
the majority of us, or the opinion of the one who had been trained and
exercised under a skilful master?
MELESIAS: The latter, Socrates; as would surely be reasonable.
SOCRATES: His one vote would be worth more than the vote of all us four?
MELESIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And for this reason, as I imagine,—because a good decision is
based on knowledge and not on numbers?
MELESIAS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: Must we not then first of all ask, whether there is any one of
us who has knowledge of that about which we are deliberating? If there
is, let us take his advice,
though he be one only, and not mind the rest; if there is not, let us
seek further counsel.
Is this a slight matter about which you and Lysimachus are deliberating?
Are you not risking the greatest of your possessions? For children are
your riches; and upon their turning out well or ill depends the whole
order of their father’s house.
MELESIAS: That is true.
SOCRATES: Great care, then, is required in this matter?
MELESIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Suppose, as I was just now saying, that we were considering,
or wanting to consider, who was the best trainer. Should we not select
him who knew and had practised the art, and had the best teachers?
MELESIAS: I think that we should.
SOCRATES: But would there not arise a prior question about the nature of
the art of which we want to find the masters?
MELESIAS: I do not understand.
SOCRATES: Let me try to make my meaning plainer then. I do not think
that we have as yet decided what that is about which we are consulting,
when we ask which of us is or is not skilled in the art, and has or has
not had a teacher of the art.
NICIAS: Why, Socrates, is not the question whether young men ought or
ought not to learn the art of fighting in armour?
SOCRATES: Yes, Nicias; but there is also a prior question, which I may
illustrate in this way: When a person considers about applying a
medicine to the eyes, would you say that he is consulting about the
medicine or about the eyes?
NICIAS: About the eyes.
SOCRATES: And when he considers whether he shall set a bridle on a horse
and at what time, he is thinking of the horse and not of the bridle?
NICIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And in a word, when he considers anything for the sake of
another thing, he thinks of the end and not of the means?
NICIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And when you call in an adviser, you should see whether he too
is skilful in the accomplishment of the end which you have in view?
NICIAS: Most true.
SOCRATES: And at present we have in view some knowledge, of which the
end is the soul of youth?
NICIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And we are enquiring, Which of us is skilful or successful in
the treatment of the soul, and which of us has had good teachers?
LACHES: Well but, Socrates; did you never observe that some persons, who
have had no teachers, are more skilful than those who have, in some
things?
SOCRATES: Yes, Laches, I have observed that; but you would not be very
willing to trust them if they only professed to be masters of their art,
unless they could show some proof of their skill or excellence in one
or more works.
LACHES: That is true.
SOCRATES: And therefore, Laches and Nicias, as Lysimachus and Melesias,
in their anxiety to improve the minds of their sons, have asked our
advice about them, we too should tell them who our teachers were, if we
say that we have had any, and prove them to be in the first place men of
merit and experienced trainers of the minds of youth and also to have
been really our teachers. Or if any of us says that he has no teacher,
but that he has works of his own to show; then he should point out to
them what Athenians or strangers, bond or free, he is generally
acknowledged to have improved. But if he can show neither teachers nor
works, then he should tell them to look out for others; and
not run the risk of spoiling the children of friends, and thereby
incurring the most formidable accusation which can be brought against
any one by those nearest to him. As for myself, Lysimachus and Melesias,
I am the first to confess that I have never had a teacher of the art of
virtue; although I have always from my earliest youth desired to have
one. But I am too poor to give money to the Sophists, who are the only
professors of moral improvement; and to this day I have never been able
to discover the art myself, though I should not be surprised if Nicias
or Laches may have discovered or learned it; for they are far wealthier
than I am, and may therefore have learnt of others. And they are older
too; so that they have had more time to make the discovery. And I really
believe that they are able to educate a man; for unless they had been
confident in their own knowledge, they would never have spoken thus
decidedly of the pursuits which are advantageous or hurtful to a young
man. I repose confidence in both of them; but I am surprised to find
that they differ from one another. And therefore, Lysimachus, as Laches
suggested that you should detain me, and not let me go until I answered,
I in turn earnestly beseech and advise you to detain Laches and Nicias,
and question them. I would have you say to them: Socrates avers that he
has no knowledge of the matter—he is unable to decide which of you
speaks truly; neither discoverer nor student is he of anything of the
kind. But you, Laches and Nicias, should each of you tell us who is the
most skilful educator whom you have ever known; and whether you invented
the art yourselves, or learned of another; and if you learned, who were
your respective teachers, and who were their brothers in the art; and
then, if you are too much occupied in politics to teach us yourselves,
let us go to them, and present them with gifts, or make interest with
them, or both, in the hope that they may be induced to take charge of
our children and of yours; and then they will not grow up inferior, and
disgrace their ancestors. But if you are yourselves original discoverers
in that field, give us some proof of your skill. Who are they who,
having been inferior persons, have become under your care good and
noble? For if this is your first attempt at education, there is a danger
that you may be trying the experiment, not on the ‘vile corpus’ of a
Carian slave, but on your own sons, or the sons of your friend, and, as
the proverb says, ‘break the large vessel in learning to make pots.’
Tell us then, what qualities you claim or do not claim. Make them tell
you that, Lysimachus, and do not let them off.
LYSIMACHUS: I very much approve of the words of Socrates, my friends;
but you, Nicias and Laches, must determine whether you will be
questioned, and give an
explanation about matters of this sort. Assuredly, I and Melesias would
be greatly pleased to hear you answer the questions which Socrates asks,
if you will: for I began by saying that we took you into our counsels
because we thought that you would have attended to the subject,
especially as you have children who, like our own, are nearly of an age
to be educated. Well, then, if you have no objection, suppose that you
take Socrates into partnership; and do you and he ask and answer one
another’s questions: for, as he has well said, we are deliberating about
the most important of our concerns. I hope that you will see fit to
comply with our request.
NICIAS: I see very clearly, Lysimachus, that you have only known
Socrates’ father, and have no acquaintance with Socrates himself: at
least, you can only have known him when he was a child, and may have met
him among his fellow-wardsmen, in company with his father, at a
sacrifice, or at some other gathering. You clearly show that you have
never known him since he arrived at manhood.
LYSIMACHUS: Why do you say that, Nicias?
NICIAS: 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: 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.
SOCRATES: I cannot say that either of you show any reluctance to take
counsel and advise with me.
LYSIMACHUS: But this is our proper business; and yours as well as ours,
for I reckon you as one of us. Please then to take my place, and find
out from Nicias and Laches what we want to know, for the sake of the
youths, and talk and consult with them: for I am old, and my memory is
bad; and I do not remember the questions which I am going to
ask, or the answers to them; and if there is any interruption I am quite
lost. I will therefore beg of you to carry on the proposed discussion
by your selves; and I will listen, and Melesias and I will act upon your
conclusions.
SOCRATES: Let us, Nicias and Laches, comply with the request of
Lysimachus and Melesias. There will be no harm in asking ourselves the
question which was first proposed to us: ‘Who have been our own
instructors in this sort of training, and whom have we made better?’ But
the other mode of carrying on the enquiry will bring us equally to the
same point, and will be more like proceeding from first principles. For
if we knew that the addition of something would improve some other
thing, and were able to make the addition, then, clearly, we must know
how that about which we are advising may be best and most easily
attained. Perhaps you do not understand what I mean.
Then let me make my meaning plainer in this way. Suppose we knew that
the addition of sight makes better the eyes which possess this gift, and
also were able to impart sight to the eyes, then, clearly, we should
know the nature of sight, and should be able to advise how this gift of
sight may be best and most easily attained; but if we knew neither what
sight is, nor what hearing is, we should not be very good medical
advisers about the eyes or the ears, or about the best mode of giving
sight and hearing to them.
LACHES: That is true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And are not our two friends, Laches, at this very moment
inviting us to consider in what way the gift of virtue may be imparted
to their sons for the improvement of their minds?
LACHES: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then must we not first know the nature of virtue? For how can
we advise any one about the best mode of attaining something of which we
are wholly ignorant?
LACHES: I do not think that we can, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then, Laches, we may presume that we know the nature of
virtue?
LACHES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that which we know we must surely be able to tell?
LACHES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: I would not have us begin, my friend, with enquiring about the
whole of virtue; for that may be more than we can accomplish; let us
first consider whether we have a sufficient knowledge of a part; the
enquiry will thus probably be made easier to us.
LACHES: Let us do as you say, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then which of the parts of virtue shall we select? Must we not
select that to which the art of fighting in armour is supposed to
conduce? And is not that generally thought to be courage?
LACHES: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: Then, Laches, suppose that we first set about determining the
nature of courage, and in the second place proceed to enquire how the
young men may attain this quality by the help of studies and pursuits.
Tell me, if you can, what is courage.
LACHES: Indeed, Socrates, I see no difficulty in answering; he is a man
of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights
against the enemy; there can be no mistake about that.
SOCRATES: Very good, Laches; and yet I fear that I did not express
myself clearly; and therefore you have answered not the question which I
intended to ask, but another.
LACHES: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain; you would call a man courageous
who remains at his post, and fights with the enemy?
LACHES: Certainly I should.
SOCRATES: And so should I; but what would you say of another man, who
fights flying, instead of remaining?
LACHES: How flying?
SOCRATES: Why, as the Scythians are said to fight, flying as well as
pursuing; and as Homer says in praise of the horses of Aeneas, that they
knew ‘how to pursue, and fly quickly hither and thither’; and he passes
an encomium on Aeneas himself, as having a knowledge of fear or flight,
and calls him ‘an author of fear or flight.’
LACHES: Yes, Socrates, and there Homer is right: for he was speaking of
chariots, as you were speaking of the Scythian cavalry, who have that
way of fighting; but the heavy-armed Greek fights, as I say, remaining
in his rank.
SOCRATES: And yet, Laches, you must except the Lacedaemonians at
Plataea, who, when they came upon the light shields of the Persians, are
said not to have been willing to stand and fight, and to have fled; but
when the ranks of the Persians were broken, they turned upon them like
cavalry, and won the battle of Plataea.
LACHES: That is true.
SOCRATES: That was my meaning when I said that I was to blame in having
put my question badly, and that this was the reason of your answering
badly. For I meant to ask you not only about the courage of heavy-armed
soldiers, but about the courage of cavalry and every other style of
soldier; and not only who are courageous in war, but who are courageous
in perils by sea, and who in disease, or in poverty, or again in
politics, are courageous; and not only who are courageous against pain
or fear, but mighty to contend against desires and pleasures, either
fixed in their rank or turning upon their enemy. There is this sort of
courage—is there not, Laches?
LACHES: Certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And all these are courageous, but some have courage in
pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and
some are cowards under the same conditions, as I should imagine.
LACHES: Very true.
SOCRATES: Now I was asking about courage and cowardice in general. And I
will begin with courage, and once more ask, What is that common
quality, which is the same in all these cases, and which is called
courage? Do you now understand what I mean?
LACHES: Not over well.
SOCRATES: I mean this: As I might ask what is that quality which is
called quickness, and which is found in running, in playing the lyre, in
speaking, in learning, and in many other similar actions, or rather
which we possess in nearly every action that is worth mentioning of
arms, legs, mouth, voice, mind;—would you not apply the term quickness
to all of them?
LACHES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: And suppose I were to be asked by some one: What is that
common quality, Socrates, which, in all these uses of the word, you call
quickness? I should say the quality which accomplishes much in a little
time—whether in running, speaking, or in any other sort of action.
LACHES: You would be quite correct.
SOCRATES: And now, Laches, do you try and tell me in like manner, What
is that common quality which is called courage, and which includes all
the various uses of the term when applied both to pleasure and pain, and
in all the cases to which I was just now referring?
LACHES: I should say that courage is a sort of endurance of the soul, if
I am to speak of the universal nature which pervades them all.
SOCRATES: But that is what we must do if we are to answer the question.
And yet I cannot say that every kind of endurance is, in my opinion, to
be deemed courage. Hear my reason: I am sure, Laches, that you would
consider courage to be a very noble quality.
LACHES: Most noble, certainly.
SOCRATES: And you would say that a wise endurance is also good and
noble?
LACHES: Very noble.
SOCRATES: But what would you say of a foolish endurance? Is not that, on
the other hand, to be regarded as evil and hurtful?
LACHES: True.
SOCRATES: And is anything noble which is evil and hurtful?
LACHES: I ought not to say that, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then you would not admit that sort of endurance to be courage—
for it is not noble, but courage is noble?
LACHES: You are right.
SOCRATES: Then, according to you, only the wise endurance is courage?
LACHES: True.
SOCRATES: But as to the epithet ‘wise,’—wise in what? In all things
small as well as great? For example, if a man shows the quality of
endurance in spending his money wisely, knowing that by spending he will
acquire more in the end, do you call him courageous?
LACHES: Assuredly not.
SOCRATES: Or, for example, if a man is a physician, and his son, or some
patient of his, has inflammation of the lungs, and begs that he may be
allowed to eat or drink something, and the other is firm and refuses; is
that courage?
LACHES: No; that is not courage at all, any more than the last.
SOCRATES: 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: I should say that the latter, Socrates, was the braver.
SOCRATES: But, surely, this is a foolish endurance in comparison with
the other?
LACHES: That is true.
SOCRATES: Then you would say that he who in an engagement of cavalry
endures, having the knowledge of horsemanship, is not so courageous as
he who endures, having no such knowledge?
LACHES: So I should say.
SOCRATES: And he who endures, having a knowledge of the use of the
sling, or the bow, or of any other art, is not so courageous as he who
endures, not having such a knowledge?
LACHES: True.
SOCRATES: And he who descends into a well, and dives, and holds out in
this or any similar action, having no knowledge of diving, or the like,
is, as you would say, more courageous than those who have this
knowledge?
LACHES: Why, Socrates, what else can a man say?
SOCRATES: Nothing, if that be what he thinks.
LACHES: But that is what I do think.
SOCRATES: And yet men who thus run risks and endure are foolish, Laches,
in comparison of those who do the same things, having the skill to do
them.
LACHES: That is true.
SOCRATES: But foolish boldness and endurance appeared before to be base
and hurtful to us.
LACHES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: Whereas courage was acknowledged to be a noble quality.
LACHES: True.
SOCRATES: And now on the contrary we are saying that the foolish
endurance, which was before held in dishonour, is courage.
LACHES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And are we right in saying so?
LACHES: Indeed, Socrates, I am sure that we are not right.
SOCRATES: Then according to your statement, you and I, Laches, are not
attuned to the Dorian mode, which is a harmony of words and deeds; for
our deeds are not in accordance with our words. Any one would say that
we had courage who saw us in action, but not, I imagine, he who heard us
talking about courage just now.
LACHES: That is most true.
SOCRATES: And is this condition of ours satisfactory?
LACHES: Quite the reverse.
SOCRATES: Suppose, however, that we admit the principle of which we are
speaking to a certain extent.
LACHES: To what extent and what principle do you mean?
SOCRATES: The principle of endurance. We too must endure and persevere
in the enquiry, and then courage will not laugh at our faint-heartedness
in searching for courage; which after all may, very likely, be
endurance.
LACHES: I am ready to go on, Socrates; and yet I am unused to
investigations of this sort. But the spirit of controversy has been
aroused in me by what has been said; and I am really grieved at being
thus unable to express my meaning. For I fancy that I do know the nature
of courage; but, somehow or other, she has slipped away from me, and I
cannot get hold of her and tell her nature.
SOCRATES: But, my dear friend, should not the good sportsman follow the
track, and not be lazy?
LACHES: Certainly, he should.
SOCRATES: And shall we invite Nicias to join us? he may be better at the
sport than we are. What do you say?
LACHES: I should like that.
SOCRATES: Come then, Nicias, and do what you can to help your friends,
who are tossing on the waves of argument, and at the last gasp: you see
our extremity, and may save us and also settle your own opinion, if you
will tell us what you think about courage.
NICIAS: I have been thinking, Socrates, that you and Laches are not
defining courage in the right way; for you have forgotten an excellent
saying which I have heard from your own lips.
SOCRATES: What is it, Nicias?
NICIAS: I have often heard you say that ‘Every man is good in that in
which he is wise, and bad in that in which he is unwise.’
SOCRATES: That is certainly true, Nicias.
NICIAS: And therefore if the brave man is good, he is also wise.
SOCRATES: Do you hear him, Laches?
LACHES: Yes, I hear him, but I do not very well understand him.
SOCRATES: I think that I understand him; and he appears to me to mean
that courage is a sort of wisdom.
LACHES: What can he possibly mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: That is a question which you must ask of himself.
LACHES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Tell him then, Nicias, what you mean by this wisdom; for you
surely do not mean the wisdom which plays the flute?
NICIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor the wisdom which plays the lyre?
NICIAS: No.
SOCRATES: But what is this knowledge then, and of what?
LACHES: 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.
NICIAS: I mean to say, Laches, that courage is the knowledge of that
which inspires fear or confidence in war, or in anything.
LACHES: How strangely he is talking, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why do you say so, Laches?
LACHES: Why, surely courage is one thing, and wisdom another.
SOCRATES: That is just what Nicias denies.
LACHES: Yes, that is what he denies; but he is so silly.
SOCRATES: Suppose that we instruct instead of abusing him?
NICIAS: Laches does not want to instruct me, Socrates; but having been
proved to be talking nonsense himself, he wants to prove that I have
been doing the same.
LACHES: Very true, Nicias; and you are talking nonsense, as I shall
endeavour to show.
Let me ask you a question: Do not physicians know the dangers of
disease? or do the courageous know them? or are the physicians the same
as the courageous?
NICIAS: Not at all.
LACHES: No more than the husbandmen who know the dangers of husbandry,
or than other craftsmen, who have a knowledge of that which inspires
them with fear or confidence in their own arts, and yet they are not
courageous a whit the more for that.
SOCRATES: What is Laches saying, Nicias? He appears to be saying
something of importance.
NICIAS: Yes, he is saying something, but it is not true.
SOCRATES: How so?
NICIAS: Why, because he does not see that the physician’s knowledge only
extends to the nature of health and disease: he can tell the sick man
no more than this. Do you imagine, Laches, that the physician knows
whether health or disease is the more terrible to a man? Had not many a
man better never get up from a sick bed? I should like to know whether
you think that life is always better than death. May not death often be
the better of the two?
LACHES: Yes certainly so in my opinion.
NICIAS: And do you think that the same things are terrible to those who
had better die, and to those who had better live?
LACHES: Certainly not.
NICIAS: And do you suppose that the physician or any other artist knows
this, or any one indeed, except he who is skilled in the grounds of fear
and hope? And him I call the courageous.
SOCRATES: Do you understand his meaning, Laches?
LACHES: Yes; I suppose that, in his way of speaking, the soothsayers are
courageous.
For who but one of them can know to whom to die or to live is better?
And yet Nicias, would you allow that you are yourself a soothsayer, or
are you neither a soothsayer nor courageous?
NICIAS: What! do you mean to say that the soothsayer ought to know the
grounds of hope or fear?
LACHES: Indeed I do: who but he?
NICIAS: Much rather I should say he of whom I speak; for the soothsayer
ought to know only the signs of things that are about to come to pass,
whether death or disease, or loss of property, or victory, or defeat in
war, or in any sort of contest; but to whom the suffering or not
suffering of these things will be for the best, can no more be decided
by the soothsayer than by one who is no soothsayer.
LACHES: I cannot understand what Nicias would be at, Socrates; for he
represents the courageous man as neither a soothsayer, nor a physician,
nor in any other character, unless he means to say that he is a god. My
opinion is that he does not like honestly to confess that he is talking
nonsense, but that he shuffles up and down in order to conceal the
difficulty into which he has got himself. You and I, Socrates, might
have practised a similar shuffle just now, if we had only wanted to
avoid the appearance of inconsistency.
And if we had been arguing in a court of law there might have been
reason in so doing; but why should a man deck himself out with vain
words at a meeting of friends such as this?
SOCRATES: I quite agree with you, Laches, that he should not. But
perhaps Nicias is serious, and not merely talking for the sake of
talking. Let us ask him just to explain what he means, and if he has
reason on his side we will agree with him; if not, we will instruct him.
LACHES: Do you, Socrates, if you like, ask him: I think that I have
asked enough.
SOCRATES: I do not see why I should not; and my question will do for
both of us.
LACHES: Very good.
SOCRATES: Then tell me, Nicias, or rather tell us, for Laches and I are
partners in the argument: Do you mean to affirm that courage is the
knowledge of the grounds of hope and fear?
NICIAS: I do.
SOCRATES: And not every man has this knowledge; the physician and the
soothsayer have it not; and they will not be courageous unless they
acquire it—that is what you were saying?
NICIAS: I was.
SOCRATES: Then this is certainly not a thing which every pig would know,
as the proverb says, and therefore he could not be courageous.
NICIAS: I think not.
SOCRATES: 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: Capital, Socrates; by the gods, that is truly good. And I hope,
Nicias, that you will tell us whether these animals, which we all admit
to be courageous, are really wiser than mankind; or whether you will
have the boldness, in the face of universal opinion, to deny their
courage.
NICIAS: Why, Laches, I do not call animals or any other things which
have no fear of dangers, because they are ignorant of them, courageous,
but only fearless and senseless.
Do you imagine that I should call little children courageous, which fear
no dangers
because they know none? There is a difference, to my way of thinking,
between fearlessness and courage. I am of opinion that thoughtful
courage is a quality possessed by very few, but that rashness and
boldness, and fearlessness, which has no forethought, are very common
qualities possessed by many men, many women, many children, many
animals. And you, and men in general, call by the term ‘courageous’
actions which I call rash;—my courageous actions are wise actions.
LACHES: Behold, Socrates, how admirably, as he thinks, he dresses
himself out in words, while seeking to deprive of the honour of courage
those whom all the world acknowledges to be courageous.
NICIAS: Not so, Laches, but do not be alarmed; for I am quite willing to
say of you and also of Lamachus, and of many other Athenians, that you
are courageous and therefore wise.
LACHES: I could answer that; but I would not have you cast in my teeth
that I am a haughty Aexonian.
SOCRATES: 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: Yes, Socrates; and the examination of such niceties is a much
more suitable employment for a Sophist than for a great statesman whom
the city chooses to preside over her.
SOCRATES: Yes, my sweet friend, but a great statesman is likely to have a
great intelligence. And I think that the view which is implied in
Nicias’ definition of courage is worthy of examination.
LACHES: Then examine for yourself, Socrates.
SOCRATES: That is what I am going to do, my dear friend. Do not,
however, suppose I shall let you out of the partnership; for I shall
expect you to apply your mind, and join with me in the consideration of
the question.
LACHES: I will if you think that I ought.
SOCRATES: Yes, I do; but I must beg of you, Nicias, to begin again. You
remember that we originally considered courage to be a part of virtue.
NICIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And you yourself said that it was a part; and there were many
other parts, all of which taken together are called virtue.
NICIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Do you agree with me about the parts? For I say that justice,
temperance, and the like, are all of them parts of virtue as well as
courage. Would you not say the same?
NICIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well then, so far we are agreed. And now let us proceed a
step, and try to arrive at a similar agreement about the fearful and the
hopeful: I do not want you to be thinking one thing and myself another.
Let me then tell you my own opinion, and if I am wrong you shall set me
right: in my opinion the terrible and the hopeful are the things which
do or do not create fear, and fear is not of the present, nor of the
past, but is of future and expected evil. Do you not agree to that,
Laches?
LACHES: Yes, Socrates, entirely.
SOCRATES: That is my view, Nicias; the terrible things, as I should say,
are the evils which are future; and the hopeful are the good or not
evil things which are future. Do you or do you not agree with me?
NICIAS: I agree.
SOCRATES: And the knowledge of these things you call courage?
NICIAS: Precisely.
SOCRATES: And now let me see whether you agree with Laches and myself as
to a third point.
NICIAS: What is that?
SOCRATES: I will tell you. He and I have a notion that there is not one
knowledge or science of the past, another of the present, a third of
what is likely to be best and what will be best in the future; but that
of all three there is one science only: for example, there is one
science of medicine which is concerned with the inspection of health
equally in all times, present, past, and future; and one science of
husbandry in like manner, which is concerned with the productions of the
earth in all times. As to the art of the general, you yourselves will
be my witnesses that he has an excellent foreknowledge of the future,
and that he claims to be the master and not the servant of the
soothsayer, because he knows better what is happening or is likely to
happen in war: and accordingly the law places the soothsayer under the
general, and not the general under the soothsayer. Am I not correct in
saying so, Laches?
LACHES: Quite correct.
SOCRATES: And do you, Nicias, also acknowledge that the same science has
understanding of the same things, whether future, present, or past?
NICIAS: Yes, indeed Socrates; that is my opinion.
SOCRATES: And courage, my friend, is, as you say, a knowledge of the
fearful and of the hopeful?
NICIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the fearful, and the hopeful, are admitted to be future
goods and future evils?
NICIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And the same science has to do with the same things in the
future or at any time?
NICIAS: That is true.
SOCRATES: Then courage is not the science which is concerned with the
fearful and hopeful, for they are future only; courage, like the other
sciences, is concerned not only with good and evil of the future, but of
the present and past, and of any time?
NICIAS: That, as I suppose, is true.
SOCRATES: Then the answer which you have given, Nicias, includes only a
third part of courage; but our question extended to the whole nature of
courage: and according to your view, that is, according to your present
view, courage is not only the knowledge of the hopeful and the fearful,
but seems to include nearly every good and evil without reference to
time. What do you say to that alteration in your statement?
NICIAS: I agree, Socrates.
SOCRATES: But then, my dear friend, if a man knew all good and evil, and
how they are, and have been, and will be produced, would he not be
perfect, and wanting in no virtue, whether justice, or temperance, or
holiness? He would possess them all, and he would know which were
dangers and which were not, and guard against them whether they were
supernatural or natural; and he would provide the good, as he would know
how to deal both with gods or men.
NICIAS: I think, Socrates, that there is a great deal of truth in what
you say.
SOCRATES: But then, Nicias, courage, according to this new definition of
yours, instead of being a part of virtue only, will be all virtue?
NICIAS: It would seem so.
SOCRATES: But we were saying that courage is one of the parts of virtue?
NICIAS: Yes, that was what we were saying.
SOCRATES: And that is in contradiction with our present view?
NICIAS: That appears to be the case.
SOCRATES: Then, Nicias, we have not discovered what courage is.
NICIAS: We have not.
LACHES: And yet, friend Nicias, I 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.
NICIAS: I perceive, Laches, that you think nothing of having displayed
your ignorance of the nature of courage, but you look only to see
whether I have not made a similar display; and if we are both equally
ignorant of the things which a man who is good for anything should know,
that, I suppose, will be of no consequence. You certainly appear to me
very like the rest of the world, looking at your neighbour and not at
yourself. I am of opinion that enough has been said on the subject which
we have been discussing; and if anything has been imperfectly said,
that may be hereafter corrected by the help of Damon, whom you think to
laugh down, although you have never seen him, and with the help of
others. And when I am satisfied myself, I will freely impart my
satisfaction to you, for I think that you are very much in want of
knowledge.
LACHES: You are a philosopher, Nicias; of that I am aware: nevertheless I
would recommend Lysimachus and Melesias not to take you and me as
advisers about the education of their children; but, as I said at first,
they should ask Socrates and not let him off; if my own sons were old
enough, I would have asked him myself.
NICIAS: To that I quite agree, if Socrates is willing to take them under
his charge. I should not wish for any one else to be the tutor of
Niceratus. But I observe that when I mention the matter to him he
recommends to me some other tutor and refuses himself.
Perhaps he may be more ready to listen to you, Lysimachus.
LYSIMACHUS: He ought, Nicias: for certainly I would do things for him
which I would not do for many others. What do you say, Socrates—will you
comply? And are you ready to give assistance in the improvement of the
youths?
SOCRATES: Indeed, Lysimachus, I should be very wrong in refusing to aid
in the improvement of anybody. And if I had shown in this conversation
that I had a knowledge which Nicias and Laches have not, then I admit
that you would be right in
inviting me to perform this duty; but as we are all in the same
perplexity, why should one of us be preferred to another? I certainly
think that no one should; and under these circumstances, let me offer
you a piece of advice (and this need not go further than ourselves). I
maintain, my friends, that every one of us should seek out the best
teacher whom he can find, first for ourselves, who are greatly in need
of one, and then for the youth, regardless of expense or anything. But I
cannot advise that we remain as we are.
And if any one laughs at us for going to school at our age, I would
quote to them the authority of Homer, who says, that
‘Modesty is not good for a needy man.’
Let us then, regardless of what may be said of us, make the education of
the youths our own education.
LYSIMACHUS: I like your proposal, Socrates; and as I am the oldest, I am
also the most eager to go to school with the boys. Let me beg a favour
of you: Come to my house to-morrow at dawn, and we will advise about
these matters. For the present, let us make an end of the conversation.
SOCRATES: I will come to you to-morrow, Lysimachus, as you propose, God
willing.
Lysis; or Friendship
by
Plato
Introduction
No answer is given in the Lysis to the question, ‘What is Friendship?’
any more than in the Charmides to the question, ‘What is Temperance?’
There are several resemblances in the two Dialogues: the same
youthfulness and sense of beauty pervades both of them; they are alike
rich in the description of Greek life. The question is again raised of
the relation of knowledge to virtue and good, which also recurs in the
Laches; and Socrates appears again as the elder friend of the two boys,
Lysis and Menexenus. In the Charmides, as also in the Laches, he is
described as middleaged; in the Lysis he is advanced in years.
The Dialogue consists of two scenes or conversations which seem to have
no relation to each other. The first is a conversation between Socrates
and Lysis, who, like Charmides, is an Athenian youth of noble descent
and of great beauty, goodness, and intelligence: this is carried on in
the absence of Menexenus, who is called away to take part in a
sacrifice. Socrates asks Lysis whether his father and mother do not love
him very much?
‘To be sure they do.’ ‘Then of course they allow him to do exactly as he
likes.’ ‘Of course not: the very slaves have more liberty than he has.’
‘But how is this?’ ‘The reason is that he is not old enough.’ ‘No; the
real reason is that he is not wise enough: for are there not some things
which he is allowed to do, although he is not allowed to do others?’
‘Yes, because he knows them, and does not know the others.’ This leads
to the conclusion that all men everywhere will trust him in what he
knows, but not in what he does not know; for in such matters he will be
unprofitable to them, and do them no good. And no one will love him, if
he does them no good; and he can only do them good by knowledge; and as
he is still without knowledge, he can have as yet no conceit of
knowledge. In this manner Socrates reads a lesson to Hippothales, the
foolish lover of Lysis, respecting the style of conversation which he
should address to his beloved.
After the return of Menexenus, Socrates, at the request of Lysis, asks
him a new question: ‘What is friendship? You, Menexenus, who have a
friend already, can tell me, who am always longing to find one, what is
the secret of this great blessing.’
When one man loves another, which is the friend—he who loves, or he who
is loved? Or are both friends? From the first of these suppositions they
are driven to the second; and from the second to the third; and neither
the two boys nor Socrates are satisfied with
any of the three or with all of them. Socrates turns to the poets, who
affirm that God brings like to like (Homer), and to philosophers
(Empedocles), who also assert that like is the friend of like. But the
bad are not friends, for they are not even like themselves, and still
less are they like one another. And the good have no need of one
another, and therefore do not care about one another. Moreover there are
others who say that likeness is a cause of aversion, and unlikeness of
love and friendship; and they too adduce the authority of poets and
philosophers in support of their doctrines; for Hesiod says that ‘potter
is jealous of potter, bard of bard;’ and subtle doctors tell us that
‘moist is the friend of dry, hot of cold,’ and the like. But neither can
their doctrine be maintained; for then the just would be the friend of
the unjust, good of evil.
Thus we arrive at the conclusion that like is not the friend of like,
nor unlike of unlike; and therefore good is not the friend of good, nor
evil of evil, nor good of evil, nor evil of good. What remains but that
the indifferent, which is neither good nor evil, should be the friend
(not of the indifferent, for that would be ‘like the friend of like,’
but) of the good, or rather of the beautiful?
But why should the indifferent have this attachment to the beautiful or
good? There are circumstances under which such an attachment would be
natural. Suppose the indifferent, say the human body, to be desirous of
getting rid of some evil, such as disease, which is not essential but
only accidental to it (for if the evil were essential the body would
cease to be indifferent, and would become evil)—in such a case the
indifferent becomes a friend of the good for the sake of getting rid of
the evil. In this intermediate ‘indifferent’ position the philosopher or
lover of wisdom stands: he is not wise, and yet not unwise, but he has
ignorance accidentally clinging to him, and he yearns for wisdom as the
cure of the evil. (Symp.)
After this explanation has been received with triumphant accord, a fresh
dissatisfaction begins to steal over the mind of Socrates: Must not
friendship be for the sake of some ulterior end? and what can that final
cause or end of friendship be, other than the good?
But the good is desired by us only as the cure of evil; and therefore if
there were no evil there would be no friendship. Some other explanation
then has to be devised. May not desire be the source of friendship? And
desire is of what a man wants and of what is congenial to him. But then
the congenial cannot be the same as the like; for like, as has been
already shown, cannot be the friend of like. Nor can the congenial be
the good; for
good is not the friend of good, as has been also shown. The problem is
unsolved, and the three friends, Socrates, Lysis, and Menexenus, are
still unable to find out what a friend is.
Thus, as in the Charmides and Laches, and several of the other Dialogues
of Plato (compare especially the Protagoras and Theaetetus), no
conclusion is arrived at.
Socrates maintains his character of a ‘know nothing;’ but the boys have
already learned the lesson which he is unable to teach them, and they
are free from the conceit of knowledge. (Compare Chrm.) The dialogue is
what would be called in the language of Thrasyllus tentative or
inquisitive. The subject is continued in the Phaedrus and Symposium, and
treated, with a manifest reference to the Lysis, in the eighth and
ninth books of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. As in other writings
of Plato (for example, the Republic), there is a progress from
unconscious morality, illustrated by the friendship of the two youths,
and also by the sayings of the poets (‘who are our fathers in wisdom,’
and yet only tell us half the truth, and in this particular instance are
not much improved upon by the philosophers), to a more comprehensive
notion of friendship.
This, however, is far from being cleared of its perplexity. Two notions
appear to be struggling or balancing in the mind of Socrates:—First, the
sense that friendship arises out of human needs and wants; Secondly,
that the higher form or ideal of friendship exists only for the sake of
the good. That friends are not necessarily either like or unlike, is
also a truth confirmed by experience. But the use of the terms ‘like’ or
‘good’ is too strictly limited; Socrates has allowed himself to be
carried away by a sort of eristic or illogical logic against which no
definition of friendship would be able to stand. In the course of the
argument he makes a distinction between property and accident which is a
real contribution to the science of logic. Some higher truths appear
through the mist.
The manner in which the field of argument is widened, as in the
Charmides and Laches by the introduction of the idea of knowledge, so
here by the introduction of the good, is deserving of attention. The
sense of the inter-dependence of good and evil, and the allusion to the
possibility of the non-existence of evil, are also very remarkable.
The dialectical interest is fully sustained by the dramatic
accompaniments. Observe, first, the scene, which is a Greek Palaestra,
at a time when a sacrifice is going on, and the Hermaea are in course of
celebration; secondly, the ‘accustomed irony’ of Socrates, who
declares, as in the Symposium, that he is ignorant of all other things,
but claims to have
a knowledge of the mysteries of love. There are likewise several
contrasts of character; first of the dry, caustic Ctesippus, of whom
Socrates professes a humorous sort of fear, and Hippothales the flighty
lover, who murders sleep by bawling out the name of his beloved; there
is also a contrast between the false, exaggerated, sentimental love of
Hippothales towards Lysis, and the childlike and innocent friendship of
the boys with one another. Some difference appears to be intended
between the characters of the more talkative Menexenus and the reserved
and simple Lysis. Socrates draws out the latter by a new sort of irony,
which is sometimes adopted in talking to children, and consists in
asking a leading question which can only be answered in a sense contrary
to the intention of the question: ‘Your father and mother of course
allow you to drive the chariot?’ ‘No they do not.’ When Menexenus
returns, the serious dialectic begins. He is described as ‘very
pugnacious,’ and we are thus prepared for the part which a mere youth
takes in a difficult argument. But Plato has not forgotten dramatic
propriety, and Socrates proposes at last to refer the question to some
older person.
SOME QUESTIONS RELATING TO FRIENDSHIP.
The subject of friendship has a lower place in the modern than in the
ancient world, partly because a higher place is assigned by us to love
and marriage. The very meaning of the word has become slighter and more
superficial; it seems almost to be borrowed from the ancients, and has
nearly disappeared in modern treatises on Moral Philosophy.
The received examples of friendship are to be found chiefly among the
Greeks and Romans. Hence the casuistical or other questions which arise
out of the relations of friends have not often been considered seriously
in modern times. Many of them will be found to be the same which are
discussed in the Lysis. We may ask with Socrates, 1) whether friendship
is ‘of similars or dissimilars,’ or of both; 2) whether such a tie
exists between the good only and for the sake of the good; or 3) whether
there may not be some peculiar attraction, which draws together ‘the
neither good nor evil’ for the sake of the good and because of the evil;
4) whether friendship is always mutual,—may there not be a one-sided
and unrequited friendship? This question, which, like many others, is
only one of a laxer or stricter use of words, seems to have greatly
exercised the minds both of Aristotle and Plato.
5) Can we expect friendship to be permanent, or must we acknowledge with
Cicero,
‘Nihil difficilius quam amicitiam usque ad extremum vitae permanere’? Is
not
friendship, even more than love, liable to be swayed by the caprices of
fancy? The person who pleased us most at first sight or upon a slight
acquaintance, when we have seen him again, and under different
circumstances, may make a much less favourable impression on our minds.
Young people swear ‘eternal friendships,’ but at these innocent
perjuries their elders laugh. No one forms a friendship with the
intention of renouncing it; yet in the course of a varied life it is
practically certain that many changes will occur of feeling, opinion,
locality, occupation, fortune, which will divide us from some persons
and unite us to others. 6) There is an ancient saying, Qui amicos amicum
non habet. But is not some less exclusive form of friendship better
suited to the condition and nature of man?
And in those especially who have no family ties, may not the feeling
pass beyond one or a few, and embrace all with whom we come into
contact, and, perhaps in a few passionate and exalted natures, all men
everywhere? 7) The ancients had their three kinds of friendship, ‘for
the sake of the pleasant, the useful, and the good:’ is the last to be
resolved into the two first; or are the two first to be included in the
last? The subject was puzzling to them: they could not say that
friendship was only a quality, or a relation, or a virtue, or a kind of
virtue; and they had not in the age of Plato reached the point of
regarding it, like justice, as a form or attribute of virtue. They had
another perplexity: 8) How could one of the noblest feelings of human
nature be so near to one of the most detestable corruptions of it?
(Compare Symposium; Laws).
Leaving the Greek or ancient point of view, we may regard the question
in a more general way. Friendship is the union of two persons in mutual
affection and remembrance of one another. The friend can do for his
friend what he cannot do for himself. He can give him counsel in time of
difficulty; he can teach him ‘to see himself as others see him’; he can
stand by him, when all the world are against him; he can gladden and
enlighten him by his presence; he ‘can divide his sorrows,’ he can
‘double his joys;’
he can anticipate his wants. He will discover ways of helping him
without creating a sense of his own superiority; he will find out his
mental trials, but only that he may minister to them. Among true friends
jealousy has no place: they do not complain of one another for making
new friends, or for not revealing some secret of their lives; (in
friendship too there must be reserves;) they do not intrude upon one
another, and they mutually rejoice in any good which happens to either
of them, though it may be to the loss of the other. They may live apart
and have little intercourse, but when they meet, the old tie is as
strong as ever— according to the common saying, they find one another
always the same. The greatest good of friendship is not daily
intercourse, for circumstances rarely admit of this; but on the great
occasions of life, when the advice of a friend is needed, then the word
spoken in season about conduct, about health, about marriage, about
business,—the letter written from a distance by a disinterested person
who sees with clearer eyes may be of inestimable value. When the heart
is failing and despair is setting in, then to hear the voice or grasp
the hand of a friend, in a shipwreck, in a defeat, in some other failure
or misfortune, may restore the necessary courage and composure to the
paralysed and disordered mind, and convert the feeble person into a
hero; (compare Symposium).
It is true that friendships are apt to be disappointing: either we
expect too much from them; or we are indolent and do not ‘keep them in
repair;’ or being admitted to intimacy with another, we see his faults
too clearly and lose our respect for him; and he loses his affection for
us. Friendships may be too violent; and they may be too sensitive. The
egotism of one of the parties may be too much for the other. The word of
counsel or sympathy has been uttered too obtrusively, at the wrong
time, or in the wrong manner; or the need of it has not been perceived
until too late. ‘Oh if he had only told me’ has been the silent thought
of many a troubled soul. And some things have to be indicated rather
than spoken, because the very mention of them tends to disturb the
equability of friendship. The alienation of friends, like many other
human evils, is commonly due to a want of tact and insight. There is not
enough of the Scimus et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim. The
sweet draught of sympathy is not inexhaustible; and it tends to weaken
the person who too freely partakes of it. Thus we see that there are
many causes which impair the happiness of friends.
We may expect a friendship almost divine, such as philosophers have
sometimes dreamed of: we find what is human. The good of it is
necessarily limited; it does not take the place of marriage; it affords
rather a solace than an arm of support. It had better not be based on
pecuniary obligations; these more often mar than make a friendship. It
is most likely to be permanent when the two friends are equal and
independent, or when they are engaged together in some common work or
have some public interest in common. It exists among the bad or inferior
sort of men almost as much as among the good; the bad and good, and
‘the neither bad nor good,’ are drawn together in a strange
manner by personal attachment. The essence of it is loyalty, without
which it would cease to be friendship.
Another question 9) may be raised, whether friendship can safely exist
between young persons of different sexes, not connected by ties of
relationship, and without the thought of love or marriage; whether,
again, a wife or a husband should have any intimate friend, besides his
or her partner in marriage. The answer to this latter question is rather
perplexing, and would probably be different in different countries
(compare Sympos.). While we do not deny that great good may result from
such attachments, for the mind may be drawn out and the character
enlarged by them; yet we feel also that they are attended with many
dangers, and that this Romance of Heavenly Love requires a strength, a
freedom from passion, a self-control, which, in youth especially, are
rarely to be found. The propriety of such friendships must be estimated a
good deal by the manner in which public opinion regards them; they must
be reconciled with the ordinary duties of life; and they must be
justified by the result.
Yet another question, 10). Admitting that friendships cannot be always
permanent, we may ask when and upon what conditions should they be
dissolved. It would be futile to retain the name when the reality has
ceased to be. That two friends should part company whenever the relation
between them begins to drag may be better for both of them. But then
arises the consideration, how should these friends in youth or friends
of the past regard or be regarded by one another? They are parted, but
there still remain duties mutually owing by them. They will not admit
the world to share in their difference any more than in their
friendship; the memory of an old attachment, like the memory of the
dead, has a kind of sacredness for them on which they will not allow
others to intrude. Neither, if they were ever worthy to bear the name of
friends, will either of them entertain any enmity or dislike of the
other who was once so much to him. Neither will he by ‘shadowed hint
reveal’ the secrets great or small which an unfortunate mistake has
placed within his reach. He who is of a noble mind will dwell upon his
own faults rather than those of another, and will be ready to take upon
himself the blame of their separation. He will feel pain at the loss of a
friend; and he will remember with gratitude his ancient kindness. But
he will not lightly renew a tie which has not been lightly
broken...These are a few of the Problems of Friendship, some of them
suggested by the Lysis, others by modern life, which he who wishes to
make or
keep a friend may profitably study. (Compare Bacon, Essay on Friendship;
Cic. de Amicitia.)
Lysis, or Friendship
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, who is the narrator, Menexenus,
Hippothales, Lysis, Ctesippus.
SCENE: A newly-erected Palaestra outside the walls of Athens.
I was going from the Academy straight to the Lyceum, intending to take
the outer road, which is close under the wall. When I came to the
postern gate of the city, which is by the fountain of Panops, I fell in
with Hippothales, the son of Hieronymus, and Ctesippus the Paeanian, and
a company of young men who were standing with them. Hippothales, seeing
me approach, asked whence I came and whither I was going.
I am going, I replied, from the Academy straight to the Lyceum.
Then come straight to us, he said, and put in here; you may as well.
Who are you, I said; and where am I to come?
He showed me an enclosed space and an open door over against the wall.
And there, he said, is the building at which we all meet: and a goodly
company we are.
And what is this building, I asked; and what sort of entertainment have
you?
The building, he replied, is a newly erected Palaestra; and the
entertainment is generally conversation, to which you are welcome.
Thank you, I said; and is there any teacher there?
Yes, he said, your old friend and admirer, Miccus.
Indeed, I replied; he is a very eminent professor.
Are you disposed, he said, to go with me and see them?
Yes, I said; but I should like to know first, what is expected of me,
and who is the favourite among you?
Some persons have one favourite, Socrates, and some another, he said.
And who is yours? I asked: tell me that, Hippothales.
At this he blushed; and I said to him, O Hippothales, thou son of
Hieronymus! do not say that you are, or that you are not, in love; the
confession is too late; for I see that you are not only in love, but are
already far gone in your love. Simple and foolish as I am, the Gods
have given me the power of understanding affections of this kind.
Whereupon he blushed more and more.
Ctesippus said: I like to see you blushing, Hippothales, and hesitating
to tell Socrates the name; when, if he were with you but for a very
short time, you would have plagued him to death by talking about nothing
else. Indeed, Socrates, he has literally deafened us, and stopped our
ears with the praises of Lysis; and if he is a little intoxicated, there
is every likelihood that we may have our sleep murdered with a cry of
Lysis. His performances in prose are bad enough, but nothing at all in
comparison with his verse; and when he drenches us with his poems and
other compositions, it is really too bad; and worse still is his manner
of singing them to his love; he has a voice which is truly appalling,
and we cannot help hearing him: and now having a question put to him by
you, behold he is blushing.
Who is Lysis? I said: I suppose that he must be young; for the name does
not recall any one to me.
Why, he said, his father being a very well-known man, he retains his
patronymic, and is not as yet commonly called by his own name; but,
although you do not know his name, I am sure that you must know his
face, for that is quite enough to distinguish him.
But tell me whose son he is, I said.
He is the eldest son of Democrates, of the deme of Aexone.
Ah, Hippothales, I said; what a noble and really perfect love you have
found! I wish that you would favour me with the exhibition which you
have been making to the rest of the
company, and then I shall be able to judge whether you know what a lover
ought to say about his love, either to the youth himself, or to others.
Nay, Socrates, he said; you surely do not attach any importance to what
he is saying.
Do you mean, I said, that you disown the love of the person whom he says
that you love?
No; but I deny that I make verses or address compositions to him.
He is not in his right mind, said Ctesippus; he is talking nonsense, and
is stark mad.
O Hippothales, I said, if you have ever made any verses or songs in
honour of your favourite, I do not want to hear them; but I want to know
the purport of them, that I may be able to judge of your mode of
approaching your fair one.
Ctesippus will be able to tell you, he said; for if, as he avers, the
sound of my words is always dinning in his ears, he must have a very
accurate knowledge and recollection of them.
Yes, indeed, said Ctesippus; I know only too well; and very ridiculous
the tale is: for although he is a lover, and very devotedly in love, he
has nothing particular to talk about to his beloved which a child might
not say. Now is not that ridiculous? He can only speak of the wealth of
Democrates, which the whole city celebrates, and grandfather Lysis, and
the other ancestors of the youth, and their stud of horses, and their
victory at the Pythian games, and at the Isthmus, and at Nemea with four
horses and single horses—these are the tales which he composes and
repeats. And there is greater twaddle still. Only the day before
yesterday he made a poem in which he described the entertainment of
Heracles, who was a connexion of the family, setting forth how in virtue
of this relationship he was hospitably received by an ancestor of
Lysis; this ancestor was himself begotten of Zeus by the daughter of the
founder of the deme. And these are the sort of old wives’ tales which
he sings and recites to us, and we are obliged to listen to him.
When I heard this, I said: O ridiculous Hippothales! how can you be
making and singing hymns in honour of yourself before you have won?
But my songs and verses, he said, are not in honour of myself, Socrates.
You think not? I said.
Nay, but what do you think? he replied.
Most assuredly, I said, those songs are all in your own honour; for if
you win your beautiful love, your discourses and songs will be a glory
to you, and may be truly regarded as hymns of praise composed in honour
of you who have conquered and won such a love; but if he slips away from
you, the more you have praised him, the more ridiculous you will look
at having lost this fairest and best of blessings; and therefore the
wise lover does not praise his beloved until he has won him, because he
is afraid of accidents. There is also another danger; the fair, when any
one praises or magnifies them, are filled with the spirit of pride and
vain-glory. Do you not agree with me?
Yes, he said.
And the more vain-glorious they are, the more difficult is the capture
of them?
I believe you.
What should you say of a hunter who frightened away his prey, and made
the capture of the animals which he is hunting more difficult?
He would be a bad hunter, undoubtedly.
Yes; and if, instead of soothing them, he were to infuriate them with
words and songs, that would show a great want of wit: do you not agree.
Yes.
And now reflect, Hippothales, and see whether you are not guilty of all
these errors in writing poetry. For I can hardly suppose that you will
affirm a man to be a good poet who injures himself by his poetry.
Assuredly not, he said; such a poet would be a fool. And this is the
reason why I take you into my counsels, Socrates, and I shall be glad of
any further advice which you may have to offer. Will you tell me by
what words or actions I may become endeared to my love?
That is not easy to determine, I said; but if you will bring your love
to me, and will let me talk with him, I may perhaps be able to show you
how to converse with him, instead of singing and reciting in the fashion
of which you are accused.
There will be no difficulty in bringing him, he replied; if you will
only go with Ctesippus into the Palaestra, and sit down and talk, I
believe that he will come of his own accord; for he is fond of
listening, Socrates. And as this is the festival of the Hermaea, the
young men and boys are all together, and there is no separation between
them. He will be sure to come: but if he does not, Ctesippus with whom
he is familiar, and whose relation Menexenus is his great friend, shall
call him.
That will be the way, I said. Thereupon I led Ctesippus into the
Palaestra, and the rest followed.
Upon entering we found that the boys had just been sacrificing; and this
part of the festival was nearly at an end. They were all in their white
array, and games at dice were going on among them. Most of them were in
the outer court amusing themselves; but some were in a corner of the
Apodyterium playing at odd and even with a number of dice, which they
took out of little wicker baskets. There was also a circle of
lookers-on; among them was Lysis. He was standing with the other boys
and youths, having a crown upon his head, like a fair vision, and not
less worthy of praise for his goodness than for his beauty. We left
them, and went over to the opposite side of the room, where, finding a
quiet place, we sat down; and then we began to talk. This attracted
Lysis, who was constantly turning round to look at us—he was evidently
wanting to come to us. For a time he hesitated and had not the courage
to come alone; but first of all, his friend Menexenus, leaving his play,
entered the Palaestra from the court, and when he saw Ctesippus and
myself, was going to take a seat by us; and then Lysis, seeing him,
followed, and sat down by his side; and the other boys joined. I should
observe that Hippothales, when he saw the crowd, got behind them, where
he thought that he would be out of sight of Lysis, lest he should anger
him; and there he stood and listened.
I turned to Menexenus, and said: Son of Demophon, which of you two
youths is the elder?
That is a matter of dispute between us, he said.
And which is the nobler? Is that also a matter of dispute?
Yes, certainly.
And another disputed point is, which is the fairer?
The two boys laughed.
I shall not ask which is the richer of the two, I said; for you are
friends, are you not?
Certainly, they replied.
And friends have all things in common, so that one of you can be no
richer than the other, if you say truly that you are friends.
They assented. I was about to ask which was the juster of the two, and
which was the wiser of the two; but at this moment Menexenus was called
away by some one who came and said that the gymnastic-master wanted him.
I supposed that he had to offer sacrifice. So he went away, and I asked
Lysis some more questions. I dare say, Lysis, I said, that your father
and mother love you very much.
Certainly, he said.
And they would wish you to be perfectly happy.
Yes.
But do you think that any one is happy who is in the condition of a
slave, and who cannot do what he likes?
I should think not indeed, he said.
And if your father and mother love you, and desire that you should be
happy, no one can doubt that they are very ready to promote your
happiness.
Certainly, he replied.
And do they then permit you to do what you like, and never rebuke you or
hinder you from doing what you desire?
Yes, indeed, Socrates; there are a great many things which they hinder
me from doing.
What do you mean? I said. Do they want you to be happy, and yet hinder
you from doing what you like? for example, if you want to mount one of
your father’s chariots, and take the reins at a race, they will not
allow you to do so—they will prevent you?
Certainly, he said, they will not allow me to do so.
Whom then will they allow?
There is a charioteer, whom my father pays for driving.
And do they trust a hireling more than you? and may he do what he likes
with the horses? and do they pay him for this?
They do.
But I dare say that you may take the whip and guide the mule-cart if you
like;—they will permit that?
Permit me! indeed they will not.
Then, I said, may no one use the whip to the mules?
Yes, he said, the muleteer.
And is he a slave or a free man?
A slave, he said.
And do they esteem a slave of more value than you who are their son? And
do they entrust their property to him rather than to you? and allow him
to do what he likes, when they prohibit you? Answer me now: Are you
your own master, or do they not even allow that?
Nay, he said; of course they do not allow it.
Then you have a master?
Yes, my tutor; there he is.
And is he a slave?
To be sure; he is our slave, he replied.
Surely, I said, this is a strange thing, that a free man should be
governed by a slave. And what does he do with you?
He takes me to my teachers.
You do not mean to say that your teachers also rule over you?
Of course they do.
Then I must say that your father is pleased to inflict many lords and
masters on you. But at any rate when you go home to your mother, she
will let you have your own way, and will not interfere with your
happiness; her wool, or the piece of cloth which she is weaving, are at
your disposal: I am sure that there is nothing to hinder you from
touching her wooden spathe, or her comb, or any other of her spinning
implements.
Nay, Socrates, he replied, laughing; not only does she hinder me, but I
should be beaten if I were to touch one of them.
Well, I said, this is amazing. And did you ever behave ill to your
father or your mother?
No, indeed, he replied.
But why then are they so terribly anxious to prevent you from being
happy, and doing as you like?—keeping you all day long in subjection to
another, and, in a word, doing nothing which you desire; so that you
have no good, as would appear, out of their great possessions, which are
under the control of anybody rather than of you, and have no use of
your own fair person, which is tended and taken care of by another;
while you, Lysis, are master of nobody, and can do nothing?
Why, he said, Socrates, the reason is that I am not of age.
I doubt whether that is the real reason, I said; for I should imagine
that your father Democrates, and your mother, do permit you to do many
things already, and do not wait until you are of age: for example, if
they want anything read or written, you, I presume, would be the first
person in the house who is summoned by them.
Very true.
And you would be allowed to write or read the letters in any order which
you please, or to take up the lyre and tune the notes, and play with
the fingers, or strike with the plectrum, exactly as you please, and
neither father nor mother would interfere with you.
That is true, he said.
Then what can be the reason, Lysis, I said, why they allow you to do the
one and not the other?
I suppose, he said, because I understand the one, and not the other.
Yes, my dear youth, I said, the reason is not any deficiency of years,
but a deficiency of knowledge; and whenever your father thinks that you
are wiser than he is, he will instantly commit himself and his
possessions to you.
I think so.
Aye, I said; and about your neighbour, too, does not the same rule hold
as about your father? If he is satisfied that you know more of
housekeeping than he does, will he continue to administer his affairs
himself, or will he commit them to you?
I think that he will commit them to me.
Will not the Athenian people, too, entrust their affairs to you when
they see that you have wisdom enough to manage them?
Yes.
And oh! let me put another case, I said: There is the great king, and he
has an eldest son, who is the Prince of Asia;—suppose that you and I go
to him and establish to his satisfaction that we are better cooks than
his son, will he not entrust to us the prerogative of making soup, and
putting in anything that we like while the pot is boiling, rather than
to the Prince of Asia, who is his son?
To us, clearly.
And we shall be allowed to throw in salt by handfuls, whereas the son
will not be allowed to put in as much as he can take up between his
fingers?
Of course.
Or suppose again that the son has bad eyes, will he allow him, or will
he not allow him, to touch his own eyes if he thinks that he has no
knowledge of medicine?
He will not allow him.
Whereas, if he supposes us to have a knowledge of medicine, he will
allow us to do what we like with him—even to open the eyes wide and
sprinkle ashes upon them, because he supposes that we know what is best?
That is true.
And everything in which we appear to him to be wiser than himself or his
son he will commit to us?
That is very true, Socrates, he replied.
Then now, my dear Lysis, I said, you perceive that in things which we
know every one will trust us,—Hellenes and barbarians, men and
women,—and we may do as we please about them, and no one will like to
interfere with us; we shall be free, and masters of others; and these
things will be really ours, for we shall be benefited by them. But in
things of which we have no understanding, no one will trust us to do as
seems good to us—they will hinder us as far as they can; and not only
strangers, but father and mother, and the friend, if there be one, who
is dearer still, will also hinder us; and we shall be subject to others;
and these things will not be ours, for we shall not be benefited by
them. Do you agree?
He assented.
And shall we be friends to others, and will any others love us, in as
far as we are useless to them?
Certainly not.
Neither can your father or mother love you, nor can anybody love anybody
else, in so far as they are useless to them?
No.
And therefore, my boy, if you are wise, all men will be your friends and
kindred, for you will be useful and good; but if you are not wise,
neither father, nor mother, nor kindred, nor any one else, will be your
friends. And in matters of which you have as yet no knowledge, can you
have any conceit of knowledge?
That is impossible, he replied.
And you, Lysis, if you require a teacher, have not yet attained to
wisdom.
True.
And therefore you are not conceited, having nothing of which to be
conceited.
Indeed, Socrates, I think not.
When I heard him say this, I turned to Hippothales, and was very nearly
making a blunder, for I was going to say to him: That is the way,
Hippothales, in which you should talk to your beloved, humbling and
lowering him, and not as you do, puffing him up and spoiling him. But I
saw that he was in great excitement and confusion at what had been said,
and I remembered that, although he was in the neighbourhood, he did not
want to be seen by Lysis; so upon second thoughts I refrained.
In the meantime Menexenus came back and sat down in his place by Lysis;
and Lysis, in a childish and affectionate manner, whispered privately in
my ear, so that Menexenus should not hear: Do, Socrates, tell Menexenus
what you have been telling me.
Suppose that you tell him yourself, Lysis, I replied; for I am sure that
you were attending.
Certainly, he replied.
Try, then, to remember the words, and be as exact as you can in
repeating them to him, and if you have forgotten anything, ask me again
the next time that you see me.
I will be sure to do so, Socrates; but go on telling him something new,
and let me hear, as long as I am allowed to stay.
I certainly cannot refuse, I said, since you ask me; but then, as you
know, Menexenus is very pugnacious, and therefore you must come to the
rescue if he attempts to upset me.
Yes, indeed, he said; he is very pugnacious, and that is the reason why I
want you to argue with him.
That I may make a fool of myself?
No, indeed, he said; but I want you to put him down.
That is no easy matter, I replied; for he is a terrible fellow—a pupil
of Ctesippus. And there is Ctesippus himself: do you see him?
Never mind, Socrates, you shall argue with him.
Well, I suppose that I must, I replied.
Hereupon Ctesippus complained that we were talking in secret, and
keeping the feast to ourselves.
I shall be happy, I said, to let you have a share. Here is Lysis, who
does not understand something that I was saying, and wants me to ask
Menexenus, who, as he thinks, is likely to know.
And why do you not ask him? he said.
Very well, I said, I will; and do you, Menexenus, answer. But first I
must tell you that I am one who from my childhood upward have set my
heart upon a certain thing. All people have their fancies; some desire
horses, and others dogs; and some are fond of gold, and others of
honour. Now, I have no violent desire of any of these things; but I have
a passion for friends; and I would rather have a good friend than the
best cock or quail in the world: I would even go further, and say the
best horse or dog. Yea, by the dog of Egypt, I should greatly prefer a
real friend to all the gold of Darius, or even to Darius himself: I am
such a lover of friends as that. And when I see you and Lysis, at your
early age, so easily possessed of this treasure, and so soon, he of you,
and you of him, I am amazed and delighted, seeing that I myself,
although I am now advanced in years, am so far from having made a
similar acquisition, that I do not even know in what way a friend is
acquired. But I want to ask you a question about this, for you have
experience: tell me then, when one loves another, is the lover or the
beloved the friend; or may either be the friend?
Either may, I should think, be the friend of either.
Do you mean, I said, that if only one of them loves the other, they are
mutual friends?
Yes, he said; that is my meaning.
But what if the lover is not loved in return? which is a very possible
case.
Yes.
Or is, perhaps, even hated? which is a fancy which sometimes is
entertained by lovers respecting their beloved. Nothing can exceed their
love; and yet they imagine either that they are not loved in return, or
that they are hated. Is not that true?
Yes, he said, quite true.
In that case, the one loves, and the other is loved?
Yes.
Then which is the friend of which? Is the lover the friend of the
beloved, whether he be loved in return, or hated; or is the beloved the
friend; or is there no friendship at all on either side, unless they
both love one another?
There would seem to be none at all.
Then this notion is not in accordance with our previous one. We were
saying that both were friends, if one only loved; but now, unless they
both love, neither is a friend.
That appears to be true.
Then nothing which does not love in return is beloved by a lover?
I think not.
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—
‘Happy the man to whom his children are dear, and steeds having single
hoofs, and dogs of chase, and the stranger of another land’?
I do not think that he was wrong.
You think that he is right?
Document Outline
OUTER COVER
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF PLATO-cover
dino's noe
The Dialogues of Plato
