Part 46
_Soc._ You see, Hippias, as I have already told you, how pertinacious I am in asking questions of wise men. And I think that this is the only good point about me, for I am full of defects, and always getting wrong in some way or other. My deficiency is proved to me by the fact that when I meet one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Hellenes are witnesses, I am found out to know nothing. For speaking generally, I hardly ever have the same opinion about anything which you have, and what proof of ignorance can be greater than to differ from wise men? But I have one singular good quality, which is my salvation; I am not ashamed to learn, and I ask and enquire, and am very grateful to those who answer me, and never fail to give them my grateful thanks; and when I learn a thing I never deny my teacher, or pretend that the lesson is a discovery of my own; but I praise his wisdom, and proclaim what I have learned from him. And now I cannot agree in what you are saying, but I strongly disagree. Well, I know that this is my own fault, and is a defect in my character, but I will not pretend to be more than I am; and my opinion, Hippias, is the very contrary of what you are saying. For I maintain that those who hurt or injure mankind, and speak falsely and deceive, and err voluntarily, are better far than those who do wrong involuntarily. Sometimes, however, I am of the opposite opinion; for I am all abroad in my ideas about this matter, a condition obviously occasioned by ignorance. And just now I happen to be in a crisis of my disorder at which those who err voluntarily appear to me better than those who err involuntarily. My present state of mind is due to our previous argument, which inclines me to believe that in general those who do wrong involuntarily are worse than those who do wrong voluntarily, and therefore I hope that you will be good to me, and not refuse to heal me; for you will do me a much greater benefit if you cure my soul of ignorance, than you would if you were to cure my body of disease. I must, however, tell you beforehand, that if you 373 make a long oration to me you will not cure me, for I shall not be able to follow you; but if you will answer me, as you did just now, you will do me a great deal of good, and I do not think that you will be any the worse yourself. And I have some claim upon you also, O son of Apemantus, for you incited me to converse with Hippias; and now, if Hippias will not answer me, you must entreat him on my behalf.
_Eud._ But I do not think, Socrates, that Hippias will require any entreaty of mine; for he has already said that he will refuse to answer no man.—Did you not say so, Hippias?
_Hip._ Yes, I did; but then, Eudicus, Socrates is always troublesome in an argument, and appears to be dishonest[54].
_Soc._ Excellent Hippias, I do not do so intentionally (if I did, it would show me to be a wise man and a master of wiles, as you would argue), but unintentionally, and therefore you must pardon me; for, as you say, he who is unintentionally dishonest should be pardoned.
[Sidenote: _The analogy of bodily exercises._]
_Eud._ Yes, Hippias, do as he says; and for our sake, and also that you may not belie your profession, answer whatever Socrates asks you.
_Hip._ I will answer, as you request me; and do you ask whatever you like.
[Sidenote: Socrates by citation of instances not ‘in pari materia’ proves that it is better to do evil intentionally: e. g. in running, in wrestling, in the action of the body, in singing, in the use of the feet, eyes, ears, of instruments.]
_Soc._ I am very desirous, Hippias, of examining this question, as to which are the better—those who err voluntarily or involuntarily? And if you will answer me, I think that I can put you in the way of approaching the subject: You would admit, would you not, that there are good runners?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And there are bad runners?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And he who runs well is a good runner, and he who runs ill is a bad runner?
_Hip._ Very true.
_Soc._ And he who runs slowly runs ill, and he who runs quickly runs well?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ Then in a race, and in running, swiftness is a good, and slowness is an evil quality?
_Hip._ To be sure.
_Soc._ Which of the two then is a better runner? He who runs slowly voluntarily, or he who runs slowly involuntarily?
_Hip._ He who runs slowly voluntarily.
_Soc._ And is not running a species of doing?
_Hip._ Certainly.
_Soc._ And if a species of doing, a species of action?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ Then he who runs badly does a bad and dishonourable action in a race?
_Hip._ Yes; a bad action, certainly.
_Soc._ And he who runs slowly runs badly?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ Then the good runner does this bad and disgraceful action voluntarily, and the bad involuntarily?
_Hip._ That is to be inferred.
_Soc._ Then he who involuntarily does evil actions, is worse in a race than he who does them voluntarily?
_Hip._ Yes, in a race.
[Sidenote: _The analogy of the human faculties,_]
_Soc._ Well; but at a wrestling match—which is the better 374 wrestler, he who falls voluntarily or involuntarily?
_Hip._ He who falls voluntarily, doubtless.
_Soc._ And is it worse or more dishonourable at a wrestling match, to fall, or to throw another?
_Hip._ To fall.
_Soc._ Then, at a wrestling match, he who voluntarily does base and dishonourable actions is a better wrestler than he who does them involuntarily?
_Hip._ That appears to be the truth.
_Soc._ And what would you say of any other bodily exercise—is not he who is better made able to do both that which is strong and that which is weak—that which is fair and that which is foul?—so that when he does bad actions with the body, he who is better made does them voluntarily, and he who is worse made does them involuntarily.
_Hip._ Yes, that appears to be true about strength.
_Soc._ And what do you say about grace, Hippias? Is not he who is better made able to assume evil and disgraceful figures and postures voluntarily, as he who is worse made assumes them involuntarily?
_Hip._ True.
_Soc._ Then voluntary ungracefulness comes from excellence of the bodily frame, and involuntary from the defect of the bodily frame?
_Hip._ True.
_Soc._ And what would you say of an unmusical voice; would you prefer the voice which is voluntarily or involuntarily out of tune?
_Hip._ That which is voluntarily out of tune.
_Soc._ The involuntary is the worse of the two?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And would you choose to possess goods or evils?
_Hip._ Goods.
_Soc._ And would you rather have feet which are voluntarily or involuntarily lame?
_Hip._ Feet which are voluntarily lame.
_Soc._ But is not lameness a defect or deformity?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And is not blinking a defect in the eyes?
[Sidenote: _of implements, arts, etc., confirms the view of Socrates._]
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And would you rather always have eyes with which you might voluntarily blink and not see, or with which you might involuntarily blink?
_Hip._ I would rather have eyes which voluntarily blink.
_Soc._ Then in your own case you deem that which voluntarily acts ill, better than that which involuntarily acts ill?
_Hip._ Yes, certainly, in cases such as you mention.
_Soc._ And does not the same hold of ears, nostrils, mouth, and of all the senses—those which involuntarily act ill are not to be desired, as being defective; and those which voluntarily act ill are to be desired as being good?
_Hip._ I agree.
_Soc._ And what would you say of instruments;—which are the better sort of instruments to have to do with?—those with which a man acts ill voluntarily or involuntarily? For example, had a man better have a rudder with which he will steer ill, voluntarily or involuntarily?
_Hip._ He had better have a rudder with which he will steer ill voluntarily.
_Soc._ And does not the same hold of the bow and the lyre, the flute and all other things?
_Hip._ Very true.
_Soc._ And would you rather have a horse of such a temper that you may ride him ill voluntarily or involuntarily?
[Sidenote: It is true also of animals, in the practice of archery, of medicine, in the characters of slaves.]
_Hip._ I would rather have a horse which I could ride ill 375 voluntarily.
_Soc._ That would be the better horse?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ Then with a horse of better temper, vicious actions would be produced voluntarily; and with a horse of bad temper involuntarily?
_Hip._ Certainly.
_Soc._ And that would be true of a dog, or of any other animal?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And is it better to possess the mind of an archer who voluntarily or involuntarily misses the mark?
_Hip._ Of him who voluntarily misses.
[Sidenote: _Hippias cannot agree with Socrates,_]
_Soc._ This would be the better mind for the purposes of archery?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ Then the mind which involuntarily errs is worse than the mind which errs voluntarily?
_Hip._ Yes, certainly, in the use of the bow.
_Soc._ And what would you say of the art of medicine;—has not the mind which voluntarily works harm to the body, more of the healing art?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ Then in the art of medicine the voluntary is better than the involuntary?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ Well, and in lute-playing and in flute-playing, and in all arts and sciences, is not that mind the better which voluntarily does what is evil and dishonourable, and goes wrong, and is not the worse that which does so involuntarily?
_Hip._ That is evident.
_Soc._ And what would you say of the characters of slaves? Should we not prefer to have those who voluntarily do wrong and make mistakes, and are they not better in their mistakes than those who commit them involuntarily?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And should we not desire to have our own minds in the best state possible?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And will our minds be better if they do wrong and make mistakes voluntarily or involuntarily?
[Sidenote: Hippias revolts at the conclusion.]
_Hip._ O, Socrates, it would be a monstrous thing to say that those who do wrong voluntarily are better than those who do wrong involuntarily!
_Soc._ And yet that appears to be the only inference.
_Hip._ I do not think so.
[Sidenote: Socrates recapitulates the argument.]
_Soc._ But I imagined, Hippias, that you did. Please to answer once more: Is not justice a power, or knowledge, or both? Must not justice, at all events, be one of these?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ But if justice is a power of the soul, then the soul which has the greater power is also the more just; for that which has the greater power, my good friend, has been proved by us to be the better.
[Sidenote: _nor Socrates with himself._]
_Hip._ Yes, that has been proved.
_Soc._ And if justice is knowledge, then the wiser will be the juster soul, and the more ignorant the more unjust?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ But if justice be power as well as knowledge—then will not the soul which has both knowledge and power be the more just, and that which is the more ignorant be the more unjust? Must it not be so?
_Hip._ Clearly.
_Soc._ And is not the soul which has the greater power and wisdom also better, and better able to do both good and evil in every action?
_Hip._ Certainly.
_Soc._ The soul, then, which acts ill, acts voluntarily by 376 power and art—and these either one or both of them are elements of justice?
_Hip._ That seems to be true.
_Soc._ And to do injustice is to do ill, and not to do injustice is to do well?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ And will not the better and abler soul when it does wrong, do wrong voluntarily, and the bad soul involuntarily?
_Hip._ Clearly.
_Soc._ And the good man is he who has the good soul, and the bad man is he who has the bad?
_Hip._ Yes.
_Soc._ Then the good man will voluntarily do wrong, and the bad man involuntarily, if the good man is he who has the good soul?
_Hip._ Which he certainly has.
[Sidenote: Hippias, who has admitted the previous deductions, rebels at the final one. Socrates is himself dissatisfied. What remains if Socrates and a wiser than Socrates are alike in doubt?]
_Soc._ Then, Hippias, he who voluntarily does wrong and disgraceful things, if there be such a man, will be the good man?
_Hip._ There I cannot agree with you.
[Sidenote: _Socrates thinks the matter serious._]
_Soc._ Nor can I agree with myself, Hippias; and yet that seems to be the conclusion which, as far as we can see at present, must follow from our argument. As I was saying before, I am all abroad, and being in perplexity am always changing my opinion. Now, that I or any ordinary man should wander in perplexity is not surprising; but if you wise men also wander, and we cannot come to you and rest from our wandering, the matter begins to be serious both to us and to you.
FOOTNOTES
[53] Cp. Gorgias 448 A.
[54] Cp. Gorgias 499, 505; Rep. vi. 487.
ALCIBIADES I.
INTRODUCTION.
[Sidenote: _Alcibiades I._]
The First Alcibiades is a conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades. Socrates is represented in the character which he attributes to himself in the Apology of a know-nothing who detects the conceit of knowledge in others. The two have met already in the Protagoras and in the Symposium; in the latter dialogue, as in this, the relation between them is that of a lover and his beloved. But the narrative of their loves is told differently in different places; for in the Symposium Alcibiades is depicted as the impassioned but rejected lover; here, as coldly receiving the advances of Socrates, who, for the best of purposes, lies in wait for the aspiring and ambitious youth.
[Sidenote: ANALYSIS.]
Alcibiades, who is described as a very young man, is =Steph.= 103 about to enter on public life, having an inordinate opinion of himself, and an extravagant ambition. Socrates, ‘who knows what is in man,’ astonishes him by a revelation of his designs. But has -106 he the knowledge which is necessary for carrying them out? He is going to persuade the Athenians—about what? Not about any 107 particular art, but about politics—when to fight and when to make peace. Now, men should fight and make peace on just grounds, and therefore the question of justice and injustice must enter into peace and war; and he who advises the Athenians must know -109 the difference between them. Does Alcibiades know? If he does, he must either have been taught by some master, or he must have discovered the nature of them himself. If he has had a master, Socrates would like to be informed who he is, that he may go and learn of him also. Alcibiades admits that he has 110 never learned. Then has he enquired for himself? He may have, if he was ever aware of a time when he was ignorant. But he never was ignorant; for when he played with other boys at dice, he charged them with cheating, and this implied a knowledge of just and unjust. According to his own explanation, he had learned of the multitude. Why, he asks, should he not learn of them the nature of justice, as he has learned the Greek language of them? To this Socrates answers, that they can teach Greek, but they 111 cannot teach justice; for they are agreed about the one, but they are not agreed about the other: and therefore Alcibiades, who 112 has admitted that if he knows he must either have learned from a master or have discovered for himself the nature of justice, is convicted out of his own mouth. 113
[Sidenote: _Analysis 110-126._]
Alcibiades rejoins, that the Athenians debate not about what is just, but about what is expedient; and he asserts that the two principles of justice and expediency are opposed. Socrates, by a 114 series of questions, compels him to admit that the just and the expedient coincide. Alcibiades is thus reduced to the humiliating -117 conclusion that he knows nothing of politics, even if, as he says, they are concerned with the expedient.
However, he is no worse than other Athenian statesmen; and he will not need training, for others are as ignorant as he is. He is reminded that he has to contend, not only with his own countrymen, but with their enemies—with the Spartan kings and -120 with the great king of Persia; and he can only attain this higher aim of ambition by the assistance of Socrates. Not that Socrates himself professes to have attained the truth, but the questions which he asks bring others to a knowledge of themselves, and this is the first step in the practice of virtue.
The dialogue continues:—We wish to become as good as -124 possible. But to be good in what? Alcibiades replies—‘Good in transacting business.’ But what business? ‘The business of the 125 most intelligent men at Athens.’ The cobbler is intelligent in shoemaking, and is therefore good in that; he is not intelligent, and therefore not good, in weaving. Is he good in the sense which Alcibiades means, who is also bad? ‘I mean,’ replies Alcibiades, ‘the man who is able to command in the city.’ But to command what—horses or men? and if men, under what circumstances? ‘I mean to say, that he is able to command men living in social and political relations.’ And what is their aim? ‘The better preservation of the city.’ But when is a city better? 126 ‘When there is unanimity, such as exists between husband and wife.’ Then, when husbands and wives perform their own 127 special duties, there can be no unanimity between them; nor can a city be well ordered when each citizen does his own work only. Alcibiades, having stated first that goodness consists in the unanimity of the citizens, and then in each of them doing his own separate work, is brought to the required point of self-contradiction, leading him to confess his own ignorance. 128
[Sidenote: _Analysis 127-135._]
But he is not too old to learn, and may still arrive at the truth, if he is willing to be cross-examined by Socrates. He must know 129 himself; that is to say, not his body, or the things of the body, but his mind, or truer self. The physician knows the body, and the tradesman knows his own business, but they do not necessarily know themselves. Self-knowledge can be obtained only by looking into the mind and virtue of the soul, which is the -132 diviner part of a man, as we see our own image in another’s eye. And if we do not know ourselves, we cannot know what belongs to ourselves or belongs to others, and are unfit to take a part in political affairs. Both for the sake of the individual and of the -134 state, we ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth or power. The evil and unjust should have no power,—they should be the slaves of better men than themselves. None but the 135 virtuous are deserving of freedom.
And are you, Alcibiades, a freeman? ‘I feel that I am not; but I hope, Socrates, that by your aid I may become free, and from this day forward I will never leave you.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]
The Alcibiades has several points of resemblance to the undoubted dialogues of Plato. The process of interrogation is of the same kind with that which Socrates practises upon the youthful Cleinias in the Euthydemus; and he characteristically attributes to Alcibiades the answers which he has elicited from him. The definition of good is narrowed by successive questions, and virtue is shown to be identical with knowledge. Here, as elsewhere, Socrates awakens the consciousness not of sin but of ignorance. Self-humiliation is the first step to knowledge, even of the commonest things. No man knows how ignorant he is, and no man can arrive at virtue and wisdom who has not once in his life, at least, been convicted of error. The process by which the soul is elevated is not unlike that which religious writers describe under the name of ‘conversion,’ if we substitute the sense of ignorance for the consciousness of sin.
[Sidenote: _Genuineness of the dialogue._]
In some respects the dialogue differs from any other Platonic composition. The aim is more directly ethical and hortatory; the process by which the antagonist is undermined is simpler than in other Platonic writings, and the conclusion more decided. There is a good deal of humour in the manner in which the pride of Alcibiades, and of the Greeks generally, is supposed to be taken down by the Spartan and Persian queens; and the dialogue has considerable dialectical merit. But we have a difficulty in supposing that the same writer, who has given so profound and complex a notion of the characters both of Alcibiades and Socrates in the Symposium, should have treated them in so thin and superficial a manner in the Alcibiades, or that he would have ascribed to the ironical Socrates the rather unmeaning boast that Alcibiades could not attain the objects of his ambition without his help (105 D foll.); or that he should have imagined that a mighty nature like his could have been reformed by a few not very conclusive words of Socrates. For the arguments by which Alcibiades is reformed are not convincing; the writer of the dialogue, whoever he was, arrives at his idealism by crooked and tortuous paths, in which many pitfalls are concealed. The anachronism of making Alcibiades about twenty years old during the life of his uncle, Pericles, may be noted; and the repetition of the favourite observation, which occurs also in the Laches and Protagoras, that great Athenian statesmen, like Pericles, failed in the education of their sons. There is none of the undoubted dialogues of Plato in which there is so little dramatic verisimilitude.
ALCIBIADES I.
_PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE._
ALCIBIADES, SOCRATES.
[Sidenote: _Alcibiades I._]
[Sidenote: The pride of Alcibiades has been too much for his lovers.]