Book 3
No, no; I shall propose to do away with them all, for the only effect of maintaining them is that our crops are stolen.But if you do away with the garrisons, don’t you think that anyone will be at liberty to rob us openly? However, have you been on a tour of inspection, or how do you know that they are badly maintained?By guess-work.Then shall we wait to offer advice on this question too until we really know, instead of merely guessing?Perhaps it would be better.Now for the silver mines.
I am sure you have not visited them, and so cannot tell why the amount derived from them has fallen.No, indeed, I have not been there.To be sure: the district is considered unhealthy, and so when you have to offer advice on the problem, this excuse will serve.You’re chaffing me.
Ah, but there’s one problem I feel sure you haven’t overlooked: no doubt you have reckoned how long the corn grown in the country will maintain the population, and how much is needed annually, so that you may not be caught napping, should the city at any time be short, and may come to the rescue and relieve the city by giving expert advice about food.What an overwhelming task, if one has got to include such things as that in one’s duties!
But, you know, no one will ever manage even his own household successfully unless he knows all its needs and sees that they are all supplied. Seeing that our city contains more than ten thousand houses, and it is difficult to look after so many families at once, you must have tried to make a start by doing something for one, I mean your uncle’s? It needs it; and if you succeed with that one, you can set to work on a larger number. But if you can’t do anything for one, how are you going to succeed with many? If a man can’t carry one talent, it’s absurd for him to try to carry more than one, isn’t it?
Well, I could do something for uncle’s household if only he would listen to me.What? You can’t persuade your uncle, and yet you suppose you will be able to persuade all the Athenians, including your uncle, to listen to you?
Pray take care, Glaucon, that your daring ambition doesn’t lead to a fall! Don’t you see how risky it is to say or do what you don’t understand? Think of others whom you know to be the sort of men who say and do what they obviously don’t understand. Do you think they get praise or blame by it?
And think of those who understand what they say and what they do. You will find, I take it, that the men who are famous and admired always come from those who have the widest knowledge, and the infamous and despised from the most ignorant.
Therefore, if you want to win fame and admiration in public life, try to get a thorough knowledge of what you propose to do. If you enter on a public career with this advantage over others, I should not be surprised if you gained the object of your ambition quite easily.
Seeing that Glaucon’s son, Charmides, was a respectable man and far more capable than the politicians of the day, and nevertheless shrank from speaking in the assembly and taking a part in politics, he said: Tell me, Charmides, what would you think of a man who was capable of gaining a victory in the great games and consequently of winning honour for himself and adding to his country’s fame in the Greek world, and yet refused to compete?I should think him a poltroon and a coward, of course.
Then if a man were to shrink from state business though capable of discharging it with advantage to the state and honour to himself, wouldn’t it be reasonable to think him a coward?Perhaps; but why ask me that?Because I fancy that you shrink from work that is within your powers, work in which it is your duty as a citizen to take a hand.What makes you think so?
In what sort of work have you discovered my powers?In your intercourse with public men. Whenever they take counsel with you, I find that you give excellent advice, and whenever they make a mistake, your criticism is sound.
A private conversation is a very different thing from a crowded debate, Socrates.But, you know, a man who is good at figures counts as well in a crowd as in solitude; and those who play the harp best in private excel no less in a crowd.
But surely you see that bashfulness and timidity come natural to a man, and affect him far more powerfully in the presence of a multitude than in private society?Yes, and I mean to give you a lesson. The wisest do not make you bashful, and the strongest do not make you timid; yet you are ashamed to address an audience of mere dunces and weaklings. Who are they that make you ashamed?
The fullers or the cobblers or the builders or the smiths or the farmers or the merchants, or the traffickers in the market-place who think of nothing but buying cheap and selling dear? For these are the people who make up the Assembly.
You behave like a man who can beat trained athletes and is afraid of amateurs! You are at your ease when you talk with the first men in the state, some of whom despise you, and you are a far better talker than the ordinary run of politicians; and yet you are shy of addressing men who never gave a thought to public affairs and haven’t learnt to despise you — all because you fear ridicule!
Well, don’t you think the Assembly often laughs at sound argument?Yes, and so do the others; and that’s why I am surprised that you, who find it easy to manage them when they do it, think you will be quite unable to deal with the Assembly.
My good man, don’t be ignorant of yourself: don’t fall into the common error. For so many are in such a hurry to pry into other people’s business that they never turn aside to examine themselves. Don’t refuse to face this duty then: strive more earnestly to pay heed to yourself; and don’t neglect public affairs, if you have the power to improve them. If they go well, not only the people, but your friends and you yourself at least as much as they will profit.
When Aristippus attempted to cross-examine Socrates in the same fashion as he had been cross-examined by him in their previous encounter, Socrates, wishing to benefit his companions, answered like a man who is resolved to do what is right, and not like a debater guarding against any distortion of the argument.
Aristippus asked if he knew of anything good, in order that if Socrates mentioned some good thing, such as food, drink, money, health, strength, or daring, he might show that it is sometimes bad. But he, knowing that when anything troubles us we need what will put an end to the trouble, gave the best answer:
Are you asking me, he said, whether I know of anything good for a fever?No, not that.For ophthalmia?No, nor that.For hunger?No, not for hunger either.Well, but if you are asking me whether I know of anything good in relation to nothing, I neither know nor want to know.
Again Aristippus asked him whether he knew of anything beautiful: Yes, many things, he replied.All like one another?On the contrary, some are as unlike as they can be.How then can that which is unlike the beautiful be beautiful?The reason, of course, is that a beautiful wrestler is unlike a beautiful runner, a shield beautiful for defence is utterly unlike a javelin beautiful for swift and powerful hurling.
That is the same answer as you gave to my question whether you knew of anything good.You think, do you, that good is one thing and beautiful another? Don’t you know that all things are both beautiful and good in relation to the same things? In the first place, Virtue is not a good thing in relation to some things and a beautiful thing in relation to others. Men, again, are called beautiful and good in the same respect and in relation to the same things: it is in relation to the same things that men’s bodies look beautiful and good and that all other things men use are thought beautiful and good, namely, in relation to those things for which they are useful.
Is a dung basket beautiful then?Of course, and a golden shield is ugly, if the one is well made for its special work and the other badly.Do you mean that the same things are both beautiful and ugly?Of course — and both good and bad.
For what is good for hunger is often bad for fever, and what is good for fever bad for hunger; what is beautiful for running is often ugly for wrestling, and what is beautiful for wrestling ugly for running. For all things are good and beautiful in relation to those purposes for which they are well adapted, bad and ugly in relation to those for which they are ill adapted.
Again his dictum about houses, that the same house is both beautiful and useful, was a lesson in the art of building houses as they ought to be.He approached the problem thus:When one means to have the right sort of house, must he contrive to make it as pleasant to live in and as useful as can be?
And this being admitted, Is it pleasant, he asked, to have it cool in summer and warm in winter?And when they agreed with this also, Now in houses with a south aspect, the sun’s rays penetrate into the porticoes in winter, but in summer the path of the sun is right over our heads and above the roof, so that there is shade. If, then, this is the best arrangement, we should build the south side loftier to get the winter sun and the north side lower to keep out the cold winds.
To put it shortly, the house in which the owner can find a pleasant retreat at all seasons and can store his belongings safely is presumably at once the pleasantest and the most beautiful. As for paintings and decorations, they rob one of more delights than they give.For temples and altars the most suitable position, he said, was a conspicuous site remote from traffic; for it is pleasant to breathe a prayer at the sight of them, and pleasant to approach them filled with holy thoughts.
When asked again whether Courage could be taught or came by nature, he replied: I think that just as one man’s body is naturally stronger than another’s for labour, so one man’s soul is naturally braver than another’s in danger. For I notice that men brought up under the same laws and customs differ widely in daring.
Nevertheless, I think that every man’s nature acquires more courage by learning and practice. Of course Scythians and Thracians would not dare to take bronze shield and spear and fight Lacedaemonians; and of course Lacedaemonians would not be willing to face Thracians with leather shields and javelins, nor Scythians with bows for weapons.
And similarly in all other points, I find that human beings naturally differ one from another and greatly improve by application. Hence it is clear that all men, whatever their natural gifts, the talented and the dullards alike, must learn and practise what they want to excel in.
Between Wisdom and Prudence he drew no distinction; but if a man knows and practises what is beautiful and good, knows and avoids what is base,The Greek text is corrupt, but the sense is clear. that man he judged to be both wise and prudent. When asked further whether he thought that those who know what they ought to do and yet do the opposite are at once wise and vicious, he answered: No; not so much that, as both unwise and vicious. For I think that all men have a choice between various courses, and choose and follow the one which they think conduces most to their advantage. Therefore I hold that those who follow the wrong course are neither wise nor prudent.
He said that Justice and every other form of Virtue is Wisdom. For just actions and all forms of virtuous activity are beautiful and good. He who knows the beautiful and good will never choose anything else, he who is ignorant of them cannot do them, and even if he tries, will fail. Hence the wise do what is beautiful and good, the unwise cannot and fail if they try. Therefore since just actions and all other forms of beautiful and good activity are virtuous actions, it is clear that Justice and every other form of Virtue is Wisdom.
Madness, again, according to him, was the opposite of Wisdom. Nevertheless he did not identify Ignorance with Madness; but not to know yourself, and to assume and think that you know what you do not, he put next to Madness. Most men, however, he declared, do not call those mad who err in matters that lie outside the knowledge of ordinary people: madness is the name they give to errors in matters of common knowledge.
For instance, if a man imagines himself to be so tall as to stoop when he goes through the gateways in the Wall, or so strong as to try to lift houses or to perform any other feat that everybody knows to be impossible, they say he’s mad. They don’t think a slight error implies madness, but just as they call strong desire love, so they name a great delusion madness.The last sentence cannot imply that Socrates thought self-ignorance a slight error, but must be merely a further elucidation of popular nomenclature. But it comes very awkwardly here.
Considering the nature of Envy, he found it to be a kind of pain, not, however, at a friend’s misfortune, nor at an enemy’s good fortune, but the envious are those only who are annoyed at their friends’ successes. Some expressed surprise that anyone who loves another should be pained at his success, but he reminded them that many stand in this relation towards others, that they cannot disregard them in time of trouble, but aid them in their misfortune, and yet they are pained to see them prospering. This, however, could not happen to a man of sense, but it is always the case with fools.
Considering the nature of Leisure, he said his conclusion was that almost all men do something. Even draught-players and jesters do something, but all these are at leisure, for they mightOr, if with Stobaeus we omit ἐξεῖναι γὰρ αὐτοῖς, have leisure to go. go and do something better. But nobody has leisure to go from a better to a worse occupation. If anyone does so, he acts wrongly, having no leisure.Or, omitting κακῶς ἔφη with Stobaeus, he does it in spite of want of leisure.
Kings and rulers, he said, are not those who hold the sceptre, nor those who are chosen by the multitude, nor those on whom the lot falls, nor those who owe their power to force or deception; but those who know how to rule.Cyropaedia, I. i. 3.
For once it was granted that it is the business of the ruler to give orders and of the ruled to obey, he went on to show that on a ship the one who knows, rules, and the owner and all the others on board obey the one who knows: in farming the landowners, in illness the patients, in training those who are in training, in fact everybody concerned with anything that needs care, look after it themselves if they think they know how, but, if not, they obey those who know, and not only when such are present, but they even send for them when absent, that they may obey them and do the right thing. In spinning wool, again, he would point out, the women govern the men because they know how to do it and men do not.
If anyone objected that a despot may refuse to obey a good counsellor, How can he refuse, he would ask, when a penalty waits on disregard of good counsel? All disregard of good counsel is bound surely to result in error, and his error will not go unpunished.
If anyone said that a despot can kill a loyal subject, Do you think, he retorted, that he who kills the best of his allies suffers no loss, or that his loss is trifling? Do you think that this conduct brings him safety, or rather swift destruction?