110
Socrates
Soc. Many a time I heard you, when as a child you were dicing or playing some other game at your teacher’s or elsewhere, instead of showing hesitation about what was just and unjust, speak in very loud and confident tones about one or other of your playmates, saying he was a rascal and a cheat who played unfairly. Is not this a true account?
Alcibiades
Alc. But what was I to do, Socrates, when somebody cheated me?
10
Socrates
Soc. Yet if you were ignorant then whether you were being unfairly treated or not, how can you ask—What are you to do?
Alcibiades
Alc. Well, but on my word, I was not ignorant: no, I clearly understood that I was being wronged.
Socrates
Soc. So you thought you knew, even as a child, it seems, what was just and unjust.
Alcibiades
Alc. I did; and I knew too.
Socrates
Soc. At what sort of time did you discover it? For surely it was not while you thought you knew.
15
Alcibiades
Alc. No, indeed.
Socrates
Soc. Then when did you think you were ignorant? Consider; I believe you will fail to find such a time.
Alcibiades
Alc. Upon my word, Socrates, I really cannot say.
Socrates
Soc. So you do not know it by discovery.
Alcibiades
Alc. Not at all, apparently.
20
Socrates
Soc. But you said just now that you did not know it by learning either; and if you neither discovered nor learnt it, how do you come to know it, and whence?
Alcibiades
Alc. Well, perhaps that answer I gave you was not correct, that I knew it by my own discovery.
Socrates
Soc. Then how was it done?
Alcibiades
Alc. I learnt it, I suppose, in the same way as everyone else.
Socrates
Soc. Back we come to the same argument. From whom? Please tell me.
25
Alcibiades
Alc. From the many.
