ALCIBIADES: I mean to say that there should be such friendship and
agreement as exists between an affectionate father and mother and their
son, or between brothers, or between husband and wife.
SOCRATES: But can a man, Alcibiades, agree with a woman about the spinning
of wool, which she understands and he does not?
ALCIBIADES: No, truly.
SOCRATES: Nor has he any need, for spinning is a female accomplishment.
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would a woman agree with a man about the science of arms,
which she has never learned?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: I suppose that the use of arms would be regarded by you as a
male accomplishment?
ALCIBIADES: It would.
SOCRATES: Then, upon your view, women and men have two sorts of knowledge?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then in their knowledge there is no agreement of women and men?
ALCIBIADES: There is not.
SOCRATES: Nor can there be friendship, if friendship is agreement?
ALCIBIADES: Plainly not.
SOCRATES: Then women are not loved by men when they do their own work?
ALCIBIADES: I suppose not.
SOCRATES: Nor men by women when they do their own work?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: Nor are states well administered, when individuals do their own
work?
ALCIBIADES: I should rather think, Socrates, that the reverse is the
truth. (Compare Republic.)
SOCRATES: What! do you mean to say that states are well administered when
friendship is absent, the presence of which, as we were saying, alone
secures their good order?
ALCIBIADES: But I should say that there is friendship among them, for this
very reason, that the two parties respectively do their own work.
SOCRATES: That was not what you were saying before; and what do you mean
now by affirming that friendship exists when there is no agreement? How
can there be agreement about matters which the one party knows, and of
which the other is in ignorance?
ALCIBIADES: Impossible.
SOCRATES: And when individuals are doing their own work, are they doing
what is just or unjust?
ALCIBIADES: What is just, certainly.
SOCRATES: And when individuals do what is just in the state, is there no
friendship among them?
ALCIBIADES: I suppose that there must be, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then what do you mean by this friendship or agreement about
which we must be wise and discreet in order that we may be good men? I
cannot make out where it exists or among whom; according to you, the same
persons may sometimes have it, and sometimes not.
ALCIBIADES: But, indeed, Socrates, I do not know what I am saying; and I
have long been, unconsciously to myself, in a most disgraceful state.
SOCRATES: Nevertheless, cheer up; at fifty, if you had discovered your
deficiency, you would have been too old, and the time for taking care of
yourself would have passed away, but yours is just the age at which the
discovery should be made.
ALCIBIADES: And what should he do, Socrates, who would make the discovery?
SOCRATES: Answer questions, Alcibiades; and that is a process which, by
the grace of God, if I may put any faith in my oracle, will be very
improving to both of us.
ALCIBIADES: If I can be improved by answering, I will answer.
SOCRATES: And first of all, that we may not peradventure be deceived by
appearances, fancying, perhaps, that we are taking care of ourselves when
we are not, what is the meaning of a man taking care of himself? and when
does he take care? Does he take care of himself when he takes care of what
belongs to him?
ALCIBIADES: I should think so.
SOCRATES: When does a man take care of his feet? Does he not take care of
them when he takes care of that which belongs to his feet?
ALCIBIADES: I do not understand.
SOCRATES: Let me take the hand as an illustration; does not a ring belong
to the finger, and to the finger only?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the shoe in like manner to the foot?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when we take care of our shoes, do we not take care of our
feet?
ALCIBIADES: I do not comprehend, Socrates.
SOCRATES: But you would admit, Alcibiades, that to take proper care of a
thing is a correct expression?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And taking proper care means improving?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what is the art which improves our shoes?
ALCIBIADES: Shoemaking.
SOCRATES: Then by shoemaking we take care of our shoes?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And do we by shoemaking take care of our feet, or by some other
art which improves the feet?
ALCIBIADES: By some other art.
SOCRATES: And the same art improves the feet which improves the rest of
the body?
ALCIBIADES: Very true.
SOCRATES: Which is gymnastic?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then by gymnastic we take care of our feet, and by shoemaking of
that which belongs to our feet?
ALCIBIADES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And by gymnastic we take care of our hands, and by the art of
graving rings of that which belongs to our hands?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And by gymnastic we take care of the body, and by the art of
weaving and the other arts we take care of the things of the body?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then the art which takes care of each thing is different from
that which takes care of the belongings of each thing?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Then in taking care of what belongs to you, you do not take care
of yourself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: For the art which takes care of our belongings appears not to be
the same as that which takes care of ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: And now let me ask you what is the art with which we take care
of ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: I cannot say.
SOCRATES: At any rate, thus much has been admitted, that the art is not
one which makes any of our possessions, but which makes ourselves better?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But should we ever have known what art makes a shoe better, if
we did not know a shoe?
ALCIBIADES: Impossible.
SOCRATES: Nor should we know what art makes a ring better, if we did not
know a ring?
ALCIBIADES: That is true.
SOCRATES: And can we ever know what art makes a man better, if we do not
know what we are ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: Impossible.
SOCRATES: And is self-knowledge such an easy thing, and was he to be
lightly esteemed who inscribed the text on the temple at Delphi? Or is
self-knowledge a difficult thing, which few are able to attain?
ALCIBIADES: At times I fancy, Socrates, that anybody can know himself; at
other times the task appears to be very difficult.
SOCRATES: But whether easy or difficult, Alcibiades, still there is no
other way; knowing what we are, we shall know how to take care of
ourselves, and if we are ignorant we shall not know.
ALCIBIADES: That is true.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let us see in what way the self-existent can be
discovered by us; that will give us a chance of discovering our own
existence, which otherwise we can never know.
ALCIBIADES: You say truly.
SOCRATES: Come, now, I beseech you, tell me with whom you are conversing?
--with whom but with me?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: As I am, with you?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: That is to say, I, Socrates, am talking?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And Alcibiades is my hearer?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And I in talking use words?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And talking and using words have, I suppose, the same meaning?
ALCIBIADES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And the user is not the same as the thing which he uses?
ALCIBIADES: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I will explain; the shoemaker, for example, uses a square tool,
and a circular tool, and other tools for cutting?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: But the tool is not the same as the cutter and user of the tool?
ALCIBIADES: Of course not.
SOCRATES: And in the same way the instrument of the harper is to be
distinguished from the harper himself?
ALCIBIADES: It is.
SOCRATES: Now the question which I asked was whether you conceive the user
to be always different from that which he uses?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: Then what shall we say of the shoemaker? Does he cut with his
tools only or with his hands?
ALCIBIADES: With his hands as well.
SOCRATES: He uses his hands too?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And does he use his eyes in cutting leather?
ALCIBIADES: He does.
SOCRATES: And we admit that the user is not the same with the things which
he uses?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then the shoemaker and the harper are to be distinguished from
the hands and feet which they use?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And does not a man use the whole body?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And that which uses is different from that which is used?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Then a man is not the same as his own body?
ALCIBIADES: That is the inference.
SOCRATES: What is he, then?
ALCIBIADES: I cannot say.
SOCRATES: Nay, you can say that he is the user of the body.
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the user of the body is the soul?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, the soul.
SOCRATES: And the soul rules?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Let me make an assertion which will, I think, be universally
admitted.
ALCIBIADES: What is it?
SOCRATES: That man is one of three things.
ALCIBIADES: What are they?
SOCRATES: Soul, body, or both together forming a whole.
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But did we not say that the actual ruling principle of the body
is man?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, we did.
SOCRATES: And does the body rule over itself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: It is subject, as we were saying?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then that is not the principle which we are seeking?
ALCIBIADES: It would seem not.
SOCRATES: But may we say that the union of the two rules over the body,
and consequently that this is man?
ALCIBIADES: Very likely.
SOCRATES: The most unlikely of all things; for if one of the members is
subject, the two united cannot possibly rule.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But since neither the body, nor the union of the two, is man,
either man has no real existence, or the soul is man?
ALCIBIADES: Just so.
SOCRATES: Is anything more required to prove that the soul is man?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not; the proof is, I think, quite sufficient.
SOCRATES: And if the proof, although not perfect, be sufficient, we shall
be satisfied;--more precise proof will be supplied when we have discovered
that which we were led to omit, from a fear that the enquiry would be too
much protracted.
ALCIBIADES: What was that?
SOCRATES: What I meant, when I said that absolute existence must be first
considered; but now, instead of absolute existence, we have been
considering the nature of individual existence, and this may, perhaps, be
sufficient; for surely there is nothing which may be called more properly
ourselves than the soul?
ALCIBIADES: There is nothing.
SOCRATES: Then we may truly conceive that you and I are conversing with
one another, soul to soul?
ALCIBIADES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And that is just what I was saying before--that I, Socrates, am
not arguing or talking with the face of Alcibiades, but with the real
Alcibiades; or in other words, with his soul.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Then he who bids a man know himself, would have him know his
soul?
ALCIBIADES: That appears to be true.
SOCRATES: He whose knowledge only extends to the body, knows the things of
a man, and not the man himself?
ALCIBIADES: That is true.
SOCRATES: Then neither the physician regarded as a physician, nor the
trainer regarded as a trainer, knows himself?
ALCIBIADES: He does not.
SOCRATES: The husbandmen and the other craftsmen are very far from knowing
themselves, for they would seem not even to know their own belongings?
When regarded in relation to the arts which they practise they are even
further removed from self-knowledge, for they only know the belongings of
the body, which minister to the body.
ALCIBIADES: That is true.
SOCRATES: Then if temperance is the knowledge of self, in respect of his
art none of them is temperate?
ALCIBIADES: I agree.
SOCRATES: And this is the reason why their arts are accounted vulgar, and
are not such as a good man would practise?
ALCIBIADES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: Again, he who cherishes his body cherishes not himself, but what
belongs to him?
ALCIBIADES: That is true.
SOCRATES: But he who cherishes his money, cherishes neither himself nor
his belongings, but is in a stage yet further removed from himself?
ALCIBIADES: I agree.
SOCRATES: Then the money-maker has really ceased to be occupied with his
own concerns?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: And if any one has fallen in love with the person of Alcibiades,
he loves not Alcibiades, but the belongings of Alcibiades?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But he who loves your soul is the true lover?
ALCIBIADES: That is the necessary inference.
SOCRATES: The lover of the body goes away when the flower of youth fades?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But he who loves the soul goes not away, as long as the soul
follows after virtue?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And I am the lover who goes not away, but remains with you, when
you are no longer young and the rest are gone?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, Socrates; and therein you do well, and I hope that you
will remain.
SOCRATES: Then you must try to look your best.
ALCIBIADES: I will.
SOCRATES: The fact is, that there is only one lover of Alcibiades the son
of Cleinias; there neither is nor ever has been seemingly any other; and he
is his darling,--Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: And did you not say, that if I had not spoken first, you were on
the point of coming to me, and enquiring why I only remained?
