PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates and Alcibiades.
SOCRATES: Are you going, Alcibiades, to offer prayer to Zeus?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, Socrates, I am.
SOCRATES: you seem to be troubled and to cast your eyes on the ground,
as though you were thinking about something.
ALCIBIADES: Of what do you suppose that I am thinking?
SOCRATES: Of the greatest of all things, as I believe. Tell me, do you
not suppose that the Gods sometimes partly grant and partly reject the
requests which we make in public and private, and favour some persons
and not others?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Do you not imagine, then, that a man ought to be very careful,
lest perchance without knowing it he implore great evils for himself,
deeming that he is asking for good, especially if the Gods are in the
mood to grant whatever he may request? There is the story of Oedipus,
for instance, who prayed that his children might divide their
inheritance between them by the sword: he did not, as he might have
done, beg that his present evils might be averted, but called down new
ones. And was not his prayer accomplished, and did not many and terrible
evils thence arise, upon which I need not dilate?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, Socrates, but you are speaking of a madman: surely you
do not think that any one in his senses would venture to make such a
prayer?
SOCRATES: Madness, then, you consider to be the opposite of discretion?
ALCIBIADES: Of course.
SOCRATES: And some men seem to you to be discreet, and others the
contrary?
ALCIBIADES: They do.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let us discuss who these are. We acknowledge that
some are discreet, some foolish, and that some are mad?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And again, there are some who are in health?
ALCIBIADES: There are.
SOCRATES: While others are ailing?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And they are not the same?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor are there any who are in neither state?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: A man must either be sick or be well?
ALCIBIADES: That is my opinion.
SOCRATES: Very good: and do you think the same about discretion and want
of discretion?
ALCIBIADES: How do you mean?
SOCRATES: Do you believe that a man must be either in or out of his
senses; or is there some third or intermediate condition, in which he is
neither one nor the other?
ALCIBIADES: Decidedly not.
SOCRATES: He must be either sane or insane?
ALCIBIADES: So I suppose.
SOCRATES: Did you not acknowledge that madness was the opposite of
discretion?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that there is no third or middle term between discretion
and indiscretion?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: And there cannot be two opposites to one thing?
ALCIBIADES: There cannot.
SOCRATES: Then madness and want of sense are the same?
ALCIBIADES: That appears to be the case.
SOCRATES: We shall be in the right, therefore, Alcibiades, if we say
that all who are senseless are mad. For example, if among persons
of your own age or older than yourself there are some who are
senseless,--as there certainly are,--they are mad. For tell me, by
heaven, do you not think that in the city the wise are few, while the
foolish, whom you call mad, are many?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: But how could we live in safety with so many crazy people?
Should we not long since have paid the penalty at their hands, and have
been struck and beaten and endured every other form of ill-usage which
madmen are wont to inflict? Consider, my dear friend: may it not be
quite otherwise?
ALCIBIADES: Why, Socrates, how is that possible? I must have been
mistaken.
SOCRATES: So it seems to me. But perhaps we may consider the matter
thus:--
ALCIBIADES: How?
SOCRATES: I will tell you. We think that some are sick; do we not?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And must every sick person either have the gout, or be in
a fever, or suffer from ophthalmia? Or do you believe that a man may
labour under some other disease, even although he has none of these
complaints? Surely, they are not the only maladies which exist?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And is every kind of ophthalmia a disease?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And every disease ophthalmia?
ALCIBIADES: Surely not. But I scarcely understand what I mean myself.
SOCRATES: Perhaps, if you give me your best attention, 'two of us'
looking together, we may find what we seek.
ALCIBIADES: I am attending, Socrates, to the best of my power.
SOCRATES: We are agreed, then, that every form of ophthalmia is a
disease, but not every disease ophthalmia?
ALCIBIADES: We are.
SOCRATES: And so far we seem to be right. For every one who suffers from
a fever is sick; but the sick, I conceive, do not all have fever or gout
or ophthalmia, although each of these is a disease, which, according to
those whom we call physicians, may require a different treatment. They
are not all alike, nor do they produce the same result, but each has
its own effect, and yet they are all diseases. May we not take an
illustration from the artizans?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: There are cobblers and carpenters and sculptors and others of
all sorts and kinds, whom we need not stop to enumerate. All have their
distinct employments and all are workmen, although they are not all of
them cobblers or carpenters or sculptors.
ALCIBIADES: No, indeed.
SOCRATES: And in like manner men differ in regard to want of sense.
Those who are most out of their wits we call 'madmen,' while we term
those who are less far gone 'stupid' or 'idiotic,' or, if we prefer
gentler language, describe them as 'romantic' or 'simple-minded,' or,
again, as 'innocent' or 'inexperienced' or 'foolish.' You may even find
other names, if you seek for them; but by all of them lack of sense
is intended. They only differ as one art appeared to us to differ from
another or one disease from another. Or what is your opinion?
ALCIBIADES: I agree with you.
SOCRATES: Then let us return to the point at which we digressed. We said
at first that we should have to consider who were the wise and who the
foolish. For we acknowledged that there are these two classes? Did we
not?
ALCIBIADES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And you regard those as sensible who know what ought to be
done or said?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: The senseless are those who do not know this?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: The latter will say or do what they ought not without their
own knowledge?
ALCIBIADES: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Oedipus, as I was saying, Alcibiades, was a person of
this sort. And even now-a-days you will find many who (have offered
inauspicious prayers), although, unlike him, they were not in anger nor
thought that they were asking evil. He neither sought, nor supposed that
he sought for good, but others have had quite the contrary notion. I
believe that if the God whom you are about to consult should appear to
you, and, in anticipation of your request, enquired whether you would be
contented to become tyrant of Athens, and if this seemed in your eyes a
small and mean thing, should add to it the dominion of all Hellas; and
seeing that even then you would not be satisfied unless you were ruler
of the whole of Europe, should promise, not only that, but, if you so
desired, should proclaim to all mankind in one and the same day that
Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, was tyrant:--in such a case, I imagine, you
would depart full of joy, as one who had obtained the greatest of goods.
ALCIBIADES: And not only I, Socrates, but any one else who should meet
with such luck.
SOCRATES: Yet you would not accept the dominion and lordship of all the
Hellenes and all the barbarians in exchange for your life?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not: for then what use could I make of them?
SOCRATES: And would you accept them if you were likely to use them to a
bad and mischievous end?
ALCIBIADES: I would not.
SOCRATES: You see that it is not safe for a man either rashly to accept
whatever is offered him, or himself to request a thing, if he is likely
to suffer thereby or immediately to lose his life. And yet we could tell
of many who, having long desired and diligently laboured to obtain
a tyranny, thinking that thus they would procure an advantage, have
nevertheless fallen victims to designing enemies. You must have heard of
what happened only the other day, how Archelaus of Macedonia was slain
by his beloved (compare Aristotle, Pol.), whose love for the tyranny was
not less than that of Archelaus for him. The tyrannicide expected by his
crime to become tyrant and afterwards to have a happy life; but when he
had held the tyranny three or four days, he was in his turn conspired
against and slain. Or look at certain of our own citizens,--and of their
actions we have been not hearers, but eyewitnesses,--who have desired to
obtain military command: of those who have gained their object, some
are even to this day exiles from the city, while others have lost their
lives. And even they who seem to have fared best, have not only gone
through many perils and terrors during their office, but after their
return home they have been beset by informers worse than they once were
by their foes, insomuch that several of them have wished that they
had remained in a private station rather than have had the glories
of command. If, indeed, such perils and terrors were of profit to the
commonwealth, there would be reason in undergoing them; but the very
contrary is the case. Again, you will find persons who have prayed
for offspring, and when their prayers were heard, have fallen into the
greatest pains and sufferings. For some have begotten children who were
utterly bad, and have therefore passed all their days in misery, while
the parents of good children have undergone the misfortune of losing
them, and have been so little happier than the others that they would
have preferred never to have had children rather than to have had
them and lost them. And yet, although these and the like examples are
manifest and known of all, it is rare to find any one who has refused
what has been offered him, or, if he were likely to gain aught by
prayer, has refrained from making his petition. The mass of mankind
would not decline to accept a tyranny, or the command of an army, or any
of the numerous things which cause more harm than good: but rather,
if they had them not, would have prayed to obtain them. And often in a
short space of time they change their tone, and wish their old prayers
unsaid. Wherefore also I suspect that men are entirely wrong when they
blame the gods as the authors of the ills which befall them (compare
Republic): 'their own presumption,' or folly (whichever is the right
word)--
'Has brought these unmeasured woes upon them.' (Homer. Odyss.)
He must have been a wise poet, Alcibiades, who, seeing as I believe, his
friends foolishly praying for and doing things which would not really
profit them, offered up a common prayer in behalf of them all:--
'King Zeus, grant us good whether prayed for or unsought by us; But that
which we ask amiss, do thou avert.' (The author of these lines, which
are probably of Pythagorean origin, is unknown. They are found also in
the Anthology (Anth. Pal.).)
In my opinion, I say, the poet spoke both well and prudently; but if you
have anything to say in answer to him, speak out.
ALCIBIADES: It is difficult, Socrates, to oppose what has been well
said. And I perceive how many are the ills of which ignorance is the
cause, since, as would appear, through ignorance we not only do, but
what is worse, pray for the greatest evils. No man would imagine that
he would do so; he would rather suppose that he was quite capable of
praying for what was best: to call down evils seems more like a curse
than a prayer.
SOCRATES: But perhaps, my good friend, some one who is wiser than either
you or I will say that we have no right to blame ignorance thus rashly,
unless we can add what ignorance we mean and of what, and also to whom
and how it is respectively a good or an evil?
ALCIBIADES: How do you mean? Can ignorance possibly be better than
knowledge for any person in any conceivable case?
SOCRATES: So I believe:--you do not think so?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And yet surely I may not suppose that you would ever wish to
act towards your mother as they say that Orestes and Alcmeon and others
have done towards their parent.
ALCIBIADES: Good words, Socrates, prithee.
SOCRATES: You ought not to bid him use auspicious words, who says that
you would not be willing to commit so horrible a deed, but rather him
who affirms the contrary, if the act appear to you unfit even to be
mentioned. Or do you think that Orestes, had he been in his senses and
knew what was best for him to do, would ever have dared to venture on
such a crime?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor would any one else, I fancy?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the
best and does not know what is best?
ALCIBIADES: So I think, at least.
SOCRATES: And both to the person who is ignorant and everybody else?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Let us take another case. Suppose that you were suddenly to
get into your head that it would be a good thing to kill Pericles, your
kinsman and guardian, and were to seize a sword and, going to the doors
of his house, were to enquire if he were at home, meaning to slay only
him and no one else:--the servants reply, 'Yes': (Mind, I do not mean
that you would really do such a thing; but there is nothing, you think,
to prevent a man who is ignorant of the best, having occasionally the
whim that what is worst is best?