SOCRATES: I say that they do not do as they will;—now refute me.
POLUS: Why, have you not already said that they do as they think best?
SOCRATES: And I say so still.
POLUS: Then surely they do as they will?
SOCRATES: I deny it.
POLUS: But they do what they think best?
SOCRATES: Aye.
POLUS: That, Socrates, is monstrous and absurd.
SOCRATES: Good words, good Polus, as I may say in your own peculiar
style; but if you have any questions to ask of me, either prove that I
am in error or give the answer yourself.
POLUS: Very well, I am willing to answer that I may know what you mean.
SOCRATES: Do men appear to you to will that which they do, or to will
that further end for the sake of which they do a thing? when they take
medicine, for example, at the bidding of a physician, do they will the
drinking of the medicine which is painful, or the health for the sake
of which they drink?
POLUS: Clearly, the health.
SOCRATES: And when men go on a voyage or engage in business, they do
not will that which they are doing at the time; for who would desire to
take the risk of a voyage or the trouble of business?—But they will, to
have the wealth for the sake of which they go on a voyage.
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And is not this universally true? If a man does something for
the sake of something else, he wills not that which he does, but that
for the sake of which he does it.
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate
and indifferent?
POLUS: To be sure, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call
goods, and their opposites evils?
POLUS: I should.
SOCRATES: And the things which are neither good nor evil, and which
partake sometimes of the nature of good and at other times of evil, or
of neither, are such as sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again,
wood, stones, and the like:—these are the things which you call neither
good nor evil?
POLUS: Exactly so.
SOCRATES: Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good,
or the good for the sake of the indifferent?
POLUS: Clearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good.
SOCRATES: When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the
idea that it is better to walk, and when we stand we stand equally for
the sake of the good?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or despoil
him of his goods, because, as we think, it will conduce to our good?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Men who do any of these things do them for the sake of the
good?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake of
something else, we do not will those things which we do, but that other
thing for the sake of which we do them?
POLUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: Then we do not will simply to kill a man or to exile him or
to despoil him of his goods, but we will to do that which conduces to
our good, and if the act is not conducive to our good we do not will
it; for we will, as you say, that which is our good, but that which is
neither good nor evil, or simply evil, we do not will. Why are you
silent, Polus? Am I not right?
POLUS: You are right.
SOCRATES: Hence we may infer, that if any one, whether he be a tyrant
or a rhetorician, kills another or exiles another or deprives him of
his property, under the idea that the act is for his own interests when
really not for his own interests, he may be said to do what seems best
to him?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But does he do what he wills if he does what is evil? Why do
you not answer?
POLUS: Well, I suppose not.
SOCRATES: Then if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one
have great power in a state?
POLUS: He will not.
SOCRATES: Then I was right in saying that a man may do what seems good
to him in a state, and not have great power, and not do what he wills?
POLUS: As though you, Socrates, would not like to have the power of
doing what seemed good to you in the state, rather than not; you would
not be jealous when you saw any one killing or despoiling or
imprisoning whom he pleased, Oh, no!
SOCRATES: Justly or unjustly, do you mean?
POLUS: In either case is he not equally to be envied?
SOCRATES: Forbear, Polus!
POLUS: Why “forbear”?
SOCRATES: Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be
envied, but only to pity them.
POLUS: And are those of whom I spoke wretches?
SOCRATES: Yes, certainly they are.
POLUS: And so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and
justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched?
SOCRATES: No, I do not say that of him: but neither do I think that he
is to be envied.
POLUS: Were you not saying just now that he is wretched?
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he killed another unjustly, in which case
he is also to be pitied; and he is not to be envied if he killed him
justly.
POLUS: At any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to death
is wretched, and to be pitied?
SOCRATES: Not so much, Polus, as he who kills him, and not so much as
he who is justly killed.
POLUS: How can that be, Socrates?
SOCRATES: That may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the
greatest of evils.
POLUS: But is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater
evil?
SOCRATES: Certainly not.
POLUS: Then would you rather suffer than do injustice?
SOCRATES: I should not like either, but if I must choose between them,
I would rather suffer than do.
POLUS: Then you would not wish to be a tyrant?
SOCRATES: Not if you mean by tyranny what I mean.
POLUS: I mean, as I said before, the power of doing whatever seems good
to you in a state, killing, banishing, doing in all things as you like.
SOCRATES: Well then, illustrious friend, when I have said my say, do
you reply to me. Suppose that I go into a crowded Agora, and take a
dagger under my arm. Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare
power, and become a tyrant; for if I think that any of these men whom
you see ought to be put to death, the man whom I have a mind to kill is
as good as dead; and if I am disposed to break his head or tear his
garment, he will have his head broken or his garment torn in an
instant. Such is my great power in this city. And if you do not believe
me, and I show you the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in
that sort of way any one may have great power—he may burn any house
which he pleases, and the docks and triremes of the Athenians, and all
their other vessels, whether public or private—but can you believe that
this mere doing as you think best is great power?
POLUS: Certainly not such doing as this.
SOCRATES: But can you tell me why you disapprove of such a power?
POLUS: I can.
SOCRATES: Why then?
POLUS: Why, because he who did as you say would be certain to be
punished.
SOCRATES: And punishment is an evil?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And you would admit once more, my good sir, that great power
is a benefit to a man if his actions turn out to his advantage, and
that this is the meaning of great power; and if not, then his power is
an evil and is no power. But let us look at the matter in another
way:—do we not acknowledge that the things of which we were speaking,
the infliction of death, and exile, and the deprivation of property are
sometimes a good and sometimes not a good?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: About that you and I may be supposed to agree?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Tell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when
that they are evil—what principle do you lay down?
POLUS: I would rather, Socrates, that you should answer as well as ask
that question.
SOCRATES: Well, Polus, since you would rather have the answer from me,
I say that they are good when they are just, and evil when they are
unjust.
POLUS: You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child
refute that statement?
SOCRATES: Then I shall be very grateful to the child, and equally
grateful to you if you will refute me and deliver me from my
foolishness. And I hope that refute me you will, and not weary of doing
good to a friend.
POLUS: Yes, Socrates, and I need not go far or appeal to antiquity;
events which happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and
to prove that many men who do wrong are happy.
SOCRATES: What events?
POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now
the ruler of Macedonia?
SOCRATES: At any rate I hear that he is.
POLUS: And do you think that he is happy or miserable?
SOCRATES: I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance
with him.
POLUS: And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance
with him, whether a man is happy?
SOCRATES: Most certainly not.
POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know
whether the great king was a happy man?
SOCRATES: And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands
in the matter of education and justice.
POLUS: What! and does all happiness consist in this?
SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women
who are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust
and evil are miserable.
POLUS: Then, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus is
miserable?
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is wicked.
POLUS: That he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to
the throne which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who
was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he himself therefore
in strict right was the slave of Alcetas; and if he had meant to do
rightly he would have remained his slave, and then, according to your
doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is unspeakably
miserable, for he has been guilty of the greatest crimes: in the first
place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas, to come to him, under
the pretence that he would restore to him the throne which Perdiccas
has usurped, and after entertaining him and his son Alexander, who was
his own cousin, and nearly of an age with him, and making them drunk,
he threw them into a waggon and carried them off by night, and slew
them, and got both of them out of the way; and when he had done all
this wickedness he never discovered that he was the most miserable of
all men, and was very far from repenting: shall I tell you how he
showed his remorse? he had a younger brother, a child of seven years
old, who was the legitimate son of Perdiccas, and to him of right the
kingdom belonged; Archelaus, however, had no mind to bring him up as he
ought and restore the kingdom to him; that was not his notion of
happiness; but not long afterwards he threw him into a well and drowned
him, and declared to his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in while
running after a goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the
greatest criminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the
most miserable and not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there
are many Athenians, and you would be at the head of them, who would
rather be any other Macedonian than Archelaus!
SOCRATES: I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather
than a reasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of argument with
which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by which I stand
refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy. But, my good
friend, where is the refutation? I cannot admit a word which you have
been saying.
POLUS: That is because you will not; for you surely must think as I do.
SOCRATES: Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me
after the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For
there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring
forward a number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their
allegations, and their adversary has only a single one or none at all.
But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim; a man may
often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great
air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian
and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring
witnesses in disproof of my statement;—you may, if you will, summon
Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of
tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you
may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that
famous offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the whole
house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you
choose;—they will all agree with you: I only am left alone and cannot
agree, for you do not convince me; although you produce many false
witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance,
which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worth speaking of will
have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words;
nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours; no matter
about the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one
which is yours and that of the world in general; but mine is of another
sort—let us compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we
are at issue about matters which to know is honourable and not to know
disgraceful; to know or not to know happiness and misery—that is the
chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more
disgraceful than this? And therefore I will begin by asking you whether
you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be
happy, seeing that you think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy? May I
assume this to be your opinion?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But I say that this is an impossibility—here is one point
about which we are at issue:—very good. And do you mean to say also
that if he meets with retribution and punishment he will still be
happy?
POLUS: Certainly not; in that case he will be most miserable.
SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then,
according to you, he will be happy?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust
actions is miserable in any case,—more miserable, however, if he be not
punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he
be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men.
POLUS: You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.
SOCRATES: I shall try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a
friend I regard you. Then these are the points at issue between us—are
they not? I was saying that to do is worse than to suffer injustice?
POLUS: Exactly so.
SOCRATES: And you said the opposite?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: I said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted
me?
POLUS: By Zeus, I did.
SOCRATES: In your own opinion, Polus.
POLUS: Yes, and I rather suspect that I was in the right.
SOCRATES: You further said that the wrong-doer is happy if he be
unpunished?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who
are punished are less miserable—are you going to refute this
proposition also?
POLUS: A proposition which is harder of refutation than the other,
Socrates.
SOCRATES: Say rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth?
POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to
make himself a tyrant, and when detected is racked, mutilated, has his
eyes burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries
inflicted on him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the
like, is at last impaled or tarred and burned alive, will he be happier
than if he escape and become a tyrant, and continue all through life
doing what he likes and holding the reins of government, the envy and
admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that the paradox which,
as you say, cannot be refuted?
SOCRATES: There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead
of refuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me. But
please to refresh my memory a little; did you say—“in an unjust attempt
to make himself a tyrant”?
POLUS: Yes, I did.
SOCRATES: Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the
other,—neither he who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers
in the attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but
that he who escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the
two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation,—when
any one says anything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him.
POLUS: But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently
refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the
company.
SOCRATES: O Polus, I am not a public man, and only last year, when my
tribe were serving as Prytanes, and it became my duty as their
president to take the votes, there was a laugh at me, because I was
unable to take them. And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count
the suffrages of the company now; but if, as I was saying, you have no
better argument than numbers, let me have a turn, and do you make trial
of the sort of proof which, as I think, is required; for I shall
produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person
with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the
many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May
I ask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to
the proof? For I certainly think that I and you and every man do really
believe, that to do is a greater evil than to suffer injustice: and not
to be punished than to be punished.
POLUS: And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for
example, suffer rather than do injustice?
SOCRATES: Yes, and you, too; I or any man would.
POLUS: Quite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man.
SOCRATES: But will you answer?
POLUS: To be sure, I will; for I am curious to hear what you can have
to say.
SOCRATES: Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I
am beginning at the beginning: which of the two, Polus, in your
opinion, is the worst?—to do injustice or to suffer?
POLUS: I should say that suffering was worst.
SOCRATES: And which is the greater disgrace?—Answer.
POLUS: To do.
SOCRATES: And the greater disgrace is the greater evil?
POLUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the
honourable is not the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil?
POLUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful
things, such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, institutions, do you
not call them beautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for
example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the
sight of them gives pleasure to the spectators; can you give any other
account of personal beauty?
POLUS: I cannot.
SOCRATES: And you would say of figures or colours generally that they
were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of
their use, or of both?
POLUS: Yes, I should.
SOCRATES: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same
reason?
POLUS: I should.
SOCRATES: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in
so far as they are useful or pleasant or both?
POLUS: I think not.
SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge?
POLUS: To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring
beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility.
SOCRATES: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the
opposite standard of pain and evil?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the
measure of the excess is to be taken in one or both of these; that is
to say, in pleasure or utility or both?
POLUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity
or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil—must it not be so?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But then again, what was the observation which you just now
made, about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say, that suffering
wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?
POLUS: I did.
SOCRATES: Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the
more disgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in
evil or both: does not that also follow?
POLUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice
exceeds the suffering in the consequent pain: Do the injurers suffer
more than the injured?
POLUS: No, Socrates; certainly not.
SOCRATES: Then they do not exceed in pain?
POLUS: No.
SOCRATES: But if not in pain, then not in both?
POLUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Then they can only exceed in the other?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: That is to say, in evil?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will
therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice?
POLUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do
injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that is now discovered to be more evil?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to
a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm
if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as
to a physician without shrinking, and either say “Yes” or “No” to me.
POLUS: I should say “No.”
SOCRATES: Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?
POLUS: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any
man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the
greater evil of the two.
POLUS: That is the conclusion.
SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of
refutations, how unlike they are. All men, with the exception of
myself, are of your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness
are enough for me,—I have no need of any other, I take your suffrage,
and am regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed
to the next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a
guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to
escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider:—You
would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly
corrected when you do wrong?
POLUS: I should.
SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things are honourable
in so far as they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your
opinion.
POLUS: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.
SOCRATES: Consider again:—Where there is an agent, must there not also
be a patient?
POLUS: I should say so.
SOCRATES: And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does,
and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean, for
example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is
stricken?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which
is struck will be struck violently or quickly?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same
nature as the act of him who strikes?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if a man burns, there is something which is burned?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if he burns in excess or so as to cause pain, the thing
burned will be burned in the same way?
POLUS: Truly.
SOCRATES: And if he cuts, the same argument holds—there will be
something cut?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause
pain, the cut will be of the same nature?
POLUS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: Then you would agree generally to the universal proposition
which I was just now asserting: that the affection of the patient
answers to the affection of the agent?
POLUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: Then, as this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished
is suffering or acting?
POLUS: Suffering, Socrates; there can be no doubt of that.
SOCRATES: And suffering implies an agent?
POLUS: Certainly, Socrates; and he is the punisher.
SOCRATES: And he who punishes rightly, punishes justly?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And therefore he acts justly?
POLUS: Justly.
SOCRATES: Then he who is punished and suffers retribution, suffers
justly?
POLUS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: And that which is just has been admitted to be honourable?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then the punisher does what is honourable, and the punished
suffers what is honourable?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And if what is honourable, then what is good, for the
honourable is either pleasant or useful?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then he who is punished suffers what is good?
POLUS: That is true.
SOCRATES: Then he is benefited?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term
“benefited”? I mean, that if he be justly punished his soul is
improved.
POLUS: Surely.
SOCRATES: Then he who is punished is delivered from the evil of his
soul?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Look at
the matter in this way:—In respect of a man’s estate, do you see any
greater evil than poverty?
POLUS: There is no greater evil.
SOCRATES: Again, in a man’s bodily frame, you would say that the evil
is weakness and disease and deformity?
POLUS: I should.
SOCRATES: And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil
of her own?
POLUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: And this you would call injustice and ignorance and
cowardice, and the like?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: So then, in mind, body, and estate, which are three, you have
pointed out three corresponding evils—injustice, disease, poverty?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And which of the evils is the most disgraceful?—Is not the
most disgraceful of them injustice, and in general the evil of the
soul?
POLUS: By far the most.
SOCRATES: And if the most disgraceful, then also the worst?
POLUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I mean to say, that is most disgraceful has been already
admitted to be most painful or hurtful, or both.
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And now injustice and all evil in the soul has been admitted
by us to be most disgraceful?
POLUS: It has been admitted.
SOCRATES: And most disgraceful either because most painful and causing
excessive pain, or most hurtful, or both?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And therefore to be unjust and intemperate, and cowardly and
ignorant, is more painful than to be poor and sick?
POLUS: Nay, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to me to follow
from your premises.
SOCRATES: Then, if, as you would argue, not more painful, the evil of
the soul is of all evils the most disgraceful; and the excess of
disgrace must be caused by some preternatural greatness, or
extraordinary hurtfulness of the evil.
POLUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be the
greatest of evils?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then injustice and intemperance, and in general the depravity
of the soul, are the greatest of evils?
POLUS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: Now, what art is there which delivers us from poverty? Does
not the art of making money?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what art frees us from disease? Does not the art of
medicine?
POLUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And what from vice and injustice? If you are not able to
answer at once, ask yourself whither we go with the sick, and to whom
we take them.
POLUS: To the physicians, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And to whom do we go with the unjust and intemperate?
POLUS: To the judges, you mean.
SOCRATES: —Who are to punish them?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And do not those who rightly punish others, punish them in
accordance with a certain rule of justice?
POLUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then the art of money-making frees a man from poverty;
medicine from disease; and justice from intemperance and injustice?
POLUS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: Which, then, is the best of these three?
POLUS: Will you enumerate them?
SOCRATES: Money-making, medicine, and justice.
POLUS: Justice, Socrates, far excels the two others.
SOCRATES: And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or
advantage or both?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But is the being healed a pleasant thing, and are those who
are being healed pleased?
POLUS: I think not.
SOCRATES: A useful thing, then?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great evil; and
this is the advantage of enduring the pain—that you get well?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And would he be the happier man in his bodily condition, who
is healed, or who never was out of health?
POLUS: Clearly he who was never out of health.
SOCRATES: Yes; for happiness surely does not consist in being delivered
from evils, but in never having had them.
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And suppose the case of two persons who have some evil in
their bodies, and that one of them is healed and delivered from evil,
and another is not healed, but retains the evil—which of them is the
most miserable?
POLUS: Clearly he who is not healed.
SOCRATES: And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance from
the greatest of evils, which is vice?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the
medicine of our vice?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: He, then, has the first place in the scale of happiness who
has never had vice in his soul; for this has been shown to be the
greatest of evils.
POLUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And he has the second place, who is delivered from vice?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: That is to say, he who receives admonition and rebuke and
punishment?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then he lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no
deliverance from injustice?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: That is, he lives worst who commits the greatest crimes, and
who, being the most unjust of men, succeeds in escaping rebuke or
correction or punishment; and this, as you say, has been accomplished
by Archelaus and other tyrants and rhetoricians and potentates?
(Compare Republic.)
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: May not their way of proceeding, my friend, be compared to
the conduct of a person who is afflicted with the worst of diseases and
yet contrives not to pay the penalty to the physician for his sins
against his constitution, and will not be cured, because, like a child,
he is afraid of the pain of being burned or cut:—Is not that a parallel
case?
POLUS: Yes, truly.
SOCRATES: He would seem as if he did not know the nature of health and
bodily vigour; and if we are right, Polus, in our previous conclusions,
they are in a like case who strive to evade justice, which they see to
be painful, but are blind to the advantage which ensues from it, not
knowing how far more miserable a companion a diseased soul is than a
diseased body; a soul, I say, which is corrupt and unrighteous and
unholy. And hence they do all that they can to avoid punishment and to
avoid being released from the greatest of evils; they provide
themselves with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their
powers of persuasion. But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what
follows, or shall we draw out the consequences in form?
POLUS: If you please.
SOCRATES: Is it not a fact that injustice, and the doing of injustice,
is the greatest of evils?
POLUS: That is quite clear.
SOCRATES: And further, that to suffer punishment is the way to be
released from this evil?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And not to suffer, is to perpetuate the evil?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: To do wrong, then, is second only in the scale of evils; but
to do wrong and not to be punished, is first and greatest of all?
POLUS: That is true.
SOCRATES: Well, and was not this the point in dispute, my friend? You
deemed Archelaus happy, because he was a very great criminal and
unpunished: I, on the other hand, maintained that he or any other who
like him has done wrong and has not been punished, is, and ought to be,
the most miserable of all men; and that the doer of injustice is more
miserable than the sufferer; and he who escapes punishment, more
miserable than he who suffers.—Was not that what I said?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And it has been proved to be true?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well, Polus, but if this is true, where is the great use of
rhetoric? If we admit what has been just now said, every man ought in
every way to guard himself against doing wrong, for he will thereby
suffer great evil?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And if he, or any one about whom he cares, does wrong, he
ought of his own accord to go where he will be immediately punished; he
will run to the judge, as he would to the physician, in order that the
disease of injustice may not be rendered chronic and become the
incurable cancer of the soul; must we not allow this consequence,
Polus, if our former admissions are to stand:—is any other inference
consistent with them?
POLUS: To that, Socrates, there can be but one answer.
SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is of no use to us, Polus, in helping a man to
excuse his own injustice, that of his parents or friends, or children
or country; but may be of use to any one who holds that instead of
excusing he ought to accuse—himself above all, and in the next degree
his family or any of his friends who may be doing wrong; he should
bring to light the iniquity and not conceal it, that so the wrong-doer
may suffer and be made whole; and he should even force himself and
others not to shrink, but with closed eyes like brave men to let the
physician operate with knife or searing iron, not regarding the pain,
in the hope of attaining the good and the honourable; let him who has
done things worthy of stripes, allow himself to be scourged, if of
bonds, to be bound, if of a fine, to be fined, if of exile, to be
exiled, if of death, to die, himself being the first to accuse himself
and his own relations, and using rhetoric to this end, that his and
their unjust actions may be made manifest, and that they themselves may
be delivered from injustice, which is the greatest evil. Then, Polus,
rhetoric would indeed be useful. Do you say “Yes” or “No” to that?
POLUS: To me, Socrates, what you are saying appears very strange,
though probably in agreement with your premises.
SOCRATES: Is not this the conclusion, if the premises are not
disproven?
POLUS: Yes; it certainly is.
SOCRATES: And from the opposite point of view, if indeed it be our duty
to harm another, whether an enemy or not—I except the case of
self-defence—then I have to be upon my guard—but if my enemy injures a
third person, then in every sort of way, by word as well as deed, I
should try to prevent his being punished, or appearing before the
judge; and if he appears, I should contrive that he should escape, and
not suffer punishment: if he has stolen a sum of money, let him keep
what he has stolen and spend it on him and his, regardless of religion
and justice; and if he have done things worthy of death, let him not
die, but rather be immortal in his wickedness; or, if this is not
possible, let him at any rate be allowed to live as long as he can. For
such purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of small if of any
use to him who is not intending to commit injustice; at least, there
was no such use discovered by us in the previous discussion.
CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates in earnest, or is he
joking?
CHAEREPHON: I should say, Callicles, that he is in most profound
earnest; but you may well ask him.
CALLICLES: By the gods, and I will. Tell me, Socrates, are you in
earnest, or only in jest? For if you are in earnest, and what you say
is true, is not the whole of human life turned upside down; and are we
not doing, as would appear, in everything the opposite of what we ought
to be doing?
SOCRATES: O Callicles, if there were not some community of feelings
among mankind, however varying in different persons—I mean to say, if
every man’s feelings were peculiar to himself and were not shared by
the rest of his species—I do not see how we could ever communicate our
impressions to one another. I make this remark because I perceive that
you and I have a common feeling. For we are lovers both, and both of us
have two loves apiece:—I am the lover of Alcibiades, the son of
Cleinias, and of philosophy; and you of the Athenian Demus, and of
Demus the son of Pyrilampes. Now, I observe that you, with all your
cleverness, do not venture to contradict your favourite in any word or
opinion of his; but as he changes you change, backwards and forwards.
When the Athenian Demus denies anything that you are saying in the
assembly, you go over to his opinion; and you do the same with Demus,
the fair young son of Pyrilampes. For you have not the power to resist
the words and ideas of your loves; and if a person were to express
surprise at the strangeness of what you say from time to time when
under their influence, you would probably reply to him, if you were
honest, that you cannot help saying what your loves say unless they are
prevented; and that you can only be silent when they are. Now you must
understand that my words are an echo too, and therefore you need not
wonder at me; but if you want to silence me, silence philosophy, who is
my love, for she is always telling me what I am now telling you, my
friend; neither is she capricious like my other love, for the son of
Cleinias says one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, but
philosophy is always true. She is the teacher at whose words you are
now wondering, and you have heard her yourself. Her you must refute,
and either show, as I was saying, that to do injustice and to escape
punishment is not the worst of all evils; or, if you leave her word
unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that
Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his whole life
will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre
should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus
which I provided; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with
me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with
myself, and contradict myself.
CALLICLES: O Socrates, you are a regular declaimer, and seem to be
running riot in the argument. And now you are declaiming in this way
because Polus has fallen into the same error himself of which he
accused Gorgias:—for he said that when Gorgias was asked by you,
whether, if some one came to him who wanted to learn rhetoric, and did
not know justice, he would teach him justice, Gorgias in his modesty
replied that he would, because he thought that mankind in general would
be displeased if he answered “No”; and then in consequence of this
admission, Gorgias was compelled to contradict himself, that being just
the sort of thing in which you delight. Whereupon Polus laughed at you
deservedly, as I think; but now he has himself fallen into the same
trap. I cannot say very much for his wit when he conceded to you that
to do is more dishonourable than to suffer injustice, for this was the
admission which led to his being entangled by you; and because he was
too modest to say what he thought, he had his mouth stopped. For the
truth is, Socrates, that you, who pretend to be engaged in the pursuit
of truth, are appealing now to the popular and vulgar notions of right,
which are not natural, but only conventional. Convention and nature are
generally at variance with one another: and hence, if a person is too
modest to say what he thinks, he is compelled to contradict himself;
and you, in your ingenuity perceiving the advantage to be thereby
gained, slyly ask of him who is arguing conventionally a question which
is to be determined by the rule of nature; and if he is talking of the
rule of nature, you slip away to custom: as, for instance, you did in
this very discussion about doing and suffering injustice. When Polus
was speaking of the conventionally dishonourable, you assailed him from
the point of view of nature; for by the rule of nature, to suffer
injustice is the greater disgrace because the greater evil; but
conventionally, to do evil is the more disgraceful. For the suffering
of injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave, who indeed had
better die than live; since when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is
unable to help himself, or any other about whom he cares. The reason,
as I conceive, is that the makers of laws are the majority who are
weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a
view to themselves and to their own interests; and they terrify the
stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them,
in order that they may not get the better of them; and they say, that
dishonesty is shameful and unjust; meaning, by the word injustice, the
desire of a man to have more than his neighbours; for knowing their own
inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality. And
therefore the endeavour to have more than the many, is conventionally
said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice (compare
Republic), whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the
better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker;
and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and
indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the
superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. For on what
principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the
Scythians? (not to speak of numberless other examples). Nay, but these
are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and according
to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law,
which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we take the best
and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like young
lions,—charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them,
that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the
honourable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient
force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this;
he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and
all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in
rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would
shine forth. And this I take to be the sentiment of Pindar, when he
says in his poem, that
“Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals;”
this, as he says,
“Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest hand; as I infer
from the deeds of Heracles, for without buying them—” (Fragm. Incert.
151 (Bockh).) —I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is,
that without buying them, and without their being given to him, he
carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right,
and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior
properly belong to the stronger and superior. And this is true, as you
may ascertain, if you will leave philosophy and go on to higher things:
for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper
age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin
of human life. Even if a man has good parts, still, if he carries
philosophy into later life, he is necessarily ignorant of all those
things which a gentleman and a person of honour ought to know; he is
inexperienced in the laws of the State, and in the language which ought
to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether private or public,
and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of
human character in general. And people of this sort, when they betake
themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as I imagine the
politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of
philosophy. For, as Euripides says,
“Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatest
portion of the day to that in which he most excels,” (Antiope, fragm.
20 (Dindorf).)
but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and
praises the opposite from partiality to himself, and because he thinks
that he will thus praise himself. The true principle is to unite them.
Philosophy, as a part of education, is an excellent thing, and there is
no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study; but
when he is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and I
feel towards philosophers as I do towards those who lisp and imitate
children. For I love to see a little child, who is not of an age to
speak plainly, lisping at his play; there is an appearance of grace and
freedom in his utterance, which is natural to his childish years. But
when I hear some small creature carefully articulating its words, I am
offended; the sound is disagreeable, and has to my ears the twang of
slavery. So when I hear a man lisping, or see him playing like a child,
his behaviour appears to me ridiculous and unmanly and worthy of
stripes. And I have the same feeling about students of philosophy; when
I see a youth thus engaged,—the study appears to me to be in character,
and becoming a man of liberal education, and him who neglects
philosophy I regard as an inferior man, who will never aspire to
anything great or noble. But if I see him continuing the study in later
life, and not leaving off, I should like to beat him, Socrates; for, as
I was saying, such a one, even though he have good natural parts,
becomes effeminate. He flies from the busy centre and the market-place,
in which, as the poet says, men become distinguished; he creeps into a
corner for the rest of his life, and talks in a whisper with three or
four admiring youths, but never speaks out like a freeman in a
satisfactory manner. Now I, Socrates, am very well inclined towards
you, and my feeling may be compared with that of Zethus towards
Amphion, in the play of Euripides, whom I was mentioning just now: for
I am disposed to say to you much what Zethus said to his brother, that
you, Socrates, are careless about the things of which you ought to be
careful; and that you
“Who have a soul so noble, are remarkable for a puerile exterior;
Neither in a court of justice could you state a case, or give any
reason or proof, Or offer valiant counsel on another’s behalf.”
And you must not be offended, my dear Socrates, for I am speaking out
of good-will towards you, if I ask whether you are not ashamed of being
thus defenceless; which I affirm to be the condition not of you only
but of all those who will carry the study of philosophy too far. For
suppose that some one were to take you, or any one of your sort, off to
prison, declaring that you had done wrong when you had done no wrong,
you must allow that you would not know what to do:—there you would
stand giddy and gaping, and not having a word to say; and when you went
up before the Court, even if the accuser were a poor creature and not
good for much, you would die if he were disposed to claim the penalty
of death. And yet, Socrates, what is the value of
“An art which converts a man of sense into a fool,”
who is helpless, and has no power to save either himself or others,
when he is in the greatest danger and is going to be despoiled by his
enemies of all his goods, and has to live, simply deprived of his
rights of citizenship?—he being a man who, if I may use the expression,
may be boxed on the ears with impunity. Then, my good friend, take my
advice, and refute no more:
“Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of
wisdom. But leave to others these niceties,”
whether they are to be described as follies or absurdities:
“For they will only Give you poverty for the inmate of your dwelling.”
Cease, then, emulating these paltry splitters of words, and emulate
only the man of substance and honour, who is well to do.
SOCRATES: If my soul, Callicles, were made of gold, should I not
rejoice to discover one of those stones with which they test gold, and
the very best possible one to which I might bring my soul; and if the
stone and I agreed in approving of her training, then I should know
that I was in a satisfactory state, and that no other test was needed
by me.
CALLICLES: What is your meaning, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will tell you; I think that I have found in you the desired
touchstone.
CALLICLES: Why?
SOCRATES: Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the
opinions which my soul forms, I have at last found the truth indeed.
For I consider that if a man is to make a complete trial of the good or
evil of the soul, he ought to have three qualities—knowledge,
good-will, outspokenness, which are all possessed by you. Many whom I
meet are unable to make trial of me, because they are not wise as you
are; others are wise, but they will not tell me the truth, because they
have not the same interest in me which you have; and these two
strangers, Gorgias and Polus, are undoubtedly wise men and my very good
friends, but they are not outspoken enough, and they are too modest.
Why, their modesty is so great that they are driven to contradict
themselves, first one and then the other of them, in the face of a
large company, on matters of the highest moment. But you have all the
qualities in which these others are deficient, having received an
excellent education; to this many Athenians can testify. And you are my
friend. Shall I tell you why I think so? I know that you, Callicles,
and Tisander of Aphidnae, and Andron the son of Androtion, and
Nausicydes of the deme of Cholarges, studied together: there were four
of you, and I once heard you advising with one another as to the extent
to which the pursuit of philosophy should be carried, and, as I know,
you came to the conclusion that the study should not be pushed too much
into detail. You were cautioning one another not to be overwise; you
were afraid that too much wisdom might unconsciously to yourselves be
the ruin of you. And now when I hear you giving the same advice to me
which you then gave to your most intimate friends, I have a sufficient
evidence of your real good-will to me. And of the frankness of your
nature and freedom from modesty I am assured by yourself, and the
assurance is confirmed by your last speech. Well then, the inference in
the present case clearly is, that if you agree with me in an argument
about any point, that point will have been sufficiently tested by us,
and will not require to be submitted to any further test. For you could
not have agreed with me, either from lack of knowledge or from
superfluity of modesty, nor yet from a desire to deceive me, for you
are my friend, as you tell me yourself. And therefore when you and I
are agreed, the result will be the attainment of perfect truth. Now
there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that which you censure me
for making,—What ought the character of a man to be, and what his
pursuits, and how far is he to go, both in maturer years and in youth?
For be assured that if I err in my own conduct I do not err
intentionally, but from ignorance. Do not then desist from advising me,
now that you have begun, until I have learned clearly what this is
which I am to practise, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me
assenting to your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I
assented, call me “dolt,” and deem me unworthy of receiving further
instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by
natural justice: Do you not mean that the superior should take the
property of the inferior by force; that the better should rule the
worse, the noble have more than the mean? Am I not right in my
recollection?
CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I was saying, and so I still aver.
SOCRATES: And do you mean by the better the same as the superior? for I
could not make out what you were saying at the time—whether you meant
by the superior the stronger, and that the weaker must obey the
stronger, as you seemed to imply when you said that great cities attack
small ones in accordance with natural right, because they are superior
and stronger, as though the superior and stronger and better were the
same; or whether the better may be also the inferior and weaker, and
the superior the worse, or whether better is to be defined in the same
way as superior:—this is the point which I want to have cleared up. Are
the superior and better and stronger the same or different?
CALLICLES: I say unequivocally that they are the same.
SOCRATES: Then the many are by nature superior to the one, against
whom, as you were saying, they make the laws?
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then the laws of the many are the laws of the superior?
CALLICLES: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then they are the laws of the better; for the superior class
are far better, as you were saying?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And since they are superior, the laws which are made by them
are by nature good?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And are not the many of opinion, as you were lately saying,
that justice is equality, and that to do is more disgraceful than to
suffer injustice?—is that so or not? Answer, Callicles, and let no
modesty be found to come in the way; do the many think, or do they not
think thus?—I must beg of you to answer, in order that if you agree
with me I may fortify myself by the assent of so competent an
authority.
CALLICLES: Yes; the opinion of the many is what you say.
SOCRATES: Then not only custom but nature also affirms that to do is
more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is
equality; so that you seem to have been wrong in your former assertion,
when accusing me you said that nature and custom are opposed, and that
I, knowing this, was dishonestly playing between them, appealing to
custom when the argument is about nature, and to nature when the
argument is about custom?
CALLICLES: This man will never cease talking nonsense. At your age,
Socrates, are you not ashamed to be catching at words and chuckling
over some verbal slip? do you not see—have I not told you already, that
by superior I mean better: do you imagine me to say, that if a rabble
of slaves and nondescripts, who are of no use except perhaps for their
physical strength, get together, their ipsissima verba are laws?
SOCRATES: Ho! my philosopher, is that your line?
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: I was thinking, Callicles, that something of the kind must
have been in your mind, and that is why I repeated the question,—What
is the superior? I wanted to know clearly what you meant; for you
surely do not think that two men are better than one, or that your
slaves are better than you because they are stronger? Then please to
begin again, and tell me who the better are, if they are not the
stronger; and I will ask you, great Sir, to be a little milder in your
instructions, or I shall have to run away from you.
CALLICLES: You are ironical.
SOCRATES: No, by the hero Zethus, Callicles, by whose aid you were just
now saying many ironical things against me, I am not:—tell me, then,
whom you mean, by the better?
CALLICLES: I mean the more excellent.
SOCRATES: Do you not see that you are yourself using words which have
no meaning and that you are explaining nothing?—will you tell me
whether you mean by the better and superior the wiser, or if not, whom?
CALLICLES: Most assuredly, I do mean the wiser.
SOCRATES: Then according to you, one wise man may often be superior to
ten thousand fools, and he ought to rule them, and they ought to be his
subjects, and he ought to have more than they should. This is what I
believe that you mean (and you must not suppose that I am
word-catching), if you allow that the one is superior to the ten
thousand?
CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive to be
natural justice—that the better and wiser should rule and have more
than the inferior.
SOCRATES: Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say in this
case: Let us suppose that we are all together as we are now; there are
several of us, and we have a large common store of meats and drinks,
and there are all sorts of persons in our company having various
degrees of strength and weakness, and one of us, being a physician, is
wiser in the matter of food than all the rest, and he is probably
stronger than some and not so strong as others of us—will he not, being
wiser, be also better than we are, and our superior in this matter of
food?
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Either, then, he will have a larger share of the meats and
drinks, because he is better, or he will have the distribution of all
of them by reason of his authority, but he will not expend or make use
of a larger share of them on his own person, or if he does, he will be
punished;—his share will exceed that of some, and be less than that of
others, and if he be the weakest of all, he being the best of all will
have the smallest share of all, Callicles:—am I not right, my friend?
CALLICLES: You talk about meats and drinks and physicians and other
nonsense; I am not speaking of them.
SOCRATES: Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better? Answer
“Yes” or “No.”
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And ought not the better to have a larger share?
CALLICLES: Not of meats and drinks.
SOCRATES: I understand: then, perhaps, of coats—the skilfullest weaver
ought to have the largest coat, and the greatest number of them, and go
about clothed in the best and finest of them?
CALLICLES: Fudge about coats!
SOCRATES: Then the skilfullest and best in making shoes ought to have
the advantage in shoes; the shoemaker, clearly, should walk about in
the largest shoes, and have the greatest number of them?
CALLICLES: Fudge about shoes! What nonsense are you talking?
SOCRATES: Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would say that
the wise and good and true husbandman should actually have a larger
share of seeds, and have as much seed as possible for his own land?
CALLICLES: How you go on, always talking in the same way, Socrates!
SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, and also about the same things.
CALLICLES: Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of
cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if this had to do with
our argument.
SOCRATES: But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior
and wiser in order to claim a larger share; will you neither accept a
suggestion, nor offer one?
CALLICLES: I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by
superiors not cobblers or cooks, but wise politicians who understand
the administration of a state, and who are not only wise, but also
valiant and able to carry out their designs, and not the men to faint
from want of soul.
SOCRATES: See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge
against you is from that which you bring against me, for you reproach
me with always saying the same; but I reproach you with never saying
the same about the same things, for at one time you were defining the
better and the superior to be the stronger, then again as the wiser,
and now you bring forward a new notion; the superior and the better are
now declared by you to be the more courageous: I wish, my good friend,
that you would tell me, once for all, whom you affirm to be the better
and superior, and in what they are better?
CALLICLES: I have already told you that I mean those who are wise and
courageous in the administration of a state—they ought to be the rulers
of their states, and justice consists in their having more than their
subjects.
SOCRATES: But whether rulers or subjects will they or will they not
have more than themselves, my friend?
CALLICLES: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I mean that every man is his own ruler; but perhaps you think
that there is no necessity for him to rule himself; he is only required
to rule others?
CALLICLES: What do you mean by his “ruling over himself”?
SOCRATES: A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said, that a man
should be temperate and master of himself, and ruler of his own
pleasures and passions.
CALLICLES: What innocence! you mean those fools,—the temperate?
SOCRATES: Certainly:—any one may know that to be my meaning.
CALLICLES: Quite so, Socrates; and they are really fools, for how can a
man be happy who is the servant of anything? On the contrary, I plainly
assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax
to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but when they have grown to
their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to
them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural
justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain; and they
blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness,
which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is
base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and
being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise temperance and
justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally
the son of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a
tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than
temperance—to a man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every
good, and has no one to stand in his way, and yet has admitted custom
and reason and the opinion of other men to be lords over him?—must not
he be in a miserable plight whom the reputation of justice and
temperance hinders from giving more to his friends than to his enemies,
even though he be a ruler in his city? Nay, Socrates, for you profess
to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this:—that luxury and
intemperance and licence, if they be provided with means, are virtue
and happiness—all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to
nature, foolish talk of men, nothing worth. (Compare Republic.)
SOCRATES: There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of
approaching the argument; for what you say is what the rest of the
world think, but do not like to say. And I must beg of you to
persevere, that the true rule of human life may become manifest. Tell
me, then:—you say, do you not, that in the rightly-developed man the
passions ought not to be controlled, but that we should let them grow
to the utmost and somehow or other satisfy them, and that this is
virtue?
CALLICLES: Yes; I do.
SOCRATES: Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy?
CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the
happiest of all.
SOCRATES: But surely life according to your view is an awful thing; and
indeed I think that Euripides may have been right in saying,
“Who knows if life be not death and death life;”
and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher say that
at this moment we are actually dead, and that the body (soma) is our
tomb (sema (compare Phaedr.)), and that the part of the soul which is
the seat of the desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown
up and down; and some ingenious person, probably a Sicilian or an
Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the
soul—because of its believing and make-believe nature—a vessel (An
untranslatable pun,—dia to pithanon te kai pistikon onomase pithon.),
and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in
the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires are seated, being the
intemperate and incontinent part, he compared to a vessel full of
holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of
thinking, Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in Hades,
meaning the invisible world (aeides), these uninitiated or leaky
persons are the most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel
which is full of holes out of a colander which is similarly perforated.
The colander, as my informer assures me, is the soul, and the soul
which he compares to a colander is the soul of the ignorant, which is
likewise full of holes, and therefore incontinent, owing to a bad
memory and want of faith. These notions are strange enough, but they
show the principle which, if I can, I would fain prove to you; that you
should change your mind, and, instead of the intemperate and insatiate
life, choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due
provision for daily needs. Do I make any impression on you, and are you
coming over to the opinion that the orderly are happier than the
intemperate? Or do I fail to persuade you, and, however many tales I
rehearse to you, do you continue of the same opinion still?
CALLICLES: The latter, Socrates, is more like the truth.
SOCRATES: Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out of the
same school:—Let me request you to consider how far you would accept
this as an account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in
a figure:—There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the
one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey,
and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the
streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them
with a great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once
filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble
with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure
streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and
unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if
he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their
respective lives:—And now would you say that the life of the
intemperate is happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince
you that the opposite is the truth?
CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled
himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now
saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he
is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the
influx.
SOCRATES: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the
holes must be large for the liquid to escape.
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead
man, or of a stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that he is to be
hungering and eating?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?
CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires
about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.
SOCRATES: Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, and have no
shame; I, too, must disencumber myself of shame: and first, will you
tell me whether you include itching and scratching, provided you have
enough of them and pass your life in scratching, in your notion of
happiness?
CALLICLES: What a strange being you are, Socrates! a regular
mob-orator.
SOCRATES: That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared Polus and
Gorgias, until they were too modest to say what they thought; but you
will not be too modest and will not be scared, for you are a brave man.
And now, answer my question.
CALLICLES: I answer, that even the scratcher would live pleasantly.
SOCRATES: And if pleasantly, then also happily?
CALLICLES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: But what if the itching is not confined to the head? Shall I
pursue the question? And here, Callicles, I would have you consider how
you would reply if consequences are pressed upon you, especially if in
the last resort you are asked, whether the life of a catamite is not
terrible, foul, miserable? Or would you venture to say, that they too
are happy, if they only get enough of what they want?
CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics
into the argument?
SOCRATES: Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these
topics, or he who says without any qualification that all who feel
pleasure in whatever manner are happy, and who admits of no distinction
between good and bad pleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say
that pleasure and good are the same, or whether there is some pleasure
which is not a good?
CALLICLES: Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that
they are the same.
SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will
no longer be a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you
say what is contrary to your real opinion.
CALLICLES: Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would
ask you to consider whether pleasure, from whatever source derived, is
the good; for, if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences
which have been darkly intimated must follow, and many others.
CALLICLES: That, Socrates, is only your opinion.
SOCRATES: And do you, Callicles, seriously maintain what you are
saying?
CALLICLES: Indeed I do.
SOCRATES: Then, as you are in earnest, shall we proceed with the
argument?