[Sidenote: _Alcibiades I._]
The First Alcibiades is a conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades.
Socrates is represented in the character which he attributes to himself
in the Apology of a know-nothing who detects the conceit of knowledge in
others. The two have met already in the Protagoras and in the Symposium;
in the latter dialogue, as in this, the relation between them is that
of a lover and his beloved. But the narrative of their loves is told
differently in different places; for in the Symposium Alcibiades is
depicted as the impassioned but rejected lover; here, as coldly receiving
the advances of Socrates, who, for the best of purposes, lies in wait for
the aspiring and ambitious youth.
[Sidenote: ANALYSIS.]
Alcibiades, who is described as a very young man, is =Steph.= 103
about to enter on public life, having an inordinate opinion of
himself, and an extravagant ambition. Socrates, ‘who knows what is
in man,’ astonishes him by a revelation of his designs. But has -106
he the knowledge which is necessary for carrying them out? He is
going to persuade the Athenians—about what? Not about any 107
particular art, but about politics—when to fight and when to make
peace. Now, men should fight and make peace on just grounds,
and therefore the question of justice and injustice must enter into
peace and war; and he who advises the Athenians must know -109
the difference between them. Does Alcibiades know? If he
does, he must either have been taught by some master, or he
must have discovered the nature of them himself. If he has had
a master, Socrates would like to be informed who he is, that he
may go and learn of him also. Alcibiades admits that he has 110
never learned. Then has he enquired for himself? He may
have, if he was ever aware of a time when he was ignorant. But
he never was ignorant; for when he played with other boys at dice,
he charged them with cheating, and this implied a knowledge of
just and unjust. According to his own explanation, he had learned
of the multitude. Why, he asks, should he not learn of them the
nature of justice, as he has learned the Greek language of them?
To this Socrates answers, that they can teach Greek, but they 111
cannot teach justice; for they are agreed about the one, but they
are not agreed about the other: and therefore Alcibiades, who 112
has admitted that if he knows he must either have learned from
a master or have discovered for himself the nature of justice, is
convicted out of his own mouth. 113
[Sidenote: _Analysis 110-126._]
Alcibiades rejoins, that the Athenians debate not about what is
just, but about what is expedient; and he asserts that the two
principles of justice and expediency are opposed. Socrates, by a 114
series of questions, compels him to admit that the just and the
expedient coincide. Alcibiades is thus reduced to the humiliating -117
conclusion that he knows nothing of politics, even if, as he says,
they are concerned with the expedient.
However, he is no worse than other Athenian statesmen; and
he will not need training, for others are as ignorant as he is.
He is reminded that he has to contend, not only with his own
countrymen, but with their enemies—with the Spartan kings and -120
with the great king of Persia; and he can only attain this higher
aim of ambition by the assistance of Socrates. Not that Socrates
himself professes to have attained the truth, but the questions
which he asks bring others to a knowledge of themselves, and
this is the first step in the practice of virtue.
The dialogue continues:—We wish to become as good as -124
possible. But to be good in what? Alcibiades replies—‘Good in
transacting business.’ But what business? ‘The business of the 125
most intelligent men at Athens.’ The cobbler is intelligent in
shoemaking, and is therefore good in that; he is not intelligent,
and therefore not good, in weaving. Is he good in the sense
which Alcibiades means, who is also bad? ‘I mean,’ replies
Alcibiades, ‘the man who is able to command in the city.’ But to
command what—horses or men? and if men, under what circumstances?
‘I mean to say, that he is able to command men living
in social and political relations.’ And what is their aim? ‘The
better preservation of the city.’ But when is a city better? 126
‘When there is unanimity, such as exists between husband and
wife.’ Then, when husbands and wives perform their own 127
special duties, there can be no unanimity between them; nor can
a city be well ordered when each citizen does his own work only.
Alcibiades, having stated first that goodness consists in the
unanimity of the citizens, and then in each of them doing his
own separate work, is brought to the required point of
self-contradiction, leading him to confess his own ignorance. 128
[Sidenote: _Analysis 127-135._]
But he is not too old to learn, and may still arrive at the truth,
if he is willing to be cross-examined by Socrates. He must know 129
himself; that is to say, not his body, or the things of the body,
but his mind, or truer self. The physician knows the body, and
the tradesman knows his own business, but they do not necessarily
know themselves. Self-knowledge can be obtained only
by looking into the mind and virtue of the soul, which is the -132
diviner part of a man, as we see our own image in another’s eye.
And if we do not know ourselves, we cannot know what belongs
to ourselves or belongs to others, and are unfit to take a part in
political affairs. Both for the sake of the individual and of the -134
state, we ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth or
power. The evil and unjust should have no power,—they should
be the slaves of better men than themselves. None but the 135
virtuous are deserving of freedom.
And are you, Alcibiades, a freeman? ‘I feel that I am not; but
I hope, Socrates, that by your aid I may become free, and from
this day forward I will never leave you.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]
The Alcibiades has several points of resemblance to the undoubted
dialogues of Plato. The process of interrogation is of the same kind
with that which Socrates practises upon the youthful Cleinias in the
Euthydemus; and he characteristically attributes to Alcibiades the
answers which he has elicited from him. The definition of good is
narrowed by successive questions, and virtue is shown to be identical
with knowledge. Here, as elsewhere, Socrates awakens the consciousness
not of sin but of ignorance. Self-humiliation is the first step to
knowledge, even of the commonest things. No man knows how ignorant he
is, and no man can arrive at virtue and wisdom who has not once in his
life, at least, been convicted of error. The process by which the soul is
elevated is not unlike that which religious writers describe under the
name of ‘conversion,’ if we substitute the sense of ignorance for the
consciousness of sin.
[Sidenote: _Genuineness of the dialogue._]
In some respects the dialogue differs from any other Platonic
composition. The aim is more directly ethical and hortatory; the process
by which the antagonist is undermined is simpler than in other Platonic
writings, and the conclusion more decided. There is a good deal of
humour in the manner in which the pride of Alcibiades, and of the Greeks
generally, is supposed to be taken down by the Spartan and Persian
queens; and the dialogue has considerable dialectical merit. But we have
a difficulty in supposing that the same writer, who has given so profound
and complex a notion of the characters both of Alcibiades and Socrates
in the Symposium, should have treated them in so thin and superficial a
manner in the Alcibiades, or that he would have ascribed to the ironical
Socrates the rather unmeaning boast that Alcibiades could not attain the
objects of his ambition without his help (105 D foll.); or that he should
have imagined that a mighty nature like his could have been reformed by
a few not very conclusive words of Socrates. For the arguments by which
Alcibiades is reformed are not convincing; the writer of the dialogue,
whoever he was, arrives at his idealism by crooked and tortuous paths, in
which many pitfalls are concealed. The anachronism of making Alcibiades
about twenty years old during the life of his uncle, Pericles, may be
noted; and the repetition of the favourite observation, which occurs
also in the Laches and Protagoras, that great Athenian statesmen, like
Pericles, failed in the education of their sons. There is none of the
undoubted dialogues of Plato in which there is so little dramatic
verisimilitude.