Part 65

From the Antiope of Euripides. See Valckenaer Diatrib. in Eurip. Reliquias, p. 76.

Footnote 69:

Homer, Iliad, ix. 441.

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Socr. If I happened to have a golden soul, Callicles, do you not think I should gladly find one of the best of those stones by which they test gold, to which applying it, if it should allow that my soul was well cultivated, I should then know for a certainty that I was in a good state, and that I had no further need of any other test?

Cal. Why do you ask this, Socrates?

Socr. I will now tell you. I think that in meeting with you, I have met with this good fortune.

Cal. Why so?

Socr. I well know, that if you agree with me in those things which my soul entertains, such things are the very truth. For I perceive that he who intends to examine sufficiently respecting his soul whether it lives uprightly or not, ought to possess three qualities, all which you do possess, viz., science, benevolence, and freedom of speech. 93. For I meet with many who are not able to test me, through not being wise as you are; but others are wise, indeed, but are not willing to speak the truth to me, because they are not concerned about me as you are. Thus these two strangers, Gorgias and Polus, are indeed wise, and my friends, but they are deficient in freedom of speech, and are more bashful than is proper. For how should it be otherwise? since they have reached such a pitch of bashfulness that through shamefacedness each of them dares to contradict himself before many persons, and this on the most important subjects. You however possess all these qualities, which the others have not. For you are both well instructed, as many of the Athenians will affirm, and are well-disposed towards me. What proof do I use? I know, Callicles, that you four have studied wisdom together, you, Tisander the Aphidnæan, Andron son of Androtion, and Nausicydes the Cholargean; and I once heard you deliberating how far wisdom ought to be cultivated, and I know that this opinion prevailed among you, that you should not endeavour to study philosophy with great accuracy; but you advised each other to be cautious, lest, by becoming more wise than is proper, you should destroy yourselves without perceiving it. 94. Since, then, I hear you giving me the very same advice that you gave to your most intimate friends, it is to me a sufficient proof that you are really well-disposed towards me. Moreover, that you are able to speak boldly and not be ashamed, both yourself say, and the speech which you just now made, evinces. The case is evidently this, with reference to our present discussion; if you shall agree with me in any thing, in our argument, that point will have been sufficiently examined by you and me, and it will be no longer necessary to put it to another test. For you would never have assented to it, either through deficiency of wisdom, or excess of bashfulness. Nor, again, would you have assented in order to deceive me: for you are my friend, as you have yourself said. In reality, therefore, your and my assent will have reached the perfect truth. But the most beautiful consideration of all, Callicles, with respect to the things about which you have reproved me, is that, viz., what kind of person a man ought to be, what he ought to study, and how far, both when he is advanced in life and when he is young. For, with respect to myself, if I do any thing in my life not rightly, be assured that I do not err willingly, but through my own ignorance. 95. Do you, therefore, as you have begun to advise me, not desist, but shew me clearly what it is that I ought to study, and in what way I may accomplish it. And if you find me now assenting to you, but in time to come not doing the things to which I have assented, then consider me as utterly stupid, and thenceforth give me no more advice, as being a man altogether worthless. But repeat it to me again from the beginning, how say you and Pindar is the case with natural justice? is it that the superior should take by force from the inferior, and that the better should rule over the worse, and that the more excellent should have more than the depraved? Do you say that the just is any thing else than this? or do I remember rightly?

Cal. These things I said then, and I say now.

Socr. But do you call the same person better and superior? For I was not able at the time to understand you, what you meant: whether do you call the stronger superior, and must the weaker submit to the stronger; as you seemed to me to intimate when you said, that great cities attack little ones by natural justice, because they are superior and stronger; as if the superior, the stronger, and the better, were the same; or is it possible to be better, and at the same time inferior and weaker, and to be superior, but more depraved? or is there the same definition of the better and the superior? Define this clearly for me, are the superior, the better, and the stronger, the same, or different?

Cal. Then I tell you clearly, that they are the same.

96. Socr. Are not, then, the many by nature superior to one? since they establish laws for the one, as you just now said?

Cal. How can it be otherwise?

Socr. The laws, then, of the many are those of such as are superior?

Cal. Certainly.

Socr. Therefore, of the better? For, according to your account, the superior are far better.

Cal. Yes.

Socr. Are not, then, their laws by nature beautiful, since they are superior?

Cal. I admit it.

Socr. Now do not the many think thus, as you just now said, that it is just to possess the equal, and that it is more base to injure than to be injured? Is this so, or not? And take care that you are not detected here in being shamefaced. Do the many think or not that to possess the equal, but not more, is just? and that it is more base to injure than to be injured? Do not refuse me an answer to this, Callicles, in order that, if you agree with me, I may be confirmed in my opinion by you, seeing that a man competent to decide has agreed with me.

97. Cal. The many, then, do think thus.

Socr. Not therefore by law only, but by nature also, it is more base to injure than to be injured, and just to possess the equal. So that you appear not to have spoken the truth before, nor to accuse me rightly, in saying that law and nature are contrary to each other, and that I, knowing this, deal unfairly in the discussion, if any one speaks according to nature, by leading him to law, and if any one speaks according to law, by leading him to nature.

Cal. This man will not cease trifling. Tell me, Socrates, are you not ashamed, at your age, to catch at words, and, if any one makes a mistake in an expression to consider it an unexpected gain? For, do you think that by the superior I mean any thing else than the better? Did I not tell you long since, that I consider the better and the superior to be the same? Do you suppose I mean, that if a crowd of slaves, and all sorts of men of no worth, except perhaps for bodily strength, should meet together, that what they should say would be legal institutions?

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Footnote 70:

οὗτοι φῶσιν, αὐτὰ ταῦτα εἶναι νόμιμα; as if αὐτὰ ταῦτα preceded ἃ ἂν φῶσιν. See Stallbaum.

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