Part 96

And Protagoras, being ashamed, as it seemed to me, when Alcibiades spoke thus and Callias and nearly all who were present entreated him, was with great difficulty prevailed on to renew the conversation and bade me question him, for that he would answer.

94. I then said to him, “Protagoras, think not that I converse with you with any other design, than to examine thoroughly into things about which I am continually in doubt. For I think that Homer speaks very much to the purpose, when he says, ‘When two come together, one apprehends before the other.’ For all of us men are thus more prompt in every deed, and word, and thought, but when any one apprehends alone, he immediately goes about and searches for some one to whom he may communicate it, and with whom he may establish it, until he finds him. So I too, for this reason, am better pleased to converse with you than with any one else, thinking that you are best able to investigate both other subjects which a good man is likely to examine into, and especially virtue. For who else can do it but you? Since you not only think yourself to be a good and worthy man, as some others also are virtuous, but are not able to make others so; you however are both good yourself, and are able to make others good, and you have such confidence in yourself, that while others conceal this art, you openly proclaim yourself to all the Greeks designating yourself a sophist, publishing yourself as a professor of erudition and virtue, and you are the first that has thought fit to receive pay for this. 95. How then, is it not right to call upon you to the examination of these matters, and to question and communicate with you respecting them? It cannot be otherwise. Now therefore I am desirous that the questions which I first asked you on these subjects, should, from the commencement, be partly called to mind by you, and partly to consider them with you. The question, I think, was this; whether these, wisdom, temperance, courage, justice, and holiness, which are five names, belong to one thing, or whether a certain peculiar essence is attached to each of these names, and each thing has its own function, and no one of them is the same as any other? You said, then, that these were not names belonging to one thing, but that each of these names was applied to a distinct thing, and that all these are parts of virtue, not in the same manner as the parts of gold are similar to each other, and to the whole of which they are parts, but just as the parts of the face are dissimilar to the whole of which they are parts, and to each other, each possessing its peculiar function. If these things still appear to you as they did then, say so; if otherwise, explain the difference, since I shall not think you in any way accountable, if you happen to speak differently; for I should not wonder if you said these things before for the purpose of trying me.”

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Footnote 103:

Iliad x. 224.

Footnote 104:

Iliad x. 225.

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96. “But I,” he said, “tell you, Socrates, that all these are parts of virtue, and four of them are very like each other, but courage is very different from all these. And thus you will know that I speak the truth; for you will find many men who are most unjust, most unholy, most intemperate, and most ignorant, yet eminently courageous.”

“Hold,” said I, “for what you say is worth examining. Do you mean that courageous men are daring, or some thing else?”

“I do,” he replied, “and bold to rush headlong on dangers which most men are afraid to encounter.”

“Come then; do you say, that virtue is something beautiful? and as being a beautiful thing do you offer to teach it?”

“Most beautiful,” he replied, “unless I am out of my senses.”

97. “Whether then,” said I, “is one part of it base, and another beautiful, or, is it all beautiful?”

“All beautiful, surely, in the highest degree.”

“Do you know, then, who boldly dive into wells?”

“I do, divers.”

“Whether because they know how to do it, or for some other reason?”

“Because they know how to do it.”

“But who are they that fight boldly on horseback? whether good riders or bad?”

“Good riders.”

“And who with targets? those that are targeteers, or those that are not?”

“Those that are targeteers. And in every thing else,” said he, “if this is what you are enquiring about, you will find that those who are skilled, are bolder than the unskilled, and the same men, after they have learnt are bolder than they were before they learnt.”

98. “But did you ever see any,” said I, “who, though unskilled in all these things, were yet bold with respect to each of them?”

“I have,” he replied, “and very bold.”

“Are those bold persons, then, courageous also?”

“If they were,” he replied, “courage would be a base thing; for these men are mad.”

“How then,” I asked, “do you describe the courageous? did you not say that they are the bold?”