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?
CALLICLES: By all means. (Or, 'I am in profound
earnest.')
SOCRATES: Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this
question for me:--There is something, I presume, which you would call
knowledge?
CALLICLES: There is.
SOCRATES: And were you not saying
just now, that some courage implied knowledge?
CALLICLES: I
was.
SOCRATES: And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two
things different from one another?
CALLICLES: Certainly I
was.
SOCRATES: And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are the
same, or not the same?
CALLICLES: Not the same, O man of
wisdom.
SOCRATES: And would you say that courage differed from
pleasure?
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let us
remember that Callicles, the Acharnian, says that pleasure and good are the
same; but that knowledge and courage are not the same, either with one
another, or with the good.
CALLICLES: And what does our friend Socrates,
of Foxton, say--does he assent to this, or not?
SOCRATES: He does not
assent; neither will Callicles, when he sees himself truly. You will admit, I
suppose, that good and evil fortune are opposed to each other? CALLICLES:
Yes. |
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