Charmides

For in truth, let temperance be ever so much what we say it is, I see nothing to show what good effect it has on us. How so? he asked: tell us, in order that we on our side may know what you mean.I expect, I said, I am talking nonsense: but still one is bound to consider what occurs to one, and not idly ignore it, if one has even a little concern for oneself. And you are quite right, he said. Hear then, I said, my dream, whether it has come through horn or through ivory. [*](Cf. Hom. Od. 19.562ff. Dreams are there described as issuing: dreams that come true are from the gate of horn; deceitful dreams are from the gate of ivory.) Suppose that temperance were such as we now define her, and that she had entire control of us: must it not be that every act would be done according to the sciences, and no one professing to be a pilot when he was not would deceive us, nor would a doctor, nor a general, nor anyone else pretending to know something he did not know, go undetected; and would not these conditions result in our having greater bodily health than we have now, safety in perils of the sea and war, and skilful workmanship in all our utensils, our clothes, our shoes, nay, everything about us, and various things besides, because we should be employing genuine craftsmen? And if you liked, we might concede that prophecy, as the knowledge of what is to be, and temperance directing her, will deter the charlatans, and establish the true prophets as our prognosticators. Thus equipped, the human race would indeed act and live according to knowledge, I grant you (for temperance, on the watch, would not suffer ignorance to foist herself in and take a hand in our labors), but that by acting according to knowledge we should do well and be happy—this is a point which as yet we are unable to make out, my dear Critias. But still, he replied, you will have some difficulty in finding any other fulfillment of welfare if you reject the rule of knowledge. Then inform me further, I said, on one more little matter. Of what is this knowledge? Do you mean of shoe-making? Good heavens, not I! Well, of working in brass? By no means. Well, in wool, or in wood, or in something else of that sort? No, indeed.Then we no longer hold, I said, to the statement that he who lives according to knowledge is happy; for these workers, though they live according to knowledge, are not acknowledged by you to be happy: you rather delimit the happy man, it seems to me, as one who lives according to knowledge about certain things.

And I daresay you are referring to my instance of a moment ago, the man who knows all that is to come, the prophet. Do you refer to him or to someone else? Yes, I refer to him, he said, and someone else too. Whom? I asked. Is it the sort of person who might know, besides what is to be, both everything that has been and now is, and might be ignorant of nothing? Let us suppose such a man exists: you are not going to tell me, I am sure, of anyone alive who is yet more knowing than he. No, indeed. Then there is still one more thing I would fain know: which of the sciences is it that makes him happy? Or does he owe it to all of them alike? By no means to all alike, he replied. But to which sort most? One that gives him knowledge of what thing, present, past or future? Is it that by which he knows draught-playing? Draught-playing indeed! he replied.Well, reckoning? By no means. Well, health? More likely, he said. And that science to which I refer as the most likely, I went on, gives him knowledge of what? Of good, he replied, and of evil. Vile creature! I said, you have all this time been dragging me round and round, while concealing the fact that the life according to knowledge does not make us do well and be happy, not even if it be knowledge of all the other knowledges together, but only if it is of this single one concerning good and evil. For, Critias, if you choose to take away this science from the whole number of them, will medicine any the less give us health, or shoemaking give us shoes, or weaving provide clothes, or will the pilot’s art any the less prevent the loss of life at sea, or the general’s in war? None the less, he replied. But, my dear Critias, to have any of these things well and beneficially done will be out of our reach if that science is lacking. That is true. And that science, it seems, is not temperance, but one whose business is to benefit us; for it is not a science of sciences and lack of sciences, but of good and evil: so that if this is beneficial, temperance must be something else to us. But why, he asked, should not it be beneficial? For if temperance is above all a science of the sciences, and presides too over the other sciences, surely she will govern this science of the good, and so benefit us. And give us health also? I asked: will she, and not medicine, do this? And will the several works of the other arts be hers, and not the particular works of each art? Have we not constantly protested that she is only knowledge of knowledge and of lack of knowledge, and of nothing else? Is not that so? Apparently it is. Then she will not be a producer of health? No, indeed.

For health, we said, belongs to another art, did we not? We did. Nor of benefit, my good friend; for this work, again, we assigned to another art just now, did we not? Certainly. Then how will temperance be beneficial, if it produces no benefit? By no means, Socrates, as it seems. So do you see, Critias, how all the time I had good reason for my fear, and fair ground for the reproach I made against myself, that my inquiry regarding temperance was worthless? [*](Cf. Plat. Charm. 172c.) For I cannot think that what is admitted to be the noblest thing in the world would have appeared to us useless if I had been of any use for making a good search. But now, you see, we are worsted every way, and cannot discover what thing it can possibly be to which the lawgiver gave this name, temperance. And yet we have conceded many points which were not deducible from our argument. For you know we conceded that there was a science of science, when the argument was against it and would not agree; and we further conceded that this science could know the works also of the other sciences, when the argument was against this too, in order to make out that the temperate man had a knowledge of what he knew and did not know, so as to know that he knew the one and did not know the other. And we made this concession in a really magnificent manner, without considering the impossibility of a man knowing, in some sort of way, things that he does not know at all; for our admission says that he knows that he does not know them; and yet, in my opinion, there can be nothing more irrational than this. Nevertheless, although it has found us so simple-minded and tractable, the inquiry remains quite incapable of discovering the truth, but has utterly flouted it by most impudently showing us the inutility of that which we had been ever so long assuming, by our joint admissions and fictions, to be the meaning of temperance. Now, so far as I am concerned, I am not particularly distressed: but for your sake, I said, Charmides, I am seriously distressed to think that you, with your goodly form and most temperate soul besides, are to have no profit or advantage from the presence of that temperance in all your life. And I am still more distressed about the charm which I learnt from the Thracian, [*](Cf. Plat. Charm. 156d.) that I should have spent so much pains on a lesson which has had such a worthless effect. Now I really do not think that this can be the case, but rather that I am a poor hand at inquiring; for temperance I hold to be a great good, and you to be highly blessed, if you actually have it.

See now whether you have it, and are in no need of the charm; for if it is yours, I should rather advise you to regard me as a babbler who is unable to argue out any subject of inquiry whatsoever, and yourself as advancing in happiness as you advance in temperance. Then Charmides said: Why, upon my word, Socrates, I do not know at all whether I have it or have it not. For how can I know, when even you two are unable to discover what this thing is?—so you say, but of this you do not at all convince me—and I quite believe, Socrates, that I do need the charm, and for my part I have no objection to being charmed by you every day of my life, until you say I have had enough of the treatment. Very well, said Critias: now, Charmides, if you do this, it will be a proof to me of your temperance—if you submit to be charmed by Socrates and do not forsake him through thick and thin. Count on me to follow, he said, and not forsake him; for it would ill become me to disobey you, my guardian, and refuse to do your bidding. Well now, he said, I bid you. Then I will do as you say, he replied, and will start this very day. There, there, I said, what are you two plotting to do? Nothing, replied Charmides; we have made our plot. So you will use force, I said, before even allowing me to make my affidavit? You must expect me to use force, he replied, since he gives me the command: take counsel, therefore, on your side, as to what you will do But that leaves no room, I said, for counsel; for if once you set about doing anything and use force, no man alive will be able to withstand you. Then do not you, he said, withstand me. Then I will not withstand you, I replied.