Protagoras

Soc.

Then why is it that many sons of good fathers turn out so meanly? Let me explain this also: it is no wonder, granted that I was right in stating just now that no one, if we are to have a city, must be a mere layman in this affair of virtue. For if what I say is the case—and it is supremely true—reflect on the nature of any other pursuit or study that you choose to mention. Suppose that there could be no state unless we were all flute-players, in such sort as each was able, and suppose that everyone were giving his neighbor both private and public lessons in the art, and rebuked him too, if he failed to do it well, without grudging him the trouble—even as no one now thinks of grudging or reserving his skill in what is just and lawful as he does in other expert knowledge; for our neighbors’ justice and virtue, I take it, is to our advantage, and consequently we all tell and teach one another what is just and lawful—well, if we made the same zealous and ungrudging efforts to instruct each other in flute-playing, do you think, Socrates, that the good flute-players would be more likely than the bad to have sons who were good flute-players? I do not think they would: no, wherever the son had happened to be born with a nature most apt for flute-playing, he would be found to have advanced to distinction, and where unapt, to obscurity. Often the son of a good player would turn out a bad one, and often of a bad, a good. But, at any rate, all would be capable players as compared with ordinary persons who had no inkling of the art. Likewise in the present case you must regard any man who appears to you the most unjust person ever reared among human laws and society as a just man and a craftsman of justice, if he had to stand comparison with people who lacked education and law courts and laws and any constant compulsion to the pursuit of virtue, but were a kind of wild folk such as Pherecrates the poet brought on the scene at last year’s Lenaeum.[*](A dramatic festival, chiefly for comedies, held about the end of January.) Sure enough, if you found yourself among such people, as did the misanthropes among his chorus, you would be very glad to meet with Eurybatus and Phrynondas,[*](Two notorious rogues.) and would bewail yourself with longing for the wickedness of the people here. Instead of that you give yourself dainty airs, Socrates, because everyone is a teacher of virtue to the extent of his powers, and you think there is no teacher. Why, you might as well ask who is a teacher of Greek;

Soc.

you would find none anywhere; and I suppose you might ask, who can teach the sons of our artisans the very crafts which of course they have learnt from their fathers, as far as the father was competent in each case, and his friends who followed the same trade,—I say if you asked who is to give these further instruction, I imagine it would be hard, Socrates, to find them a teacher, but easy enough in the case of those starting with no skill at all. And so it must be with virtue and everything else; if there is somebody who excels us ever so little in showing the way to virtue, we must be thankful. Such an one I take myself to be, excelling all other men in the gift of assisting people to become good and true, and giving full value for the fee that I charge—nay, so much more than full, that the learner himself admits it. For this reason I have arranged my charges on a particular plan: when anyone has had lessons from me, if he likes he pays the sum that I ask; if not, he goes to a temple, states on oath the value he sets on what he has learnt, and disburses that amount. So now, Socrates, I have shown you by both fable and argument that virtue is teachable and is so deemed by the Athenians, and that it is no wonder that bad sons are born of good fathers and good of bad, since even the sons of Polycleitus, companions of Paralus and Xanthippus here, are not to be compared with their father, and the same is the case in other craftsmen’s families. As for these two, it is not fair to make this complaint of them yet; there is still hope in their case, for they are young.After this great and fine performance Protagoras ceased from speaking. As for me, for a good while I was still under his spell and kept on looking at him as though he were going to say more, such was my eagerness to hear: but when I perceived that he had really come to a stop, I pulled myself together, as it were, with an effort, and looking at Hippocrates I said: Son of Apollodorus, I am very grateful to you for inducing me to come hither; for it is a great treat to have heard what I have heard from Protagoras. I used formerly to think that there was no human treatment by which the good were made good, but now I am convinced that there is. Only I find one slight difficulty, which Protagoras will of course easily explain away, since he has explained so many puzzles already.

Soc.

If one should be present when any of the public speakers were dealing with these same subjects, one could probably hear similar discourses from Pericles or some other able speaker: but suppose you put a question to one of them—they are just like books, incapable of either answering you or putting a question of their own; if you question even a small point in what has been said, just as brazen vessels ring a long time after they have been struck and prolong the note unless you put your hand on them, these orators too, on being asked a little question, extend their speech over a full-length course.[*](The metaphor is of a long-distance race of about 2 3/4 miles.) But Protagoras here, while able to deliver, as events have shown, a long and excellent speech, is also able when questioned to reply briefly, and after asking a question to await and accept the answer—accomplishments that few can claim. And now, Protagoras, there is one little thing wanting to the completeness of what I have got, so please answer me this. You say that virtue may be taught, and if there is anybody in the world who could convince me, you are the man: but there was a point in your speech at which I wondered, and on which my spirit would fain be satisfied. You said that Zeus had sent justice and respect to mankind, and furthermore it was frequently stated in your discourse that justice, temperance, holiness and the rest were all but one single thing, virtue: pray, now proceed to deal with these in more precise exposition, stating whether virtue is a single thing, of which justice and temperance and holiness are parts, or whether the qualities I have just mentioned are all names of the same single thing. This is what I am still hankering after. Why, the answer to that is easy, Socrates, he replied: it is that virtue is a single thing and the qualities in question are parts of it. Do you mean parts, I asked, in the sense of the parts of a face, as mouth, nose, eyes, and ears; or, as in the parts of gold, is there no difference among the pieces, either between the parts or between a part and the whole, except in greatness and smallness? In the former sense, I think, Socrates; as the parts of the face are to the whole face. Well then, I continued, when men partake of these portions of virtue, do some have one, and some another, or if you get one, must you have them all? By no means, he replied, since many are brave but unjust, and many again are just but not wise.

Soc.

Then are these also parts of virtue, I asked—wisdom and courage? Most certainly, I should say, he replied; and of the parts, wisdom is the greatest. Each of them, I proceeded, is distinct from any other? Yes. Does each also have its particular function? Just as, in the parts of the face, the eye is not like the ears, nor is its function the same; nor is any of the other parts like another, in its function or in any other respect: in the same way, are the parts of virtue unlike each other, both in themselves and in their functions? Are they not evidently so, if the analogy holds? Yes, they are so, Socrates, he said. So then, I went on, among the parts of virtue, no other part is like knowledge, or like justice, or like courage, or like temperance, or like holiness. He agreed. Come now, I said, let us consider together what sort of thing is each of these parts. First let us ask, is justice something, or not a thing at all? I think it is; what do you say? So do I, he replied. Well then, suppose someone should ask you and me: Protagoras and Socrates, pray tell me this—the thing you named just now, justice, is that itself just or unjust? I should reply, it is just: what would your verdict be? The same as mine or different? The same, he said. Then justice, I should say in reply to our questioner, is of a kind that is just: would you also? Yes, he said. Now suppose he proceeded to ask us: Do you also speak of a holiness? We should say we do, I fancy. Yes, he said. Then do you call this a thing also? We should say we do, should we not? He assented again. Do you say this thing itself is of such nature as to be unholy, or holy? For my part I should be annoyed at this question, I said, and should answer: Hush, my good sir! It is hard to see how anything could be holy, if holiness itself is not to be holy! And you—would you not make the same reply? Certainly I would, he said. Now suppose he went on to ask us: Well, and what of your statement a little while since? Perhaps I did not hear you aright, but I understood you two to say that the parts of virtue are in such a relation to each other that one of them is not like another.

Soc.

Here my answer would be: As to the substance of it, you heard aright, but you made a mistake in thinking that I had any share in that statement. It was Protagoras here who made that answer; I was only the questioner. Then suppose he were to ask: Is our friend telling the truth, Protagoras? Is it you who say that one part of virtue is not like another? Is this statement yours? What answer would you give him? I must needs admit it, Socrates, he said. Well now, Protagoras, after that admission, what answer shall we give him, if he goes on to ask this question: Is not holiness something of such nature as to be just, and justice such as to be holy, or can it be unholy? Can holiness be not just, and therefore unjust, and justice unholy? What is to be our reply? I should say myself, on my own behalf, that both justice is holy and holiness just, and with your permission I would make this same reply for you also; since justness is either the same thing as holiness or extremely like it, and above all, justice is of the same kind as holiness, and holiness as justice. Are you minded to forbid this answer, or are you in agreement with it? I do not take quite so simple a view of it, Socrates, as to grant that justice is holy and holiness just. I think we have to make a distinction here. Yet what difference does it make? he said: if you like, let us assume that justice is holy and holiness just. No, no, I said; I do not want this if you like or if you agree sort of thing[*](cf. below, Plat. Prot. 333c.) to be put to the proof, but you and me together; and when I say you and me I mean that our statement will be most properly tested if we take away the if. Well, at any rate, he said, justice has some resemblance to holiness; for anything in the world has some sort of resemblance to any other thing. Thus there is a point in which white resembles black, and hard soft, and so with all the other things which are regarded as most opposed to each other; and the things which we spoke of before as having different faculties and not being of the same kind as each other—the parts of the face—these in some sense resemble one another and are of like sort. In this way therefore you could prove, if you chose, that even these things are all like one another. But it is not fair to describe things as like which have some point alike, however small, or ash unlike that have some point unlike. This surprised me, and I said to him: What, do you regard just and holy as so related to each other that they have only some small point of likeness?

Soc.

Not so, he replied, at all, nor yet, on the other hand, as I believe you regard them. Well then, I said, since I find you chafe at this suggestion, we will let it pass, and consider another instance that you gave. Is there a thing you call folly? Yes, he said. Is not the direct opposite to that thing wisdom? I think so, he said. And when men behave rightly and usefully, do you consider them temperate in so behaving, or the opposite? Temperate, he said. Then is it by temperance that they are temperate? Necessarily. Now those who do not behave rightly behave foolishly, and are not temperate in so behaving? I agree, he said. And behaving foolishly is the opposite to behaving temperately? Yes, he said. Now foolish behavior is due to folly, and temperate behavior to temperance? He assented. And whatever is done by strength is done strongly, and whatever by weakness, weakly? He agreed. And whatever with swiftness, swiftly, and whatever with slowness, slowly ? And so whatever is done in a certain way is done by that kind of faculty, and whatever in an opposite way, by the opposite kind? He agreed. Pray now, I proceeded, is there such a thing as the beautiful? He granted it. Has this any opposite except the ugly? None. Well, is there such a thing as the good? There is. Has it any opposite but the evil? None. Tell me, is there such a thing as shrill in the voice? Yes, he said. Has it any other opposite than deep. No, he said. Now, I went on, each single opposite has but one opposite, not many? He admitted this. Come now, I said, let us reckon up our points of agreement. We have agreed that one thing has but one opposite, and no more? We have. And that what is done in an opposite way is done by opposites? Yes, he said. And we have agreed that what is done foolishly is done in an opposite way to what is done temperately? Yes, he said. And that what is done temperately is done by temperance, and what foolishly by folly? He assented. Now if it is done in an opposite way, it must be done by an opposite? Yes? And one is done by temperance, and the other by folly? Yes. In an opposite way? Certainly. And by opposite faculties? Yes. Then folly is opposite to temperance Apparently. Now do you recollect that in the previous stage we have agreed that folly is opposite to wisdom? He admitted this.