Complete Works (133 page)

S
OCRATES
: Well, if we’ve proven it fairly well, although perhaps not rigorously, that will do for us. We’ll have a rigorous proof when we find out what we skipped over, because it would have taken quite a lot of study. [d]

A
LCIBIADES
: What was that?

S
OCRATES
: What we mentioned just now, that we should first consider what ‘itself’ is, in itself. But in fact, we’ve been considering what an individual self
²¹
is, instead of what ‘itself’ is. Perhaps that was enough for us, for surely nothing about us has more authority than the soul, wouldn’t you agree?

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: So the right way of looking at it is that, when you and I talk to each other, one soul uses words to address another soul.

A
LCIBIADES
: Very true. [e]

S
OCRATES
: That’s just what we were saying a little while ago—that Socrates converses with Alcibiades not by saying words to his face, apparently, but by addressing his words to
Alcibiades
, in other words, to his soul.

A
LCIBIADES
: I see it now.

S
OCRATES
: So the command that we should know ourselves means that we should know our souls.

A
LCIBIADES
: So it seems.
[131]

S
OCRATES
: And someone who knows certain things
²²
about his body knows about what belongs to him, not himself.

A
LCIBIADES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: So no doctor, to the extent he’s a doctor, knows himself, and neither does any trainer, to the extent he’s a trainer.

A
LCIBIADES
: It seems not.

S
OCRATES
: So farmers and other tradesmen are a long way from knowing themselves. It seems
they
don’t even know what belongs to them; their skills are about what’s even further away than what belongs to them. They [b] only know what belongs to the body and how to take care of it.

A
LCIBIADES
: You’re right.

S
OCRATES
: If being self-controlled is knowing yourself, then their skills don’t make any of them self-controlled.

A
LCIBIADES
: I don’t think so.

S
OCRATES
: That’s why we consider these skills to be beneath us, and not suitable for a gentleman to learn.

A
LCIBIADES
: You’re quite right.

S
OCRATES
: Furthermore, if someone takes care of his body, then isn’t he caring for something that belongs to him, and not for himself?

A
LCIBIADES
: That seems likely.

S
OCRATES
: And isn’t someone who takes care of his wealth caring neither [c] for himself nor for what belongs to him, but for something even further away?

A
LCIBIADES
: I agree.

S
OCRATES
: So the money-earner is not, in fact, doing his own work.

A
LCIBIADES
: Right.

S
OCRATES
: Now if there was someone who loved Alcibiades’ body, he wouldn’t be loving Alcibiades, only something that belonged to Alcibiades.

A
LCIBIADES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: But someone who loved you would love your soul.

A
LCIBIADES
: By our argument, I think he’d have to.

S
OCRATES
: Wouldn’t someone who loves your body go off and leave you when your beauty is no longer in full bloom?

A
LCIBIADES
: Obviously.

[d] S
OCRATES
: But someone who loves your soul will not leave you, as long as you’re making progress.

A
LCIBIADES
: That’s probably right.

S
OCRATES
: Well, I’m the one who won’t leave you—I’m the one who will stay with you, now that your body has lost its bloom and everyone else has gone away.

A
LCIBIADES
: I’m glad you are, Socrates, and I hope you never leave me.

S
OCRATES
: Then you must try to be as attractive as possible.

A
LCIBIADES
: I’ll certainly try.

[e] S
OCRATES
: So this is your situation: you, Alcibiades, son of Clinias, have no lovers and never have had any, it seems, except for one only, and he is your darling
²³
Socrates, son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete.

A
LCIBIADES
: True.

S
OCRATES
: Remember when I first spoke to you? You said that you were just about to say something; you wanted to ask me why I was the only one who hadn’t given up on you.
²⁴

A
LCIBIADES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: Well, this is the reason: I was your only lover—the others were only lovers of what you had. While your possessions are passing their prime,
you
are just beginning to bloom. I shall never forsake you
[132]
now, never, unless the Athenian people make you corrupt and ugly. And that is my greatest fear, that a love of the common people might corrupt you, for many Athenian gentlemen have suffered that fate already. “The people of great-hearted Erechtheus”
²⁵
might look attractive on the outside, but you need to scrutinize them in their nakedness, so take the precaution I urge.

A
LCIBIADES
: What precaution?

S
OCRATES
: Get in training first, my dear friend, and learn what you need [b] to know
before
entering politics. That will give you an antidote against the terrible dangers.

A
LCIBIADES
: I think you’re right, Socrates. But try to explain how exactly we should cultivate ourselves.

S
OCRATES
: Well, we’ve made one step forward anyway—we’ve pretty well agreed what we are; we were afraid that we might make a mistake about that and unwittingly cultivate something other than ourselves.

A
LCIBIADES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: And the next step is that we have to cultivate our soul and [c] look to that.

A
LCIBIADES
: Obviously.

S
OCRATES
: And let others take care of our bodies and our property.

A
LCIBIADES
: Quite so.

S
OCRATES
: Now, how can we get the clearest knowledge of our soul? If we knew that, we’d probably know ourselves as well … By the gods—that admirable Delphic inscription we just mentioned
²⁶
—didn’t we understand it?

A
LCIBIADES
: What’s the point of bringing that up again, Socrates?

S
OCRATES
: I’ll tell you what I suspect that inscription means, and what [d] advice it’s giving us. There may not be many examples of it, except the case of sight.

A
LCIBIADES
: What do you mean by that?

S
OCRATES
: You think about it, too. If the inscription took our eyes to be men and advised them, “See thyself,” how would we understand such advice? Shouldn’t the eye be looking at something in which it could see itself?

A
LCIBIADES
: Obviously.

S
OCRATES
: Then let’s think of something that allows us to see both it and ourselves when we look at it.

A
LCIBIADES
: Obviously, Socrates, you mean mirrors and that sort of thing. [e]

S
OCRATES
: Quite right. And isn’t there something like that in the eye, which we see with?

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly.

[133]
S
OCRATES
: I’m sure you’ve noticed that when a man looks into an eye his face appears in it, like in a mirror. We call this the ‘pupil’, for it’s a sort of miniature of the man who’s looking.
²⁷

A
LCIBIADES
: You’re right.

S
OCRATES
: Then an eye will see itself if it observes an eye and looks at the best part of it, the part with which it can see.

A
LCIBIADES
: So it seems.

S
OCRATES
: But it won’t see itself if it looks at anything else in a man, or anything else at all, unless it’s similar to the eye.

[b] A
LCIBIADES
: You’re right.

S
OCRATES
: So if an eye is to see itself, it must look at an eye, and at that region of it in which the good activity of an eye actually occurs, and this, I presume, is seeing.

A
LCIBIADES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: Then if the soul, Alcibiades, is to know itself, it must look at a soul, and especially at that region in which what makes a soul good, wisdom, occurs, and at anything else which is similar to it.

A
LCIBIADES
: I agree with you, Socrates.

[c] S
OCRATES
: Can we say that there is anything about the soul which is more divine than that where knowing and understanding take place?

A
LCIBIADES
: No, we can’t.

S
OCRATES
: Then that region in it resembles the divine,
²⁸
and someone who looked at that and grasped everything divine—vision
²⁹
and understanding—would have the best grasp of himself as well.

A
LCIBIADES
: So it seems.
³⁰

S
OCRATES
: But we agreed that knowing oneself was the same as being self-controlled.

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: So if we didn’t know ourselves and weren’t self-controlled, would we be able to know which of the things that belong to us were good and which were bad?

A
LCIBIADES
: How could we know that, Socrates?

[d] S
OCRATES
: No; I suppose it would seem impossible to you to know that what belongs to Alcibiades belongs to him, without knowing Alcibiades.

A
LCIBIADES
: Quite impossible, I’m sure.

S
OCRATES
: And similarly we couldn’t know that what belongs to us belongs to us, without knowing ourselves.

A
LCIBIADES
: How could we?

S
OCRATES
: And if we didn’t even know what belongs to us, how could we possibly know what belongs to our belongings?

A
LCIBIADES
: We couldn’t.

S
OCRATES
: Then it wasn’t quite right to agree, as we did a few minutes ago,
³¹
that some people know what belongs to them without knowing themselves, while others know what belongs to their belongings. It seems [e] that it’s the job of one man, and one skill, to know all these things: himself, his belongings, and his belongings’ belongings.

A
LCIBIADES
: That seems likely.

S
OCRATES
: And it follows that anyone who doesn’t know his own belongings probably won’t know other people’s belongings either.

A
LCIBIADES
: Quite so.

S
OCRATES
: And if he doesn’t know other people’s belongings, nor will he know what belongs to the city.

A
LCIBIADES
: He couldn’t.

S
OCRATES
: So such a man couldn’t become a statesman.

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course not.

S
OCRATES
: Nor could he even manage a household estate.

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course not.

S
OCRATES
: Nor indeed will he know what he’s doing.
[134]

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly not.

S
OCRATES
: And if he doesn’t know what he’s doing, won’t he make mistakes?

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Since he makes mistakes, won’t he conduct himself badly, both publicly and privately?

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: Since he conducts himself badly, won’t he be a failure?

A
LCIBIADES
: Absolutely.

S
OCRATES
: What about the people he’s working for?

A
LCIBIADES
: They will be too.

S
OCRATES
: Then it’s impossible for anyone to prosper unless he is self-controlled and good.

A
LCIBIADES
: Impossible. [b]

S
OCRATES
: So it’s the bad men who are failures.

A
LCIBIADES
: Absolutely.

S
OCRATES
: And so the way to avoid being a failure is not by getting rich, but by being self-controlled.

A
LCIBIADES
: Apparently.

S
OCRATES
: So it’s not walls or war-ships or shipyards that cities need, Alcibiades, if they are to prosper, nor is it numbers or size, without virtue.

A
LCIBIADES
: Definitely.

S
OCRATES
: So if you are to manage the city’s business properly and well, [c] you must impart virtue to the citizens.

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: Is it possible to impart something you haven’t got?

A
LCIBIADES
: How could you?

S
OCRATES
: Then you, or anyone else who is to be ruler and trustee, not only of himself and his private business, but also the city and the city’s business, must first acquire virtue himself.