Complete Works (181 page)

Socrates, I do have a rather warm regard for you. I find myself feeling what Zethus, whose words I recalled just now, felt toward Amphion in Euripides’ play. In fact, the sorts of things he said to his brother come to my mind to say to you. “You’re neglecting the things you should devote yourself to, Socrates, and though your spirit’s nature is so noble, you show yourself to the world in the shape of a boy. You couldn’t put a speech
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together correctly before councils of justice or utter any plausible or persuasive sound. Nor could you make any bold proposal on behalf of anyone else.” And so then, my dear Socrates—please don’t be upset with me, for it’s with good will toward you that I’ll say this—don’t you think it’s shameful to be the way I take you to be, and others who ever press on too far in philosophy? As it is, if someone got hold of you or of anyone else like you and took you off to prison on the charge that you’re doing something unjust when in fact you aren’t, be assured that you wouldn’t have any use for yourself. You’d get dizzy, your mouth would hang open [b] and you wouldn’t know what to say. You’d come up for trial and face some no good wretch of an accuser and be put to death, if death is what he’d want to condemn you to. And yet, Socrates, “how can this be a wise thing, the craft which took a well-favored man and made him worse,” able neither to protect himself nor to rescue himself or anyone else from the gravest dangers, to be robbed of all of his property by his enemies, [c] and to live a life with absolutely no rights in his city? Such a man one could knock on the jaw without paying what’s due for it, to put it rather crudely. Listen to me, my good man, and stop this refuting. “Practice the sweet music of an active life and do it where you’ll get a reputation for being intelligent. Leave these subtleties to others”—whether we should call them just silly or outright nonsense—“which will cause you to live in empty houses,”
¹²
and envy not those men who refute such trivia, but those [d] who have life and renown, and many other good things as well.

S
OCRATES
: If I actually had a soul made of gold, Callicles, don’t you think I’d be pleased to find one of those stones on which they test gold? And if this stone to which I intended to take my soul were the best stone and it agreed that my soul had been well cared for, don’t you think I could know well at that point that I’m in good shape and need no further test?

[e] C
ALLICLES
: What’s the point of your question, Socrates?

S
OCRATES
: I’ll tell you. I believe that by running into you, I’ve run into just such a piece of luck.

C
ALLICLES
: Why do you say that?

S
OCRATES
: I know well that if you concur with what my soul believes,
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then that is the very truth. I realize that a person who is going to put a soul to an adequate test to see whether it lives rightly or not must have three qualities, all of which you have: knowledge, good will, and frankness. I run into many people who aren’t able to test me because they’re not wise like you. Others are wise, but they’re not willing to tell me the truth, because they don’t care for me the way you do. As for these two visitors, Gorgias and Polus, they’re both wise and fond of me, but rather more [b] lacking in frankness, and more ashamed than they should be. No wonder! They’ve come to such a depth of shame that, because they are ashamed, each of them dares to contradict himself, face to face with many people, and on topics of the greatest importance. You have all these qualities, which the others don’t. You’re well-enough educated, as many of the Athenians would attest, and you have good will toward me. What’s my [c] proof of this? I’ll tell you. I know, Callicles, that there are four of you who’ve become partners in wisdom, you, Teisander of Aphidnae, Andron the son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of Cholarges. Once I overheard you deliberating on how far one should cultivate wisdom, and I know that some such opinion as this was winning out among you: you called on each other not to enthusiastically pursue philosophizing to the point of [d] pedantry but to be careful not to become wiser than necessary and so inadvertently bring yourselves to ruin. So, now that I hear you giving me the same advice you gave your closest companions, I have sufficient proof that you really do have good will toward me. And as to my claim that you’re able to speak frankly without being ashamed, you yourself say so and the speech you gave a moment ago bears you out. It’s clear, then, that this is how these matters stand at the moment. If there’s any point in our [e] discussions on which you agree with me, then that point will have been adequately put to the test by you and me, and it will not be necessary to put it to any further test, for you’d never have conceded the point through lack of wisdom or excess of shame, and you wouldn’t do so by lying to me, either. You are my friend, as you yourself say, too. So, our mutual agreement will really lay hold of truth in the end. Most admirable of all, Callicles, is the examination of those issues about which you took me to task, that of what a man is supposed to be like, and of what he’s supposed to devote himself to and how far, when he’s older and when he’s young.
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For my part, if I engage in anything that’s improper in my own life, please know well that I do not make this mistake intentionally but out of my ignorance. So don’t leave off lecturing me the way you began, but show me clearly what it is I’m to devote myself to, and in what way I might come by it; if you catch me agreeing with you now but at a later time not doing the very things I’ve agreed upon, then take me for a very stupid fellow and don’t bother ever afterward with lecturing me, on the ground [b] that I’m a worthless fellow.

Please restate your position for me from the beginning. What is it that you and Pindar hold to be true of what’s just by nature? That the superior should take by force what belongs to the inferior, that the better should rule the worse and the more worthy have a greater share than the less worthy? You’re not saying anything else, are you? I do remember correctly?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s what I was saying then, and I still say so now, too.

S
OCRATES
: Is it the same man you call both “better” and “superior”? I [c] wasn’t able then, either, to figure out what you meant. Is it the stronger ones you call superior, and should those who are weaker take orders from the one who’s stronger? That’s what I think you were trying to show then also, when you said that large cities attack small ones according to what’s just by nature, because they’re superior and stronger, assuming that
superior
,
stronger
and
better
are the same. Or is it possible for one to be better [d] and also inferior and weaker, or greater but more wretched? Or do “better” and “superior” have the same definition? Please define this for me clearly. Are
superior
,
better
and
stronger
the same or are they different?

C
ALLICLES
: Very well, I’m telling you clearly that they’re the same.

S
OCRATES
: Now aren’t the many superior by nature to the one? They’re the ones who in fact impose the laws upon the one, as you were saying yourself a moment ago.

C
ALLICLES
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: So the rules of the many are the rules of the superior.

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, they are.

[e] S
OCRATES
: Aren’t they the rules of the better? For by your reasoning, I take it, the superior are the better.

C
ALLICLES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And aren’t the rules of these people admirable by nature, seeing that they’re the superior ones?

C
ALLICLES
: That’s my view.

S
OCRATES
: Now, isn’t it a rule of the many that it’s just to have an equal share and that doing what’s unjust is more shameful than suffering it, as
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you yourself were saying just now? Is this so or not? Be careful that you in your turn don’t get caught being ashamed now. Do the many observe or do they not observe the rule that it’s just to have an equal and not a greater share, and that doing what’s unjust is more shameful than suffering it? Don’t grudge me your answer to this, Callicles, so that if you agree with me I may have my confirmation from you, seeing that it’s the agreement of a man competent to pass judgment.

C
ALLICLES
: All right, the many do have that rule.

[b] S
OCRATES
: It’s not only by law, then, that doing what’s unjust is more shameful than suffering it, or just to have an equal share, but it’s so by nature, too. So it looks as though you weren’t saying what’s true earlier and weren’t right to accuse me when you said that nature and law were opposed to each other and that I, well aware of this, am making mischief in my statements, taking any statement someone makes meant in terms of nature, in terms of law, and any statement meant in terms of law, in terms of nature.

C
ALLICLES
: This man will not stop talking nonsense! Tell me, Socrates, aren’t you ashamed, at your age, of trying to catch people’s words and of [c] making hay out of someone’s tripping on a phrase? Do you take me to mean by people being
superior
anything else than their being
better
? Haven’t I been telling you all along that by “better” and “superior” I mean the same thing? Or do you suppose that I’m saying that if a rubbish heap of slaves and motley men, worthless except perhaps in physical strength, gets together and makes any statements, then these are the rules?

S
OCRATES
: Fair enough, wisest Callicles. Is this what you’re saying?

C
ALLICLES
: It certainly is.

S
OCRATES
: Well, my marvelous friend, I guessed some time ago that it’s [d] some such thing you mean by “superior,” and I’m questioning you because I’m intent upon knowing clearly what you mean. I don’t really suppose that you think two are better than one or that your slaves are better than you just because they’re stronger than you. Tell me once more from the beginning, what
do
you mean by the
better
, seeing that it’s not the stronger? And, my wonderful man, go easier on me in your teaching, so that I won’t quit your school.

C
ALLICLES
: You’re being ironic, Socrates. [e]

S
OCRATES
: No I’m not, Callicles, by Zethus—the character you were invoking in being ironic with me so often just now! But come and tell me: whom do you mean by
the better
?

C
ALLICLES
: I mean the worthier.

S
OCRATES
: So do you see that you yourself are uttering words, without making anything clear? Won’t you say whether by
the better
and
the superior
you mean
the more intelligent
, or some others?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, by Zeus, they’re very much the ones I mean.

S
OCRATES
: So on your reasoning it will often be the case that a single
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intelligent person is superior to countless unintelligent ones, that this person should rule and they be ruled, and that the one ruling should have a greater share than the ones being ruled. This is the meaning I think you intend—and I’m not trying to catch you with a phrase—if the one is superior to these countless others.

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s what I do mean. This is what I take the just by nature to be: that the better one, the more intelligent one, that is, both rules over and has a greater share than his inferiors.

S
OCRATES
: Hold it right there! What can your meaning be this time? [b] Suppose we were assembled together in great numbers in the same place, as we are now, and we held in common a great supply of food and drink, and suppose we were a motley group, some strong and some weak, but one of us, being a doctor, was more intelligent about these things. He would, very likely, be stronger than some and weaker than others. Now this man, being more intelligent than we are, will certainly be better and superior in these matters?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, he will.

S
OCRATES
: So should he have a share of this food greater than ours [c] because he’s better? Or should he be the one to distribute everything because he’s in charge, but not to get a greater share to consume and use up on his own body if he’s to escape being punished for it? Shouldn’t he, instead, have a greater share than some and a lesser one than others, and if he should happen to be the weakest of all, shouldn’t the best man have the least share of all, Callicles? Isn’t this so, my good man?

[d] C
ALLICLES
: You keep talking of food and drink and doctors and such nonsense. That’s not what I mean!

S
OCRATES
: Don’t you mean that the more intelligent one is the better one? Say yes or no.

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.

S
OCRATES
: But not that the better should have a greater share?

C
ALLICLES
: Not of food or drink, anyhow.

S
OCRATES
: I see. Of clothes, perhaps? Should the weaver have the biggest garment and go about wearing the greatest number and the most beautiful clothes?

C
ALLICLES
: What do you mean, clothes?

S
OCRATES
: But when it comes to shoes, obviously the most intelligent, [e] the best man in that area should have the greater share. Perhaps the cobbler should walk around with the largest and greatest number of shoes on.

C
ALLICLES
: What do you mean, shoes? You keep on with this nonsense!

S
OCRATES
: Well, if that’s not the sort of thing you mean, perhaps it’s this. Take a farmer, a man intelligent and admirable and good about land. Perhaps he should have the greater share of seed and use the largest possible quantity of it on his own land.