Complete Works (186 page)

C
ALLICLES
: No, it’s not any other way.

S
OCRATES
: Of these two things, then, of doing what’s unjust and suffering it, we say that doing it is worse and suffering it is less bad. With what, then, might a man provide himself to protect himself so that he has both [d] these benefits, the one that comes from not doing what’s unjust and the one that comes from not suffering it? Is it power or wish? What I mean is this: Is it when a person doesn’t wish to suffer what’s unjust that he will avoid suffering it, or when he procures a power to avoid suffering it?

C
ALLICLES
: When he procures a power. That is obvious, at least.

S
OCRATES
: And what about doing what’s unjust? Is it when he doesn’t wish to do it, is that sufficient—for he won’t do it—or should he procure [e] a power and a craft for this, too, so that unless he learns and practices it, he will commit injustice? Why don’t you answer at least this question, Callicles? Do you think Polus and I were or were not correct in being compelled to agree in our previous discussion when we agreed that no one does what’s unjust because he wants to, but that all who do so do it unwillingly?
²⁰

C
ALLICLES
: Let it be so, Socrates, so you can finish up your argument.
[510]

S
OCRATES
: So we should procure a certain power and craft against this too, evidently, so that we won’t do what’s unjust.

C
ALLICLES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: What, then, is the craft by which we make sure that we don’t suffer anything unjust, or as little as possible? Consider whether you think it’s the one I do. This is what I think it is: that one ought either to be a ruler himself in his city or even be a tyrant, or else to be a partisan of the regime in power.

C
ALLICLES
: Do you see, Socrates, how ready I am to applaud you whenever [b] you say anything right? I think that this statement of yours is right on the mark.

S
OCRATES
: Well, consider whether you think that the following statement of mine is a good one, too. I think that the one man who’s a friend of another most of all is the one whom the men of old and the wise call a friend, the one who’s like the other. Don’t you think so, too?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.

S
OCRATES
: Now, if in the case of a tyrant who’s a savage, uneducated ruler, there were in his city someone much better than he, wouldn’t the tyrant no doubt be afraid of him and never be able to be a friend to him [c] with all his heart?

C
ALLICLES
: That’s so.

S
OCRATES
: Nor would he, the tyrant, be a friend to a man much his inferior, if there were such a man, for the tyrant would despise him and would never take a serious interest in him as a friend.

C
ALLICLES
: That’s true, too.

S
OCRATES
: This leaves only a man of like character, one who approves and disapproves of the same thing and who is willing to be ruled by and be subject to the ruler, to be to such a man a friend worth mentioning. [d] This man will have great power in that city, and no one will do him any wrong and get away with it. Isn’t that so?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: So, if some young person in that city were to reflect, “In what way would I be able to have great power and no one treat me unjustly?” this, evidently, would be his way to go: to get himself accustomed from childhood on to like and dislike the same things as the master, and to make sure that he’ll be as like him as possible. Isn’t that so?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Now won’t this man have achieved immunity to unjust treatment [e] and great power in his city, as you people say?

C
ALLICLES
: Oh, yes.

S
OCRATES
: And also immunity to unjust action? Or is that far from the case, since he’ll be like the ruler who’s unjust, and he’ll have his great power at the ruler’s side? For my part, I think that, quite to the contrary, in this way he’ll be making sure he’ll have the ability to engage in as much unjust action as possible and to avoid paying what’s due for acting so. Right?

C
ALLICLES
: Apparently.

[511]
S
OCRATES
: So he’ll have incurred the worst thing there is, when his soul is corrupt and mutilated on account of his imitation of the master and on account of his “power.”

C
ALLICLES
: I don’t know how you keep twisting our discussion in every direction, Socrates. Or don’t you know that this “imitator” will put to death, if he likes, your “non-imitator,” and confiscate his property?

S
OCRATES
: I do know that, Callicles. I’m not deaf. I hear you say it, and [b] heard Polus just now say it many times, and just about everyone else in the city. But now you listen to me, too. I say that, yes, he’ll kill him, if he likes, but it’ll be a wicked man killing one who’s admirable and good.

C
ALLICLES
: And isn’t that just the most irritating thing about it?

S
OCRATES
: No, not for an intelligent person, anyway, as our discussion points out. Or do you think that a man ought to make sure that his life be as long as possible and that he practice those crafts that ever rescue us from dangers, like the oratory that you tell me to practice, the kind that [c] preserves us in the law courts?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, and by Zeus, that’s sound advice for you!

S
OCRATES
: Well, my excellent fellow, do you think that expertise in swimming is a grand thing?

C
ALLICLES
: No, by Zeus, I don’t.

S
OCRATES
: But it certainly does save people from death whenever they fall into the kind of situation that requires this expertise. But if you think this expertise is a trivial one, I’ll give you one more important than it, that [d] of helmsmanship, which saves not only souls but also bodies and valuables from the utmost dangers, just as oratory does. This expertise is unassuming and orderly, and does not make itself grand, posturing as though its accomplishment is so magnificent. But while its accomplishment is the same as that of the expertise practiced in the courts, it has earned two obols, I suppose, if it has brought people safely here from Aegina; and if it has brought them here from Egypt or the Pontus,
²¹
then, for that great [e] service, having given safe passage to those I was mentioning just now, the man himself, his children, valuables, and womenfolk, and setting them ashore in the harbor, it has earned two drachmas, if that much.
²²
And the man who possesses the craft and who has accomplished these feats, disembarks and goes for a stroll along the seaside and beside his ship, with a modest air. For he’s enough of an expert, I suppose, to conclude that it isn’t clear which ones of his fellow voyagers he has benefited by not letting them drown in the deep, and which ones he has harmed, knowing that they were no better in either body or soul when he set them
[512]
ashore than they were when they embarked. So he concludes that if a man afflicted with serious incurable physical diseases did not drown, this man is miserable for not dying and has gotten no benefit from him. But if a man has many incurable diseases in what is more valuable than his body, his soul, life for that man is not worth living, and he won’t do him any favor if he rescues him from the sea or from prison or from anywhere else. He knows that for a corrupt person it’s better not to be alive, for he [b] necessarily lives badly.

That is why it’s not the custom for the helmsman to give himself glory even though he preserves us, and not the engineer either, who sometimes can preserve us no less well than a general or anyone else, not to mention a helmsman. For there are times when he preserves entire cities. You don’t think that he’s on a level with the advocate, do you? And yet if he wanted [c] to say what you people do, Callicles, glorifying his occupation, he would smother you with speeches, telling you urgently that people should become engineers, because nothing else amounts to anything. And the speech would make his point. But you nonetheless despise him and his craft, and you’d call him “engineer” as a term of abuse. You’d be unwilling either to give your daughter to his son, or take his daughter yourself. And yet, given your grounds for applauding your own activities, what just reason [d] do you have for despising the engineer and the others whom I was mentioning just now? I know that you’d say that you’re a better man, one from better stock. But if “better” does not mean what I take it to mean, and if instead to preserve yourself and what belongs to you, no matter what sort of person you happen to be, is what excellence is, then your reproach against engineer, doctor, and all the other crafts which have been devised to preserve us will prove to be ridiculous. But, my blessed man, please see whether what’s noble and what’s good isn’t something other than [e] preserving and being preserved. Perhaps one who is truly a man should stop thinking about how long he will live. He should not be attached to life but should commit these concerns to the god and believe the women who say that not one single person can escape fate. He should thereupon give consideration to how he might live the part of his life still before him
[513]
as well as possible. Should it be by becoming like the regime under which he lives? In that case you should now be making yourself as much like the Athenian people as possible if you expect to endear yourself to them and have great power in the city. Please see whether this profits you and me, my friend, so that what they say happens to the Thessalian witches when they pull down the moon
²³
won’t happen to us. Our choice of this kind of civic power will cost us what we hold most dear. If you think that some person or other will hand you a craft of the sort that will give you [b] great power in this city while you are unlike the regime, whether for better or for worse, then in my opinion, Callicles, you’re not well advised. You mustn’t be their imitator but be naturally like them in your own person if you expect to produce any genuine result toward winning the friendship of the Athenian people [
demos
] and, yes, by Zeus, of Demos the son of Pyrilampes to boot. Whoever then turns you out to be most like these men, he’ll make you a politician in the way you desire to be one, and an [c] orator, too. For each group of people takes delight in speeches that are given in its own character, and resents those given in an alien manner—unless you say something else, my dear friend. Can we say anything in reply to this, Callicles?

C
ALLICLES
: I don’t know, Socrates—in a way you seem to me to be right, but the thing that happens to most people has happened to me: I’m not really persuaded by you.

S
OCRATES
: It’s your love for the people, Callicles, existing in your soul, that stands against me. But if we closely examine these same matters often and in a better way, you’ll be persuaded. Please recall that we said that [d] there are two practices for caring for a particular thing, whether it’s the body or the soul.
²⁴
One of them deals with pleasure and the other with what’s best and doesn’t gratify it but struggles against it. Isn’t this how we distinguished them then?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s right.

S
OCRATES
: Now one of them, the one dealing with pleasure, is ignoble and is actually nothing but flattery, right?

C
ALLICLES
: Let it be so, if you like. [e]

S
OCRATES
: Whereas the other one, the one that aims to make the thing we’re caring for, whether it’s a body or a soul, as good as possible, is the more noble one?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s so.

S
OCRATES
: Shouldn’t we then attempt to care for the city and its citizens with the aim of making the citizens themselves as good as possible? For without this, as we discovered earlier, it does no good to provide any other service if the intentions of those who are likely to make a great deal
[514]
of money or take a position of rule over people or some other position of power aren’t admirable and good. Are we to put this down as true?

C
ALLICLES
: Certainly, if that pleases you more.

S
OCRATES
: Suppose, then, Callicles, that you and I were about to take up the public business of the city, and we called on each other to carry out building projects—the major works of construction: walls, or ships, or temples—would we have to examine and check ourselves closely, first, to [b] see if we are or are not experts in the building craft, and whom we’ve learned it from? Would we have to, or wouldn’t we?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, we would.

S
OCRATES
: And, second, we’d have to check, wouldn’t we, whether we’ve ever built a work of construction in private business, for a friend of ours, say, or for ourselves, and whether this structure is admirable or disgraceful. And if we discovered on examination that our teachers have proved to be good and reputable ones, and that the works of construction built by us [c] under their guidance were numerous and admirable, and those built by us on our own after we left our teachers were numerous, too, then, if that were our situation, we’d be wise to proceed to public projects. But if we could point out neither teacher nor construction works, either none at all or else many worthless ones, it would surely be stupid to undertake public projects and to call each other on to them. Shall we say that this point is [d] right, or not?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, we shall.

S
OCRATES
: Isn’t it so in all cases, especially if we attempted to take up public practice and called on each other, thinking we were capable doctors? I’d have examined you, and you me, no doubt: “Well now, by the gods! What is Socrates’ own physical state of health? Has there ever been anyone else, slave or free man, whose deliverance from illness has been due to Socrates?” And I’d be considering other similar questions about you, I [e] suppose. And if we found no one whose physical improvement has been due to us, among either visitors or townspeople, either a man or a woman, then by Zeus, Callicles, wouldn’t it be truly ridiculous that people should advance to such a height of folly that, before producing many mediocre as well as many successful results in private practice and before having had sufficient exercise at the craft, they should attempt to “learn pottery on the big jar,” as that saying goes, and attempt both to take up public practice themselves and to call on others like them to do so as well? Don’t you think it would be stupid to proceed like that?