Alcibiades I | Page 7

admit that the just and the expedient coincide.
Alcibiades is thus reduced to the humiliating conclusion that he knows
nothing of politics, even if, as he says, they are concerned with the
expedient.
However, he is no worse than other Athenian statesmen; and he will
not need training, for others are as ignorant as he is. He is reminded
that he has to contend, not only with his own countrymen, but with
their enemies--with the Spartan kings and with the great king of Persia;
and he can only attain this higher aim of ambition by the assistance of
Socrates. Not that Socrates himself professes to have attained the truth,
but the questions which he asks bring others to a knowledge of
themselves, and this is the first step in the practice of virtue.

The dialogue continues:--We wish to become as good as possible. But
to be good in what? Alcibiades replies--'Good in transacting business.'
But what business? 'The business of the most intelligent men at
Athens.' The cobbler is intelligent in shoemaking, and is therefore good
in that; he is not intelligent, and therefore not good, in weaving. Is he
good in the sense which Alcibiades means, who is also bad? 'I mean,'
replies Alcibiades, 'the man who is able to command in the city.' But to
command what--horses or men? and if men, under what circumstances?
'I mean to say, that he is able to command men living in social and
political relations.' And what is their aim? 'The better preservation of
the city.' But when is a city better? 'When there is unanimity, such as
exists between husband and wife.' Then, when husbands and wives
perform their own special duties, there can be no unanimity between
them; nor can a city be well ordered when each citizen does his own
work only. Alcibiades, having stated first that goodness consists in the
unanimity of the citizens, and then in each of them doing his own
separate work, is brought to the required point of self- contradiction,
leading him to confess his own ignorance.
But he is not too old to learn, and may still arrive at the truth, if he is
willing to be cross-examined by Socrates. He must know himself; that
is to say, not his body, or the things of the body, but his mind, or truer
self. The physician knows the body, and the tradesman knows his own
business, but they do not necessarily know themselves. Self-knowledge
can be obtained only by looking into the mind and virtue of the soul,
which is the diviner part of a man, as we see our own image in
another's eye. And if we do not know ourselves, we cannot know what
belongs to ourselves or belongs to others, and are unfit to take a part in
political affairs. Both for the sake of the individual and of the state, we
ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth or power. The evil
and unjust should have no power,--they should be the slaves of better
men than themselves. None but the virtuous are deserving of freedom.
And are you, Alcibiades, a freeman? 'I feel that I am not; but I hope,
Socrates, that by your aid I may become free, and from this day
forward I will never leave you.'

The Alcibiades has several points of resemblance to the undoubted
dialogues of Plato. The process of interrogation is of the same kind
with that which Socrates practises upon the youthful Cleinias in the
Euthydemus; and he characteristically attributes to Alcibiades the
answers which he has elicited from him. The definition of good is
narrowed by successive questions, and virtue is shown to be identical
with knowledge. Here, as elsewhere, Socrates awakens the
consciousness not of sin but of ignorance. Self-humiliation is the first
step to knowledge, even of the commonest things. No man knows how
ignorant he is, and no man can arrive at virtue and wisdom who has not
once in his life, at least, been convicted of error. The process by which
the soul is elevated is not unlike that which religious writers describe
under the name of 'conversion,' if we substitute the sense of ignorance
for the consciousness of sin.
In some respects the dialogue differs from any other Platonic
composition. The aim is more directly ethical and hortatory; the
process by which the antagonist is undermined is simpler than in other
Platonic writings, and the conclusion more decided. There is a good
deal of humour in the manner in which the pride of Alcibiades, and of
the Greeks generally, is supposed to be taken down by the Spartan and
Persian queens; and the dialogue has considerable dialectical merit. But
we have a difficulty in supposing that the same writer, who has given
so profound and