Alcibiades II | Page 7

best?
ALCIBIADES: No.)
SOCRATES:--If, then, you went indoors, and seeing him, did not know
him, but thought that he was some one else, would you venture to slay
him?
ALCIBIADES: Most decidedly not (it seems to me). (These words are
omitted in several MSS.)
SOCRATES: For you designed to kill, not the first who offered, but
Pericles himself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if you made many attempts, and each time failed to
recognize Pericles, you would never attack him?
ALCIBIADES: Never.
SOCRATES: Well, but if Orestes in like manner had not known his
mother, do you think that he would ever have laid hands upon her?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: He did not intend to slay the first woman he came across,
nor any one else's mother, but only his own?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Ignorance, then, is better for those who are in such a
frame of mind, and have such ideas?
ALCIBIADES: Obviously.
SOCRATES: You acknowledge that for some persons in certain cases
the ignorance of some things is a good and not an evil, as you formerly
supposed?

ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: And there is still another case which will also perhaps
appear strange to you, if you will consider it? (The reading is here
uncertain.)
ALCIBIADES: What is that, Socrates?
SOCRATES: It may be, in short, that the possession of all the sciences,
if unaccompanied by the knowledge of the best, will more often than
not injure the possessor. Consider the matter thus:--Must we not, when
we intend either to do or say anything, suppose that we know or ought
to know that which we propose so confidently to do or say?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, in my opinion.
SOCRATES: We may take the orators for an example, who from time
to time advise us about war and peace, or the building of walls and the
construction of harbours, whether they understand the business in hand,
or only think that they do. Whatever the city, in a word, does to another
city, or in the management of her own affairs, all happens by the
counsel of the orators.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But now see what follows, if I can (make it clear to you).
(Some words appear to have dropped out here.) You would distinguish
the wise from the foolish?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: The many are foolish, the few wise?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And you use both the terms, 'wise' and 'foolish,' in
reference to something?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: Would you call a person wise who can give advice, but
does not know whether or when it is better to carry out the advice?
ALCIBIADES: Decidedly not.
SOCRATES: Nor again, I suppose, a person who knows the art of war,
but does not know whether it is better to go to war or for how long?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: Nor, once more, a person who knows how to kill another
or to take away his property or to drive him from his native land, but
not when it is better to do so or for whom it is better?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: But he who understands anything of the kind and has at
the same time the knowledge of the best course of action:--and the best
and the useful are surely the same?--
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES:--Such an one, I say, we should call wise and a useful
adviser both of himself and of the city. What do you think?
ALCIBIADES: I agree.
SOCRATES: And if any one knows how to ride or to shoot with the
bow or to box or to wrestle, or to engage in any other sort of contest or
to do anything whatever which is in the nature of an art,--what do you
call him who knows what is best according to that art? Do you not
speak of one who knows what is best in riding as a good rider?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And in a similar way you speak of a good boxer or a
good flute- player or a good performer in any other art?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But is it necessary that the man who is clever in any of
these arts should be wise also in general? Or is there a difference
between the clever artist and the wise man?
ALCIBIADES: All the difference in the world.
SOCRATES: And what sort of a state do you think that would be
which was composed of good archers and flute-players and athletes and
masters in other arts, and besides them of those others about whom we
spoke, who knew how to go to war and how to kill, as well as of orators
puffed up with political pride, but in which not one of them all had this
knowledge of the best, and there was no one who could tell when it was