And are they temperate, seeing that they make not for themselves or their own business only?

Why not? he said.

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No objection on my part, I said, but there may be a difficulty on his who proposes as a definition of temperance, doing one's own business," and then says that there is no reason why those who do the business of others should not be temperate.

Nay,' said he; did I ever acknowledge that those who do the business of others are temperate? I said, those who make, not those who do.

What! I asked; do you mean to say that doing and making are not the same?

No more, he replied, than making or working are the same: that I have learned from Hesiod, who says that “work is no disgrace." Now do you imagine that if he had meant by working such things as you were describing, he would have said that there was no disgrace in them? in making shoes, for example, or in selling pickles, or sitting for hire in a house of ill fame. That, Socrates, is not to be supposed: but, as I imagine, he distinguished making from action and work; and, while admitting that the making anything might sometimes become a disgrace, when the employment was not honorable, thought that work was never any disgrace at all. For things nobly and usefully made he called works; and such makings he called workings, and doings; and he must be supposed to have called such things only man's proper business, and what is hurtful, not his business: and in that sense Hesiod, and any other wise man, may be reasonably supposed to call him wise who does his own work.

O Critias, I said, no sooner had you opened your mouth, than I pretty well knew that you would call that which is proper to a man, and that which is his own, good; and that the making (onσes) of the good you would call doings (πpášeɩs), for I have heard Prodicus drawing endless distinctions about names. Now I have no objection to your giving names any sense that you please, if you will only tell me what you mean by them. Please then to begin again, and be a little plainer. Do you not mean that this doing or making, or whatever is the word which you would use, of good actions, is temperance?

I do, he said.

1 The English reader has to observe that the word "make" has also the sense of "do" (πράττειν).

ποιεῖν), in Greek,

Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate?

Yes, he said; and you would agree to that.

Never mind whether I agree or not; as yet we are only concerned with your meaning.

Well, he answered; I mean to say, that he who does evil, and not good, is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and not evil; for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing of good actions.

And you may be very likely right in that, I said; but 164 I am curious to know whether you imagine that temperate men are ignorant of their own temperance?

I do not imagine that, he said.

And yet were you not saying, not so very long ago, that craftsmen might be temperate in doing another's work, as well as their own?

Yes, I was, he replied; but why do you refer to that?

I have no particular reason, but I wish you would tell me whether a physician who cures a patient may do good to himself and good to another also?

I think that he may.

And he who does this does his duty. And does not he who does his duty act temperately or wisely?

Yes, he acts wisely.

But must the physician necessarily know when his treatment is likely to prove beneficial, and when not? or must the craftsmau necessarily know when he is likely to be benefited, and when not to be benefited, by the work which he is doing? I suppose not.

Then, I said, he may sometimes do good or harm, and not know what he is himself doing, and yet, in doing good, as you say, he has done temperately or wisely. Was not that your statement?

Yes.

Then, as would seem, in doing good, he may act wisely or temperately, and be wise or temperate, but not know his own wisdom or temperance?

But that, Socrates, he said, is impossible; and therefore if that is, as you imply, the necessary consequence of any of my previous admissions. I would rather withdraw them, and not be ashamed to confess that I was mistaken, than admit that a man can be temperate or wise, who does not know himself.

For

self-knowledge would certainly be maintained by me to be the very essence of knowledge, and in this I agree with him who dedicated the inscription, "Know thyself!" at Delphi. That word, if I am not mistaken, is put there as a sort of salutatiou which the god addresses to those who enter the temple; as much as to say that the ordinary salutation of "Hail!" is not right, and that the exhortation "Be temperate!" would be a far better way of saluting one another. The notion of him who dedicated the inscription was, as I believe, that the god speaks to those who enter his temple not as men speak; but, when a worshipper enters, the first word which he hears is "Be temperate!" This, however, like a prophet he expresses in a sort of riddle, for Know thyself!" and "Be temperate !" are the same, as I maintain, and as the writing implies [σwopóvel, yvwbi σeavróv], and yet they may be easily misunderstood; and succeeding sages who added "Never too much," or, "Give a 165 pledge, and evil is nigh at hand," would appear to have misunderstood them; for they imagined that "Know thyself!"” was a piece of advice which the god gave, and not his salutation of the worshippers at their first coming in; and they wrote their inscription under the idea that they would give equally useful pieces of advice. Shall I tell you, Socrates, why I say all this? My object is to leave the previous discussion (in which I know not whether you or I are more right, but, at any rate, no clear result was attained), and to raise a new one in which I will attempt to prove, if you deny, that temperance is self-knowledge.

Yes, I said, Critias; but you come to me as though I professed to know about the questions which I ask, and as though I could, if only I would, agree with you.1 Whereas the fact is that I am, as you are, an inquirer into the truth of your proposition; and when I have inquired, I will say whether I agree with you or not. Please then to allow me time to reflect.

Reflect, he said.

I am reflecting, I replied, and discover that temperance, or wisdom, if implying a knowledge of anything, must be a science, and a science of something.

Yes, he said; the science of itself.

And is not medicine, I said, the science of health?

True.

1 Reading, according to Heusde's conjecture, duoλoynσovтós σol.

And suppose, I said, that I were asked by you what is the use or effect of medicine, which is this science of health, I should answer that medicine is of very great use in producing health, which, as you will admit, is an excellent effect.

Granted.

And if you were to ask me, what is the result or effect of architecture, which is the science of building, I should say, houses, and so of other arts, which all have their different results. Now I want you, Critias, to answer a similar question about temperance, or wisdom, to which you ought to know the answer, if, as you say, wisdom or temperance is the science of itself. Admitting this, I ask, what good work, worthy of the naine, does wisdom effect? Answer me that.

That is not the true way of pursuing the inquiry, Socrates, he said; for wisdom is not like the other sciences, any more than they are like one another: but you proceed as if they were alike. For tell me, he said, what result is there of computation or geometry, in the same sense as a house is the result of building, or a garment of weaving, or any other work of any other art? Can you show me any such result of them? 166

You cannot.

That is true, I said; but still each of these sciences has a subject which is different from the science. I can show you that the art of computation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical relations to themselves and to each other. Is not that true?

Yes, he said.

And the odd and even numbers are not the same with the art of computation?

They are not.

The art of weighing, again, has to do with lighter and heavier: but the art of weighing is one thing, and the heavy and the light another. Do you admit that?

Yes.

Now, I want to know, what is that which is not wisdom, and of which wisdom is the science?

That is precisely the old error, Socrates, he said. You come asking in what wisdom differs from the other sciences; and then you carry on the inquiry, as if they were alike: but that is not the case, for all the other sciences are of something else, and not of themselves; but that alone is a science of other sciences, and of itself. And of this, as I believe, you are very well

aware; and that you are only doing what you denied that you were doing just now, leaving the argument and trying to refute

me.

And what if I am refuting you? How can you think that I have any other motive in this but what I should have in examining into myself? which motive would be just a fear of my unconsciously fancying that I knew something of which I was ignorant. And at this moment I pursue the inquiry chiefly for my own sake, and perhaps in some degree also for the sake of my other friends. For is not the discovery of things as they truly are a common good to all mankind?

Yes, certainly, Socrates, he said.

Then, I said, be of good cheer, sweet sir, and give your opinion in answer to the question which I asked, without minding whether Critias or Socrates is the person refuted; attend only to the argument, and see what will come of the refutation. I think that you are right, he replied; and I will do as you

say.

Tell me, then, I said, what you mean to affirm about wisdom. I mean, he said, that wisdom is the only science which is the science of itself and of the other sciences as well.

But the science of science, I said, will also be the science of the absence of science.

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Very true, he said.

Then the wise or temperate man, and he only, will know himself, and be able to examine what he knows or does not know, and see what others know, and think that they know and do really know; and what they do not know, and fancy that they know, when they do not. No other person will be able to do this. And this is the state and virtue of wisdom, or temperance, and self-knowledge, which is just knowing what a man knows, and what he does not know. That is your view?

Yes, he said.

Now then, I said, making an offering of the third or last argument to Zeus the Saviour, let us once more begin, and ask, in the first place, whether this knowledge that you know and do not know what you know and do not know is possible; and in the second place, whether, even if quite possible, such knowledge is of any use.

That is what we must consider, he said.

And here, Critias, I said, I hope that you will find a way out