Alcibiades 1

[113] Soc. Then who is speaking? I who put the question, or you who answer me?

Al. I am.

Soc. Or suppose that I ask and you tell me the letters which make up the name Socrates, which of us is the speaker?

Al. I am.

Soc. Now let us put the case generally: whenever there is a question and answer, who is the speaker,—the questioner or the answerer?

Al. I should say, Socrates, that the answerer was the speaker.

Soc. And have I not been the questioner all through?

Al. Yes.

Soc. And you the answerer?

Al. Just so.

Soc. Which of us, then, was the speaker?

Al. The inference is, Socrates, that I was the speaker.

Soc. Did not some one say that Alcibiades, the fair son of Cleinias, not understanding about just and unjust, but thinking that he did understand, was going to the assembly to advise the Athenians about what he did not know? Was not that said?

Al. Very true.

Soc. Then, Alcibiades, the result may be expressed in the language of Euripides. I think that you have heard all this ‘from yourself, and not from me’; nor did I say this, which you erroneously attribute to me, but you yourself, and what you said was very true. For indeed, my dear fellow, the design which you meditate of teaching what you do not know, and have not taken any pains to learn, is downright insanity.

Al. But, Socrates, I think that the Athenians and the rest of the Hellenes do not often advise as to the more just or unjust; for they see no difficulty in them, and therefore they leave them, and consider which course of action will be most expedient; for there is a difference between justice and expediency. Many persons have done great wrong and profited by their injustice; others have done rightly and come to no good.

Soc. Well, but granting that the just and the expedient are ever so much opposed, you surely do not imagine that you know what is expedient for mankind, or why a thing is expedient?

Al. Why not, Socrates?—But I am not going to be asked again from whom I learned, or when I made the discovery.