Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  CALLICLES: No, it’s not any other way.

  SOCRATES: 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?

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

  SOCRATES: 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

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

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

  CALLICLES: That’s right.

  SOCRATES: 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.

  CALLICLES: 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.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Yes, I do.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: That’s so.

  SOCRATES: 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.

  CALLICLES: That’s true, too.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Yes.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Yes.

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

  CALLICLES: Oh, yes.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Apparently.

  [511] SOCRATES: 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.”

  CALLICLES: 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?

  SOCRATES: 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.

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

  SOCRATES: 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?

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

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

  CALLICLES: No, by Zeus, I don’t.

  SOCRATES: 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 w
hat 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 moon23 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?

  CALLICLES: 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.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Yes, that’s right.

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

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

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Yes, that’s so.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Certainly, if that pleases you more.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Yes, we would.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Yes, we shall.

  SOCRATES: 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?

  CALLICLES: Yes, I do.

  [515] SOCRATES: But now, my most excellent fellow, seeing that you yourself are just now beginning to be engaged in the business of the city and you call on me and take me to task for not doing so, shall we not examine each other? “Well now, has Callicles ever improved any of the citizens? Is there anyone who was wicked before, unjust, undisciplined, and foolish, a visitor or townsman, a slave or free man, who because of Callicles has turned out admirable and good?” Tell me, Callicles, what will you say if [b] somebody asks you these scrutinizing questions? Whom will you say you’ve made a better person through your association with him? Do you shrink back from answering—if there even is anything you produced while still in private practice before attempting a public career?

  CALLICLES: You love to win, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: But it’s not for love of winning that I’m asking you. It’s rather because I really do want to know the way, whatever it is, in which you [c] suppose the city’s business ought to be conducted among us. Now that you’ve advanced to the business of the city, are we to conclude that you’re devoted to some objective other than that we, the citizens, should be as good as possible? Haven’t we agreed many times already that this is what a man active in politics should be doing? Have we or haven’t we? Please answer me. Yes we have. (I’ll answer for you.) So, if this is what a good man should make sure about for his own city, think back now to those men whom you were mentioning a little earlier and tell me whether you [d] still think that Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades, and Themistocles have proved to be good citizens.

  CALLICLES: Yes, I do.

  SOCRATES: So if they were good ones, each of them was obviously making the citizens better than they were before. Was he or wasn’t he?

  CALLICLES: Yes.

  SOCRATES: So when Pericles first began giving speeches among the people, the Athenians were worse than when he gave his last ones?

  CALLICLES: Presumably.

  SOCRATES: Not “presumably,” my good man. It necessarily follows from what we’ve agreed, if he really was a good citizen.

  CALLICLES: So what? [e]

  SOCRATES: Nothing. But tell me this as well. Are the Athenians said to have become better because of Pericles, or, quite to the contrary, are they said to have been corrupted by him? That’s what I hear, anyhow, that Pericles made the Athenians idle and cowardly, chatterers and moneygrubbers, since he was the first t
o institute wages for them.

  CALLICLES: The people you hear say this have cauliflower ears, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Here, though, is something I’m not just hearing. I do know clearly and you do, too, that at first Pericles had a good reputation, and when they were worse, the Athenians never voted to convict him in any shameful deposition. But after he had turned them into “admirable and good” people, near the end of his life, they voted to convict Pericles of [516] embezzlement and came close to condemning him to death, because they thought he was a wicked man, obviously.

  CALLICLES: Well? Did that make Pericles a bad man?

  SOCRATES: A man like that who cared for donkeys or horses or cattle would at least look bad if he showed these animals kicking, butting, and biting him because of their wildness, when they had been doing none of these things when he took them over. Or don’t you think that any caretaker [b] of any animal is a bad one who will show his animals to be wilder than when he took them over, when they were gentler? Do you think so or not?

  CALLICLES: Oh yes, so I may gratify you.

  SOCRATES: In that case gratify me now with your answer, too. Is man one of the animals, too?

  CALLICLES: Of course he is.

  SOCRATES: Wasn’t Pericles a caretaker of men?

  CALLICLES: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Well? Shouldn’t he, according to what we agreed just now, have turned them out more just instead of more unjust, if while he cared for them he really was good at politics? [c]

  CALLICLES: Yes, he should have.

  SOCRATES: Now as Homer says, the just are gentle.25 What do you say? Don’t you say the same?

  CALLICLES: Yes.

  SOCRATES: But Pericles certainly showed them to be wilder than they were when he took them over, and that toward himself, the person he’d least want this to happen to.

  CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you?

  SOCRATES: Yes, if you think that what I say is true.

  CALLICLES: So be it, then.

  SOCRATES: And if wilder, then both more unjust and worse?