SOCRATES: You shall judge, Crito, if you are willing to hear what followed; for we resumed the enquiry, and a question of this sort was asked: Does the kingly art, having this supreme authority, do anything for us? To be sure, was the answer. And would not you, Crito, say the same? CRITO: Yes, I should. SOCRATES: And what would you say that the kingly art does? If medicine were supposed to have supreme authority over the subordinate arts, and I were to ask you a similar question about that, you would say--it produces health? CRITO: I should. SOCRATES: And what of your own art of husbandry, supposing that to have supreme authority over the subject arts--what does that do? Does it not supply us with the fruits of the earth? CRITO: Yes. SOCRATES: And what does the kingly art do when invested with supreme power? Perhaps you may not be ready with an answer? CRITO: Indeed I am not, Socrates. SOCRATES: No more were we, Crito. But at any rate you know that if this is the art which we were seeking, it ought to be useful. CRITO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And surely it ought to do us some good? CRITO: Certainly, Socrates. SOCRATES: And Cleinias and I had arrived at the conclusion that knowledge of some kind is the only good. CRITO: Yes, that was what you were saying. SOCRATES: All the other results of politics, and they are many, as for example, wealth, freedom, tranquillity, were neither good nor evil in themselves; but the political science ought to make us wise, and impart knowledge to us, if that is the science which is likely to do us good, and make us happy. CRITO: Yes; that was the conclusion at which you had arrived, according to your report of the conversation. SOCRATES: And does the kingly art make men wise and good? CRITO: Why not, Socrates? SOCRATES: What, all men, and in every respect? and teach them all the arts,--carpentering, and cobbling, and the rest of them? CRITO: I think not, Socrates. SOCRATES: But then what is this knowledge, and what are we to do with it? For it is not the source of any works which are neither good nor evil, and gives no knowledge, but the knowledge of itself; what then can it be, and what are we to do with it? Shall we say, Crito, that it is the knowledge by which we are to make other men good? CRITO: By all means. SOCRATES: And in what will they be good and useful? Shall we repeat that they will make others good, and that these others will make others again, without ever determining in what they are to be good; for we have put aside the results of politics, as they are called. This is the old, old song over again; and we are just as far as ever, if not farther, from the knowledge of the art or science of happiness. CRITO: Indeed, Socrates, you do appear to have got into a great perplexity.