The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Translated into English with analyses and introductionsPlato
PhilosophyPhilosophy
The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Translated into English with analyses and introductions
Plato
Dialogues, Greek -- Translations into English; Philosophy, Ancient
The pleasant is not the same as the good—Callicles and I are
agreed about that,—but pleasure is to be pursued for the sake of
the good, and the good is that of which the presence makes us
good; we and all things good have acquired some virtue or other.
And virtue, whether of body or soul, of things or persons, is
not attained by accident, but is due to order and harmonious
arrangement. And the soul which has order is better than the soul 507
which is without order, and is therefore temperate and is therefore
good, and the intemperate is bad. And he who is temperate
is also just and brave and pious, and has attained the perfection of
goodness and therefore of happiness, and the intemperate whom
you approve is the opposite of all this and is wretched. He
therefore who would be happy must pursue temperance and avoid
intemperance, and if possible escape the necessity of punishment,
but if he have done wrong he must endure punishment. In this
way states and individuals should seek to attain harmony, which, 508
as the wise tell us, is the bond of heaven and earth, of gods and
men. Callicles has never discovered the power of geometrical
proportion in both worlds; he would have men aim at disproportion
and excess. But if he be wrong in this, and if self-control is the
true secret of happiness, then the paradox is true that the only
use of rhetoric is in self-accusation, and Polus was right in saying
that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, and Gorgias was
right in saying that the rhetorician must be a just man. And you
were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, and in
saying that I might be accused or put to death or boxed on the
ears with impunity. For I may repeat once more, that to strike is
worse than to be stricken—to do than to suffer. What I said then 509
is now made fast in adamantine bonds. I myself know not the
true nature of these things, but I know that no one can deny my
words and not be ridiculous. To do wrong is the greatest of evils,
and to suffer wrong is the next greatest evil. He who would 510
avoid the last must be a ruler, or the friend of a ruler; and to be
the friend he must be the equal of the ruler, and must also resemble
him. Under his protection he will suffer no evil, but will
he also do no evil? Nay, will he not rather do all the evil which
he can and escape? And in this way the greatest of all evils will 511
befall him. ‘But this imitator of the tyrant,’ rejoins Callicles,
‘will kill any one who does not similarly imitate him.’ Socrates
replies that he is not deaf, and that he has heard that repeated
many times, and can only reply, that a bad man will kill a good
one. ‘Yes, and that is the provoking thing.’ Not provoking to a
man of sense who is not studying the arts which will preserve
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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