_Sokr._--Since, accordingly, you neither found it out for yourself, nor learnt it from others, how come you to know justice or injustice at all, or from what quarter? _Alk._--I was mistaken in saying that I had not learnt it. I learnt it, as others do, from the multitude.[4] _Sokr._--Your teachers are none of the best: no one can learn from them even such small matters as playing at draughts: much less, what is just and unjust. _Alk._--I learnt it from them as I learnt to speak Greek, in which, too, I never had any special teacher. _Sokr._--Of that the multitude are competent teachers, for they are all of one mind. Ask which is a tree or a stone,--a horse or a man,--you get the same answer from every one. But when you ask not simply which are _horses_, but also which horses are fit to run well in a race--when you ask not merely about which are _men_, but which men are healthy or unhealthy--are the multitude all of one mind, or all competent to answer? _Alk._--Assuredly not. _Sokr._--When you see the multitude differing among themselves, that is a clear proof that they are not competent to teach others. _Alk._--It is so. _Sokr._--Now, about the question, What is just and unjust--are the multitude all of one mind, or do they differ among themselves? _Alk._--They differ prodigiously: they not only dispute, but quarrel and destroy each other, respecting justice and injustice, far more than about health and sickness.[5] _Sokr._ How, then, can we say that the multitude know what is just and unjust, when they thus fiercely dispute about it among themselves? _Alk._--I now perceive that we cannot say so. _Sokr._--How can we say, therefore, that they are fit to teach others: and how can you pretend to know, who have learnt from no other teachers? _Alk._--From what you say, it is impossible. [Footnote 4: Plato, Alkib. i. 110 D-E. [Greek: e)/mathon, oi)=mai, kai\ e)gô\ ô(/sper kai\ oi( a)/lloi . . . . para\ tô=n pollô=n.]] [Footnote 5: Plato, Alkib. i. 112 A. _Sokr._ [Greek: Ti/ de\ dê\? nu=n peri\ tô=n dikai/ôn kai\ a)di/kôn a)nthrô/pôn kai\ pragma/tôn, oi( polloi\ dokou=si/ soi o(mologei=n au)toi\ e(autoi=s ê)\ a)llê/lois?] _Alkib._ [Greek: Ê(/kista, nê\ Di/', ô)= Sô/krates.] _Sokr._ [Greek: Ti/ de/? ma/lista peri\ au)tô=n diaphe/resthai?] _Alkib._ [Greek: polu/ ge.]] _Sokr._--No: not from what _I_ say, but from what _you_ say yourself. I merely ask questions: it is you who give all the answers.[6] And what you have said amounts to this--that Alkibiades knows nothing about what is just and unjust, but believes himself to know, and is going to advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself? [Footnote 6: Plato, Alkib. i. 112-113.]