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CLASSICS OF

WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

CLASSICS OF

WESTERN PHILOSOPHY EIGHTH EDITION

Edited by STEVEN M. CAHN

HACKETT PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. INDIANAPOLIS/CAMBRIDGE

To Marilyn

First edition copyright © 1977 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Second edition copyright © 1985 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Third edition copyright © 1990 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Fourth edition copyright © 1995 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Fifth edition copyright © 1999 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Sixth edition copyright © 2002 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Seventh edition copyright © 2006 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Eighth edition copyright © 2012 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

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For further information, please address: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. P.O. Box 44937 Indianapolis, IN 46244-0937 www.hackettpublishing.com

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Classics of Western philosophy / edited by Steven M. Cahn. — Eighth Edition. pages cm

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-60384-743-8 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-60384-744-5 (cloth) 1. Philosophy. I. Cahn, Steven M. B29.C536 2012 190 — dc23 2012007912

PRC ISBN: 978-1-62466-015-3

http://www.hackettpublishing.com

Contents

Preface

Plato Laches Euthyphro Apology Crito Phaedo Meno Symposium Republic (selections)

Aristotle Categories (Chapters 1–5) On Interpretation (selections) Posterior Analytics (selections) Physics (selections) On the Soul (selections) Metaphysics (selections) Nicomachean Ethics (selections)

Epicurus Letter to Menoeceus The Principal Doctrines

Epictetus Encheiridion

Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism (selections)

Augustine On Free Choice of the Will (selections) Confessions (Book XI)

Plotinus Enneads (selections)

Boethius Consolation of Philosophy (selections)

Anselm Proslogion Gaunilo’s Reply on Behalf of the Fool Anselm’s Reply to Gaunilo

Moses Maimonides The Guide of the Perplexed (selections)

Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae (selections)

Levi Gersonides The Wars of the Lord (selections)

William of Ockham Summa Logicae (selections)

René Descartes Discourse on Method Meditations on First Philosophy

Thomas Hobbes Leviathan (selections)

Baruch Spinoza Ethics (Parts I, II)

Gottfried Leibniz Discourse on Metaphysics Monadology

John Locke An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (selections)

George Berkeley A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding A Treatise of Human Nature (selections) Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Immanuel Kant Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Critique of Pure Reason (selections) Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals

G.W.F Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit (selections)

Arthur Schopenhauer The World as Will and Representation (selections)

Søren Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript (selections)

John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism On Liberty (selections)

Friedrich Nietzsche

Twilight of the Idols (selections)

Charles Sanders Peirce The Fixation of Belief How to Make Our Ideas Clear

William James What Pragmatism Means The Will to Believe

Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy (Chapters I–V)

Edmund Husserl Paris Lectures (selections)

Jean-Paul Sartre The Humanism of Existentialism

Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations (selections)

J. L. Austin Sense and Sensibilia (Chapters I–III, V)

Steven M. Cahn Professor of Philosophy The Graduate Center The City University of New York April 2012

Preface

Here in one volume are the complete texts or substantial selections from sixty philosophical masterpieces. Thirty-three of the world’s greatest philosophers are represented, their writings spanning more than two millennia. Crucial fields of philosophy are explored in depth: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion. An introduction to each author contains biographical data, philosophical commentary, and bibliographical guides. Annotations are provided to clarify textual references.

Marginal line numbers and references to them refer to the original text and are only approximate in the translations themselves. (In this ebook, the marginal numbers are enclosed in square brackets and embedded in the text.)

• • •

The eighth edition contains five major additions: Plato’s Laches; Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, III, 6–9; Descartes’ Discourse on Method; Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (previously included only in part), and Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics.

I very much appreciate the assistance of Richard Bett, Meredith Williams, and Michael Williams of Johns Hopkins University; Kathleen Higgins of the University of Texas; Ruth Anna Putnam of Wellesley College; Sara Ahbel-Rappe of the University of Michigan; Israel Scheffler of Harvard University; David Shatz of Yeshiva University; David Sherman of the University of Montana; Jonathan Vogel of Amherst College; and past and present faculty members at the University of Vermont: Charles Guignon (now of the University of South Florida), Patricia Kitcher and Philip Kitcher (both now of Columbia University), William E. Mann, Derk Pereboom (now of Cornell University), and George Sher (now of Rice University). They have contributed most of the introductions, thereby providing expert commentary on the writings of each philosopher.

I benefited greatly from advice by Professor Guignon regarding the selections from Nietzsche; Professor Higgins regarding the selections from Schopenhauer; Professor Pereboom regarding the selections from Kant and Kierkegaard; Professor Ahbel-Rappe regarding the selections from Plotinus; and Professor Meredith Williams regarding the selections from Wittgenstein. I especially appreciated the advice from Professor Andrea Tschemplik of American University regarding the selections from Hegel and her willingness and that of James H. Stam to give permission for use of their translation of sections from the Phenomenology of Spirit. Professor Mann, with whom I consulted on a variety of editorial matters, furnished many of the translations of Latin textual references. For additional suggestions regarding the contents of the book, I am grateful to my friends of many years John O’Connor, David Rosenthal, and the late James Rachels, as well as to the numerous philosophers who have taken the time and effort to write and offer counsel.

Editing and production of the eighth edition were overseen by Brian Rak and Liz Wilson. I appreciate their conscientiousness and sound judgment.

I also wish to thank Jay Hullett and the late Frances Hackett, who have led Hackett Publishing Company and remained true to the values of its late founder, William H. Y. Hackett. Thirty-five years have passed since this work first appeared, and the kind reception it continues to enjoy is a testament to the power of William Hackett’s publishing vision.

Plato

Plato (427–347 B.C.) is surely the most famous of all philosophers. Little is known of his early life, except that he was born into a noble Athenian family and at some time in his late teens came under the philosophical spell of Socrates (469–399 B.C.), about whom valuable information is contained in Plato’s Apology. The events leading up to and culminating in the Athenian government’s trial and execution of Socrates, when Plato was twenty-eight, soured Plato on the idea of embarking on a life in politics and resulted in his leaving Athens to travel for a number of years in the Mediterranean region. Plato returned to Athens in 387 and founded his school, the Academy, in the belief that such an institution was necessary for the education of political leaders who would be morally excellent. The Academy attracted many of the finest contemporary minds, including Aristotle. Plato twice visited Syracuse in a futile attempt to inculcate his moral and political ideas in Syracuse’s young tyrant, Dionysius II.

Socrates wrote nothing: It is fortunate that his most illustrious follower did not follow that example. At least twenty-six of Plato’s dialogues have survived, ranging in length from the brief Crito to the voluble Laws, which is longer than the Republic. The dialogues are customarily divided into three periods of Plato’s literary career: early, middle, and late. The early dialogues—of which the Laches, Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito are examples—are taken to be accurate if not verbatim portrayals of Socrates in philosophical action. The middle dialogues, represented here by the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic, display Plato at the height of his literary abilities, seeking to further the projects inspired by Socrates while at the same time introducing doctrines that are extremely unlikely to have been Socrates’ own. The late dialogues are dialogues in name only, quite often technically demanding in nature. They appear to represent Plato’s efforts to grapple with the critical issues raised by the doctrines enunciated in the middle dialogues and most likely raised by others in the Academy.

As the Apology makes clear, Socrates professed to be ignorant of all matters philosophical, although not disputing the Delphic oracle’s pronouncement that he was the wisest of all men. He concluded that his “wisdom,” compared to the pretenses of others, lay in knowing the extent of his ignorance. Taking his mission to be to show others the magnitude of their ignorance about the most important matters of their lives, Socrates relentlessly grilled his fellow Athenian citizens, using rigorous argumentation to demonstrate that uncritically accepted opinions about philosophically important matters could lead to logical catastrophe: The Laches, Euthyphro and the early pages of the Meno provide excellent examples of Socrates’ technique.

Yet for all his professed ignorance, Socrates clung to several distinctive philosophical doctrines. First, one cannot have genuine knowledge about moral matters unless one can give a rationally defensible account of such notions as courage (Laches), piety (Euthyphro), justice (Republic), and virtue or human excellence in general (Meno). Socrates thus pitted himself against the Sophists, a contemporary group of itinerant professional teachers, many of whom fostered the belief in their students that no objective knowledge was to be had in ethics. Socrates believed that moral knowledge is possible but difficult to acquire, and that his method of exposing ignorance in others was a necessary first step to their acquiring it. Second, as the Meno intimates, in some way or other virtue (or excellence in humans) is knowledge. The Laches, for example, probes the hypothesis that courage is knowledge. That the dialogue’s participants do not succeed in identifying what kind of knowledge courage might be illustrates the difficulty in acquiring moral knowledge and the importance of becoming aware of one’s ignorance The remarkable corollary of the claim that virtue is knowledge is the thesis that all wrongdoing is the result of ignorance. Third, as illustrated in the Crito and argued for in the Republic, Socrates believed that it is better for one to suffer injustice than to do injustice.

Plato came to believe that, if ethics is something more than the product of arbitrary convention, and if moral judgments are objective, then ethics must be grounded in objects that are unchanging in character and accessible to human minds. These objects are the Forms, the perfect, abstract objects discussed in the Phaedo, Symposium, and Republic. Humans can have knowledge of the Forms by recollection, a process that Plato describes in the Meno, alludes to in the Phaedo, and presupposes in the Republic. The importance Plato assigns to the Form of the Good in the Republic is designed to show how the acquisition of knowledge of the Forms provides one with the motivation to be virtuous. The connection between intellectual knowledge and moral motivation is also underscored in the Symposium, where Plato argues that love, rationally pursued, will lead the lover to its ultimate object, the Form of Beauty. The doctrine of Recollection in turn presupposes that humans have existed before their present lives. From there it seems a small step to the thesis that the soul is immortal. In the Phaedo, whose dramatic setting is the day of Socrates’ execution, Plato has Socrates present

several arguments for the immortality of the soul. If the soul is immortal, then care for it should be more important than care for the body: One of the major themes of the Republic is that behaving justly is at least as valuable for the care of the soul, as well as for the care of the state, as physical health is for the care of the body.

• • •

The amount of excellent philosophical writings on Socrates and Plato is far too large to list here but certainly includes the following. On Socrates in general, see Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991) along with two collections of essays, Hugh Benson, ed., Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) and Gregory Vlastos, ed., The Philosophy of Socrates (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1971). Two studies on early dialogues appearing here are C. D. C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989) and, on the Crito, Richard Kraut, Socrates and the State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).

Although somewhat demanding, the following works on Plato are superb: R. E. Allen, ed., Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965); Gail Fine, ed., Plato 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology, and Plato 2: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Terence Irwin, Plato’s Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Richard Kraut, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Gregory Vlastos, ed., Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays: I: Metaphysics and Epistemology, and II: Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy of Art and Religion (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1970 and 1971); and Gregory Vlastos, Platonic Studies, second edition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981). Two books devoted to the Republic are Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) and Richard Kraut, ed., Plato’s Republic (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).

William E. Mann

Laches*

LYSIMACHUS: You have seen the man fighting in [178a] armor, Nicias and Laches. When Melesias and I invited you to see him with us, we neglected to give the reason why, but now we shall explain, because we think it especially right to be frank with you. Now there are some people who make fun of frankness and if anyone asks their advice, they don’t say what they [b] think, but they make a shot at what the other man would like to hear and say something different from their own opinion. But you we considered capable not only of forming a judgment but also, having formed one, of saying exactly what you think, and this is why we have taken you into our confidence about what we are going to communicate to you. Now the matter about which I have been making such a long preamble [179a] is this: we have these two sons here — this one is the son of my friend Melesias here, and he is called Thucydides after his grandfather, and this one is my son, who also goes by his grandfather’s name—we call him Aristides after my father. We have made up our minds to take as good care of them as we possibly can and not to behave like most parents, who, when their children start to grow up, permit them to do whatever they wish. No, we think that now is the time to [b] make a real beginning, so far as we can. Since we knew that both of you had sons too, we thought that you, if anyone, would have been concerned about the sort of training that would make the best men of them. And if by any chance you have not turned your attention to this kind of thing very often, let us remind you that you ought not to neglect it, and let us invite you to care for your sons along with ours. How we reached this conclusion, Nicias and Laches, you must hear, even if it means my talking a bit longer. Now you must know that Melesias and I take our meals [c] together, and the boys eat with us. We shall be frank with you, exactly as I said in the beginning: each of us has a great many fine things to say to the young men about his own father, things they achieved both in war and in peace in their management of the affairs both of their allies and of the city here. But neither of us has a word to say about his own accomplishments. This is what shames us in front of them, and we blame [d] our fathers for allowing us to take things easy when we were growing up, while they were busy with other peoples’ affairs. And we point these same things out to the young people here, saying that if they are careless of themselves and disobedient to us, they will turn out to be nobodies, but if they take pains, perhaps they may become worthy of the names they bear. Now the boys promise to be obedient, so we are looking into the question what form of instruction or practise would make them turn out best. Somebody suggested [e] this form of instruction to us, saying that it would be a fine thing for a young man to learn fighting in armor. And he praised this particular man whom you have just seen giving a display and proceeded to encourage us to see him. So we thought we ought to go to see the man and to take you with us, not only as fellow-spectators but also as fellow-counsellors and partners, if you should be willing, in the care of our sons. This is what we wanted to share with you. So now is the [180a] time for you to give us your advice, not only about this form of instruction—whether you think it should be learned or not—but also about any other sort of study or pursuit for a young man which you admire. Tell us too, what part you will take in our joint enterprise.

NICIAS: I, for one, Lysimachus and Melesias, applaud your plan and am ready to take part in it. And I think Laches here is ready too.

LACHES: You are quite right, Nicias. As for what [b] Lysimachus said just now about his father and Melesias’ father, I think that what he said applied very well to them and to us and to everyone engaged in public affairs, because this is pretty generally what happens to them—that they neglect their private affairs, children as well as everything else, and manage them carelessly. So you were right on this [c] point, Lysimachus. But I am astonished that you are inviting us to be your fellow-counsellors in the education of the young men and are not inviting Socrates here! In the first place, he comes from your own deme, and in the second, he is always spending his time in places where the young men engage in any study or noble pursuit of the sort you are looking for.

LYSIMACHUS: What do you mean, Laches? Has our friend Socrates concerned himself with any things of this kind?

LACHES: Certainly, Lysimachus.

NICIAS: This is a point I can vouch for no less than Laches, since he only recently recommended [d] a man to me as music teacher for my son. The man’s name is Damon, a pupil of Agathocles, and he is the most accomplished of men, not only in music, but in all the other pursuits in which you would think it worthwhile for boys of his age to spend their time.

LYSIMACHUS: People at my time of life, Socrates, Nicias, and Laches, are no longer familiar with the young because our advancing years keep us at home [e] so much of the time. But if you, son of Sophroniscus, have any good advice to give your fellow-demesman, you ought to give it. And you have a duty to do so, because you are my friend through your father. He and I were always comrades and friends, and he died without our ever having had a single difference. And this present conversation reminds me of something — when the boys here are talking to each other at home, they often mention Socrates and praise him highly, but I’ve never though to ask if they were speaking [181a] of the son of Sophroniscus. Tell me, boys, is this the Socrates you spoke of on those occasions?

BOYS: Certainly, father, this is the one. LYSIMACHUS: I am delighted, Socrates, that you keep up your father’s good reputation, for he was the

best of men, and I am especially pleased at the idea that the close ties between your family and mine will be renewed.

LACHES: Don’t under any circumstances let the man get away, Lysimachus—because I have seen him elsewhere keeping up not only his father’s reputation [b] but that of his country. He marched with me in the retreat from Delium,1 and I can tell you that if the rest had been willing to behave in the same manner, our city would be safe and we would not then have suffered a disaster of that kind.

LYSIMACHUS: Socrates, the praise you are receiving is certainly of a high order, both because it comes from men who are to be trusted and because of the qualities for which they praise you. Be assured that I am delighted to hear that you are held in such esteem, and please consider me among those most kindly disposed towards you. You yourself ought to have visited us long before and considered us your [c] friends—that would have been the right thing to do. Well, since we have recognized each other, resolve now, starting today, to associate both with us and the young men here and to make our acquaintance, so that you may preserve the family friendship. So do what I ask, and we in turn shall keep you in mind of your promise. But what have you all to say about our original question? What is your opinion? Is fighting in armor a useful subject for young men to learn or not?

SOCRATES: Well, I shall try to advise you about these things as best I can, Lysimachus, in addition to [d] performing all the things to which you call my attention. However, it seems to me to be more suitable, since I am younger that the others and more inexperienced in these matters, for me to listen first to what they have to say and to learn from them. But if I should have something to add to what they say, then will be the time for me to teach and persuade both you and the others. Come, Nicias, why doesn’t one of you two begin?

NICIAS: Well, there is no reason why not, Socrates. I think that knowledge of this branch of study is beneficial for the young in all sorts of ways. [e] For one thing, it is a good idea for the young not to spend their time in the pursuits in which they normally do like to spend it when they are at leisure, but rather in this one, which necessarily improves [182a] their bodies, since it is in no way inferior to gymnastic exercises and no less strenuous, and, at the same time, this and horsemanship are forms of exercise especially suited to a free citizen. For in the contest in which we are the contestants and in the matters on which our struggle depends,2 only those are practised who know how to use the instruments of war. And again, there is a certain advantage in this form of instruction even in an actual battle, whenever one has to fight in line with a number of others. But the greatest advantage of it comes when the ranks are broken and it then becomes necessary for a man to fight in [b] single combat, either in pursuit when he has to attack a man who is defending himself, or in flight, when he has to defend himself against another person who is attacking him. A man who had this skill would suffer no harm at the hands of a single opponent, nor even perhaps at the hands of a larger number, but he would have the advantage in every way. Then again, such a study arouses in us the desire for another fine form of instruction, since every man who learns to fight in armor will want to learn the subject that comes next, that is, the science of tactics; and when he has [c] mastered this and taken pride in it, he will press on to the whole art of the general. So it has already become clear that what is connected with this latter art, all the studies and pursuits which are fine and of great value for a man to learn and to practise, have this study as a starting-point. And we shall add to this an advantage which is not at all negligible, that this knowledge will make every man much bolder and braver in war that he was before. And let us not omit to mention, even if to some it might seem a point not worth making, that this art will give a man a finer-looking appearance at the very moment when he needs to have it, and [d] when he will appear more frightening to the enemy because of the way he

looks. So my opinion, Lysimachus, is just as I say, that young men should be taught these things, and I have given the reasons why I think so. But if Laches has anything to say on the other side, I would be glad to hear it.

LACHES: But the fact is, Nicias, that it is difficult to maintain of any study whatsoever that it ought not to be learned, because it seems to be a good idea to learn everything. So as far as this fighting in armor [e] is concerned, if it is a genuine branch of study, as those who teach it claim, and as Nicias says, then it ought to be learned, but if it is not a real subject and the people who propose to teach it are deceiving us, or if it is a real subject but not a very important one, what need is there to learn it? The reason I say these things about it is that I consider that, if there were anything in it, it would not have escaped the attention of the Lacedaemonians, who have no other concern in life than to look for and engage in whatever studies and pursuits will increase their superiority in war. [183a] And if the Lacedaemonians had overlooked the art, the teachers of it would certainly not have overlooked this fact, that the Lacedaemonians are the most concerned with such matters of any of the Greeks and that anyone who was honored among them in these matters would make a great deal of money just as is the case when a tragic poet is honored among us. The result is that whenever anyone fancies himself as a good writer of tragedy, he does not go about exhibiting [b] his plays in the other cities round about Athens but comes straight here and shows his work to our people, as is the natural thing to do. But I observe that those who fight in armor regard Lacedaemon as forbidden ground and keep from setting foot in it. They give it a wide berth and prefer to exhibit to anyone rather than the Spartans —in fact they take pains to select people who themselves admit that plenty of others surpass them in warfare. Then again, [c] Lysimachus, I have encountered quite a few of these gentlemen on the actual field of battle and I have seen what they are like. This makes it possible for us to consider the matter at first hand. In a manner which seems almost deliberate, not a single practitioner of the art of fighting in armor has ever become renowned in war. And yet in all the other arts, those who are well-known in each are those who have practised the various ones. But the men who practise this art seem to be those who have the worst luck at it. For instance, this very man Stesilaus, whom you and I have witnessed giving a display before such a large [d] crowd and praising himself the way he did, I once saw in the quite different circumstances of actual warfare giving a much finer demonstration against his will. On an occasion when a ship on which he was serving as a marine3 rammed a transport-vessel, he was armed with a combination scythe and spear, as singular a weapon as he was singular a man. His other peculiarities are not worth relating, but let me tell you how his invention of a scythe plus a spear turned out. In the [e] course of the fight it somehow got entangled in the rigging of the other ship and there it stuck. So Stesilaus dragged at the weapon in an attempt to free it, but he could not, and meanwhile his ship was going by the other ship. For a time he kept running along the deck holding fast to the spear. But when the other ship was actually passing his and was dragging him after it while he still held onto the weapon, he let it [184a] slide through his hand until he just had hold of the ferule at the end. There was laughter and applause from the men on the transport at the sight of him, and when somebody hit the deck at his feet with a stone and he let go the shaft, then even the men on the trireme could no longer keep from laughing when they saw that remarkable scythe-spear dangling from the transport. Now perhaps these things may be of value, as Nicias maintains, but my own experience has been of the sort I describe. So, as I said in the [b] beginning, either it is an art but has little value, or it is not an art but people say and pretend that it is, but in any case it is not worth trying to learn. And then it seems to me that if a cowardly man should imagine he had mastered the art, he would, because of his increasing rashness, show up more clearly the sort of man he was, whereas in the case of a brave man, everyone would be watching him and if he made the smallest mistake, he would incur a great deal of criticism. [c] The reason for this is that a man who pretends to knowledge of this sort is the object of envy, so that unless he is outstandingly superior to the rest, there is no way in which he can possibly avoid becoming a laughingstock when he claims to have this knowledge. So the study of this art seems to me to be of this sort, Lysimachus. But, as I said before, we ought not to let Socrates here escape, but we ought to consult him as to his opinion on the matter in hand.

LYSIMACHUS: Well, I do ask your opinion, Socrates, since what might be called our council seems to me to be still in need of someone to cast the [d] deciding vote. If these two had agreed, there would be less necessity of such a procedure, but as it is, you perceive that Laches has voted in opposition to Nicias. So we would do well to hear from you too, and find out with which of them you plan to vote.

SOCRATES: What’s that, Lysimachus? Do you intend to cast your vote for whatever position is approved by the majority of us?

LYSIMACHUS: Why, what else could a person do, Socrates? SOCRATES: And do you, Melesias, plan to act in the same way? Suppose there should be a [e] council to

decide whether your son ought to practise a particular kind of gymnastic exercise, would you be persuaded by

the greater number or by whoever has been educated and exercised under a good trainer? MELESIAS: Probably by the latter, Socrates. SOCRATES: And you would be persuaded by him rather than by the four of us? MELESIAS: Probably. SOCRATES: So I think it is by knowledge that one ought to make decisions, if one is to make them well,

and not by majority rule. MELESIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So in this present case it is also necessary to investigate first of all whether any one of us is an

expert in the subject we are debating, or not. [185a] And if one of us is, then we should listen to him even if he is only one, and disregard the others. But if no one of us is an expert, then we must look for someone who is. Or do you and Lysimachus suppose that the subject in question is some small thing and not the greatest of all our possessions? The question is really, I suppose, that of whether your sons turn out to be worthwhile persons or the opposite—and the father’s whole estate will be managed in accordance with the way the sons turn out.

MELESIAS: You are right. SOCRATES: So we ought to exercise great forethought in the matter. MELESIAS: Yes, we should. SOCRATES: Then, in keeping with what I said [b] just now, how would we investigate if we wanted to

find out which of us was the most expert with regard to gymnastics? Wouldn’t it be the man who had studied and practised the art and who had had good teachers in that particular subject?

MELESIAS: I should think so. SOCRATES: And even before that, oughtn’t we to investigate what art it is of which we are looking for the

teachers? MELESIAS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Perhaps it will be more clear if I put it this way: I do not think we have reached any

preliminary agreement as to what in the world we are consulting about and investigating when we ask which of us is expert in it and has acquired teachers [c] for this purpose, and which of us is not.

NICIAS: But, Socrates, aren’t we investigating the art of fighting in armor and discussing whether young men ought to learn it or not?

SOCRATES: Quite so, Nicias. But when a man considers whether or not he should use a certain medicine to anoint his eyes, do you think he is at that moment taking counsel about the medicine or about the eyes?

NICIAS: About the eyes. SOCRATES: Then too, whenever a man [d] considers whether or not and when he should put a bridle on a

horse, I suppose he is at that moment taking counsel about the horse and not about the bridle? NICIAS: That is true. SOCRATES: So, in a word, whenever a man considers a thing for the sake of another thing, he is taking

counsel about that thing for the sake of which he was considering, and not about what he was investigating for the sake of something else.

NICIAS: Necessarily so. SOCRATES: Then the question we ought to ask with respect to the man who gives us advice, is whether

he is expert in the care of that thing for the sake of which we are considering when we consider. NICIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So do we now declare that we are [e] considering a form of study for the sake of the souls of

young men? NICIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then the question whether any one of us is expert in the care of the soul and is capable of

caring for it well, and has had good teachers, is the one we ought to investigate. LACHES: What’s that, Socrates? Haven’t you ever noticed that in some matters people become more

expert without teachers than with them? SOCRATES: Yes, I have, Laches, but you would not want to trust them when they said they were good

craftsmen unless they should have some well- [186a] executed product of their art to show you — and not just one but more than one.

LACHES: What you say is true. SOCRATES: Then what we ought to do, Laches and Nicias, since Lysimachus and Melesias called us in to

give them advice about their two sons out of a desire that the boys’ souls should become as good as possible— if we say we have teachers to show, is to point out to them the ones who in the first place are good themselves and have tended the souls of many young men, and in the second place have manifestly [b] taught us. Or, if any one of us says that he himself has had no teacher but has works of his own to tell of, then he ought to show which of the Athenians or foreigners, whether slave or free, is recognized to have become good through his influence. But if this is not the case with any of us, we should give orders that a search be made for others and should not run the risk of ruining the sons of our friends and thus incurring the greatest reproach from their nearest relatives. Now I, Lysimachus and Melesias, am the first to say, concerning myself, that I have had no teacher in this [c] subject. And yet I have longed after it from my youth up. But I did not have any money to give the sophists, who were the only ones who professed to be able to make a cultivated man of me, and I myself, on the other hand, am unable to discover the art even now. If Nicias or Laches had discovered it or learned it, I would not be surprised, because they are richer than I and so may have learned it from others, and also older, so they may have discovered it already. Thus they seem to me to be capable of educating a man, [d] because they would never have given their opinions so fearlessly on the subject of pursuits which are beneficial and harmful for the young if they had not believed themselves to be sufficiently informed on the subject. In other matters I have confidence in them, but that they should differ with each other surprises me. So I make this counter-request of you, Lysimachus: just as Laches was urging you just now not to let me go but to ask me questions, so I now call on you not to let Laches go, or Nicias, but to question them, saying that Socrates denies having any knowledge of the matter or being competent to decide which of [e] you speaks the truth, because he denies having been a discoverer of such things or having been anyone’s pupil in them. So, Laches and Nicias, each of you tell us who is the cleverest person with whom you have associated in this matter of educating young men, and whether you acquired your knowledge of the art from another person or found it out for yourselves, and, if you learned it from some one, who were your respective teachers, and what other persons share the [187a] same art with them. My reason for saying all this is that, if you are too busy because of your civic responsibilities, we can go to these men and persuade them, either by means of gifts or favors or both, to look after both our boys and yours too so that they won’t put their ancestors to shame by turning out to be worthless. But if you yourselves have been the discoverers of such an art, give us an example of what other persons your have already made into fine men by your care when they were originally worthless. Because if you are about to begin educating people now for the first [b] time, you ought to watch out in case the risk is being run, not by a guinea-pig, but by your own sons and the children of your friends, and you should keep from doing just what the proverb says not to do—to begin pottery on a wine jar. So state which of these alternatives you would select as being appropriate and fitting for you and which you would reject. Find out these things from them, Lysimachus, and don’t let the men escape.

LYSIMACHUS: I like what Socrates has said, [c] gentlemen. But whether you are willing to be questioned about such matters and to give account of them, you must decide for yourselves, Nicias and Laches. As far as Melesias here and I are concerned, we would certainly be pleased if the two of you were willing to give complete answers to all of Socrates’ questions. Because, as I started to say right at the beginning, the reason we invited you to advise us on these matters was that we supposed that you would naturally have given some thought to such things— especially so since your sons, like ours, are very nearly [d] of an age to be educated. So, if you have no objection, speak up and look into the subject along with Socrates, exchanging arguments with each other. Because he is right in saying that it is about the most important of our affairs that we are consulting. So decide if you think this is what ought to be done.

NICIAS: It is quite clear to me, Lysimachus, that your knowledge of Socrates is limited to your acquaintance with his father and that you have had no contact with the man himself, except when he was [e] a child—I suppose he may have mingled with you and your fellow demesmen, following along with his father at the temple or at some other public gathering. But you are obviously still unacquainted with the man as he is now he has grown up.

LYSIMACHUS: What exactly do you mean, Nicias? NICIAS: You don’t appear to me to know that whoever comes into close contact with Socrates and

associates with him in conversation must necessarily, even if he began by conversing about something quite different in the first place, keep on being led about by the man’s arguments until he submits to answering questions about himself concerning both his present manner of life and the life he had lived hitherto. And

when he does submit to this questioning, [188a] you don’t realize that Socrates will not let him go before he has well and truly tested every last detail. I personally am accustomed to the man and know that one has to put up with this kind of treatment from him, and further, I know perfectly well that I myself will have to submit to it. I take pleasure in the man’s company, Lysimachus, and don’t regard it as at all a bad thing to have it brought to our attention that we have done or are doing wrong. Rather I think that a [b] man who does not run away from such treatment but is willing, according to the saying of Solon, to value learning as long as he lives,4 not supposing that old age brings him wisdom of itself, will necessarily pay more attention to the rest of his life. For me there is nothing unusual or unpleasant in being examined by Socrates, but I realized some time ago that the [c] conversation would not be about the boys but about ourselves, if Socrates were present. As I say, I don’t myself mind talking with Socrates in whatever way he likes — but find out how Laches here feels about such things.

LACHES: I have just one feeling about discussions, Nicias, or, if you like, not one but two, because to some I might seem to be a discussion-lover and to others a discussion-hater. Whenever I hear a man discussing virtue or some kind of wisdom, then, if he really is a man and worthy of the words he utters, [d] I am completely delighted to see the appropriateness and harmony existing between the speaker and his words. And such a man seems to me to be genuinely musical, producing the most beautiful harmony, not on the lyre or some other pleasurable instrument, but actually rendering his own life harmonious by fitting his deeds to his words in a truly Dorian mode, not in the Ionian, nor even, I think, in the Phrygian or Lydian, but in the only harmony that is genuinely Greek. The discourse of such a man gladdens my heart and makes everyone think that I am a discussion-lover [e] because of the enthusiastic way in which I welcome what is said; but the man who acts in the opposite way distresses me, and the better he speaks, the worse I feel, so that his discourse makes me look like a discussion-hater. Now I have no acquaintance with the words of Socrates, but before now, I believe, I have had experience of his deeds, and there I found him a person privileged to speak fair words and to indulge in every kind of frankness. So if he possesses [189a] this ability too, I am in sympathy with the man, and I would submit to being examined by such a person with the greatest pleasure, nor would I find learning burdensome, because I too agree with Solon, though with one reservation—I wish to grow old learning many things, but from good men only. Let Solon grant me this point, that the teacher should himself be good, so that I may not show myself a stupid pupil taking no delight in learning. Whether my teacher is to be younger than I am or not yet famous or has any other such peculiarity troubles me not at all. To [b] you then, Socrates, I present myself as someone for you to teach and to refute in whatever manner you please, and, on the other hand, you are welcome to any knowledge I have myself. Because this has been my opinion of your character since that day on which we shared a common danger and you gave me a sample of your valor—the sort a man must give if he is to render a good account of himself. So say whatever you like and don’t let the difference in our ages concern you at all. [c]

SOCRATES: We certainly can’t find fault with you for not being ready both to give advice and to join in the common search.

LYSIMACHUS: But the task is clearly ours, Socrates (for I count you as one of ourselves), so take my place and find out on behalf of the young men what we need to learn from these people, and then, by talking to the boys, join us in giving them advice. Because, on account of my age, I very often forget what questions I was going to ask, and I forget the answers as well. Then, if fresh arguments start up [d] in the middle, my memory is not exactly good. So you do the talking and examine among yourselves the topics we proposed. And I will listen, and when I have heard your conversation, I will do whatever you people think best and so will Melesias here.

SOCRATES: Let us do what Lysimachus and Melesias suggest, Nicias and Laches. Perhaps it won’t be a bad idea to ask ourselves the sort of question which we proposed to investigate just now: what teachers have we had in this sort of instruction, and what other persons have we made better? However, I [e] think there is another sort of inquiry that will bring us to the same point and is perhaps one that begins somewhat more nearly from the beginning. Suppose we know, about anything whatsoever, that if it is added to another thing, it makes that thing better, and furthermore, we are able to make the addition, then clearly we know the very thing about which we should be consulting as to how one might obtain it most easily and best. Perhaps you don’t understand what I mean, but will do so more easily this way: suppose we know [190a] that sight, when added to the eyes, makes better those eyes to which it is added, and furthermore, we are able to add it to the eyes, then clearly we know what this very thing sight is, about which we should be consulting as to how one might obtain it most easily and best. Because if we didn’t know what sight in itself was, nor hearing, we would hardly be worthy counsellors and doctors about either the eyes or the ears as to the manner in which either sight or hearing [b] might best be obtained.

LACHES: You are right, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, Laches, aren’t these two now asking our advice as to the manner in which virtue

might be added to the souls of their sons to make them better? LACHES: Yes, indeed. SOCRATES: Then isn’t it necessary for us to start out knowing what virtue is? Because if we are not

absolutely certain what it is, how are we going to [c] advise anyone as to the best method of obtaining it? LACHES: I do not think that there is any way in which we can do this, Socrates. SOCRATES: We say then, Laches, that we know what it is. LACHES: Yes, we do say so. SOCRATES: And what we know, we must, I suppose, be able to state? LACHES: Of course. SOCRATES: Let us not, O best of men, begin straightaway with an investigation of the whole of virtue—

that would perhaps be too great a task—but let us first see if we have a sufficient knowledge of a [d] part. Then it is likely that the investigation will be easier for us.

LACHES: Yes, let’s do it the way you want, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, which one of the parts of virtue should we choose? Or isn’t it obvious that we ought to

take the one to which the technique of fighting in armor appears to lead? I suppose everyone would think it leads to courage, wouldn’t they?

LACHES: I think they certainly would. SOCRATES: Then let us undertake first of all, Laches, to state what courage is. Then after this we will go

on to investigate in what way it could be added [e] to the young, to the extent that the addition can be made through occupations and studies. But try to state what I ask, namely, what courage is.

LACHES: Good heavens, Socrates, there is no difficulty about that: if a man is willing to remain at his post and to defend himself against the enemy without running away, then you may rest assured that he is a man of courage.

SOCRATES: Well spoken, Laches. But perhaps I am to blame for not making myself clear; the result is that you did not answer the question I had in mind but a different one.

LACHES: What do you mean, Socrates? [191a] SOCRATES: I will tell you if I can. That man, I suppose, is courageous whom you yourself mention, that

is, the man who fights the enemy while remaining at his post? LACHES: Yes, that is my view. SOCRATES: And I agree. But what about this man, the one who fights with the enemy, not holding his

ground, but in retreat? LACHES: What did you mean, in retreat? SOCRATES: Why, I mean the way the Scythians are said to fight, as much retreating as pursuing; and

then I imagine that Homer is praising the horses of Aeneas when he says they know how “to pursue and [b] fly quickly this way and that”, and he praises Aeneas himself for his knowledge of fear and he calls him “counsellor of fright.”5

LACHES: And Homer is right, Socrates, because he was speaking of chariots, and it was the Scythian horsemen to which you referred. Now cavalry do fight in this fashion, but the hoplites in the manner I describe.

SOCRATES: Except perhaps the Spartan hoplites, Laches. Because they say that at Plataea the Spartans, [c] when they were up against the soldiers carrying wicker shields, were not willing to stand their ground and fight against them but ran away. Then when the ranks of the Persians were broken, they turned and fought, just like cavalrymen, and so won that particular battle.6

LACHES: You are right. SOCRATES: So as I said just now, my poor questioning is to blame for your poor answer, because I wanted

to learn from you not only what constitutes courage for a hoplite but for a horseman as well and [d] for every sort of warrior. And I wanted to include not only those who are courageous in warfare but also those who are brave in dangers at sea, and the ones who show courage in illness and poverty and affairs of state; and then again I wanted to include not only those who are brave in the face of pain and fear but also those who are

clever at fighting desire and pleasure, whether by standing their ground or running [e] away—because there are some men, aren’t there, Laches, who are brave in matters like these?

LACHES: Very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: So all these men are brave, but some possess courage in pleasures, some in pains, some in

desires, and some in fears. And others, I think, show cowardice in the same respects. LACHES: Yes, they do. SOCRATES: Then what are courage and cowardice? This is what I wanted to find out. So try again to state

first what is the courage that is the same in all these cases. Or don’t you yet have a clear understanding of what I mean?

LACHES: Not exactly. SOCRATES: Well, I mean something like this: [192a] suppose I asked what speed was, which we find in

running and in playing the lyre and in speaking and in learning and in many other instances—in fact we may say we display the quality, so far as it is worth mentioning, in movements of the arms or legs or tongue or voice or thought? Or isn’t this the way you too would express it?

LACHES: Yes, indeed. SOCRATES: Then if anyone should ask me, “Socrates, what do you say it is which you call swiftness [b] in

all these cases,” I would answer him that what I call swiftness is the power of accomplishing a great deal in a short time, whether in speech or in running or all the other cases.

LACHES: And you would be right. SOCRATES: Then make an effort yourself, Laches, to speak in the same way about courage. What faculty

is it which, because it is the same in pleasure and in pain and in all the other cases in which we were just saying it occurred, is therefore called courage?

LACHES: Well then, I think it is a sort of endurance [c] of the soul, if it is necessary to say what its nature is in all these cases.

SOCRATES: But it is necessary, at any rate if we are to give an answer to our question. Now this is what appears to me: I think that you don’t regard every kind of endurance as courage. The reason I think so is this: I am fairly sure, Laches, that you regard courage as a very fine thing.

LACHES: One of the finest, you may be sure. SOCRATES: And you would say that endurance accompanied by wisdom is a fine and noble thing? LACHES: Very much so. SOCRATES: Suppose it is accompanied by folly? [d] Isn’t it just the opposite, harmful and injurious? LACHES: Yes. SOCRATES: And you are going to call a thing fine which is of the injurious and harmful sort? LACHES: No, that wouldn’t be right, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then you won’t allow this kind of endurance to be courage, since it is not fine, whereas

courage is fine. LACHES: You are right. SOCRATES: Then, according to your view, it would be wise endurance which would be courage. LACHES: So it seems. [e] SOCRATES: Let us see then in what respect it is wise—is it so with respect to everything both great and

small? For instance, if a man were to show endurance in spending his money wisely, knowing that by spending it he would get more, would you call this man courageous?

LACHES: Heavens no, not I. SOCRATES: Well, suppose a man is a doctor, and his son or some other patient is ill with inflammation of

the lungs and begs him for something to eat or drink, and the man doesn’t give in but perseveres in [193a] refusing?

LACHES: No, this would certainly not be courage either, not at all. SOCRATES: Well, suppose a man endures in battle, and his willingness to fight is based on wise

calculation because he knows that others are coming to his aid and that he will be fighting men who are fewer than those on his side, and inferior to them, and in addition his position is stronger: would you say that this

man, with his kind of wisdom and preparation, endures more courageously or a man in the opposite camp who is willing to remain and hold out?

LACHES: The one in the opposite camp, [b] Socrates, I should say. SOCRATES: But surely the endurance of this man is more foolish than that of the other. LACHES: You are right. SOCRATES: And you would say that the man who shows endurance in a cavalry attack and had knowledge

of horsemanship is less courageous than the man who lacks this knowledge. LACHES: Yes, I would. SOCRATES: And the one who endures with knowledge of slinging or archery or some other art is the less

courageous. LACHES: Yes indeed. [c] SOCRATES: And as many as would be willing to endure in diving down into wells without being skilled,

or to endure in any other similar situation, you say are braver than those who are skilled in these things. LACHES: Why, what else would anyone say, Socrates? SOCRATES: Nothing, if that is what he thought. LACHES: Well, this is what I think at any rate. SOCRATES: And certainly, Laches, such people run risks and endure more foolishly than those who do a

thing with art. LACHES: They clearly do. SOCRATES: Now foolish daring and endurance [d] was found by us to be not only disgraceful but

harmful, in what we said earlier. LACHES: Quite so. SOCRATES: But courage was agreed to be a noble thing. LACHES: Yes, it was. SOCRATES: But now, on the contrary, we are saying that a disgraceful thing, foolish endurance, is

courage. LACHES: Yes, we seem to be. SOCRATES: And do you think we are talking sense? LACHES: Heavens no, Socrates, I certainly don’t. SOCRATES: Then I don’t suppose, Laches, that [e] according to your statement you and I are tuned to the

Dorian mode, because our deeds are not harmonizing with our words. In deeds I think anyone would say that we partook of courage, but in words I don’t suppose he would, if he were to listen to our present discussion.

LACHES: You are absolutely right. SOCRATES: Well then: is it good for us to be in such a state? LACHES: Certainly not, in no way whatsoever. SOCRATES: But are you willing that we should agree with our statement to a certain extent? LACHES: To what extent and with what statement? SOCRATES: With the one that commands us to [194a] endure. If you are willing, let us hold our ground

in the search and let us endure, so that courage itself won’t make fun of us for not searching for it courageously—if endurance should perhaps be courage after all.

LACHES: I am ready not to give up, Socrates, although I am not really accustomed to arguments of this kind. But an absolute desire for victory has seized me with respect to our conversation, and I am really [b] getting annoyed and being unable to express what I think in this fashion. I still think I know what courage is, but I can’t understand how it has escaped me just now so that I can’t pin it down in words and say what it is.

SOCRATES: Well, my friend, a good hunter ought to pursue the trail and not give up. LACHES: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Then, if you agree, let’s also summon Nicias here to the hunt—he might get on much better. LACHES: I am willing—why not? [c] SOCRATES: Come along then, Nicias, and, if you can, rescue your friends who are storm-tossed by the

argument and find themselves in trouble. You see, of course, that our affairs are in a bad way, so state what you think courage is and get us out of our difficulties as well as confirming your own view by putting it into words.

NICIAS: I have been thinking for some time that you are not defining courage in the right way, Socrates. And you are not employing the excellent observation I have heard you make before now.

SOCRATES: What one was that, Nicias? NICIAS: I have often heard you say that every [d] one of us is good with respect to that in which he is wise

and bad in respect to that in which he is ignorant. SOCRATES: By heaven, you are right, Nicias. NICIAS: Therefore, if a man is really courageous, it is clear that he is wise. SOCRATES: You hear that, Laches? LACHES: I do, but I don’t understand exactly what he means. SOCRATES: Well, I think I understand him, and the man seems to me to be saying that courage is some

kind of wisdom. LACHES: Why, what sort of wisdom is he talking about, Socrates? SOCRATES: Why don’t you ask him? [e] LACHES: All right. SOCRATES: Come, Nicias, tell him what sort of wisdom courage would be according to your view. I don’t

suppose it is skill in flute playing. NICIAS: Of course not. SOCRATES: And not in lyre playing either. NICIAS: Far from it. SOCRATES: But what is this knowledge and of what? LACHES: You are questioning him in just the right way. SOCRATES: Let him state what kind of knowledge it is. NICIAS: What I say, Laches, is that it is the knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful in war and [195a]

in every other situation. LACHES: How strangely he talks, Socrates. SOCRATES: What do you have in mind when you say this, Laches? LACHES: What do I have in mind? Why, I take wisdom to be quite a different thing from courage. SOCRATES: Well, Nicias, at any rate, says it isn’t. LACHES: He certainly does — that’s the nonsense he talks. SOCRATES: Well, let’s instruct him instead of making fun of him. NICIAS: Very well, but it strikes me, Socrates, that Laches wants to prove that I am talking nonsense

simply because he was shown to be that sort of person [b] himself a moment ago. LACHES: Quite so, Nicias, and I shall try to demonstrate that very thing, because you are talking

nonsense. Take an immediate example: in cases of illness, aren’t the doctors the ones who know what is to be feared? Or do you think the courageous are the people who know? Perhaps you call the doctors the courageous?

NICIAS: No, of course not. LACHES: And I don’t imagine you mean the farmers either, even though I do suppose they are the ones

who know what is to be feared in farming. And all the other craftsmen know what is to be feared and [c] hoped for in their particular arts. But these people are in no way courageous all the same.

SOCRATES: What does Laches mean, Nicias? Because he does seem to be saying something. NICIAS: Yes, he is saying something, but what he says is not true. SOCRATES: How so? NICIAS: He thinks a doctor’s knowledge of the sick amounts to something more than being able to

describe health and disease, whereas I think their knowledge is restricted to just this. Do you suppose, Laches, that when a man’s recovery is more to be feared than his illness, the doctors know this? Or don’t you think

there are many cases in which it would be better not to get up from an illness? Tell me this: do [d] you maintain that in all cases to live is preferable? In many cases, is it not better to die?

LACHES: Well, I agree with you on this point at least. NICIAS: And do you suppose that the same things are to be feared by those for whom it is an advantage

to die as by those for whom it is an advantage to live? LACHES: No, I don’t. NICIAS: But do you grant this knowledge to the doctors or to any other craftsmen except the one who

knows what is and what is not to be feared, who is the one I call courageous? SOCRATES: Do you understand what he is saying, Laches? LACHES: Yes I do — he is calling the seers the [e] courageous.7 Because who else will know for whom it

is better to live than to die? What about you, Nicias—do you admit to being a seer, or, if you are not a seer, to not being courageous?

NICIAS: Well, what of it? Don’t you, for your part, think it is appropriate for a seer to know what is to be feared and what is to be hoped?

LACHES: Yes, I do, because I don’t see for what other person it would be. NICIAS: Much more for the man I am talking about, my friend, because the seer needs to know only the

signs of what is to be, whether a man will experience death or illness or loss of property, or will experience victory or defeat, in battle or in any other sort of [196a] contest. But why is it more suitable for the seer than for anyone else to judge for whom it is better to suffer or not to suffer these things?

LACHES: It isn’t clear to me from this, Socrates, what he is trying to say. Because he doesn’t select either the seer or the doctor or anyone else as the man he calls courageous, unless some god is the person he means. Nicias appears to me unwilling to make a gentlemanly admission that he is talking nonsense, [b] but he twists this way and that in an attempt to cover up his difficulty. Even you and I could have executed a similar twist just now if we had wanted to avoid the appearance of contradicting ourselves. If we were making speeches in a court of law, there might be some point in doing this, but as things are, why should anyone adorn himself senselessly with empty words in a gathering like this?

SOCRATES: [c] I see no reason why he should, Laches. But let us see if Nicias thinks he is saying something and is not just talking for the sake of talking. Let us find out from him more clearly what it is he means, and if he is really saying something, we will agree with him, but if not, we will instruct him.

LACHES: You go ahead and question him, Socrates, if you want to find out. I think perhaps I have asked enough.

SOCRATES: I have no objection, since the inquiry will be a joint effort on behalf of us both. LACHES: Very well. SOCRATES: Then tell me, Nicias, or rather tell [d] us, because Laches and I are sharing the argument: you

say that courage is knowledge of the grounds of fear and hope? NICIAS: Yes, I do. SOCRATES: Then this knowledge is something possessed by very few indeed if, as you say, neither the

doctor nor the seer will have it and won’t be courageous without acquiring this particular knowledge. Isn’t that what you’re saying?

NICIAS: Just so. SOCRATES: Then, as the proverb says, it is true that this is not something “every sow would know,”8 and

she would not be courageous? NICIAS: I don’t think so. SOCRATES: [e] Then it is obvious, Nicias that you do not regard the Crommyon sow9 as having been

courageous. I say this not as a joke, but because I think that anyone taking this position must necessarily deny courage to any wild beast or else admit that some wild beast, a lion or a leopard or some sort of wild bar, is wise enough to know what is so difficult that very few men understand it. And, similarly, the man who defines courage as you define it would have to assert that a lion and a stag, a bull and a monkey are all naturally courageous. [197a]

LACHES: By heaven, you talk well, Socrates. Give us an honest answer to this, Nicias—whether you say that these wild beasts, whom we all admit to be courageous, are wiser than we in these respects, or whether you dare to oppose the general view and say that they are not courageous.

NICIAS: By no means, Laches, do I call courageous wild beasts or anything else that, for lack of understanding, does not fear what should be feared. Rather, I would call them rash and mad. Or do you really suppose I call all children courageous, who fear nothing because they have no sense? On the contrary, [b] I think that rashness and courage are not the same thing. My view is that very few have a share of courage and foresight, but that a great many, men and women and children and wild animals, partake in boldness and audacity and rashness and lack of foresight. These cases, which you and the man in the street call courageous, I call rash, whereas the courageous ones are the sensible people I was talking about. [c]

LACHES: You see, Socrates, how the man decks himself out in words and does it well in his own opinion. Those whom everyone agrees to be courageous he attempts to deprive of that distinction.

NICIAS: I’m not depriving you of it, Laches, so cheer up. I declare that you are wise, and Lamachus10 too, so long as you are courageous, and I say the same of a great many other Athenians.

LACHES: I shan’t say anything about that— though I could—in case you should call me a typical Aexonian.11

SOCRATES: Never mind him, Laches. I don’t [d] think you realize that he has procured this wisdom from our friend Damon, and Damon spends most of his time with Prodicus,12 who has the reputation of being best among the sophists at making such verbal distinctions.

LACHES: Well, Socrates, it is certainly more fitting for a sophist to make such clever distinctions than for a man the city thinks worthy to be its leader.

SOCRATES: Well, I suppose it would be fitting, [e] my good friend, for the man in charge of the greatest affairs to have the greatest share of wisdom. But I think it worthwhile to ask Nicias what he has in mind when he defines courage in this way.

LACHES: Well then, you ask him, Socrates. SOCRATES: This is just what I intend to do, my good friend. But don’t therefore suppose that I shall let

you out of your share of the argument. Pay attention and join me in examining what is being said. LACHES: Very well, if that seems necessary. SOCRATES: Yes, it does. And you, Nicias, tell us [198a] again from the beginning—you know that when

we were investigating courage at the beginning of the argument, we were investigating it as a part of virtue? NICIAS: Yes, we were. SOCRATES: And didn’t you give your answer supposing that it was a part, and, as such, one among a

number of other parts, all of which taken together were called virtue? NICIAS: Yes, why not? SOCRATES: And do you also speak of the same parts that I do? In addition to courage, I call temperance

and justice and everything else of this kind parts of virtue. Don’t you? NICIAS: [b] Yes, indeed. SOCRATES: Stop there. We are in agreement on these points, but let us investigate the grounds of fear

and confidence to make sure that you don’t regard them in one way and we in another. We will tell you what we think about them, and if you do not agree, you shall instruct us. We regard as fearful things those that produce fear, and as hopeful things those that do not produce fear; and fear is produced not by evils which have happened or are happening but by those which are anticipated. Because fear is the expectation of a future evil—or isn’t this your opinion too, Laches?

LACHES: [c] Very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: You hear what we have to say, Nicias: that fearful things are future evils, and the ones

inspiring hope are either future non-evils or future goods. Do you agree with this or have you some other view on the subject?

NICIAS: I agree with this one. SOCRATES: And you declare that knowledge of just these things is courage? NICIAS: Exactly so. SOCRATES: Let us find out if we all agree on still a third point. NICIAS: What one is that? SOCRATES: I will explain. It seems to me and [d] my friend here that of the various things with which

knowledge is concerned, there is not one kind of knowledge by which we know how things have happened in

the past, and another by which we know how they are happening at the present time, and still another by which we know how what has not yet happened might best come to be in the future, but that the knowledge is the same in each case. For instance, in the case of health, there is no other art related to the past, the present, and the future except that of medicine, which, although it is a single art, surveys what is, what was, and what is likely to be in the future. Again, in the case of the fruits of the earth, the art of farming conforms [e] to the same pattern. And I suppose that both of you could bear witness that, in the case of the affairs of war, the art of generalship is that which best foresees the future and the other times—nor does this art consider it necessary to be ruled by the art of the seer, but to rule it, as being better acquainted with [199a] both present and future in the affairs of war. In fact, the law decrees, not that the seer should command the general, but that the general should command the seer. Is this what we shall say, Laches?

LACHES: Yes, it is. SOCRATES: Well then, do you agree with us, Nicias, that the same knowledge has understanding of the

same things, whether future, present, or past? NICIAS: Yes, that is how it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Now, my good friend, you say that courage is the knowledge of the fearful and the [b]

hopeful, isn’t that so? NICIAS: Yes, it is. SOCRATES: And it was agreed that fearful and hopeful things were future goods and future evils. NICIAS: Yes, it was. SOCRATES: And that the same knowledge is of the same things — future ones and all other kinds. NICIAS: Yes, that is the case. SOCRATES: Then courage is not knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful only, because it understands

not simply future goods and evils, but those of [c] the present and the past and all times, just as is the case with the other kinds of knowledge.

NICIAS: So it seems, at any rate. SOCRATES: Then you have told us about what amounts to a third part of courage, Nicias, whereas we

asked you what the whole of courage was. And now it appears, according to your view, that courage is the knowledge not just of the fearful and the hopeful, but in your own opinion, it would be the knowledge [d] of practically all goods and evils put together. Do you agree to this new change, Nicias, or what do you say?

NICIAS: That seems right to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then does a man with this kind of knowledge seem to depart from virtue in any respect if he

really knows, in the case of all goods whatsoever, what they are and will be and have been, and similarly in the case of evils? And do you regard that man as lacking in temperance or justice and holiness to whom alone belongs the ability to deal circumspectly with both gods and men with respect to both the fearful and its opposite, and to provide himself with good [e] things through his knowledge of how to associate with them correctly?

NICIAS: I think you have a point, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then the thing you are now talking about, Nicias, would not be a part of virtue but rather

virtue entire. NICIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And we have certainly stated that courage is one of the parts of virtue. NICIAS: Yes, we have. SOCRATES: Then what we are saying now does not appear to hold good. NICIAS: Apparently not. SOCRATES: Then we have not discovered, Nicias, what courage is. NICIAS: We don’t appear to. LACHES: But I, my dear Nicias, felt sure you would make the discovery after you were so scornful [200a]

of me while I was answering Socrates. In fact, I had great hopes that with the help of Damon’s wisdom you would solve the whole problem.

NICIAS: That’s a fine attitude of yours, Laches, to think it no longer to be of any importance that you yourself were just now shown to be a person who knows nothing about courage. What interests you is whether

I will turn out to be a person of the same kind. Apparently it will make no difference to you to be ignorant of those things which a man of any pretensions ought to know, so long as you include me in your ignorance. Well, you seem to me to be [b] acting in a thoroughly human fashion by noticing everybody except yourself. As far as I am concerned I think enough has been said on the topic for the present, and if any point has not been covered sufficiently, then later on I think we can correct it both with the help of Damon — whom you think it right to laugh at, though you have never seen the man—and with that of others. And when I feel secure on these points, I will instruct you too and won’t begrudge the effort—because you seem to me to be sadly in need of [c] learning.

LACHES: You are a clever man, Nicias, I know. All the same, I advise Lysimachus here and Melesias to say good-bye to you and me as teachers of the young men and to retain the services of this man Socrates, as I said in the beginning. If my boys were the same age, this is what I would do.

NICIAS: And I agree: if Socrates is really willing to undertake the supervision of the boys, then don’t look for anyone else. In fact I would gladly entrust Niceratus to him, if he is willing. But whenever [d] I bring up the subject in any way, he always recommends other people to me but is unwilling to take on the job himself. But see if Socrates might be more willing to listen to you, Lysimachus.

LYSIMACHUS: Well, he should, Nicias, since I myself would be willing to do a great many things for him which I would not be willing to do for practically anyone else. What do you say, Socrates? Will you comply with our request and take an active part with us in helping the young men to become as good as possible?

SOCRATES: Well, it would be a terrible thing, [e] Lysimachus, to be unwilling to join in assisting any man to become as good as possible. If in the conversations we have just had I had seemed to be knowing and the other two had not, then it would be right to issue a special invitation to me to perform this task; but as the matter stands, we were all in the same difficulty. Why then should anybody choose one of us in preference to another? What I think is that he ought [201a] to choose none of us. But as things are, see whether the suggestion I am about to make may not be a good one: what I say we ought to do, my friends—since this is just between ourselves—is to join in searching for the best possible teacher, first for ourselves — we really need one—and then for the young men, sparing neither money nor anything else. What I don’t advise is that we remain as we are. And if anyone laughs at us because we think it worthwhile to spend our time [b] in school at our age, then I think we should confront him with the saying of Homer, “Modesty is not a good mate for a needy man.”13 And, not paying any attention to what anyone may say, let us join together in looking after both our own interests and those of the boys.

LYSIMACHUS: I like what you say, Socrates, and the fact that I am the oldest makes me the most eager to go to school along with the boys. Just do this for me: come to my house early tomorrow—don’t refuse—so that we may make plans about these matters, but let [c] us make an end of our present conversation.

SOCRATES: I shall do what you say, Lysimachus, and come to you tomorrow, God willing.

*Reprinted from Plato, Laches and Charmides, translated by Rosamond Kent Sprague (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), by permission of the publisher.

1. [The Athenians were defeated by the Boeotians under Pagondas at Delium in November of 424, the eighth year of the Peloponnesian War. —R.K.S.]

2. [Nicias presumably refers to the Peloponnesian War.]

3. [That is, as a hoplite on a trireme.]

4. [Solon is the Athenian poet and lawgiver of the early sixth century.]

5. [Iliad V, 222–23 and VIII, 106–108.]

6. [The battle of Plataea (in Boeotia) was fought at the end of August 479. The Greeks under Pausanias defeated the Persians under Mardonius.]

7. [Plato’s readers could not fail to be reminded here that Nicias’ superstitious reliance on seers was a major factor in the failure of the Athenian expedition to Sicily.]

8. [To the Greek, the pig usually connotes stupidity rather than dirtiness or greed.]

9. [The famous sow of Crommyon (near Corinth) was killed by Theseus.]

10. [Lamachus shared the command of the Sicilian expedition with Nicias and Alcibiades; he died at Syracuse.]

11. [The people of the deme Aexone were regarded as abusive speakers.]

12. [The sophist Prodicus usually appears in Plato as a proponent of nice distinctions in words.]

13. [Odyssey XVII, 347.]

Euthyphro*

EUTHYPHRO:1 [2] What’s new, Socrates, to make you leave your usual haunts in the Lyceum and spend your time here by the king-archon’s court? Surely you are not prosecuting anyone before the king-archon as I am? SOCRATES: The Athenians do not call this a prosecution but an indictment, Euthyphro.

[b] E: What is this you say? Someone must have indicted you, for you are not going to tell me that you have indicted someone else.

S: No indeed. E: But someone else has indicted you? S: Quite so. E: Who is he? S: I do not really know him myself, Euthyphro. He is apparently young and unknown. They call him

Meletus, I believe. He belongs to the Pitthean deme, if you know anyone from that deme called Meletus, with long hair, not much of a beard, and a rather aquiline nose.

E: I don’t know him, Socrates. What charge does he bring against you? S: [c] What charge? A not ignoble one I think, for it is no small thing for a young man to have knowledge

of such an important subject. He says he knows how our young men are corrupted and who corrupts them. He is likely to be wise, and when he sees my ignorance corrupting his contemporaries, he proceeds [d] to accuse me to the city as to their mother. I think he is the only one of our public men to start out the right way, for it is right to care first that the young should be as good as possible, just as a good farmer is likely to take care of the young plants first, and of the others later. So, too, Meletus first gets rid of us who corrupt the young shoots, as he says, [3] and then afterwards he will obviously take care of the older ones and become a source of great blessings for the city, as seems likely to happen to one who started out this way.

E: I could wish this were true, Socrates, but I fear the opposite may happen. He seems to me to start out by harming the very heart of the city by attempting to wrong you. Tell me, what does he say you do to corrupt the young?

S: Strange things, to hear him tell it, for he says [b] that I am a maker of gods, and on the ground that I create new gods while not believing in the old gods, he has indicted me for their sake, as he puts it.

E: I understand, Socrates. This is because you say that the divine sign keeps coming to you.2 So he has written this indictment against you as one who makes innovations in religious matters, and he comes to court to slander you, knowing that such things are easily misrepresented to the crowd. The same is true in my case. Whenever I speak of divine matters in [c] the assembly and foretell the future, they laugh me down as if I were crazy; and yet I have foretold nothing that did not happen. Nevertheless, they envy all of us who do this. One need not worry about them, but meet them head on.

S: My dear Euthyphro, to be laughed at does not matter perhaps, for the Athenians do not mind anyone they think clever, as long as he does not teach his own wisdom, but if they think that he makes others to be like himself they get angry, whether through envy, as you say, or for some other reason. [d]

E: I have certainly no desire to test their feelings towards me in this matter. S: Perhaps you seem to make yourself but rarely available, and not be willing to teach your own wisdom,

but I’m afraid that my liking for people makes them think that I pour out to anybody anything I have to say, not only without charging a fee but even glad to reward anyone who is willing to listen. If then they were intending to laugh at me, as you say they laugh at you, there would be nothing unpleasant in their spending their time in court laughing and jesting, but if they are going to be serious, the outcome [e] is not clear except to you prophets.

E: Perhaps it will come to nothing, Socrates, and you will fight your case as you think best, as I think I

will mine. S: What is your case, Euthyphro? Are you the defendant or the prosecutor? E: The prosecutor. S: Whom do you prosecute? E: [4] One whom I am thought crazy to prosecute. S: Are you pursuing someone who will easily escape you? E: Far from it, for he is quite old. S: Who is it? E: My father. S: My dear sir! Your own father? E: Certainly. S: What is the charge? What is the case about? E: Murder, Socrates. S: Good heavens! Certainly, Euthyphro, most [b] men would not know how they could do this and be

right. It is not the part of anyone to do this, but of one who is far advanced in wisdom. E: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, that is so. S: Is then the man your father killed one of your relatives? Or is that obvious, for you would not

prosecute your father for the murder of a stranger. E: It is ridiculous, Socrates, for you to think that it makes any difference whether the victim is a stranger

or a relative. One should only watch whether the killer acted justly or not; if he acted justly, let him go, but if not, one should prosecute, if, that is [c] to say, the killer shares your hearth and table. The pollution is the same if you knowingly keep company with such a man and do not cleanse yourself and him by bringing him to justice. The victim was a dependent of mine, and when we were farming in Naxos he was a servant of ours. He killed one of our household slaves in drunken anger, so my father bound him hand and foot and threw him in a ditch, then sent a man here to inquire from the priest what [d] should be done. During that time he gave no thought or care to the bound man, as being a killer, and it was no matter if he died, which he did. Hunger and cold and his bonds caused his death before the messenger came back from the seer. Both my father and my other relatives are angry that I am prosecuting my father for murder on behalf of a murderer when he hadn’t even killed him, they say, and even if he had, the dead man does not deserve a thought, since he was a killer. For, [e] they say, it is impious for a son to prosecute his father for murder. But their ideas of the divine attitude to piety and impiety are wrong, Socrates.

S: Whereas, by Zeus, Euthyphro, you think that your knowledge of the divine, and of piety and impiety, is so accurate that, when those things happened as you say, you have no fear of having acted impiously in bringing your father to trial?

E: I should be of no use, Socrates, and Euthyphro would not be superior to the majority of men, if I [5] did not have accurate knowledge of all such things.

S: It is indeed most important, my admirable Euthyphro, that I should become your pupil, and as regards this indictment challenge Meletus about these very things and say to him: that in the past too I considered knowledge about the divine to be most important, and that now that he says that I am guilty of improvising and innovating about the gods I have [b] become your pupil. I would say to him: “If, Meletus, you agree that Euthyphro is wise in these matters, consider me, too, to have the right beliefs and do not bring me to trial. If you do not think so, then prosecute that teacher of mine, not me, for corrupting the older men, me and his own father, by teaching me and by exhorting and punishing him.” If he is not convinced, and does not discharge me or indict you instead of me, I shall repeat the same challenge in court.

E: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, and, if he should try to indict me, I think I would find his weak spots and the [c] talk in court would be about him rather than about me.

S: It is because I realize this that I am eager to become your pupil, my dear friend. I know that other people as well as this Meletus do not even seem to notice you, whereas he sees me so sharply and clearly that he indicts me for ungodliness. So tell me now, by Zeus, what you just now maintained you clearly knew: what kind of thing do you say that godliness and ungodliness are, both as regards murder and other [d] things; or is the pious not the same and alike in every action, and the impious the opposite of all that is pious and like itself, and everything that is to be impious presents us with one form3 or appearance insofar as it is impious?

E: Most certainly, Socrates. S: Tell me then, what is the pious, and what the impious, do you say? E: I say that the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or

temple robbery or anything else, whether the [e] wrongdoer is your father or your mother or anyone else; not to prosecute is impious. And observe, Socrates, that I can cite powerful evidence that the law is so. I have already said to others that such actions are right, not to favor the ungodly, whoever they are. These people themselves believe that Zeus is the best [6] and most just of the gods, yet they agree that he bound his father because he unjustly swallowed his sons, and that he in turn castrated his father for similar reasons. But they are angry with me because I am prosecuting my father for his wrongdoing. They contradict themselves in what they say about the gods and about me.

S: Indeed, Euthyphro, this is the reason why I am a defendant in the case, because I find it hard to accept things like that being said about the gods, and it is likely to be the reason why I shall be told I do wrong. Now, however, if you, who have full knowledge [b] of such things, share their opinions, then we must agree with them, too, it would seem. For what are we to say, we who agree that we ourselves have no knowledge of them? Tell me, by the god of friendship, do you really believe these things are true?

E: Yes, Socrates, and so are even more surprising things, of which the majority has no knowledge. S: And do you believe that there really is war among the gods, and terrible enmities and battles, and other

such things as are told by the poets, and [c] other sacred stories such as are embroidered by good writers and by representations of which the robe of the goddess is adorned when it is carried up to the Acropolis? Are we to say these things are true, Euthyphro?

E: Not only these, Socrates, but, as I was saying just now, I will, if you wish, relate many other things about the gods which I know will amaze you.

S: I should not be surprised, but you will tell me these at leisure some other time. For now, try to tell me more clearly what I was asking just now, for, my friend, you did not teach me adequately when I asked [d] you what the pious was, but you told me that what you are doing now, in prosecuting your father for murder, is pious.

E: And I told the truth, Socrates. S: Perhaps. You agree, however, that there are many other pious actions. E: There are. S: Bear in mind then that I did not bid you tell me one or two of the many pious actions but that form

itself that makes all pious actions pious, for you agreed that all impious actions are impious and all pious actions pious through one form, or don’t you remember? [e]

E: I do. S: Tell me then what this form itself is, so that I may look upon it, and using it as a model, say that any

action of yours or another’s that is of that kind is pious, and if it is not that it is not. E: If that is how you want it, Socrates, that is how I will tell you. S: That is what I want. E: Well then, what is dear to the gods is pious, [7] what is not is impious. S: Splendid, Euthyphro! You have now answered in the way I wanted. Whether your answer is true I do

not know yet, but you will obviously show me that what you say is true. E: Certainly. S: Come then, let us examine what we mean. An action or a man dear to the gods is pious, but an action

or a man hated by the gods is impious. They are not the same, but quite opposite, the pious and the impious. Is that not so?

E: It is indeed. S: And that seems to be a good statement? E: [b] I think so, Socrates. S: We have also stated that the gods are in a state of discord, that they are at odds with each other,

Euthyphro, and that they are at enmity with each other. Has that, too, been said? E: It has. S: What are the subjects of difference that cause hatred and anger? Let us look at it this way. If you and I

were to differ about numbers as to which is the greater, would this difference make us enemies and angry with each other, or would we proceed to count [c] and soon resolve our difference about this?

E: We would certainly do so. S: Again, if we differed about the larger and the smaller, we would turn to measurement and soon cease

to differ. E: That is so. S: And about the heavier and the lighter, we would resort to weighing and be reconciled. E: Of course. S: What subject of difference would make us angry and hostile to each other if we were unable to come to

a decision? Perhaps you do not have an [d] answer ready, but examine as I tell you whether these subjects are the just and the unjust, the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad. Are these not the subjects of difference about which, when we are unable to come to a satisfactory decision, you and I and other men become hostile to each other whenever we do?

E: That is the difference, Socrates, about those subjects. S: What about the gods, Euthyphro? If indeed they have differences, will it not be about these same

subjects? E: It certainly must be so. S: [e] Then according to your argument, my good Euthyphro, different gods consider different things to

be just, beautiful, ugly, good, and bad, for they would not be at odds with one another unless they differed about these subjects, would they?

E: You are right. S: And they like what each of them considers beautiful, good, and just, and hate the opposites of these? E: Certainly. S: But you say that the same things are considered just by some gods and unjust by others, and as they [8]

dispute about these things they are at odds and at war with each other. Is that not so? E: It is. S: The same things then are loved by the gods and hated by the gods, and would be both god-loved and

god-hated. E: It seems likely. S: And the same things would be both pious and impious, according to this argument? E: I’m afraid so. S: So you did not answer my question, you surprising man. I did not ask you what same thing is both

pious and impious, and it appears that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them. So it is in no way [b] surprising if your present action, namely punishing your father, may be pleasing to Zeus but displeasing to Cronus and Uranus, pleasing to Hephaestus but displeasing to Hera, and so with any other gods who differ from each other on this subject.

E: I think, Socrates, that on this subject no gods would differ from one another, that whoever has killed anyone unjustly should pay the penalty.

S: Well now, Euthyphro, have you ever heard [c] any man maintaining that one who has killed or done anything else unjustly should not pay the penalty?

E: They never cease to dispute on this subject, both elsewhere and in the courts, for when they have committed many wrongs they do and say anything to avoid the penalty.

S: Do they agree they have done wrong, Euthyphro, and in spite of so agreeing do they nevertheless say they should not be punished?

E: No, they do not agree on that point. S: So they do not say or do just anything. For they do not venture to say this, or dispute that they must

not pay the penalty if they have done wrong, [d] but I think they deny doing wrong. Is that not so? E: That is true. S: Then they do not dispute that the wrongdoer must be punished, but they may disagree as to who the

wrongdoer is, what he did and when.

E: You are right. S: Do not the gods have the same experience, if indeed they are at odds with each other about the just

and the unjust, as your argument maintains? Some assert that they wrong one another, while others deny it, but no one among gods or men ventures to [e] say that the wrongdoer must not be punished.

E: Yes, that is true, Socrates, as to the main point. S: And those who disagree, whether men or gods, dispute about each action, if indeed the gods disagree.

Some say it is done justly, others unjustly. Is that not so? E: Yes, indeed. S: [9] Come now, my dear Euthyphro, tell me, too, that I may become wiser, what proof you have that all

the gods consider that man to have been killed unjustly who became a murderer while in your service, was bound by the master of his victim, and died in his bonds before the one who bound him found out from the seers what was to be done with him, and that it is right for a son to denounce and to prosecute his father on behalf of such a man. Come, [b] try to show me a clear sign that all the gods definitely believe this action to be right. If you can give me adequate proof of this, I shall never cease to extol your wisdom.

E: This is perhaps no light task, Socrates, though I could show you very clearly. S: I understand that you think me more dull-witted than the jury, as you will obviously show them that

these actions were unjust and that all the gods hate such actions. E: I will show it to them clearly, Socrates, if only they will listen to me. S: [c] They will listen if they think you show them well. But this thought came to me as you were

speaking, and I am examining it, saying to myself: “If Euthyphro shows me conclusively that all the gods consider such a death unjust, to what greater extent have I learned from him the nature of piety and impiety? This action would then, it seems, be hated by the gods, but the pious and the impious were not thereby now defined, for what is hated by the gods has also been shown to be loved by them.” So I will not insist on this point; let us assume, if you wish, that all the gods consider this unjust and that they [d] all hate it. However, is this the correction we are making in our discussion, that what all the gods hate is impious, and what they all love is pious, and that what some gods love and others hate is neither or both? Is that how you now wish us to define piety and impiety?

E: What prevents us from doing so, Socrates? S: For my part nothing, Euthyphro, but you look whether on your part this proposal will enable you to

teach me most easily what you promised. E: I would certainly say that the pious is what all [e] the gods love, and the opposite, what all the gods

hate, is the impious. S: Then let us again examine whether that is a sound statement, or do we let it pass, and if one of us, or

someone else, merely says that something is so, do we accept that it is so? Or should we examine what the speaker means?

E: We must examine it, but I certainly think that this is now a fine statement. S: We shall soon know better whether it is. Consider [10] this: Is the pious being loved by the gods

because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods? E: I don’t know what you mean, Socrates.

S: I shall try to explain more clearly: we speak of something carried4 and something carrying, of something led and something leading, of something seen and something seeing, and you understand that these things are all different from one another and how they differ?

E: I think I do. S: So there is also something loved and — a different thing — something loving. E: Of course. S: Tell me then whether the thing carried is a [b] carried thing because it is being carried, or for some

other reason? E: No, that is the reason. S: And the thing led is so because it is being led, and the thing seen because it is being seen? E: Certainly. S: It is not being seen because it is a thing seen but on the contrary it is a thing seen because it is being

seen; nor is it because it is something led that it is being led but because it is being led that it is something led; nor is something being carried because it is something carried, but it is something [c] carried because it is being carried. Is what I want to say clear, Euthyphro? I want to say this, namely, that if anything is being changed or is being affected in any way, it is not being changed because it is something changed, but rather it is something changed because it is being changed; nor is it being affected because it is something affected, but it is something affected because it is being affected. Or do you not agree?

E: I do. S: Is something loved either something changed or something affected by something? E: Certainly. S: So it is in the same case as the things just mentioned; it is not being loved by those who love it because

it is something loved, but it is something loved because it is being loved by them? E: Necessarily. S: [d] What then do we say about the pious, Euthyphro? Surely that it is being loved by all the gods,

according to what you say? E: Yes. S: Is it being loved because it is pious, or for some other reason? E: For no other reason.

S: It is being loved then because it is pious, but it is not pious because it is being loved?5 E: Apparently. S: And yet it is something loved and god-loved because it is being loved by the gods? E: Of course. S: Then the god-loved is not the same as the pious, Euthyphro, nor the pious the same as the god-loved,

as you say it is, but one differs from the other. E: How so, Socrates? [e] S: Because we agree that the pious is being loved for this reason, that it is pious, but it is not pious

because it is being loved. Is that not so? E: Yes. S: And that the god-loved, on the other hand, is so because it is being loved by the gods, by the very fact

of being loved, but it is not being loved because it is god-loved. E: True. S: But if the god-loved and the pious were the same, my dear Euthyphro, then if the pious was being

loved because it was pious, the god-loved would also be being loved because it was god-loved; and if the [11] god-loved was god-loved because it was being loved by the gods, then the pious would also be pious because it was being loved by the gods. But now you see that they are in opposite cases as being altogether different from each other: the one is such as to be loved because it is being loved, the other is being loved because it is such as to be loved. I’m afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is, you did not wish to make its nature clear to me, but you told me an affect or quality of it, that the pious has the quality of being loved by all the gods, but you have not yet [b] told me what the pious is. Now, if you will, do not hide things from me but tell me again from the beginning what piety is, whether being loved by the gods or having some other quality — we shall not quarrel about that — but be keen to tell me what the pious and the impious are.

E: But Socrates, I have no way of telling you what I have in mind, for whatever proposition we put forward goes around and refuses to stay put where we establish it.

S: Your statements, Euthyphro, seem to belong [c] to my ancestor, Daedalus. If I were stating them and putting them forward, you would perhaps be making fun of me and say that because of my kinship with him my conclusions in discussion run away and will not stay where one puts them. As these propositions are yours, however, we need some other jest, for they will not stay put for you, as you say yourself.

E: I think the same jest will do for our discussion, Socrates, for I am not the one who makes them go round and not remain in the same place; it is you [d] who are the Daedalus; for as far as I am concerned they would remain as they were.

S: It looks as if I was cleverer than Daedalus in using my skill, my friend, insofar as he could only cause to move the things he made himself, but I can make other people’s move as well as my own. And the smartest

part of my skill is that I am clever without wanting to be, for I would rather have your statements [e] to me remain unmoved than possess the wealth of Tantalus as well as the cleverness of Daedalus. But enough of this. Since I think you are making unnecessary difficulties, I am as eager as you are to find a way to teach me about piety, and do not give up before you do. See whether you think all that is pious is of necessity just.

E: I think so. S: And is then all that is just pious? Or is all that [12] is pious just, but not all that is just pious, but some

of it is and some is not? E: I do not follow what you are saying, Socrates. S: Yet you are younger than I by as much as you are wiser. As I say, you are making difficulties because of

your wealth of wisdom. Pull yourself together, my dear sir, what I am saying is not difficult to grasp. I am saying the opposite of what the poet said who wrote:

You do not wish to name Zeus, who had done it, and who made all things grow, for where there is fear [b] there is also shame.

I disagree with the poet. Shall I tell you why? E: Please do. S: I do not think that “where there is fear there is also shame,” for I think that many people who fear

disease and poverty and many other such things feel fear, but are not ashamed of the things they fear. Do you not think so?

E: I do indeed. S: But where there is shame there is also fear. For is there anyone who, in feeling shame and

embarrassment [c] at anything, does not also at the same time fear and dread a reputation for wickedness? E: He is certainly afraid. S: It is then not right to say “where there is fear there is also shame,” but that where there is shame there

is also fear, for fear covers a larger area than shame. Shame is a part of fear just as odd is a part of number, with the result that it is not true that where there is number there is also oddness, but that where there is oddness there is also number. Do you follow me now?

E: Surely. S: This is the kind of thing I was asking before, whether where there is piety there is also justice, but

where there is justice there is not always piety, for [d] the pious is a part of justice. Shall we say that, or do you think otherwise?

E: No, but like that, for what you say appears to be right. S: See what comes next: if the pious is a part of the just, we must, it seems, find out what part of the just

it is. Now if you asked me something of what we mentioned just now, such as what part of number is the even, and what number that is, I would say it is the number that is divisible into two equal, not unequal, parts. Or do you not think so?

E: I do. S: Try in this way to tell me what part of the just [e] the pious is, in order to tell Meletus not to wrong us

anymore and not to indict me for ungodliness, since I have learned from you sufficiently what is godly and pious and what is not.

E: I think, Socrates, that the godly and pious is the part of the just that is concerned with the care of the gods, while that concerned with the care of men is the remaining part of justice.

S: You seem to me to put that very well, but I still need a bit of information. I do not know yet what [13] you mean by care, for you do not mean the care of the gods in the same sense as the care of other things, as, for example, we say, don’t we, that not everyone knows how to care for horses, but the horse breeder does.

E: Yes, I do mean it that way. S: So horse breeding is the care of horses. E: Yes. S: Nor does everyone know how to care for dogs, but the hunter does. E: That is so. S: So hunting is the care of dogs.

E: [b] Yes. S: And cattle raising is the care of cattle. E: Quite so. S: While piety and godliness is the care of the gods, Euthyphro. Is that what you mean? E: It is. S: Now care in each case has the same effect; it aims at the good and the benefit of the object cared for, as

you can see that horses cared for by horse breeders are benefited and become better. Or do you not think so? E: I do. S: So dogs are benefited by dog breeding, cattle [c] by cattle raising, and so with all the others. Or do you

think that care aims to harm the object of its care? E: By Zeus, no. S: It aims to benefit the object of its care? E: Of course. S: Is piety then, which is the care of the gods, also to benefit the gods and make them better? Would you

agree that when you do something pious you make some one of the gods better? E: By Zeus, no. S: Nor do I think that this is what you mean — far from it—but that is why I asked you what you [d]

meant by the care of gods, because I did not believe you meant this kind of care. E: Quite right, Socrates, that is not the kind of care I mean. S: Very well, but what kind of care of the gods would piety be? E: The kind of care, Socrates, that slaves take of their masters. S: I understand. It is likely to be a kind of service of the gods. E: Quite so. S: Could you tell me to the achievement of what goal service to doctors tends? Is it not, do you think, to

achieving health? E: I think so. S: [e] What about service to shipbuilders? To what achievement is it directed? E: Clearly, Socrates, to the building of a ship. S: And service to housebuilders to the building of a house? E: Yes. S: Tell me then, my good sir, to the achievement of what aim does service to the gods tend? You

obviously know since you say that you, of all men, have the best knowledge of the divine. E: And I am telling the truth, Socrates. S: Tell me then, by Zeus, what is that excellent aim that the gods achieve, using us as their servants? E: Many fine things, Socrates. S: So do generals, my friend. Nevertheless you [14] could easily tell me their main concern, which is to

achieve victory in war, is it not? E: Of course. S: The farmers too, I think, achieve many fine things, but the main point of their efforts is to produce

food from the earth. E: Quite so. S: Well then, how would you sum up the many fine things that the gods achieve? E: I told you a short while ago, Socrates, that it is a considerable task to acquire any precise knowledge

[b] of these things, but, to put it simply, I say that if a man knows how to say and do what is pleasing to the gods at prayer and sacrifice, those are pious actions such as preserve both private houses and public affairs of state. The opposite of these pleasing actions are impious and overturn and destroy everything.

S: You could tell me in far fewer words, if you were willing, the sum of what I asked, Euthyphro, [c] but you are not keen to teach me, that is clear. You were on the point of doing so, but you turned away. If you had

given that answer, I should now have acquired from you sufficient knowledge of the nature of piety. As it is, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him. Once more then, what do you say that piety and the pious are? Are they a knowledge of how to sacrifice and pray?

E: They are. S: To sacrifice is to make a gift to the gods, whereas to pray is to beg from the gods? E: Definitely, Socrates. S: It would follow from this statement that piety [d] would be a knowledge of how to give to, and beg

from, the gods. E: You understood what I said very well, Socrates. S: That is because I am so desirous of your wisdom, and I concentrate my mind on it, so that no word of

yours may fall to the ground. But tell me, what is this service to the gods? You say it is to beg from them and to give to them?

E: I do. S: And to beg correctly would be to ask from them things that we need? E: What else? S: [e] And to give correctly is to give them what they need from us, for it would not be skillful to bring

gifts to anyone that are in no way needed. E: True, Socrates. S: Piety would then be a sort of trading skill between gods and men? E: Trading yes, if you prefer to call it that. S: I prefer nothing, unless it is true. But tell me, what benefit do the gods derive from the gifts they [15]

receive from us? What they give us is obvious to all. There is for us no good that we do not receive from them, but how are they benefited by what they receive from us? Or do we have such an advantage over them in the trade that we receive all our blessings from them and they receive nothing from us?

E: Do you suppose, Socrates, that the gods are benefited by what they receive from us? S: What could those gifts from us to the gods be, Euthyphro? E: What else, do you think, than honor, reverence, and what I mentioned just now, gratitude. S: [b] The pious is then, Euthyphro, pleasing to the gods, but not beneficial or dear to them? E: I think it is of all things most dear to them. S: So the pious is once again what is dear to the gods. E: Most certainly. S: When you say this, will you be surprised if your arguments seem to move about instead of staying put?

And will you accuse me of being Daedalus who makes them move, though you are yourself much more skillful than Daedalus and make them go round in a circle? Or do you not realize that our argument has moved around and come again to the same place? [c] You surely remember that earlier the pious and the god-loved were shown not to be the same but different from each other. Or do you not remember?

E: I do. S: Do you then not realize now that you are saying that what is dear to the gods is the pious? Is this not

the same as the god-loved? Or is it not? E: It certainly is. S: Either we were wrong when we agreed before, or, if we were right then, we are wrong now. E: That seems to be so. S: So we must investigate again from the beginning what piety is, as I shall not willingly give up before I

learn this. Do not think me unworthy, but concentrate your attention and tell the truth. For you [d] know it, if any man does, and I must not let you go, like Proteus, before you tell me. If you had no clear knowledge of piety and impiety you would never have ventured to prosecute your old father for murder on behalf of a servant. For fear of the gods you would have been afraid to take the risk lest you should not be acting rightly, and would have been ashamed before men, but now I know well that you believe you have [e] clear knowledge of piety and impiety. So tell me, my good Euthyphro, and do not hide what you think it is.

E: Some other time, Socrates, for I am in a hurry now, and it is time for me to go.

S: What a thing to do, my friend! By going you have cast me down from a great hope I had, that I would learn from you the nature of the pious and the impious [16] and so escape Meletus’ indictment by showing him that I had acquired wisdom in divine matters from Euthyphro, and my ignorance would no longer cause me to be careless and inventive about such things, and that I would be better for the rest of my life.

*Reprinted from The Trial and Death of Socrates, translated by G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1975), by permission of the publisher.

1. [We know nothing about Euthyphro except what we can gather from this dialogue. He is obviously a professional priest who considers himself an expert on ritual and on piety generally, and, it seems, is generally so considered. One Euthyphro is mentioned in Plato’s Cratylus (396d) who is given to enthousiasmos, inspiration or possession, but we cannot be sure that it is the same person. — G.M.A.G.]

2. [In Plato, Socrates always speaks of his divine sign or voice as intervening to prevent him from doing or saying something (e.g., Apology 31d), but never positively. The popular view was that it enabled him to foretell the future, and Euthyphro here represents that view. Note, however, that Socrates dissociates himself from “you prophets” (3e).]

3. [This is the kind of passage that makes it easier for us to follow the transition from Socrates’ universal definitions to the Platonic theory of separately existent eternal universal Forms. The words eidos and idea, the technical terms for the Platonic Forms, commonly mean physical stature or bodily appearance. As we apply a common epithet, in this case pious, to different actions or things, these must have a common characteristic, present a common appearance or form, to justify the use of the same term; but in the early dialogues, as here, it seems to be thought of as immanent in the particulars and without separate existence. The same is true of 6d where the word “Form” is also used.]

4. [This is the present participle form of the verb pheromenon, literally being-carried. The following passage is somewhat obscure, especially in translation, but the general meaning is clear. Plato points out that this participle simply indicates the object of an action of carrying, seeing, loving, etc. It follows from the action and adds nothing new, the action being prior to it, not following from it, and a thing is said to be loved because someone loves it, not vice versa. To say therefore that the pious is being loved by the gods says no more than that the gods love it. Euthyphro, however, also agrees that the pious is loved by the gods because of its nature (because it is pious), but the fact of its being loved by the gods does not define that nature, and as a definition is therefore unsatisfactory. It only indicates a quality or affect of the pious, and the pious is therefore still to be defined (11a7).]

5. [I quote an earlier comment of mine on this passage: “It gives in a nutshell a point of view from which Plato never departed. Whatever the gods may be, they must by their very nature love the right because it is right.” They have no choice in the matter. “This separation of the dynamic power of the gods from the ultimate reality, this setting up of absolute values above the gods themselves was not as unnatural to a Greek as it would be to us… . The gods who ruled on Olympus … were not creators but created beings. As in Homer, Zeus must obey the balance of Necessity, so the Platonic gods must conform to an eternal scale of values. They did not create them, cannot alter them, cannot indeed wish to do so.” (Plato’s Thought, Boston: Beacon Press, 1958, pp. 152–3.)]

Apology1*

[17] I do not know, men of Athens, how my accusers affected you; as for me, I was almost carried away in spite of myself, so persuasively did they speak. And yet, hardly anything of what they said is true. Of the many lies they told, one in particular surprised me, namely that you should be careful not to be deceived [b] by an accomplished speaker like me. That they were not ashamed to be immediately proved wrong by the facts, when I show myself not to be an accomplished speaker at all, that I thought was most shameless on their part — unless indeed they call an accomplished speaker the man who speaks the truth. If they mean that, I would agree that I am an orator, but not after their manner, for indeed, as I say, practically nothing [c] they said was true. From me you will hear the whole truth, though not, by Zeus, gentlemen, expressed in embroidered and stylized phrases like theirs, but things spoken at random and expressed in the first words that come to mind, for I put my trust in the justice of what I say, and let none of you expect anything else. It would not be fitting at my age, as it might be for a young man, to toy with words when I appear before you.

One thing I do ask and beg of you, gentlemen: if you hear me making my defense in the same kind of language as I am accustomed to use in the marketplace by the bankers’ tables,2 where many of you have heard me, and elsewhere, do not be surprised or [d] create a disturbance on that account. The position is this: this is my first appearance in a lawcourt, at the age of seventy; I am therefore simply a stranger to the manner of speaking here. Just as if I were really a stranger, you would certainly excuse me if I spoke in that dialect and manner in which I had been [18] brought up, so too my present request seems a just one, for you to pay no attention to my manner of speech—be it better or worse—but to concentrate your attention on whether what I say is just or not, for the excellence of a judge lies in this, as that of a speaker lies in telling the truth.

It is right for me, gentlemen, to defend myself first against the first lying accusations made against me and my first accusers, and then against the later accusations and the later accusers. There have been many who [b] have accused me to you for many years now, and none of their accusations are true. These I fear much more than I fear Anytus and his friends, though they too are formidable. These earlier ones, however, are more so, gentlemen; they got hold of most of you from childhood, persuaded you and accused me quite falsely, saying that there is a man called Socrates, a wise man, a student of all things in the sky and below the earth, who [c] makes the worse argument the stronger. Those who spread that rumor, gentlemen, are my dangerous accusers, for their hearers believe that those who study these things do not even believe in the gods. Moreover, these accusers are numerous, and have been at it a long time; also, they spoke to you at an age when you would most readily believe them, some of you being children and adolescents, and they won their case by default, as there was no defense.

What is most absurd in all this is that one cannot even know or mention their names unless one of them is a writer of comedies.3 Those who maliciously [d] and slanderously persuaded you—who also, when persuaded themselves then persuaded others—all those are most difficult to deal with: one cannot bring one of them into court or refute him; one must simply fight with shadows, as it were, in making one’s defense, and cross- examine when no one answers. I want you to realize too that my accusers are of two kinds: those who have accused me recently, and the old ones I mention; and to think that I must first defend myself against the latter, for you have also [e] heard their accusations first, and to a much greater extent than the more recent.

Very well then. I must surely defend myself and [19] attempt to uproot from your minds in so short a time the slander that has resided there so long. I wish this may happen, if it is in any way better for you and me, and that my defense may be successful, but I think this is very difficult and I am fully aware of how difficult it is. Even so, let the matter proceed as the god may wish, but I must obey the law and make my defense.

Let us then take up the case from its beginning. [b] What is the accusation from which arose the slander in which Meletus trusted when he wrote out the charge against me? What did they say when they slandered me? I must, as if they were my actual prosecutors, read the affidavit they would have sworn. It goes something like this: Socrates is guilty of wrongdoing in that he busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth; he makes the worse into the stronger argument, and he teaches these same things [c] to others. You have seen

this yourself in the comedy of Aristophanes, a Socrates swinging about there, saying he was walking on air and talking a lot of other nonsense about things of which I know nothing at all. I do not speak in contempt of such knowledge, if someone is wise in these things — lest Meletus bring more cases against me — but, gentlemen, I have no part in it, and on this point I call upon the majority of you as witnesses. I think it right that all those of [d] you who have heard me conversing, and many of you have, should tell each other if anyone of you has ever heard me discussing such subjects to any extent at all. From this you will learn that the other things said about me by the majority are of the same kind.

Not one of them is true. And if you have heard from anyone that I undertake to teach people and [e] charge a fee for it, that is not true either. Yet I think it a fine thing to be able to teach people as Gorgias of Leontini does, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis.4 Each of these men can go to any city and persuade the young, who can keep company with anyone of their own fellow citizens they want without paying, to leave the company of these, to join with [20] themselves, pay them a fee, and be grateful to them besides. Indeed, I learned that there is another wise man from Paros who is visiting us, for I met a man who has spent more money on Sophists than everybody else put together, Callias, the son of Hipponicus. So I asked him — he has two sons —“Callias,” I said, “if your sons were colts or calves, we could find and engage a supervisor for them who would make them excel in their proper qualities, some horse breeder [b] or farmer. Now since they are men, whom do you have in mind to supervise them? Who is an expert in this kind of excellence, the human and social kind? I think you must have given thought to this since you have sons. Is there such a person,” I asked, “or is there not?” “Certainly there is,” he said. “Who is he?” I asked, “What is his name, where is he from, and what is his fee?” “His name, Socrates, is Evenus, he comes from Paros, and his fee is five minas.” I thought [c] Evenus a happy man, if he really possesses this art, and teaches for so moderate a fee. Certainly I would pride and preen myself if I had this knowledge, but I do not have it, gentlemen.

One of you might perhaps interrupt me and say: “But Socrates, what is your occupation? From where have these slanders come? For surely if you did not busy yourself with something out of the common, all these rumors and talk would not have arisen unless you did something other than most people. Tell us what it is, that we may not speak inadvisedly about [d] you.” Anyone who says that seems to be right, and I will try to show you what has caused this reputation and slander. Listen then. Perhaps some of you will think I am jesting, but be sure that all that I shall say is true. What has caused my reputation is none other than a certain kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom? Human wisdom, perhaps. It may be that I really possess this, while those whom I mentioned just now are [e] wise with a wisdom more than human; else I cannot explain it, for I certainly do not possess it, and whoever says I do is lying and speaks to slander me. Do not create a disturbance, gentlemen, even if you think I am boasting, for the story I shall tell does not originate with me, but I will refer you to a trustworthy source. I shall call upon the god at Delphi as witness to the [21] existence and nature of my wisdom, if it be such. You know Chaerephon. He was my friend from youth, and the friend of most of you, as he shared your exile and your return. You surely know the kind of man he was, how impulsive in any course of action. He went to Delphi at one time and ventured to ask the oracle—as I say, gentlemen, do not create a disturbance — he asked if any man was wiser than I, and the Pythian replied that no one was wiser. Chaerephon is dead, but his brother will testify to you about this.

[b] Consider that I tell you this because I would inform you about the origin of the slander. When I heard of this reply I asked myself: “Whatever does the god mean? What is his riddle? I am very conscious that I am not wise at all; what then does he mean by saying that I am the wisest? For surely he does not lie; it is not legitimate for him to do so.” For a long time I was at a loss as to his meaning; then I very reluctantly turned to some such investigation as this; [c] I went to one of those reputed wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I could refute the oracle and say to it: “This man is wiser than I, but you said I was.” Then, when I examined this man—there is no need for me to tell you his name, he was one of our public men—my experience was something like this: I thought that he appeared wise to many people and especially to himself, but he was not. I then tried to [d] show him that he thought himself wise, but that he was not. As a result he came to dislike me, and so did many of the bystanders. So I withdrew and thought to myself: “I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.” After this I approached another man, one of those [e] thought to be wiser than he, and I thought the same thing, and so I came to be disliked both by him and by many others.

After that I proceeded systematically. I realized, to my sorrow and alarm, that I was getting unpopular, but I thought that I must attach the greatest importance to the god’s oracle, so I must go to all those who had any reputation for knowledge to examine its meaning. And by the dog,5 gentlemen of the jury— [22] for I must

tell you the truth — I experienced something like this: in my investigation in the service of the god I found that those who had the highest reputation were nearly the most deficient, while those who were thought to be inferior were more knowledgeable. I must give you an account of my journeyings as if they were labors I had undertaken to prove the oracle irrefutable. After the politicians, I went to the poets, the writers of tragedies and dithyrambs and the others, [b] intending in their case to catch myself being more ignorant than they. So I took up those poems with which they seemed to have taken most trouble and asked them what they meant, in order that I might at the same time learn something from them. I am ashamed to tell you the truth, gentlemen, but I must. Almost all the bystanders might have explained the poems better than their authors could. I soon realized [c] that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say. The poets seemed to me to have had a similar experience. At the same time I saw that, because of their poetry, they thought themselves very wise men in other respects, which they were not. So there again I withdrew, thinking that I had the same advantage over them as I had over the politicians.

Finally I went to the craftsmen, for I was conscious of knowing practically nothing, and I knew that I [d] would find that they had knowledge of many fine things. In this I was not mistaken; they knew things I did not know, and to that extent they were wiser than I. But, gentlemen of the jury, the good craftsmen seemed to me to have the same fault as the poets: each of them, because of his success at his craft, thought himself very wise in other most important pursuits, and this error of theirs overshadowed the [e] wisdom they had, so that I asked myself, on behalf of the oracle, whether I should prefer to be as I am, with neither their wisdom nor their ignorance, or to have both. The answer I gave myself and the oracle was that it was to my advantage to be as I am.

As a result of this investigation, gentlemen of the jury, I acquired much unpopularity, of a kind that is [23] hard to deal with and is a heavy burden; many slanders came from these people and a reputation for wisdom, for in each case the bystanders thought that I myself possessed the wisdom that I proved that my interlocutor did not have. What is probable, gentlemen, is that in fact the god is wise and that his oracular response meant that human wisdom is worth little or nothing, [b] and that when he says this man, Socrates, he is using my name as an example, as if he said: “This man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates, understands that his wisdom is worthless.” So even now I continue this investigation as the god bade me— and I go around seeking out anyone, citizen or stranger, whom I think wise. Then if I do not think he is, I come to the assistance of the god and show him that he is not wise. Because of this occupation, I do not have the leisure to engage in public affairs to any extent, nor indeed to look after my own, but I live in great poverty because of my service to the god.

[c] Furthermore, the young men who follow me around of their own free will, those who have most leisure, the sons of the very rich, take pleasure in hearing people questioned; they themselves of ten imitate me and try to question others. I think they find an abundance of men who believe they have some knowledge but know little or nothing. The result is that those whom they question are angry, not with [d] themselves but with me. They say: “That man Socrates is a pestilential fellow who corrupts the young.” If one asks them what he does and what he teaches to corrupt them, they are silent, as they do not know, but, so as not to appear at a loss, they mention those accusations that are available against all philosophers, about “things in the sky and things below the earth,” about “not believing in the gods” and “making the worse the stronger argument”; they would not want to tell the truth, I’m sure, that they have been proved to lay claim to knowledge when they know nothing. These people are ambitious, violent and numerous; [e] they are continually and convincingly talking about me; they have been filling your ears for a long time with vehement slanders against me. From them Meletus attacked me, and Anytus and Lycon, Meletus being vexed on behalf of the poets, Anytus on behalf of the craftsmen and the politicians, Lycon on behalf of the orators, so that, as I started out by saying, I [24] should be surprised if I could rid you of so much slander in so short a time. That, gentlemen of the jury, is the truth for you. I have hidden or disguised nothing. I know well enough that this very conduct makes me unpopular, and this is proof that what I say is true, that such is the slander against me, and [b] that such are its causes. If you look into this either now or later, this is what you will find.

Let this suffice as a defense against the charges of my earlier accusers. After this I shall try to defend myself against Meletus, that good and patriotic man, as he says he is, and my later accusers. As these are a different lot of accusers, let us again take up their sworn deposition. It goes something like this: Socrates is guilty of corrupting the young and of not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other new spiritual things? Such is their charge. Let us [c] examine it point by point.

He says that I am guilty of corrupting the young, but I say that Meletus is guilty of dealing frivolously with serious matters, of irresponsibly bringing people into court, and of professing to be seriously concerned with

things about none of which he has ever cared, and I shall try to prove that this is so. Come here and tell me, Meletus. Surely you consider it of the greatest [d] importance that our young men be as good as possible?6 — Indeed I do.

Come then, tell the jury who improves them. You obviously know, in view of your concern. You say you have discovered the one who corrupts them, namely me, and you bring me here and accuse me to the jury. Come, inform the jury and tell them who it is. You see, Meletus, that you are silent and know not what to say. Does this not seem shameful to you and a sufficient proof of what I say, that you have not been concerned with any of this? Tell me, my good sir, who improves our young men?—The laws. [e]

That is not what I am asking, but what person who has knowledge of the laws to begin with?—These jurymen, Socrates.

How do you mean, Meletus? Are these able to educate the young and improve them?—Certainly. All of them, or some but not others?—All of them. Very good, by Hera. You mention a great abundance [25] of benefactors. But what about the audience? Do they improve the young or not?—They do, too. What about the members of Council?—The Councillors, also. But, Meletus, what about the assembly? Do members of the assembly corrupt the young, or do they all

improve them?—They improve them. All the Athenians, it seems, make the young into fine good men, except me, and I alone corrupt them. Is

that what you mean? — That is most definitely what I mean. [b] You condemn me to a great misfortune. Tell me: does this also apply to horses do you think? That all

men improve them and one individual corrupts them? Or is quite the contrary true, one individual is able to improve them, or very few, namely, the horse breeders, whereas the majority, if they have horses and use them, corrupt them? Is that not the case, Meletus, both with horses and all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not. It would be a very happy state of affairs if only one person corrupted our youth, while the others improved them.

[c] You have made it sufficiently obvious, Meletus, that you have never had any concern for our youth; you show your indifference clearly; that you have given no thought to the subjects about which you bring me to trial.

And by Zeus, Meletus, tell us also whether it is better for a man to live among good or wicked fellow citizens. Answer, my good man, for I am not asking a difficult question. Do not the wicked do some harm to those who are ever closest to them, whereas good people benefit them? — Certainly.

[d] And does the man exist who would rather be harmed than benefited by his associates? Answer, my good sir, for the law orders you to answer. Is there any man who wants to be harmed?—Of course not.

Come now, do you accuse me here of corrupting the young and making them worse deliberately or unwillingly?—Deliberately.

What follows, Meletus? Are you so much wiser at your age than I am at mine that you understand that wicked people always do some harm to their closest [e] neighbors while good people do them good, but I have reached such a pitch of ignorance that I do not realize this, namely that if I make one of my associates wicked I run the risk of being harmed by him so that I do such a great evil deliberately, as you say? I do not believe you, Meletus, and I do not think anyone else will. Either I do not corrupt the young or, if I [26] do, it is unwillingly, and you are lying in either case. Now if I corrupt them unwillingly, the law does not require you to bring people to court for such unwilling wrongdoings, but to get hold of them privately, to instruct them and exhort them; for clearly, if I learn better, I shall cease to do what I am doing unwillingly. You, however, have avoided my company and were unwilling to instruct me, but you bring me here, where the law requires one to bring those who are in need of punishment, not of instruction.

And so, gentlemen of the jury, what I said is clearly true: Meletus has never been at all concerned with [b] these matters. Nonetheless tell us, Meletus, how you say that I corrupt the young; or is it obvious from your deposition that it is by teaching them not to believe in the gods in whom the city believes but in other new spiritual things? Is this not what you say I teach and so corrupt them? — That is most certainly what I do say.

Then by those very gods about whom we are talking, Meletus, make this clearer to me and to the jury: [c] I cannot be sure whether you mean that I teach the belief that there are some gods—and therefore I myself believe that there are gods and am not altogether an atheist, nor am I guilty of that—not, however, the gods in whom the city believes, but others, and that this is the charge against me, that they are others. Or whether

you mean that I do not believe in gods at all, and that this is what I teach to others. —This is what I mean, that you do not believe in gods at all.

You are a strange fellow, Meletus. Why do you say [d] this? Do I not believe, as other men do, that the sun and the moon are gods?—No, by Zeus, jurymen, for he says that the sun is stone, and the moon earth.

My dear Meletus, do you think you are prosecuting Anaxagoras? Are you so contemptuous of the jury and think them so ignorant of letters as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras7 of Clazomenae are full of those theories, and further, that the young men learn [e] from me what they can buy from time to time for a drachma, at most, in the bookshops, and ridicule Socrates if he pretends that these theories are his own, especially as they are so absurd? Is that, by Zeus, what you think of me, Meletus, that I do not believe that there are any gods?—That is what I say, that you do not believe in the gods at all.

You cannot be believed, Meletus, even, I think, by yourself. The man appears to me, gentlemen of the jury, highly insolent and uncontrolled. He seems to [27] have made this deposition out of insolence, violence and youthful zeal. He is like one who composed a riddle and is trying it out: “Will the wise Socrates realize that I am jesting and contradicting myself, or shall I deceive him and others?” I think he contradicts himself in the affidavit, as if he said: “Socrates is guilty of not believing in gods but believing in gods,” and surely that is the part of a jester!

Examine with me, gentlemen, how he appears to [b] contradict himself, and you, Meletus, answer us. Remember, gentlemen, what I asked you when I began, not to create a disturbance if I proceed in my usual manner.

Does any man, Meletus, believe in human activities who does not believe in humans? Make him answer, and not again and again create a disturbance. Does any man who does not believe in horses believe in horsemen’s activities? Or in flute-playing activities but not in fluteplayers? No, my good sir, no man [c] could. If you are not willing to answer, I will tell you and the jury. Answer the next question, however. Does any man believe in spiritual activities who does not believe in spirits?—No one.

Thank you for answering, if reluctantly, when the jury made you. Now you say that I believe in spiritual things and teach about them, whether new or old, but at any rate spiritual things according to what you say, and to this you have sworn in your deposition. But if I believe in spiritual things I must quite inevitably believe in spirits. Is that not so? It is indeed. I shall assume that you agree, as you do not answer. Do we [d] not believe spirits to be either gods or the children of gods? Yes or no?—Of course.

Then since I do believe in spirits, as you admit, if spirits are gods, this is what I mean when I say you speak in riddles and in jest, as you state that I do not believe in gods and then again that I do, since I do believe in spirits. If on the other hand the spirits are children of the gods, bastard children of the gods by nymphs or some other mothers, as they are said to be, what man would believe children of the gods to exist, but not gods? That would be just as absurd as to believe the young of horses and asses, namely mules, to exist, but [e] not to believe in the existence of horses and asses. You must have made this deposition, Meletus, either to test us or because you were at a loss to find any true wrongdoing of which to accuse me. There is no way in which you could persuade anyone of even small intelligence that it is possible for one and the same man to believe in spiritual but not also in divine things, and then again [28] for that same man to believe neither in spirits nor in gods nor in heroes.

I do not think, gentlemen of the jury, that it requires a prolonged defense to prove that I am not guilty of the charges in Meletus’ deposition, but this is sufficient. On the other hand, you know that what I said earlier is true, that I am very unpopular with many people. This will be my undoing, if I am undone, not Meletus or Anytus but the slanders and envy of many people. This has destroyed many other good [b] men and will, I think, continue to do so. There is no danger that it will stop at me.

Someone might say: “Are you not ashamed, Socrates, to have followed the kind of occupation that has led to your being now in danger of death?” However, I should be right to reply to him: “You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.” According to your view, all [c] the heroes who died at Troy were inferior people, especially the son of Thetis who was so contemptuous of danger compared with disgrace.8 When he was eager to kill Hector, his goddess mother warned him, as I believe, in some such words as these: “My child, if you avenge the death of your comrade, Patroclus, and you kill Hector, you will die yourself, for your death is to follow immediately after Hector’s.” Hearing this, he despised death and danger and was much [d] more afraid to live a coward who did not avenge his friends. “Let me die at once,” he said, “when once I have given the wrongdoer his deserts, rather than remain here, a laughingstock by the curved ships, a burden upon the earth.” Do you think

he gave thought to death and danger? This is the truth of the matter, gentlemen of the jury: wherever a man has taken a position that he believes

to be best, or has been placed by his commander, there he must I think remain and face danger, without a thought for death or anything else, [e] rather than disgrace. It would have been a dreadful way to behave, gentlemen of the jury, if, at Potidaea, Amphipolis and Delium, I had, at the risk of death, like anyone else, remained at my post where those you had elected to command had ordered me, and then, when the god ordered me, as I thought and believed, to live the life of a philosopher, to examine [29] myself and others, I had abandoned my post for fear of death or anything else. That would have been a dreadful thing, and then I might truly have justly been brought here for not believing that there are gods, disobeying the oracle, fearing death, and thinking I was wise when I was not. To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is [b] the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know. It is perhaps on this point and in this respect, gentlemen, that I differ from the majority of men, and if I were to claim that I am wiser than anyone in anything, it would be in this, that, as I have no adequate knowledge of things in the underworld, so I do not think I have. I do know, however, that it is wicked and shameful to do wrong, to disobey one’s superior, be he god or man. I shall never fear or avoid things of which I do not know, [c] whether they may not be good rather than things that I know to be bad. Even if you acquitted me now and did not believe Anytus, who said to you that either I should not have been brought here in the first place, or that now I am here, you cannot avoid executing me, for if I should be acquitted, your sons would practice the teachings of Socrates and all be thoroughly corrupted; if you said to me in this regard: “Socrates, we do not believe Anytus now; we acquit you, but only on condition that you spend no more time on this investigation and do not practice philosophy, and if you are caught doing so you will die”; if, [d] as I say, you were to acquit me on those terms, I would say to you: “Gentlemen of the jury, I am grateful and I am your friend, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy, to exhort you and in my usual way to point out to any one of you whom I happen to meet: Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of [e] your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?” Then, if one of you disputes this and says he does care, I shall not let him go at once or leave him, but I shall question him, examine him and test him, and if I do not think he has attained the goodness that he says he has, I shall reproach him because he attaches little importance to the most [30] important things and greater importance to inferior things. I shall treat in this way anyone I happen to meet, young and old, citizen and stranger, and more so the citizens because you are more kindred to me. Be sure that this is what the god orders me to do, and I think there is no greater blessing for the city than my service to the god. For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of [b] your soul, as I say to you: “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.”

Now if by saying this I corrupt the young, this advice must be harmful, but if anyone says that I give different advice, he is talking nonsense. On this point I would say to you, gentlemen of the jury: “Whether you believe Anytus or not, whether you acquit me or not, do so on the understanding that this is my course [c] of action, even if I am to face death many times.” Do not create a disturbance, gentlemen, but abide by my request not to cry out at what I say but to listen, for I think it will be to your advantage to listen, and I am about to say other things at which you will perhaps cry out. By no means do this. Be sure that if you kill the sort of man I say I am, you will not harm me more than yourselves. Neither Meletus nor [d] Anytus can harm me in any way; he could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse; certainly he might kill me, or perhaps banish or disfranchise me, which he and maybe others think to be great harm, but I do not think so. I think he is doing himself much greater harm doing what he is doing now, attempting to have a man executed unjustly. Indeed, gentlemen of the jury, I am far from making a defense now on my own behalf, as might be thought, but on yours, to prevent [e] you from wrongdoing by mistreating the god’s gift to you by condemning me; for if you kill me you will not easily find another like me. I was attached to this city by the god—though it seems a ridiculous thing to say—as upon a great and noble horse which was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly. It is to fulfill some such function that I believe the god has placed me in the city. I never cease to rouse each and every one [31] of you, to persuade and reproach you all day long and everywhere I find myself in your company.

Another such man will not easily come to be among you, gentlemen, and if you believe me you will spare me. You might easily be annoyed with me as people are when they are aroused from a doze, and strike out at

me; if convinced by Anytus you could easily kill me, and then you could sleep on for the rest of your days, unless the god, in his care for you, sent you someone else. That I am the kind of person to be a gift of the god to the city you might realize from [b] the fact that it does not seem like human nature for me to have neglected all my own affairs and to have tolerated this neglect now for so many years while I was always concerned with you, approaching each one of you like a father or an elder brother to persuade you to care for virtue. Now if I profited from this by charging a fee for my advice, there would be some sense to it, but you can see for yourselves that, for all their shameless accusations, my accusers have not [c] been able in their impudence to bring forward a witness to say that I have ever received a fee or ever asked for one. I, on the other hand, have a convincing witness that I speak the truth, my poverty.

It may seem strange that while I go around and give this advice privately and interfere in private affairs, I do not venture to go to the assembly and there advise the city. You have heard me give the reason for this in many places. I have a divine or spiritual sign which Meletus has ridiculed in his deposition. This began [d] when I was a child. It is a voice, and whenever it speaks it turns me away from something I am about to do, but it never encourages me to do anything. This is what has prevented me from taking part in public affairs, and I think it was quite right to prevent me. Be sure, gentlemen of the jury, that if I had long ago attempted to take part in politics, I should have died long ago, and benefited neither you nor myself. [e] Do not be angry with me for speaking the truth; no man will survive who genuinely opposes you or any other crowd and prevents the occurrence of many unjust and illegal happenings in the city. A man who [32] really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.

I shall give you great proofs of this, not words but what you esteem, deeds. Listen to what happened to me, that you may know that I will not yield to any man contrary to what is right, for fear of death, even if I should die at once for not yielding. The things I shall tell you are commonplace and smack of the lawcourts, but they are true. I have never held any [b] other office in the city, but I served as a member of the Council, and our tribe Antiochis was presiding at the time when you wanted to try as a body the ten generals who had failed to pick up the survivors of the naval battle.9 This was illegal, as you all recognized later. I was the only member of the presiding committee to oppose your doing something contrary to the laws, and I voted against it. The orators were ready to prosecute me and take me away, and your shouts were egging them on, but I thought I should [c] run any risk on the side of law and justice rather than join you, for fear of prison or death, when you were engaged in an unjust course.

This happened when the city was still a democracy. When the oligarchy was established, the Thirty10 summoned me to the Hall, along with four others, and ordered us to bring Leon from Salamis, that he might be executed. They gave many such orders to many [d] people, in order to implicate as many as possible in their guilt. Then I showed again, not in words but in action, that, if it were not rather vulgar to say so, death is something I couldn’t care less about, but that my whole concern is not to do anything unjust or impious. That government, powerful as it was, did not frighten me into any wrongdoing. When we left the Hall, the other four went to Salamis and brought in Leon, but I went home. I might have been put to [e] death for this, had not the government fallen shortly afterwards. There are many who will witness to these events.

Do you think I would have survived all these years if I were engaged in public affairs and, acting as a good man must, came to the help of justice and considered this the most important thing? Far from it, gentlemen of the jury, nor would any other man. [33] Throughout my life, in any public activity I may have engaged in, I am the same man as I am in private life. I have never come to an agreement with anyone to act unjustly, neither with anyone else nor with any one of those who they slanderously say are my pupils. I have never been anyone’s teacher. If anyone, young or old, desires to listen to me when I am talking and dealing with my own concerns, I have never begrudged this to anyone, but I do not converse when [b] I receive a fee and not when I do not. I am equally ready to question the rich and the poor if anyone is willing to answer my questions and listen to what I say. And I cannot justly be held responsible for the good or bad conduct of these people, as I never promised to teach them anything and have not done so. If anyone says that he has learned anything from me, or that he heard anything privately that the others did not hear, be assured that he is not telling the truth.

Why then do some people enjoy spending considerable [c] time in my company? You have heard why, gentlemen of the jury, I have told you the whole truth. They enjoy hearing those being questioned who think they are wise, but are not. And this is not unpleasant. To do this has, as I say, been enjoined upon me by the god, by means of oracles and dreams, and in every other way that a divine manifestation has ever ordered a man to do anything. This is true, gentlemen, and can easily be established.

If I corrupt some young men and have corrupted [d] others, then surely some of them who have grown

older and realized that I gave them bad advice when they were young should now themselves come up here to accuse me and avenge themselves. If they were unwilling to do so themselves, then some of their kindred, their fathers or brothers or other relations should recall it now if their family had been harmed by me. I see many of these present here, first Crito, my contemporary and fellow demesman, the [e] father of Critobulus here; next Lysanias of Sphettus, the father of Aeschines here; also Antiphon the Cephisian, the father of Epigenes; and others whose brothers spent their time in this way; Nicostratus, the son of Theozotides, brother of Theodotus, and Theodotus has died so he could not influence him; Paralius here, son of Demodocus, whose brother was Theages; [34] there is Adeimantus, son of Ariston, brother of Plato here; Acantidorus, brother of Apollodorus here.

I could mention many others, some one of whom surely Meletus should have brought in as witness in his own speech. If he forgot to do so, then let him do it now; I will yield time if he has anything of the kind to say. You will find quite the contrary, gentlemen. These men are all ready to come to the help of the corruptor, the man who has harmed their [b] kindred, as Meletus and Anytus say. Now those who were corrupted might well have reason to help me, but the uncorrupted, their kindred who are older men, have no reason to help me except the right and proper one, that they know that Meletus is lying and that I am telling the truth.

Very well, gentlemen of the jury. This, and maybe other similar things, is what I have to say in my defense. Perhaps one of you might be angry as he [c] recalls that when he himself stood trial on a less dangerous charge, he begged and implored the jury with many tears, that he brought his children and many of his friends and family into court to arouse as much pity as he could, but that I do none of these things, even though I may seem to be running the [d] ultimate risk. Thinking of this, he might feel resentful toward me and, angry about this, cast his vote in anger. If there is such a one among you—I do not deem there is, but if there is—I think it would be right to say in reply: My good sir, I too have a household and, in Homer’s phrase, I am not born “from oak or rock” but from men, so that I have a family, indeed three sons, gentlemen of the jury, of whom one is an adolescent while two are children. Nevertheless, I will not beg you to acquit me by bringing them here. Why do I do none of these things? Not through [e] arrogance, gentlemen, nor through lack of respect for you. Whether I am brave in the face of death is another matter, but with regard to my reputation and yours and that of the whole city, it does not seem right to me to do these things, especially at my age and with my reputation. For it is generally believed, whether it be true or false, that in certain respects [35] Socrates is superior to the majority of men. Now if those of you who are considered superior, be it in wisdom or courage or whatever other virtue makes them so, are seen behaving like that, it would be a disgrace. Yet I have often seen them do this sort of thing when standing trial, men who are thought to be somebody, doing amazing things as if they thought it a terrible thing to die, and as if they were to be immortal if you did not execute them. I think these [b] men bring shame upon the city so that a stranger, too, would assume that those who are outstanding in virtue among the Athenians, whom they themselves select from themselves to fill offices of state and receive other honors, are in no way better than women. You should not act like that, gentlemen of the jury, those of you who have any reputation at all, and if we do, you should not allow it. You should make it very clear that you will more readily convict a man who performs these pitiful dramatics in court and so makes the city a laughingstock, than a man who keeps quiet.

Quite apart from the question of reputation, gentlemen, [c] I do not think it right to supplicate the jury and to be acquitted because of this, but to teach and persuade them. It is not the purpose of a juryman’s office to give justice as a favor to whoever seems good to him, but to judge according to law, and this he has sworn to do. We should not accustom you to perjure yourselves, nor should you make a habit of it. This is irreverent conduct for either of us.

Do not deem it right for me, gentlemen of the jury, that I should act towards you in a way that I do [d] not consider to be good or just or pious, especially, by Zeus, as I am being prosecuted by Meletus here for impiety; clearly, if I convinced you by my supplication to do violence to your oath of office, I would be teaching you not to believe that there are gods, and my defense would convict me of not believing in them. This is far from being the case, gentlemen, for I do believe in them as none of my accusers do. I leave it to you and the god to judge me in the way that will be best for me and for you.

[The jury now gives its verdict of guilty, and Meletus asks for the penalty of death.]

There are many other reasons for my not being [e] angry with you for convicting me, gentlemen of the jury, and what happened was not unexpected. I am [36] much more surprised at the number of votes cast on each side for I did not think the decision would be by so few votes but by a great many. As it is, a switch of only thirty votes would have acquitted me. I think myself that I have been cleared on Meletus’ charges, [b] and not only this, but it is clear to all that, if Anytus and Lycon had not joined him in accusing me, he would have

been fined a thousand drachmas for not receiving a fifth of the votes. He assesses the penalty at death. So be it. What counter-assessment should I propose to you, gentlemen of

the jury? Clearly it should be a penalty I deserve, and what do I deserve to suffer or to pay because I have deliberately not led a quiet life but have neglected what occupies most people: wealth, household affairs, the position of general or public orator or the other offices, the political clubs and factions that exist in the city? I thought myself too honest to survive if I occupied myself with those [c] things. I did not follow that path that would have made me of no use either to you or to myself, but I went to each of you privately and conferred upon him what I say is the greatest benefit, by trying to persuade him not to care for any of his belongings before caring that he himself should be as good and as wise as possible, not to care for the city’s possessions more than for the city itself, and to care for other [d] things in the same way. What do I deserve for being such a man? Some good, gentlemen of the jury, if I must truly make an assessment according to my deserts, and something suitable. What is suitable for a poor benefactor who needs leisure to exhort you? Nothing is more suitable, gentlemen, than for such a man to be fed in the Prytaneum,11 much more suitable for him than for any one of you who has won a victory at Olympia with a pair or a team of [e] horses. The Olympian victor makes you think yourself happy; I make you be happy. Besides, he does not need food, but I do. So if I must make a just assessment [37] of what I deserve, I assess it as this: free meals in the Prytaneum.

When I say this you may think, as when I spoke of appeals to pity and entreaties, that I speak arrogantly, but that is not the case, gentlemen of the jury; rather it is like this: I am convinced that I never willingly wrong anyone, but I am not convincing you of this, for we have talked together but a short time. [b] If it were the law with us, as it is elsewhere, that a trial for life should not last one but many days, you would be convinced, but now it is not easy to dispel great slanders in a short time. Since I am convinced that I wrong no one, I am not likely to wrong myself, to say that I deserve some evil and to make some such assessment against myself. What should I fear? That I should suffer the penalty Meletus has assessed against me, of which I say I do not know whether it is good or bad? Am I then to choose in preference to this something that I know very well to be an evil [c] and assess the penalty at that? Imprisonment? Why should I live in prison, always subjected to the ruling magistrates, the Eleven? A fine, and imprisonment until I pay it? That would be the same thing for me, as I have no money. Exile? for perhaps you might accept that assessment.

I should have to be inordinately fond of life, gentlemen of the jury, to be so unreasonable as to suppose that other men will easily tolerate my company and [d] conversation when you, my fellow citizens, have been unable to endure them, but found them a burden and resented them so that you are now seeking to get rid of them. Far from it, gentlemen. It would be a fine life at my age to be driven out of one city after another, for I know very well that wherever I go the young men will listen to my talk as they do here. If [e] I drive them away, they will themselves persuade their elders to drive me out; if I do not drive them away, their fathers and relations will drive me out on their behalf.

Perhaps someone might say: But Socrates, if you leave us will you not be able to live quietly, without talking? Now this is the most difficult point on which to convince some of you. If I say that it is impossible [38] for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying the god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for men, you will believe me even less.

What I say is true, gentlemen, but it is not easy to convince you. At the same time, I am not accustomed [b] to think that I deserve any penalty. If I had money, I would assess the penalty at the amount I could pay, for that would not hurt me, but I have none, unless you are willing to set the penalty at the amount I can pay, and perhaps I could pay you one mina of silver.12 So that is my assessment.

Plato here, gentlemen of the jury, and Crito and Critobulus and Apollodorus bid me put the penalty at thirty minae, and they will stand surety for the money. Well then, that is my assessment, and they will be sufficient guarantee of payment.

[The jury now votes again and sentences Socrates to death.]

It is for the sake of a short time, gentlemen of the [c] jury, that you will acquire the reputation and the guilt, in the eyes of those who want to denigrate the city, of having killed Socrates, a wise man, for they who want to revile you will say that I am wise even if I am not. If you had waited but a little while, this would have happened of its own accord. You see my age, [d] that I am already advanced in years and close to death. I am saying this not to all of you but to those who condemned me to death, and to these same jurors I say: Perhaps you think that I was convicted for lack of such words as might have convinced you, if I thought I should say or

do all I could to avoid my sentence. Far from it. I was convicted because I lacked not words but boldness and shamelessness and the willingness to say to you what you would most gladly have heard from me, lamentations and tears and my [e] saying and doing many things that I say are unworthy of me but that you are accustomed to hear from others. I did not think then that the danger I ran should make me do anything mean, nor do I now regret the nature of my defense. I would much rather die after this kind of defense than live after making the other kind. Neither I nor any other man should, [39] on trial or in war, contrive to avoid death at any cost. Indeed it is often obvious in battle that one could escape death by throwing away one’s weapons and by turning to supplicate one’s pursuers, and there are many ways to avoid death in every kind of danger if one will venture to do or say anything to avoid it. It is not difficult to avoid death, gentlemen of the jury; [b] it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death. Slow and elderly as I am, I have been caught by the slower pursuer, whereas my accusers, being clever and sharp, have been caught by the quicker, wickedness. I leave you now, condemned to death by you, but they are condemned by truth to wickedness and injustice. So I maintain my assessment, and they maintain theirs. This perhaps had to happen, and I think it is as it should be.

[c] Now I want to prophesy to those who convicted me, for I am at the point when men prophesy most, when they are about to die. I say gentlemen, to those who voted to kill me, that vengeance will come upon you immediately after my death, a vengeance much harder to bear than that which you took in killing me. You did this in the belief that you would avoid giving an account of your life, but I maintain that quite the opposite will happen to you. There will be [d] more people to test you, whom I now held back, but you did not notice it. They will be more difficult to deal with as they will be younger and you will resent them more. You are wrong if you believe that by killing people you will prevent anyone from reproaching you for not living in the right way. To escape such tests is neither possible nor good, but it is best and easiest not to discredit others but to prepare oneself to be as good as possible. With this prophecy to you who convicted me, I part from you.

I should be glad to discuss what has happened with [e] those who voted for my acquittal during the time that the officers of the court are busy and I do not yet have to depart to my death. So, gentlemen, stay with me awhile, for nothing prevents us from talking to each other while it is allowed. To you, as being my [40] friends, I want to show the meaning of what has occurred. A surprising thing has happened to me, judges— you I would rightly call judges. At all previous times my familiar prophetic power, my spiritual manifestation, frequently opposed me, even in small matters, when I was about to do something wrong, but now that, as you can see for yourselves, I was faced with what one might think, and what is generally thought to be, the worst of evils, my divine sign has not opposed me, either when I left home at dawn, [b] or when I came into court, or at any time that I was about to say something during my speech. Yet in other talks it often held me back in the middle of my speaking, but now it has opposed no word or deed of mine. What do I think is the reason for this? I will tell you. What has happened to me may well be a good thing, and those of us who believe death to be an evil are certainly mistaken. I have convincing proof [c] of this, for it is impossible that my familiar sign did not oppose me if I was not about to do what was right.

Let us reflect in this way, too, that there is good hope that death is a blessing, for it is one of two things: either the dead are nothing and have no perception of anything, or it is, as we are told, a change and a relocating for the soul from here to another place. If [d] it is complete lack of perception, like a dreamless sleep, then death would be a great advantage. For I think that if one had to pick out that night during which a man slept soundly and did not dream, put beside it the other nights and days of his life, and then see how many days and nights had been better and more pleasant than that night, not only a private person but the great king would find them easy to count compared with the other days and nights. If [e] death is like this I say it is an advantage, for all eternity would then seem to be no more than a single night. If, on the other hand, death is a change from here to another place, and what we are told is true and all who have died are there, what greater blessing [41] could there be, gentlemen of the jury? If anyone arriving in Hades will have escaped from those who call themselves judges here, and will find those true judges who are said to sit in judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus and the other demi-gods who have been upright in their own life, would that be a poor kind of change? Again, what would one of you give to keep company with Orpheus and Musaeus, Hesiod and Homer? I am willing to die many times if that is true. It would be [b] a wonderful way for me to spend my time whenever I met Palamedes and Ajax, the son of Telamon, and any other of the men of old who died through an unjust conviction, to compare my experience with theirs. I think it would be pleasant. Most important, I could spend my time testing and examining people there, as I do here, as to who among them is wise, and who thinks he is, but is not.

What would one not give, gentlemen of the jury, for the opportunity to examine the man who led [c] the great expedition against Troy, or Odysseus, or Sisyphus, and innumerable other men and women one could

mention. It would be an extraordinary happiness to talk with them, to keep company with them and examine them. In any case, they would certainly not put one to death for doing so. They are happier there than we are here in other respects, and for the rest of time they are deathless, if indeed what we are told is true.

You too must be of good hope as regards death, gentlemen of the jury, and keep this one truth in mind, that a good man cannot be harmed either in [d] life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods. What has happened to me now has not happened of itself, but it is clear to me that it was better for me to die now and to escape from trouble. That is why my divine sign did not oppose me at any point. So I am certainly not angry with those who convicted me, or with my accusers. Of course that was not their purpose when they accused and convicted me, but they thought they were hurting me, and for this they deserve blame. This much I ask [e] from them: when my sons grow up, avenge yourselves by causing them the same kind of grief that I caused you, if you think they care for money or anything else more than they care for virtue, or if they think they are somebody when they are nobody. Reproach them as I reproach you, that they do not care for the right things and think they are worthy when they are not worthy of anything. If you do this, I shall have [42] been justly treated by you, and my sons also.

Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god.

*Reprinted from The Trial and Death of Socrates, translated by G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1975), by permission of the publisher.

1. [The word apology is a transliteration, not a translation, of the Greek apologia which means defense. There is certainly nothing apologetic about the speech. — G.M.A.G.]

2. [The bankers or money-changers had their counters in the marketplace. It seems that this was a favorite place for gossip.]

3. [This refers in particular to Aristophanes, whose comedy, The Clouds, produced in 425 B.C., ridiculed the (imaginary) school of Socrates.]

4. [These were all well-known Sophists. Gorgias, after whom Plato named one of his dialogues, was a celebrated rhetorician and teacher of rhetoric. He came to Athens in 427 B.C., and his rhetorical tricks took the city by storm. Two dialogues, the authenticity of which has been doubted, are named after Hippias, whose knowledge was encyclopedic. Prodicus was known for his insistence on the precise meaning of words. Both he and Hippias are characters in the Protagoras (named after another famous Sophist).]

5. [A curious oath, occasionally used by Socrates, it appears in a longer form in the Gorgias (482b) as “by the dog, the god of the Egyptians.”]

6. [Socrates here drops into his usual method of discussion by question and answer. This, no doubt, is what Plato had in mind, at least in part, when he made him ask the indulgence of the jury if he spoke “in his usual manner.”]

7. [Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, born about the beginning of the fifth century, came to Athens as a young man and spent time in the pursuit of natural philosophy. He claimed that the universe was directed by Nous (Mind), and that matter was indestructible but always combining in various ways. He left Athens after being prosecuted for impiety.]

8. [The scene between Thetis and Achilles is from the Iliad (18, 94 ff.).]

9. [This was the battle of Arginusae (south of Lesbos) in 406 B.C., the last Athenian victory of the war. A violent storm prevented the Athenian generals from rescuing their survivors. For this they were tried in Athens and sentenced to death by the assembly. They were tried in a body, and it is this to which Socrates objected in the Council’s presiding committee, which prepared the business of the assembly. He obstinately persisted in his opposition, in which he stood alone, and was overruled by the majority. Six generals who were in Athens were executed.]

10. [This was the harsh oligarchy that was set up after the final defeat of Athens in 404 B.C. and that ruled Athens for some nine months in 404–403 before the democracy was restored.]

11. [The Prytaneum was the magistrates’ hall or town hall of Athens in which public entertainments were given, particularly to Olympian victors on their return home.]

12. [One mina was 100 drachmas, equivalent to, say, twenty-five dollars, though in purchasing power probably five times greater. In any case, a ridiculously small sum under the circumstances.]

Crito*

SOCRATES: [43] Why have you come so early, Crito? Or is it not still early? CRITO: It certainly is. S: How early? C: Early dawn. S: I am surprised that the warder was willing to listen to you. C: He is quite friendly to me by now, Socrates. I have been here often and I have given him something. S: Have you just come, or have you been here for some time? C: A fair time. S: [b] Then why did you not wake me right away but sit there in silence? C: By Zeus no, Socrates. I would not myself want to be in distress and awake so long. I have been

surprised to see you so peacefully asleep. It was on purpose that I did not wake you, so that you should spend your time most agreeably. Often in the past throughout my life, I have considered the way you live happy, and especially so now that you bear your present misfortune so easily and lightly.

S: It would not be fitting at my age to resent the fact that I must die now. C: [c] Other men of your age are caught in such misfortunes, but their age does not prevent them

resenting their fate. S: That is so. Why have you come so early? C: I bring bad news, Socrates, not for you, apparently, but for me and all your friends the news is bad and

hard to bear. Indeed, I would count it among the hardest. S: [d] What is it? Or has the ship arrived from Delos, at the arrival of which I must die? C: It has not arrived yet, but it will, I believe, arrive today, according to a message some men brought

from Sunium, where they left it. This makes it obvious that it will come today, and that your life must end tomorrow.

S: May it be for the best. If it so please the gods, so be it. However, I do not think it will arrive today. C: What indication have you of this? [44] S: I will tell you. I must die the day after the ship arrives. C: That is what those in authority say. S: Then I do not think it will arrive on this coming day, but on the next. I take to witness of this a dream

I had a little earlier during this night. It looks as if it was the right time for you not to wake me. C: What was your dream? S: I thought that a beautiful and comely woman dressed in white approached me. She called me and said:

“Socrates, may you arrive at fertile Phthia1 on [b] the third day.” C: A strange dream, Socrates. S: But it seems clear enough to me, Crito. C: Too clear it seems, my dear Socrates, but listen to me even now and be saved. If you die, it will not be

a single misfortune for me. Not only will I be deprived of a friend, the like of whom I shall never find again, but many people who do not know you or me very well will think that I could have saved [c] you if I were willing to spend money, but that I did not care to do so. Surely there can be no worse reputation than to be thought to value money more highly than one’s friends, for the majority will not believe that you yourself were not willing to leave prison while we were eager for you to do so.

S: My good Crito, why should we care so much for what the majority think? The most reasonable people, to whom one should pay more attention, will believe that things were done as they were done.

C: [d] You see, Socrates, that one must also pay attention to the opinion of the majority. Your present situation makes clear that the majority can inflict not the least but pretty well the greatest evils if one is slandered among them.

S: Would that the majority could inflict the greatest evils, for they would then be capable of the greatest good, and that would be fine, but now they cannot do either. They cannot make a man either wise or foolish, but they inflict things haphazardly.

C: [e] That may be so. But tell me this, Socrates, are you anticipating that I and your other friends would have trouble with the informers if you escape from here, as having stolen you away, and that we should be compelled to lose all our property or pay [45] heavy fines and suffer other punishment besides? If you have any such fear, forget it. We would be justified in running this risk to save you, and worse, if necessary. Do follow my advice, and do not act differently.

S: I do have these things in mind, Crito, and also many others. C: Have no such fear. It is not much money that some people require to save you and get you out of here.

Further, do you not see that those informers are cheap, and that not much money would be needed to deal with them? My money is available and is, I think, [b] sufficient. If, because of your affection for me, you feel you should not spend any of mine, there are those strangers here ready to spend money. One of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought enough for this very purpose. Cebes, too, and a good many others. So, as I say, do not let this fear make you hesitate to save yourself, nor let what you said in court trouble you, that you would not know what to do with yourself [c] if you left Athens, for you would be welcomed in many places to which you might go. If you want to go to Thessaly, I have friends there who will greatly appreciate you and keep you safe, so that no one in Thessaly will harm you.

Besides, Socrates, I do not think that what you are doing is just, to give up your life when you can save it, and to hasten your fate as your enemies would hasten it, and indeed have hastened it in their wish to destroy you. Moreover, I think you are betraying [d] your sons by going away and leaving them, when you could bring them up and educate them. You thus show no concern for what their fate may be. They will probably have the usual fate of orphans. Either one should not have children, or one should share with them to the end the toil of upbringing and education. You seem to me to choose the easiest path, whereas one should choose the path a good and courageous man would choose, particularly when one claims throughout one’s life to care for virtue.

I feel ashamed on your behalf and on behalf of us, [e] your friends, lest all that has happened to you be thought due to cowardice on our part: the fact that your trial came to court when it need not have done so, the handling of the trial itself, and now this absurd ending which will be thought to have got beyond our control through some cowardice and unmanliness on [46] our part, since we did not save you, or you save yourself, when it was possible and could be done if we had been of the slightest use. Consider, Socrates, whether this is not only evil, but shameful, both for you and for us. Take counsel with yourself, or rather the time for counsel is past and the decision should have been taken, and there is no further opportunity, for this whole business must be ended tonight. If we delay now, then it will no longer be possible; it will be too late. Let me persuade you on every count, Socrates, and do not act otherwise.

S: My dear Crito, your eagerness is worth much [b] if it should have some right aim; if not, then the greater your keenness the more difficult it is to deal with. We must therefore examine whether we should act in this way or not, as not only now but at all times I am the kind of man who listens only to the argument that on reflection seems best to me. I cannot, now that this fate has come upon me, discard the arguments I used; they seem to me much the same. I value and [c] respect the same principles as before, and if we have no better arguments to bring up at this moment, be sure that I shall not agree with you, not even if the power of the majority were to frighten us with more bogeys, as if we were children, with threats of incarcerations and executions and confiscation of property. How should we examine this matter most reasonably? Would it be by taking up first your argument about the opinions of men, whether it is sound in every [d] case that one should pay attention to some opinions, but not to others? Or was that well-spoken before the necessity to die came upon me, but now it is clear that this was said in vain for the sake of argument, that it was in truth play and nonsense? I am eager to examine together with you, Crito, whether this argument will appear in any way different to me in my present circumstances, or whether it remains the same, whether we are to abandon it or believe it. It was said on every occasion [e] by those who thought they were speaking sensibly, as I have just now been speaking, that one should greatly value some people’s opinions, but not others. Does that seem to you a sound statement?

You, as far as a human being can tell, are exempt from the likelihood of dying tomorrow, so the present

[47] misfortune is not likely to lead you astray. Consider then, do you not think it a sound statement that one must not value all the opinions of men, but some and not others, nor the opinions of all men, but those of some and not of others? What do you say? Is this not well said?

C: It is. S: One should value the good opinions, and not the bad ones? C: Yes. S: The good opinions are those of wise men, the bad ones those of foolish men? C: Of course. S: Come then, what of statements such as this: [b] Should a man professionally engaged in physical

training pay attention to the praise and blame and opinion of any man, or to those of one man only, namely a doctor or trainer?

C: To those of one only. S: He should therefore fear the blame and welcome the praise of that one man, and not those of the

many? C: Obviously. S: He must then act and exercise, eat and drink in the way the one, the trainer and the one who knows,

thinks right, not all the others? C: That is so. S: [c] Very well. And if he disobeys the one, disregards his opinion and his praises while valuing those of

the many who have no knowledge, will he not suffer harm? C: Of course. S: What is that harm, where does it tend, and what part of the man who disobeys does it affect? C: Obviously the harm is to his body, which it ruins. S: Well said. So with other matters, not to enumerate them all, and certainly with actions just and unjust,

shameful and beautiful, good and bad, about which we are now deliberating, should we follow the [d] opinion of the many and fear it, or that of the one, if there is one who has knowledge of these things and before whom we feel fear and shame more than before all the others? If we do not follow his directions, we shall harm and corrupt that part of ourselves that is improved by just actions and destroyed by unjust actions. Or is there nothing in this?

C: I think there certainly is, Socrates. S: Come now, if we ruin that which is improved by health and corrupted by disease by not following the

opinions of those who know, is life worth living [e] for us when that is ruined? And that is the body, is it not? C: Yes. S: And is life worth living with a body that is corrupted and in bad condition? C: In no way. S: And is life worth living for us with that part of us corrupted that unjust action harms and just action

benefits? Or do we think that part of us, whatever it is, that is concerned with justice and injustice, is inferior to the body? [48]

C: Not at all. S: It is more valuable? C: Much more. S: We should not then think so much of what the majority will say about us, but what he will say who

understands justice and injustice, the one, that is, and the truth itself. So that, in the first place, you were wrong to believe that we should care for the opinion of the many about what is just, beautiful, good, and their opposites. “But,” someone might say, “the many are able to put us to death.”

C: That too is obvious, Socrates, and someone [b] might well say so. S: And, my admirable friend, that argument that we have gone through remains, I think, as before.

Examine the following statement in turn as to whether it stays the same or not, that the most important thing is not life, but the good life.

C: It stays the same.

S: And that the good life, the beautiful life, and the just life are the same; does that still hold, or not? C: It does hold. S: As we have agreed so far, we must examine [c] next whether it is just for me to try to get out of here

when the Athenians have not acquitted me. If it is seen to be just, we will try to do so; if it is not, we will abandon the idea. As for those questions you raise about money, reputation, the upbringing of children, Crito, those considerations in truth belong to those people who easily put men to death and would bring them to life again if they could, without thinking; I mean the majority of men. For us, however, since our argument leads to this, the only valid consideration, as we were saying just now, is whether we should be acting rightly in giving money and gratitude to those [d] who will lead me out of here, and ourselves helping with the escape, or whether in truth we shall do wrong in doing all this. If it appears that we shall be acting unjustly, then we have no need at all to take into account whether we shall have to die if we stay here and keep quiet, or suffer in another way, rather than do wrong.

C: I think you put that beautifully, Socrates, but see what we should do. S: [e] Let us examine the question together, my dear friend, and if you can make any objection while I am

speaking, make it and I will listen to you, but if you have no objection to make, my dear Crito, then stop now from saying the same thing so often, that I must leave here against the will of the Athenians. I think it important to persuade you before I act, and not to act against your wishes. See whether the start [49] of our inquiry is adequately stated, and try to answer what I ask you in the way you think best.

C: I shall try. S: Do we say that one must never in any way do wrong willingly, or must one do wrong in one way and

not in another? Is to do wrong never good or admirable, as we have agreed in the past, or have all these former agreements been washed out during the [b] last few days? Have we at our age failed to notice for some time that in our serious discussions we were no different from children? Above all, is the truth such as we used to say it was, whether the majority agree or not, and whether we must still suffer worse things than we do now, or will be treated more gently, that nonetheless, wrongdoing is in every way harmful and shameful to the wrongdoer? Do we say so or not?

C: We do. S: So one must never do wrong. C: Certainly not. S: Nor must one, when wronged, inflict wrong in return, as the majority believe, since one must never do

wrong. C: That seems to be the case. [c] S: Come now, should one injure anyone or not, Crito? C: One must never do so. S: Well then, if one is oneself injured, is it right, as the majority say, to inflict an injury in return, or is it

not? C: It is never right. S: Injuring people is no different from wrongdoing. C: That is true. S: One should never do wrong in return, nor injure any man, whatever injury one has suffered at his

hands. And Crito, see that you do not agree to [d] this, contrary to your belief. For I know that only a few people hold this view or will hold it, and there is no common ground between those who hold this view and those who do not, but they inevitably despise each other’s views. So then consider very carefully whether we have this view in common, and whether you agree, and let this be the basis of our deliberation, that neither to do wrong or to return a wrong is ever right, not even to injure in return for an injury received. Or do you disagree and do not share this view as a basis for discussion? I have held it for a [e] long time and still hold it now, but if you think otherwise, tell me now. If, however, you stick to our former opinion, then listen to the next point.

C: I stick to it and agree with you. So say on. S: Then I state the next point, or rather I ask you: when one has come to an agreement that is just with

someone, should one fulfill it or cheat on it? C: One should fulfill it.

S: See what follows from this: if we leave here without the city’s permission, are we injuring people [50] whom we should least injure? And are we sticking to a just agreement, or not?

C: I cannot answer your question, Socrates. I do not know. S: Look at it this way. If, as we were planning to run away from here, or whatever one should call it, the

laws and the state came and confronted us and asked: “Tell me, Socrates, what are you intending to do? Do you not by this action you are attempting [b] intend to destroy us, the laws, and indeed the whole city, as far as you are concerned? Or do you think it possible for a city not to be destroyed if the verdicts of its courts have no force but are nullified and set at naught by private individuals?” What shall we answer to this and other such arguments? For many things could be said, especially by an orator on behalf of this law we are destroying, which orders that the [c] judgments of the courts shall be carried out. Shall we say in answer, “The city wronged me, and its decision was not right”? Shall we say that, or what?

C: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, that is our answer. S: Then what if the laws said: “Was that the agreement between us, Socrates, or was it to respect the

judgments that the city came to?” And if we wondered at their words, they would perhaps add: “Socrates, do not wonder at what we say but answer, [d] since you are accustomed to proceed by question and answer. Come now, what accusation do you bring against us and the city, that you should try to destroy us? Did we not, first, bring you to birth, and was it not through us that your father married your mother and begat you? Tell you, do you find anything to criticize in those of us who are concerned with marriage?” And I would say that I do not criticize them. “Or in those of us concerned with the nurture of babies and the education that you too received? Were those assigned to that subject not right to instruct [e] your father to educate you in the arts and in physical culture?” And I would say that they were right. “Very well,” they would continue, “and after you were born and nurtured and educated, could you, in the first place, deny that you are our offspring and servant, both you and your forefathers? If that is so, do you think that we are on an equal footing as regards the right, and that whatever we do to you it is right for you to do to us? You were not on an equal footing with your father as regards the right, nor with your [51] master if you had one, so as to retaliate for anything they did to you, to revile them if they reviled you, to beat them if they beat you, and so with many other things. Do you think you have this right to retaliation against your country and its laws? That if we undertake to destroy you and think it right to do so, you can undertake to destroy us, as far as you can, in return? And will you say that you are right to do so, you who truly care for virtue? Is your wisdom such as not to realize that your country is to be honored more than your mother, your father, and all your ancestors, that it is more to be revered and more sacred, and that it [b] counts for more among the gods and sensible men, that you must worship it, yield to it, and placate its anger more than your father’s? You must either persuade it or obey its orders, and endure in silence whatever it instructs you to endure, whether blows or bonds, and if it leads you into war to be wounded or killed, you must obey. To do so is right, and one must not give way or retreat or leave one’s post, but both in war and in courts and everywhere else, one must obey the commands of one’s city and country, [c] or persuade it as to the nature of justice. It is impious to bring violence to bear against your mother or father; it is much more so to use it against your country.” What shall we say in reply, Crito, that the laws speak the truth, or not?

C: I think they do. S: “Reflect now, Socrates,” the laws might say, “that if what we say is true, you are not treating us rightly

by planning to do what you are planning. We have given you birth, nurtured you, educated you; we have given you and all other citizens a share of [d] all the good things we could. Even so, by giving every Athenian the opportunity, after he has reached manhood and observed the affairs of the city and us the laws, we proclaim that if we do not please him, he can take his possessions and go wherever he pleases. Not one of our laws raises any obstacle or forbids him, if he is not satisfied with us or the city, if one of you wants to go and live in a colony or wants to go anywhere else, and keep his property. We say, [e] however, that whoever of you remains, when he sees how we conduct our trials and manage the city in other ways, has in fact come to an agreement with us to obey our instructions. We say that the one who disobeys does wrong in three ways, first because in us he disobeys his parents, also those who brought him up, and because, in spite of his agreement, he neither obeys us nor, if we do something wrong, does [52] he try to persuade us to do better. Yet we only propose things, we do not issue savage commands to do whatever we order; we give two alternatives, either to persuade us or to do what we say. He does neither. We do say that you too, Socrates, are open to those charges if you do what you have in mind; you would be among, not the least, but the most guilty of the Athenians.” And if I should say “Why so?” they might well be right to upbraid me and say that I am among the Athenians who most definitely came to that agreement [b] with them. They might well say: “Socrates, we have convincing proofs that we and the city were congenial to you. You would not have dwelt here most

consistently of all the Athenians if the city had not been exceedingly pleasing to you. You have never left the city, even to see a festival, nor for any other reason except military service; you have never gone to stay in any other city, as people do; you have had [c] no desire to know another city or other laws; we and our city satisfied you.

“So decisively did you choose us and agree to be a citizen under us. Also, you have had children in this city, thus showing that it was congenial to you. Then at your trial you could have assessed your penalty at exile if you wished, and you are now attempting to do against the city’s wishes what you could then have done with her consent. Then you prided yourself that you did not resent death, but you chose, as you said, death in preference to exile. Now, however, those words do not make you ashamed, and you pay [d] no heed to us, the laws, as you plan to destroy us, and you act like the meanest type of slave by trying to run away, contrary to your commitments and your agreement to live as a citizen under us. First then, answer us on this very point, whether we speak the truth when we say that you agreed, not only in words but by your deeds, to live in accordance with us.” What are we to say to that, Crito? Must we not agree?

C: We must, Socrates. S: “Surely,” they might say, “you are breaking the commitments and agreements that you made with [e]

us without compulsion or deceit, and under no pressure of time for deliberation. You have had seventy years during which you could have gone away if you did not like us, and if you thought our agreements [53] unjust. You did not choose to go to Sparta or to Crete, which you are always saying are well governed, nor to any other city, Greek or foreign. You have been away from Athens less than the lame or the blind or other handicapped people. It is clear that the city has been outstandingly more congenial to you than to other Athenians, and so have we, the laws, for what city can please without laws? Will you then not now stick to our agreements? You will, Socrates, if we can persuade you, and not make yourself a laughingstock by leaving the city.

“For consider what good you will do yourself or your friends by breaking our agreements and committing such a wrong. It is pretty obvious that your friends will themselves be in danger of exile, disfranchisement and loss of property. As for yourself, if you go [b] to one of the nearby cities — Thebes or Megara, both are well governed — you will arrive as an enemy to their government; all who care for their city will look on you with suspicion, as a destroyer of the laws. You will also strengthen the conviction of the jury that they passed the right sentence on you, for anyone [c] who destroys the laws could easily be thought to corrupt the young and the ignorant. Or will you avoid cities that are well governed and men who are civilized? If you do this, will your life be worth living? Will you have social intercourse with them and not be ashamed to talk to them? And what will you say? The same as you did here, that virtue and justice are man’s most precious possession, along with lawful [d] behavior and the laws? Do you not think that Socrates would appear to be an unseemly kind of person? One must think so. Or will you leave those places and go to Crito’s friends in Thessaly? There you will find the greatest license and disorder, and they may enjoy hearing from you how absurdly you escaped from prison in some disguise, in a leather jerkin or some other things in which escapees wrap themselves, thus altering your appearance. Will there be no one to say that you, likely to live but a short time more, were so greedy for life that you transgressed the most important [e] laws? Possibly, Socrates, if you do not annoy anyone, but if you do, many disgraceful things will be said about you.

“You will spend your time ingratiating yourself with all men, and be at their beck and call. What will you do in Thessaly but feast, as if you had gone to a banquet in Thessaly? As for those conversations of yours about justice and the rest of virtue, where will they be? You say you want to live for the sake of your [54] children, that you may bring them up and educate them. How so? Will you bring them up and educate them by taking them to Thessaly and making strangers of them, that they may enjoy that too? Or not so, but they will be better brought up and educated here, while you are alive, though absent? Yes, your friends will look after them. Will they look after them if you go and live in Thessaly, but not if you go away to the underworld? If those who profess themselves your friends are any good at all, one must assume that they will.

“Be [b] persuaded by us who have brought you up, Socrates. Do not value either your children or your life or anything else more than goodness, in order that when you arrive in Hades you may have all this as your defense before the rulers there. If you do this deed, you will not think it better or more just or more pious here, nor will any one of your friends, nor will it be better for you when you arrive yonder. As it is, you depart, if you depart, after being wronged not by [c] us, the laws, but by men; but if you depart after shamefully returning wrong for wrong and injury for injury, after breaking your agreements and commitments with us, after injuring those you should injure least—yourself, your friends, your country and us — we shall be angry with you while you are still alive, and our brothers, the laws of the underworld, will not receive you kindly, knowing that you tried to destroy us as far as you could. Do not let Crito persuade you, rather than us, to do

what he says.” [d] Crito, my dear friend, be assured that these are the words I seem to hear, as the Corybants seem to hear

the music of their flutes, and the echo of these words resounds in me, and makes it impossible for me to hear anything else. As far as my present beliefs go, if you speak in opposition to them, you will speak in vain. However, if you think you can accomplish anything, speak.

C: I have nothing to say, Socrates. S: Let it be then, Crito, and let us act in this way, since this is the way the god is leading us. [e]

*Reprinted from The Trial and Death of Socrates, translated by G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1975), by permission of the publisher.

1. [A quotation from the ninth book of the Iliad (363). Achilles has rejected all the presents of Agamemnon for him to return to the battle, and threatens to go home. He says his ships will sail in the morning, and with good weather he might arrive on the third day “in fertile Phthia” (which is his home). The dream means, obviously, that on the third day Socrates’ soul, after death, will find its home. As always, counting the first member of a series, the third day is the day after tomorrow. — G.M.A.G.]

Phaedo*

ECHECRATES: [57] Were you with Socrates yourself, Phaedo,1 on the day when he drank the poison in prison, or did someone else tell you about it?

PHAEDO: I was there myself, Echecrates. E: What are the things he said before he died? And how did he die? I should be glad to hear this. Hardly

anyone from Phlius2 visits Athens nowadays, nor has [b] any stranger come from Athens for some time who could give us a clear account of what happened, except that he drank the poison and died, but nothing more.

P: [58] Did you not even hear how the trial went? E: Yes, someone did tell us about that, and we wondered that he seems to have died a long time after the

trial took place. Why was that, Phaedo? P: That was by chance, Echecrates. The day before the trial, as it happened, the prow of the ship that the

Athenians send to Delos had been crowned with garlands. E: What ship is that? P: It is the ship in which, the Athenians say, Theseus once sailed to Crete, taking with him the [b] two

lots of seven victims.3 He saved them and was himself saved. They vowed then to Apollo, so the story goes, that if they were saved they would send a mission to Delos every year. And from that time to this they send such an annual mission to the god. They have a law to keep the city pure while it lasts, and no execution may take place once the mission has begun until the ship has made its journey to Delos and returned to Athens, and this can sometimes take a long time if the winds delay it. The mission begins when the priest of Apollo crowns the prow of [c] the ship, and this happened, as I say, the day before Socrates’ trial. That is why Socrates was in prison a long time between this trial and his execution.

E: What about his actual death, Phaedo? What did he say? What did he do? Who of his friends were with him? Or did the authorities not allow them to be present and he died with no friends present?

P: By no means. Some were present, in fact, a [d] good many. E: Please be good enough to tell us all that occurred as fully as possible, unless you have some pressing

business. P: I have the time and I will try to tell you the whole story, for nothing gives me more pleasure than to call

Socrates to mind, whether talking about him myself, or listening to someone else do so. E: Your hearers will surely be like you in this, Phaedo. So do try to tell us every detail as exactly as you

can. P: I certainly found being there an astonishing experience. Although I was witnessing the death of [e]

one who was my friend, I had no feeling of pity, for the man appeared happy in both manner and words as he died nobly and without fear, Echecrates, so that it struck me that even in going down to the underworld he was going with the gods’ blessing and that [59] he would fare well when he got there, if anyone ever does. That is why I had no feeling of pity, such as would seem natural in my sorrow, nor indeed of pleasure, as we engaged in philosophical discussion as we were accustomed to do — for our arguments were of that sort — but I had a strange feeling, an unaccustomed mixture of pleasure and pain at the same time as I reflected that he was just about to die. All of us present were affected in much the same way, sometimes laughing, then weeping; especially one of us, Apollodorus — you know the man and his ways.

E: [b] Of course I do. P: He was quite overcome; but I was myself disturbed, and so were the others. E: Who, Phaedo, were those present?

P: Among the local people there was Apollodorus, whom I mentioned, Critobulus and his father,4 also Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines and Antisthenes. Ctesippus of Paeania was there, Menexenus and some

others. Plato, I believe, was ill.5 E: Were there some strangers present? P: [c] Yes, Simmias from Thebes with Cebes and Phaedondes, and from Megara, Euclides and Terpsion. E: What about Aristippus and Cleombrotus? Were they there? P: No. They were said to be in Aegina. E: Was there anyone else? P: I think these were about all. E: Well then, what do you say the conversation was about? P: I will try to tell you everything from the beginning. On the previous days also both the others and I

used to visit Socrates. We foregathered at daybreak [d] at the court where the trial took place, for it was close to the prison, and each day we used to wait around talking until the prison should open, for it did not open early. When it opened we used to go in to Socrates and spend most of the day with him. On this day we gathered rather early, because when we left the prison on the previous evening we were informed [e] that the ship from Delos had arrived, and so we told each other to come to the usual place as early as possible. When we arrived the gatekeeper who used to answer our knock came out and told us to wait and not go in until he told us to. “The Eleven,”6 he said, “are freeing Socrates from his bonds and telling him how his death will take place today.” After a short time he came and told us to go in. We found [60] Socrates recently released from his chains, and Xanthippe — you know her — sitting by him, holding their baby. When she saw us, she cried out and said the sort of thing that women usually say: “Socrates, this is the last time your friends will talk to you and you to them.” Socrates looked at Crito. “Crito,” he said, “let someone take her home.” And some of Crito’s people led her away lamenting and beating [b] her breast.

Socrates sat up on the bed, bent his leg and rubbed it with his hand, and as he rubbed he said: “What a strange thing that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, namely pain! A man cannot have both at the same time. Yet if he pursues and catches the one, he is almost always bound to catch the other also, like two creatures with one head. I think that if Aesop had noted this he would have composed a fable that a god wished to reconcile their [c] opposition but could not do so, so he joined their two heads together, and therefore when a man has the one, the other follows later. This seems to be happening to me. My bonds caused pain in my leg, and now pleasure seems to be following.”

Cebes intervened and said: “By Zeus, yes, Socrates, you did well to remind me. Evenus7 asked me the day before yesterday, as others had done before, what [d] induced you to write poetry after you came to prison, you who had never composed any poetry before, putting the fables of Aesop into verse and composing the hymn to Apollo. If it is of any concern to you that I should have an answer to give to Evenus when he repeats his question, as I know he will, tell me what to say to him.”

Tell him the truth, Cebes, he said, that I did not do this with the idea of rivalling him or his poems, for I knew that would not be easy, but I tried to find out the meaning of certain dreams and to satisfy my [e] conscience in case it was this kind of art they were frequently bidding me to practice. The dreams were something like this: the same dream often came to me in the past, now in one shape now in another, but saying the same thing: “Socrates,” it said, “practice and cultivate the arts.” In the past I imagined that it was instructing and advising me to do what I was doing, such as those who encourage runners in a [61] race, that the dream was thus bidding me do the very thing I was doing, namely, to practice the art of philosophy, this being the highest kind of art, and I was doing that.

But now, after my trial took place, and the festival of the god was preventing my execution, I thought that, in case my dream was bidding me to practice this popular art, I should not disobey it but compose poetry. I thought it safer not to leave here until I had [b] satisfied my conscience by writing poems in obedience to the dream. So I first wrote in honor of the god of the present festival. After that I realized that a poet, if he is to be a poet, must compose fables, not arguments. Being no teller of fables myself, I took the stories I knew and had at hand, the fables of Aesop, and I versified the first ones I came across. Tell this to Evenus, Cebes, wish him well and bid him farewell, and tell him, if he is wise, to follow me [c] as soon as possible. I am leaving today, it seems, as the Athenians so order it.

Said Simmias: “What kind of advice is this you are giving to Evenus, Socrates? I have met him many times, and from my observation he is not at all likely to follow it willingly.”

How so, said he, is Evenus not a philosopher?

I think so, Simmias said. Then Evenus will be willing, like every man who partakes worthily of philosophy. Yet perhaps he will not

take his own life, for that, they say, is not right. As he said this, Socrates put his feet on the ground and remained in this position during the rest of the [d] conversation.

Then Cebes asked: “How do you mean Socrates, that it is not right to do oneself violence, and yet that the philosopher will be willing to follow one who is dying?”

Come now, Cebes, have you and Simmias, who keep company with Philolaus,8 not heard about such things?

Nothing definite, Socrates. Indeed, I too speak about this from hearsay, but I do not mind telling you what I have heard, for it is

perhaps most appropriate for one who is about to depart yonder to tell and examine tales about what we believe that journey to be like. What else could [e] one do in the time we have until sunset?

But whatever is the reason, Socrates, for people to say that it is not right to kill oneself? As to your question just now, I have heard Philolaus say this when staying in Thebes and I have also heard it from others, but I have never heard anyone give a clear account of the matter.

Well, he said, we must do our best, and you may yet hear one. And it may well astonish you if this [62] subject, alone of all things, is simple, and it is never, as with everything else, better at certain times and for certain people to die than to live. And if this is so, you may well find it astonishing that those for whom it is better to die are wrong to help themselves, and that they must wait for someone else to benefit them.

And Cebes, lapsing into his own dialect, laughed quietly and said: “Zeus knows it is.” Indeed, said Socrates, it does seem unreasonable when put like that, but perhaps there is reason to it. [b]

There is the explanation that is put in the language of the mysteries, that we men are in a kind of prison, and that one must not free oneself or run away. That seems to me an impressive doctrine and one not easy to understand fully. However, Cebes, this seems to me well expressed, that the gods are our guardians and that men are one of their possessions. Or do you not think so?

I do, said Cebes. And would you not be angry if one of your possessions [c] killed itself when you had not given any sign

that you wished it to die, and if you had any punishment you could inflict, you would inflict it? Certainly, he said. Perhaps then, put in this way, it is not unreasonable that one should not kill oneself before a god had

indicated some necessity to do so, like the necessity now put upon us. That seems likely, said Cebes. As for what you were [d] saying, that philosophers should be willing and

ready to die, that seems strange, Socrates, if what we said just now is reasonable, namely, that a god is our protector and that we are his possessions. It is not logical that the wisest of men should not resent leaving this service in which they are governed by the best of masters, the gods, for a wise man cannot believe that he will look after himself better when he is free. A foolish man might easily think so, that he must [e] escape from his master; he would not reflect that one must not escape from a good master but stay with him as long as possible, because it would be foolish to escape. But the sensible man would want always to remain with one better than himself. So, Socrates, the opposite of what was said before is likely to be true; the wise would resent dying, whereas the foolish would rejoice at it.

I thought that when Socrates heard this he was pleased by Cebes’ argumentation. Glancing at us, he [63] said: “Cebes is always on the track of some arguments; he is certainly not willing to be at once convinced by what one says.”

Said Simmias: “But actually, Socrates, I think myself that Cebes has a point now. Why should truly wise men want to avoid the service of masters better than themselves, and leave them easily? And I think Cebes is aiming his argument at you, because you are bearing leaving us so lightly, and leaving those good masters, as you say yourself, the gods.”

You [b] are both justified in what you say, and I think you mean that I must make a defense against this, as if I were in court.

You certainly must, said Simmias. Come then, he said, let me try to make my defense to you more convincing than it was to the jury. For,

Simmias and Cebes, I should be wrong not to resent dying if I did not believe that I should go first to other

wise and good gods, and then to men who have died and are better than men are here. Be assured that, as it is, I expect to join the company of good men. [c] This last I would not altogether insist on, but if I insist on anything at all in these matters, it is that I shall come to gods who are very good masters. That is why I am not so resentful, because I have good hope that some future awaits men after death, as we have been told for years, a much better future for the good than for the wicked.

Well now, Socrates, said Simmias, do you intend to keep this belief to yourself as you leave us, or would you share it with us? I certainly think it would be a [d] blessing for us too, and at the same time it would be your defense if you convince us of what you say.

I will try, he said, but first let us see what it is that Crito here has, I think, been wanting to say for quite a while.

What else, Socrates, said Crito, but what the man who is to give you the poison has been telling me for some time, that I should warn you to talk as little as possible. People get heated when they talk, he says, and one should not be heated when taking the poison, [e] as those who do must sometimes drink it two or three times.

Socrates replied: “Take no notice of him; only let him be prepared to administer it twice or, if necessary, three times.”

I was rather sure you would say that, Crito said, but he has been bothering me for some time. Let him be, he said. I want to make my argument before you, my judges, as to why I think that a man who

has truly spent his life in philosophy is probably right to be of good cheer in the face of death and to be very hopeful that after death he will attain the greatest blessings yonder. I will try to tell you, Simmias [64] and Cebes, how this may be so. I am afraid that other people do not realize that the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death. Now if this is true, it would be strange indeed if they were eager for this all their lives and then resent it when what they have wanted and practiced for a long time comes upon them.

Simmias laughed and said: “By Zeus, Socrates, you made me laugh, though I was in no laughing mood [b] just now. I think that the majority, on hearing this, will think that it describes the philosophers very well, and our people in Thebes would thoroughly agree that philosophers are nearly dead and that the majority of men is well aware that they deserve to be.”

And they would be telling the truth, Simmias, except for their being aware. They are not aware of the way true philosophers are nearly dead, nor of the way [c] they deserve to be, nor of the sort of death they deserve. But never mind them, he said, let us talk among ourselves. Do we believe that there is such a thing as death?

Certainly, said Simmias. Is it anything else than the separation of the soul from the body? Do we believe that death is this, namely,

that the body comes to be separated by itself apart from the soul, and the soul comes to be separated by itself apart from the body? Is death anything else than that?

No, that is what it is, he said. Consider then, my good sir, whether you share my opinion, for this will lead us to a better knowledge [d]

of what we are investigating. Do you think it is the part of a philosopher to be concerned with such so-called pleasures as those of food and drink?

By no means. What about the pleasures of sex? Not at all. What of the other pleasures concerned with the service of the body? Do you think such a man prizes them

greatly, the acquisition of distinguished clothes and shoes and the other bodily ornaments? Do you think he values these or despises them, except in so [e] far as one cannot do without them?

I think the true philosopher despises them. Do you not think, he said, that in general such a man’s concern is not with the body but that, as far as he

can, he turns away from the body towards the soul? I do. So in the first place, such things show clearly that [65] the philosopher more than other men frees the soul

from association with the body as much as possible? Apparently.

A man who finds no pleasure in such things and has no part in them is thought by the majority not to deserve to live and to be close to death; the man, that is, who does not care for the pleasures of the body.

What you say is certainly true. Then what about the actual acquiring of knowledge? Is the body an obstacle when one associates with it in

the search for knowledge? I mean, for example, [b] do men find any truth in sight or hearing, or are not even the poets9 forever telling us that we do not see or hear anything accurately, and surely if those two physical senses are not clear or precise, our other senses can hardly be accurate, as they are all inferior to these. Do you not think so?

I certainly do, he said. When then, he asked, does the soul grasp the truth? For whenever it attempts to examine anything with

the body, it is clearly deceived by it. True. [c] Is it not in reasoning if anywhere that any reality becomes clear to the soul? Yes. And indeed the soul reasons best when none of these senses troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain

nor pleasure, but when it is most by itself, taking leave of the body and as far as possible having no contact or association with it in its search for reality.

That is so. And it is then that the soul of the philosopher most disdains the body, flees from it and seeks to be [d] by

itself? It appears so. What about the following, Simmias? Do we say that there is such a thing as the Just itself, or not? We do say so, by Zeus. And the Beautiful, and the Good? Of course. And have you ever seen any of these things with your eyes? In no way, he said. Or have you ever grasped them with any of your bodily senses? I am speaking of all things such as Size,

Health, Strength and, in a word, the reality of all other things, that which each of them essentially is. Is what is most true in them contemplated through [e] the body, or is this the position: whoever of us prepares himself best and most accurately to grasp that thing itself which he is investigating will come closest to the knowledge of it?

Obviously. Then he will do this most perfectly who approaches the object with thought alone, without associating

[66] any sight with his thought, or dragging in any sense perception with his reasoning, but who, using pure thought alone, tries to track down each reality pure and by itself, freeing himself as far as possible from eyes and ears, and in a word, from the whole body, because the body confuses the soul and does not allow it to acquire truth and wisdom whenever it is associated with it. Will not that man reach reality, Simmias, if anyone does?

What you say, said Simmias, is indeed true. [b] All these things will necessarily make the true philosophers believe and say to each other something

like this: “There is likely to be something such as a path to guide us out of our confusion, because as long as we have a body and our soul is fused with such an evil we shall never adequately attain what we desire, which we affirm to be the truth. The body keeps us busy in a thousand ways because of its need for nurture. Moreover, if certain diseases befall it, [c] they impede our search for the truth. It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the body. Only the body and its desires cause war, civil discord and battles, for all wars are due to the desire to acquire [d] wealth, and it is the body and the care of it, to which we are enslaved, which compel us to acquire wealth, and all this makes us too busy to practice philosophy. Worst of all, if we do get some respite from it and turn to some investigation, everywhere in our investigations the body is present and makes for confusion and fear, so that it prevents us from seeing the truth.

“It really has been shown to us that, if we are ever to have pure knowledge, we must escape from the [e] body and observe things in themselves with the soul by itself. It seems likely that we shall, only then, when we are dead, attain that which we desire and of which we claim to be lovers, namely, wisdom, as our argument shows, not while we live; for if it is impossible to attain any pure knowledge with the body, then one of two things is true: either we can never attain knowledge or we can do so after death. Then and [67] not before, the soul is by itself apart from the body. While we live, we shall be closest to knowledge if we refrain as much as possible from association with the body and do not join with it more than we must, if we are not infected with its nature but purify ourselves from it until the god himself frees us. In this way we shall escape the contamination of the body’s folly; we shall be likely to be in the company of people of the same kind, and by our own efforts we shall know all that is pure, which is presumably the truth, for it [b] is not permitted to the impure to attain the pure.”

Such are the things, Simmias, that all those who love learning in the proper manner must say to one another and believe. Or do you not think so?

I certainly do, Socrates. And if this is true, my friend, said Socrates, there is good hope that on arriving where I am going, if

anywhere, I shall acquire what has been our chief preoccupation in our past life, so that the journey that is now ordered for me is full of good hope, as it [c] is also for any other man who believes that his mind has been prepared and, as it were, purified.

It certainly is, said Simmias. And does purification not turn out to be what we mentioned in our argument some time ago, namely, to

separate the soul as far as possible from the body and accustom it to gather itself and collect itself out of every part of the body and to dwell by itself as far as it can both now and in the future, freed, as it were, [d] from the bonds of the body?

Certainly, he said. And that freedom and separation of the soul from the body is called death? That is altogether so. It is only those who practice philosophy in the right way, we say, who always most want to free the soul;

and this release and separation of the soul from the body is the preoccupation of the philosophers? So it appears. Therefore, as I said at the beginning, it would be ridiculous for a man to train himself in life to live in a

state as close to death as possible, and then to resent it when it comes? [e] Ridiculous, of course. In fact, Simmias, he said, those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they

fear death least of all men. Consider it from this point of view: if they are altogether estranged from the body and desire to have their soul by itself, would it not be quite absurd for them to be afraid and resentful when this happens? If they did not gladly set out for a place, where, on arrival, they may hope to attain that for which they had yearned during their [68] lifetime, that is, wisdom, and where they would be rid of the presence of that from which they are estranged?

Many men, at the death of their lovers, wives or sons, were willing to go to the underworld, driven by the hope of seeing there those for whose company they longed, and being with them. Will then a true lover of wisdom, who has a similar hope and knows that he will never find it to any extent except in Hades, be resentful of dying and not gladly undertake the journey thither? One must surely think so, my friend, if he is a true philosopher, for he is firmly [b] convinced that he will not find pure knowledge anywhere except there. And if this is so, then, as I said just now, would it not be highly unreasonable for such a man to fear death?

It certainly would, by Zeus, he said. Then you have sufficient indication, he said, that any man whom you see resenting death was not a [c]

lover of wisdom but a lover of the body, and also a lover of wealth or of honors, either or both. It is certainly as you say. And, Simmias, he said, does not what is called courage belong especially to men of this disposition? Most certainly. And the quality of moderation which even the majority call by that name, that is, not to get swept off one’s

feet by one’s passions, but to treat them with disdain and orderliness, is this not suited only to those [d] who

most of all despise the body and live the life of philosophy? Necessarily so, he said. If you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange. In what way, Socrates? You know that they all consider death a great evil? Definitely, he said. And the brave among them face death, when they do, for fear of greater evils? That is so. Therefore, it is fear and terror that make all men brave, except the philosophers. Yet it is illogical to be

brave through fear and cowardice. [e] It certainly is. What of the moderate among them? Is their experience not similar? Is it license of a kind that makes them

moderate? We say this is impossible, yet their experience of this unsophisticated moderation turns out to be similar: they fear to be deprived of other pleasures which they desire, so they keep away from some pleasures because they are overcome by others. Now to be mastered by pleasure is what they call license, but what happens to them is that they master certain pleasures because they are mastered by others. [69] This is like what we mentioned just now, that in some way it is a kind of license that has made them moderate.

That seems likely. My good Simmias, I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures,

pains for pains, and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that the only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is [b] wisdom. With this we have real courage and moderation and justice and, in a word, true virtue, with wisdom, whether pleasures and fears and all such things be present or absent. When these are exchanged for one another in separation from wisdom, such virtue is only an illusory appearance of virtue; it is in fact fit for slaves, without soundness or truth, whereas, in truth, moderation and courage and justice are a purging away of all such things, and wisdom itself is a kind of cleansing [c] or purification. It is likely that those who established the mystic rites for us were not inferior persons but were speaking in riddles long ago when they said that whoever arrives in the underworld uninitiated and unsanctified will wallow in the mire, whereas he who arrives there purified and initiated will dwell with the gods. There are indeed, as those concerned with the mysteries say, many who carry the thyrsus but the Bacchants [d] are few.10 These latter are, in my opinion, no other than those who have practiced philosophy in the right way. I have in my life left nothing undone in order to be counted among these as far as possible, as I have been eager to be in every way. Whether my eagerness was right and we accomplished anything we shall, I think, know for certain in a short time, god willing, on arriving yonder.

This is my defense, Simmias and Cebes, that I am likely to be right to leave you and my masters here [e] without resentment or complaint, believing that there, as here, I shall find good masters and good friends. If my defense is more convincing to you than to the Athenian jury, it will be well.

When Socrates finished, Cebes intervened: Socrates, he said, everything else you said is excellent, I [70] think, but men find it very hard to believe what you said about the soul. They think that after it has left the body it no longer exists anywhere, but that it is destroyed and dissolved on the day the man dies, as soon as it leaves the body; and that, on leaving it, it is dispersed like breath or smoke, has flown away and gone and is no longer anything anywhere. If indeed it gathered itself together and existed by itself and escaped those evils you were recently enumerating, there would then be much good hope, Socrates, that [b] what you say is true; but to believe this requires a good deal of faith and persuasive argument, to believe that the soul still exists after a man has died and that it still possesses some capability and intelligence.

What you say is true, Cebes, Socrates said, but what shall we do? Do you want to discuss whether this is likely to be true or not?

Personally, said Cebes, I should like to hear your opinion on the subject. I do not think, said Socrates, that anyone who heard me now, not even a comic poet, could say that I am

[c] babbling and discussing things that do not concern me, so we must examine the question thoroughly, if you think we should do so. Let us examine it in some such a manner as this: whether the souls of men who have died exist in the underworld or not. We recall an ancient theory that souls arriving there come from here, and then again that they arrive here and are born here from the dead. If that is true, that the living come back from the dead, then surely our souls must [d] exist there, for they could not come back if they did not exist,

and this is a sufficient proof that these things are so if it truly appears that the living never come from any other source than from the dead. If this is not the case we should need another argument.

Quite so, said Cebes. Do not, he said, confine yourself to humanity if you want to understand this more readily, but take all

animals and all plants into account, and, in short, [e] for all things which come to be, let us see whether they come to be in this way, that is, from their opposites if they have such, as the beautiful is the opposite of the ugly and the just of the unjust, and a thousand other things of the kind. Let us examine whether those that have an opposite must necessarily come to be from their opposite and from nowhere else, as for example when something comes to be larger it must necessarily become larger from having been smaller before.

Yes. Then if something smaller comes to be, it will come from something larger before, which became smaller?

[71] That is so, he said. And the weaker comes to be from the stronger, and the swifter from the slower? Certainly. Further, if something worse comes to be, does it not come from the better, and the juster from the more

unjust? Of course. So we have sufficiently established that all things come to be in this way, opposites from opposites? Certainly. There is a further point, something such as this, about these opposites: between each of those pairs of

opposites there are two processes: from the one to [b] the other and then again from the other to the first; between the larger and the smaller there is increase and decrease, and we call the one increasing and the other decreasing?

Yes, he said. And so too there is separation and combination, cooling and heating, and all such things, even if

sometimes we do not have a name for the process, but in fact it must be everywhere that they come to be from one another, and that there is a process of becoming from each into the other?

Assuredly, he said. Well then, is there an opposite to living, as sleeping is the opposite of being awake? [c] Quite so, he said. What is it? Being dead, he said. Therefore, if these are opposites, they come to be from one another, and there are two processes of

generation between the two? Of course. I will tell you, said Socrates, one of the two pairs I was just talking about, the pair itself and the two

processes, and you will tell me the other. I mean, to sleep and to be awake; to be awake comes from sleeping, [d] and to sleep comes from being awake. Of the two processes one is going to sleep, the other is waking up. Do you accept that, or not?

Certainly. You tell me in the same way about life and death. Do you not say that to be dead is the opposite of being

alive? I do. And they come to be from one another? Yes. What comes to be from being alive? Being dead. And what comes to be from being dead?

One must agree that it is being alive. Then, Cebes, living creatures and things come to be from the dead? [e] So it appears, he said. Then our souls exist in the underworld? That seems likely. Then in this case one of the two processes of becoming is clear, for dying is clear enough, is it not? It certainly is. What shall we do then? Shall we not supply the opposite process of becoming? Is nature to be lame in this

case? Or must we provide a process of becoming opposite to dying? We surely must. And what is that? Coming to life again. [72] Therefore, he said, if there is such a thing as coming to life again, it would be a process of coming

from the dead to the living? Quite so. It is agreed between us then that the living come from the dead in this way no less than the dead from the

living and, if that is so, it seems to be a sufficient proof that the souls of the dead must be somewhere whence they can come back again.

I think, Socrates, he said, that this follows from what we have agreed on. Consider in this way, Cebes, he said, that, as I think, we were not wrong to agree. If the two processes [b]

of becoming did not always balance each other as if they were going round in a circle, but generation proceeded from one point to its opposite in a straight line and it did not turn back again to the other opposite or take any turning, do you realize that all things would ultimately have the same form, be affected in the same way, and cease to become?

How do you mean? he said. It is not hard to understand what I mean. If, for example, there was such a process as going to sleep, but

no corresponding process of waking up, you realize that in the end everything would show the story of Endymion11 to have no meaning. There would be [c] no point to it because everything would have the same experience as he and be asleep. And if everything were combined and nothing separated, the saying of Anaxagoras12 would soon be true, “that all things were mixed together.” In the same way, my dear Cebes, if everything that partakes of life were to die and remain in that state and not come to life again, would not [d] everything ultimately have to be dead and nothing alive? Even if the living came from some other source, and all that lived died, how could all things avoid being absorbed in death?

It could not be, Socrates, said Cebes, and I think what you say is altogether true. I think, Cebes, said he, that this is very definitely the case and that we were not deceived when we agreed

on this: coming to life again in truth exists, the living come to be from the dead, and the souls of the dead exist. [e]

Furthermore, Socrates, Cebes rejoined, such is also the case if that theory is true that you are accustomed to mention frequently, that for us learning is no other than recollection. According to this, we must at some previous time have learned what we now recollect. This is possible only if our soul existed somewhere [73] before it took on this human shape. So according to this theory too, the soul is likely to be something immortal.

Cebes, Simmias interrupted, what are the proofs of this? Remind me, for I do not quite recall them at the moment.

There is one excellent argument, said Cebes, namely that when men are interrogated in the right manner, they always give the right answer of their own accord, and they could not do this if they did not possess the knowledge and the right explanation [b] inside them. Then if one shows them a diagram or something else of that kind, this will show most clearly that such is the case.13

If this does not convince you, Simmias, said Socrates, see whether you agree if we examine it in some such way as this, for you doubt that what we call learning is recollection.

It is not that I doubt, said Simmias, but I want to experience the very thing we are discussing, recollection, and from what Cebes undertook to say, I am now remembering and am pretty nearly convinced. Nevertheless, I should like to hear now the way you were intending to explain it.

This way, he said. We surely agree that if anyone [c] recollects anything, he must have known it before. Quite so, he said. Do we not also agree that when knowledge comes to mind in this way, it is recollection? What way do I

mean? Like this: When a man sees or hears or in some other way perceives one thing and not only knows that thing but also thinks of another thing of which the knowledge is not the same but different, are we not right to say that he recollects the second thing that comes into his mind?

[d] How do you mean? Things such as this: To know a man is surely a different knowledge from knowing a lyre. Of course. Well, you know what happens to lovers: whenever they see a lyre, a garment, or anything else that their

beloved is accustomed to use, they know the lyre, and the image of the boy to whom it belongs comes into their mind. This is recollection, just as someone, on seeing Simmias, often recollects Cebes, and there are thousands of other such occurrences.

Thousands indeed, said Simmias. Is this kind of thing not recollection of a kind, he said, especially so when one experiences it about [e]

things that one had forgotten, because one had not seen them for some time?—Quite so. Further, he said, can a man seeing the picture of a horse or a lyre recollect a man, or seeing a picture of

Simmias recollect Cebes?—Certainly. Or seeing a picture of Simmias recollect Simmias himself?—He certainly can. In all these cases the recollection is occasioned by things that are similar, but it can also be occasioned [74]

by things that are dissimilar?—It can. When the recollection is caused by similar things, must one not of necessity also experience this: to

consider whether the similarity to that which one recollects is deficient in any respect or complete? — One must.

Consider, he said, whether this is the case: we say that there is something that is equal. I do not mean a stick equal to a stick or a stone to a stone, or anything of that kind, but something else beyond all these, the Equal itself. Shall we say that this exists or not?

Indeed we shall, by Zeus, said Simmias, most definitely. [b] And do we know what this is?—Certainly. Whence have we acquired the knowledge of it? Is it not from the things we mentioned just now, from

seeing sticks or stones or some other things that are equal we come to think of that other which is different from them? Or doesn’t it seem to you to be different? Look at it also this way: do not equal stones and sticks sometimes, while remaining the same, appear to one to be equal and to another to be unequal?—Certainly they do.

But what of the equals themselves?14 Have they ever appeared unequal to you, or Equality to be Inequality? [c]

Never, Socrates. These equal things and the Equal itself are therefore not the same? I do not think they are the same at all, Socrates. But it is definitely from the equal things, though they are different from that Equal, that you have derived

and grasped the knowledge of equality? Very true, Socrates. Whether it be like them or unlike them? Certainly. It makes no difference. As long as the sight of one thing makes you think of another, whether it be similar

or dissimilar, this must of necessity be recollection? [d] Quite so.

Well then, he said, do we experience something like this in the case of equal sticks and the other equal objects we just mentioned? Do they seem to us to be equal in the same sense as what is Equal itself? Is there some deficiency in their being such as the Equal, or is there not?

A considerable deficiency, he said. Whenever someone, on seeing something, realizes that that which he now sees wants to be like some [e]

other reality but falls short and cannot be like that other since it is inferior, do we agree that the one who thinks this must have prior knowledge of that to which he says it is like, but deficiently so?

Necessarily. Well, do we also feel this about the equal objects and the Equal itself, or do we not? Very definitely. We must then possess knowledge of the Equal before that time when we first saw the equal objects [75]

and realized that all these objects strive to be like the Equal but are deficient in this. That is so. Then surely we also agree that this conception of ours derives from seeing or touching or some other sense

perception, and cannot come into our mind in any other way, for all these senses, I say, are the same. They are the same, Socrates, at any rate in respect to that which our argument wishes to make plain. [b]

Our sense perceptions must surely make us realize that all that we perceive through them is striving to reach that which is Equal but falls short of it; or how do we express it?

Like that. Then before we began to see or hear or otherwise perceive, we must have possessed knowledge of the

Equal itself if we were about to refer our sense perceptions of equal objects to it, and realized that all of them were eager to be like it, but were inferior.

That follows from what has been said, Socrates. But we began to see and hear and otherwise perceive right after birth? Certainly. We must then have acquired the knowledge of [c] equality before this. Yes. It seems then that we must have possessed it before birth. It seems so. Therefore, if we had this knowledge, we knew before birth and immediately after not only the Equal, but

the Greater and the Smaller and all such things, for our present argument is no more about the Equal than about the Beautiful itself, the Good itself, the Just, the Pious, and, as I say, about all those things [d] to which we can attach the word “itself,” both when we are putting questions and answering them. So we must have acquired knowledge of them all before we were born.

That is so. If, having acquired this knowledge in each case, we have not forgotten it, we remain knowing and have

knowledge throughout our life, for to know is to acquire knowledge, keep it and not lose it. Do we not call the losing of knowledge forgetting?

Most certainly, Socrates, he said. [e] But, I think, if we acquired this knowledge before birth, then lost it at birth, and then later by the use of

our senses in connection with those objects we mentioned, we recovered the knowledge we had before, would not what we call learning be the recovery of our own knowledge, and we are right to call this recollection?

Certainly. It was seen to be possible for someone to see or [76] hear or otherwise perceive something, and by this to

be put in mind of something else which he had forgotten and which is related to it by similarity or difference. One of two things follows, as I say: either we were born with the knowledge of it, and all of us know it throughout life, or those who later, we say, are learning, are only recollecting, and learning would be recollection.

That is certainly the case, Socrates. Which alternative do you choose, Simmias? That [b] we are born with this knowledge or that we recollect

later the things of which we had knowledge previously? I have no means of choosing at the moment, Socrates. Well, can you make this choice? What is your opinion about it? A man who has knowledge would be able

to give an account of what he knows, or would he not? He must certainly be able to do so, Socrates, he said. And do you think everybody can give an account of the things we were mentioning just now? I wish they could, said Simmias, but I’m afraid it is much more likely that by this time tomorrow there will

be no one left who can do so adequately. [c] So you do not think that everybody has knowledge of those things? No indeed. So they recollect what they once learned? They must. When did our souls acquire the knowledge of them? Certainly not since we were born as men. Indeed no. Before that then? Yes. So then, Simmias, our souls also existed apart from the body before they took on human form, and they

had intelligence. Unless we acquire the knowledge at the moment of birth, Socrates, for that time is still left to us. [d] Quite so, my friend, but at what other time do we lose it? We just now agreed that we are not born

with that knowledge. Do we then lose it at the very time we acquire it, or can you mention any other time? I cannot, Socrates. I did not realize that I was talking nonsense. So this is our position, Simmias? he said. If those realities we are always talking about exist, the Beautiful

and the Good and all that kind of reality, and we refer all the things we perceive to that reality, discovering that it existed before and is ours, and we [e] compare these things with it, then, just as they exist, so our soul must exist before we are born. If these realities do not exist, then this argument is altogether futile. Is this the position, that there is an equal necessity for those realities to exist, and for our souls to exist before we were born? If the former do not exist, neither do the latter?

I do not think, Socrates, said Simmias, that there is any possible doubt that it is equally necessary for both to exist, and it is opportune that our argument comes to the conclusion that our soul exists before [77] we are born, and equally so that reality of which you are now speaking. Nothing is so evident to me personally as that all such things must certainly exist, the Beautiful, the Good, and all those you mentioned just now. I also think that sufficient proof of this has been given.

Then what about Cebes? said Socrates, for we must persuade Cebes also. He is sufficiently convinced I think, said Simmias, though he is the most difficult of men to persuade by

argument, but I believe him to be fully convinced that our soul existed before we were born. I do not think myself, however, that it has been proved that [b] the soul continues to exist after death; the opinion of the majority which Cebes mentioned still stands, that when a man dies his soul is dispersed and this is the end of its existence. What is to prevent the soul coming to be and being constituted from some other source, existing before it enters a human body and then, having done so and departed from it, itself dying and being destroyed?

You are right, Simmias, said Cebes. Half of what [c] needed proof has been proved, namely, that our soul existed before we were born, but further proof is needed that it exists no less after we have died, if the proof is to be complete.

It has been proved even now, Simmias and Cebes, said Socrates, if you are ready to combine this argument with the one we agreed on before, that every living thing must come from the dead. If the soul exists before, it must, as it comes to life and birth, come from nowhere else than death and being dead, [d] so how could it avoid existing after death since it must be born again? What you speak of has then even now been proved. However, I think you and Simmias would like to discuss the argument more fully. You seem to have this childish fear that the wind would really dissolve and scatter the soul, as it leaves the body, especially if one happens to die in a high wind [e] and not in calm weather.

Cebes laughed and said: “Assuming that we were afraid, Socrates, try to change our minds, or rather do

not assume that we are afraid, but perhaps there is a child in us who has these fears; try to persuade him not to fear death like a bogey.”

You should, said Socrates, sing a charm over him every day until you have charmed away his fears. [78] Where shall we find a good charmer for these fears, Socrates, he said, now that you are leaving us? Greece is a large country, Cebes, he said, and there are good men in it; the tribes of foreigners are also

numerous. You should search for such a charmer among them all, sparing neither trouble nor expense, for there is nothing on which you could spend your money to greater advantage. You must also search among yourselves, for you might not easily find people who could do this better than yourselves.

That shall be done, said Cebes, but let us, if it [b] pleases you, go back to the argument where we left it. Of course it pleases me. Splendid, he said. We must then ask ourselves something like this: what kind of thing is likely to be scattered? On behalf of

what kind of thing should one fear this, and for what kind of thing should one not fear it? We should then examine to which class the soul belongs, and as a result either fear for the soul or be of good cheer.

What you say is true. [c] Is not anything that is composite and a compound by nature liable to be split up into its component

parts, and only that which is noncomposite, if anything, is not likely to be split up? I think that is the case, said Cebes. Are not the things that always remain the same and in the same state most likely not to be composite,

whereas those that vary from one time to another and are never the same are composite? I think that is so. Let us then return to those same things with which [d] we were dealing earlier, to that reality of whose

existence we are giving an account in our questions and answers; are they ever the same and in the same state, or do they vary from one time to another; can the Equal itself, the Beautiful itself, each thing in itself, the real, ever be affected by any change whatever? Or does each of them that really is, being uniform by itself, remain the same and never in any way tolerate any change whatever?

It must remain the same, said Cebes, and in the same state, Socrates. What of the many beautiful particulars, be they men, horses, clothes, or other such things, or the [e] many

equal particulars, and all those which bear the same name as those others? Do they remain the same or, in total contrast to those other realities, one might say, never in any way remain the same as themselves or in relation to each other?

The latter is the case; they are never in the same state. These latter you could touch and see and perceive [79] with the other senses, but those that always remain

the same can be grasped only by the reasoning power of the mind? They are not seen but are invisible? That is altogether true, he said. Do you then want us to assume two kinds of existences, the visible and the invisible? Let us assume this. And the invisible always remains the same, whereas the visible never does? Let us assume that too. Now one part of ourselves is the body, another part [b] is the soul? Quite so. To which class of existence do we say the body is more alike and akin? To the visible, as anyone can see. What about the soul? Is it visible or invisible? It is not visible to men, Socrates, he said. Well, we meant visible and invisible to human eyes; or to any others, do you think? To human eyes. Then what do we say about the soul? Is it visible or not visible? Not visible.

So it is invisible?—Yes. So the soul is more like the invisible than the body, and the body more like the visible?—Without any [c]

doubt, Socrates. Haven’t we also said some time ago that when the soul makes use of the body to investigate something, be

it through hearing or seeing or some other sense— for to investigate something through the body is to do it through the senses—it is dragged by the body to the things that are never the same, and the soul itself strays and is confused and dizzy, as if it were drunk, in so far as it is in contact with that kind of thing?

Certainly. [d] But when the soul investigates by itself it passes into the realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal

and unchanging, and being akin to this, it always stays with it whenever it is by itself and can do so; it ceases to stray and remains in the same state as it is in touch with things of the same kind, and its experience then is what is called wisdom?

Altogether well said and very true, Socrates, he said. Judging from what we have said before and what [e] we are saying now, to which of these two kinds do

you think that the soul is more alike and more akin? I think, Socrates, he said, that on this line of argument any man, even the dullest, would agree that the

soul is altogether more like that which always exists in the same state rather than like that which does not. What of the body? That is like the other. Look at it also this way: when the soul and the [80] body are together, nature orders the one to be subject

and to be ruled, and the other to rule and be master. Then again, which do you think is like the divine and which like the mortal? Do you not think that the nature of the divine is to rule and to lead, whereas it is that of the mortal to be ruled and be subject?

I do. Which does the soul resemble? Obviously, Socrates, the soul resembles the divine, and the body resembles the mortal. Consider then, Cebes, whether it follows from all that has been said that the soul is most like the divine,

[b] deathless, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, always the same as itself, whereas the body is most like that which is human, mortal, multiform, unintelligible, soluble, and never consistently the same. Have we anything else to say to show, my dear Cebes, that this is not the case?

We have not. Well then, that being so, is it not natural for the body to dissolve easily, and for the soul to be altogether

indissoluble, or nearly so? [c] Of course. You realize, he said, that when a man dies, the visible part, the body, which exists in the visible world, and

which we call the corpse, whose natural lot it would be to dissolve, fall apart and be blown away, does not immediately suffer any of these things but remains for a fair time, in fact, quite a long time if the man dies with his body in a suitable condition and at a favorable season? If the body is emaciated or embalmed, as in Egypt, it remains almost whole for a remarkable length of time, and even if the body decays, some parts of it, namely bones and sinews and [d] the like, are nevertheless, one might say, deathless. Is that not so?—Yes.

Will the soul, the invisible part which makes its way to a region of the same kind, noble and pure and invisible, to Hades in fact, to the good and wise god whither, god willing, my soul must soon be going—will the soul, being of this kind and nature, be scattered and destroyed on leaving the body, as the majority of men say? Far from it, my dear Cebes and [e] Simmias, but what happens is much more like this: if it is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, as it had no willing association with the body in life, but avoided it and gathered itself together by itself and always practiced this, which is no other than practising philosophy in the right way, [81] in fact, training to die easily. Or is this not training for death?

It surely is. A soul in this state makes its way to the invisible, which is like itself, the divine and immortal and wise,

and arriving there it can be happy, having rid itself of confusion, ignorance, fear, violent desires, and the other human ills and, as is said of the initiates, truly spend the rest of time with the gods. Shall we say this, Cebes, or something different?

This, by Zeus, said Cebes. But I think that if the soul is polluted and impure [b] when it leaves the body, having always been

associated with it and served it, bewitched by physical desires and pleasures to the point at which nothing seems to exist for it but the physical, which one can touch and see or eat and drink or make use of for sexual enjoyment, and if that soul is accustomed to hate and fear and avoid that which is dim and invisible to the eyes but intelligible and to be grasped by philosophy—do you think such a soul will escape pure and by itself?

Impossible, he said. [c] It is, no doubt, permeated by the physical, which constant intercourse and association with the body, as

well as considerable practice, has caused to become ingrained in it? Quite so. We must believe, my friend, that this bodily element is heavy, ponderous, earthy, and visible. Through it,

such a soul has become heavy and is dragged back to the visible region in fear of the unseen and of Hades. It wanders, as we are told, around [d] graves and monuments, where shadowy phantoms, images that such souls produce, have been seen, souls that have not been freed and purified but share in the visible, and are therefore seen.

That is likely, Socrates. It is indeed, Cebes. Moreover, these are not the souls of good but of inferior men, which are forced to

wander there, paying the penalty for their previous bad upbringing. They wander until their longing for [e] that which accompanies them, the physical, again imprisons them in a body, and they are then, as is likely, bound to such characters as they have practiced in their life.

What kind of characters do you say these are, Socrates? Those, for example, who have carelessly practiced gluttony, violence and drunkenness are likely to join

[82] a company of donkeys or of similar animals. Do you not think so? Very likely. Those who have esteemed injustice highly, and tyranny and plunder, will join the tribes of wolves and

hawks and kites, or where else shall we say that they go? Certainly to those, said Cebes. And clearly, the destination of the others will conform to the way in which they have behaved? Clearly, of course. The happiest of these, who will also have the best destination, are those who have practiced popular [b]

and social virtue, which they call moderation and justice and which was developed by habit and practice, without philosophy or understanding?

How are they the happiest? Because it is likely that they will again join a social and gentle group, either of bees or wasps or ants, and

then again the same kind of human group, and so be moderate men. That is likely. No one may join the company of the gods who has not practiced philosophy and is not completely [c] pure

when he departs from life, no one but the lover of learning. It is for this reason, my friends Simmias and Cebes, that those who practice philosophy in the right way keep away from all bodily passions, master them and do not surrender themselves to them; it is not at all for fear of wasting their substance and of poverty, which the majority and the money-lovers fear, nor for fear of dishonor and ill repute, like the ambitious and lovers of honors, that they keep away from them.

That would not be natural for them, Socrates, said Cebes. By Zeus, no, he said. Those who care for their own [d] soul and do not live for the service of their body

dismiss all these things. They do not travel the same road as those who do not know where they are going but, believing that nothing should be done contrary to philosophy and their deliverance and purification, they turn to this and follow wherever philosophy leads.

How so, Socrates? I will tell you, he said. The lovers of learning know that when philosophy gets hold of their soul, it is

imprisoned in and clinging to the body, and that it [e] is forced to examine other things through it as through a cage and not by itself, and that it wallows in every kind of ignorance. Philosophy sees that the worst feature

of this imprisonment is that it is due to desires, so that the prisoner himself is contributing to his own incarceration most of all. As I say, the lovers of learning know that philosophy gets hold of their soul [83] when it is in that state, then gently encourages it and tries to free it by showing them that investigation through the eyes is full of deceit, as is that through the ears and the other senses. Philosophy then persuades the soul to withdraw from the senses insofar as it is not compelled to use them and bids the soul to gather itself together by itself, to trust only itself and whatever reality, existing by itself, the soul by itself [b] understands, and not to consider as true whatever it examines by other means, for this is different in different circumstances and is sensible and visible, whereas what the soul itself sees is intelligible and invisible. The soul of the true philosopher thinks that this deliverance must not be opposed and so keeps away from pleasures and desires and pains as far as he can; he reflects that violent pleasure or pain or passion does not cause merely such evils as one might expect, such as one suffers when one has been sick or extravagant [c] through desire, but the greatest and most extreme evil, though one does not reflect on this.

What is that, Socrates? asked Cebes. That the soul of every man, when it feels violent pleasure or pain in connection with some object,

inevitably believes at the same time that what causes such feelings must be very clear and very true, which it is not. Such objects are mostly visible, are they not?

Certainly. [d] And doesn’t such an experience tie the soul to the body most completely? How so? Because every pleasure or pain provides, as it were, another nail to rivet the soul to the body and to weld

them together. It makes the soul corporeal, so that it believes that truth is what the body says it is. As it shares the beliefs and delights of the body, I think it inevitably comes to share its ways and manner of life and is unable ever to reach Hades in a pure state; it is always full of body when it departs, so that it soon falls back into another body and grows with it as if [e] it had been sewn into it. Because of this, it can have no part in the company of the divine, the pure and uniform.

What you say is very true, Socrates, said Cebes. This is why genuine lovers of learning are moderate and brave, or do you think it is for the reasons the

majority says they are? [84] I certainly do not. Indeed no. This is how the soul of a philosopher would reason: it would not think that while philosophy

must free it, it should while being freed surrender itself to pleasures and pains and imprison itself again, thus laboring in vain like Penelope at her web. The soul of the philosopher achieves a calm from such emotions; it follows reason and ever stays with it contemplating the true, the divine, which is not the object of opinion. Nurtured by this, it believes that one [b] should live in this manner as long as one is alive and, after death, arrive at what is akin and of the same kind, and escape from human evils. After such nurture there is no danger, Simmias and Cebes, that one should fear that, on parting from the body, the soul would be scattered and dissipated by the winds and no longer be anything anywhere.

[c] When Socrates finished speaking there was a long silence. He appeared to be concentrating on what had been said, and so were most of us. But Cebes and Simmias were whispering to each other. Socrates observed them and questioned them. “Come,” he said, “do you think there is something lacking in my argument? There are still many doubtful points and many objections for anyone who wants a thorough discussion of these matters. If you are discussing some other subject, I have nothing to say, but if you have some difficulty about this one, do not hesitate to speak for yourselves and expound it if you think the argument could be improved, and if you think you will do better, take me along with you in the discussion.” [d]

I will tell you the truth, Socrates, said Simmias. Both of us have been in difficulty for some time, and each of us has been urging the other to question you because we wanted to hear what you would say, but we hesitated to bother you, lest it be displeasing to you in your present misfortune.

When Socrates heard this he laughed quietly and said: “Really, Simmias, it would be hard for me to persuade other people that I do not consider my [e] present fate a misfortune if I cannot persuade even you, and you are afraid that it is more difficult to deal with me than before. You seem to think me inferior to the swans in prophecy. They sing before too, but when they realize that they must die they sing most and most beautifully, as they rejoice that they are about to depart to join the god whose servants they [85] are. But men, because of their own fear of death, tell lies about the swans and say that they lament their death and sing in

sorrow. They do not reflect that no bird sings when it is hungry or cold or suffers in any other way, neither the nightingale nor the swallow nor the hoopoe, though they do say that these sing laments when in pain. Nor do the swans, but I believe that as they belong to Apollo, they are prophetic, have [b] knowledge of the future and sing of the blessings of the underworld, sing and rejoice on that day beyond what they did before. As I believe myself to be a fellow servant with the swans and dedicated to the same god, and have received from my master a gift of prophecy not inferior to theirs, I am no more despondent than they on leaving life. Therefore, you must speak and ask whatever you want as long as the authorities allow it.”

Well spoken, said Simmias. I will tell you my difficulty, and then Cebes will say why he does not accept what was said. I believe, as perhaps you do, that [c] precise knowledge on that subject is impossible or extremely difficult in our present life, but that it surely shows a very poor spirit not to examine thoroughly what is said about it, and to desist before one is exhausted by an all-around investigation. One should achieve one of these things: learn the truth about these things or find it for oneself, or, if that is impossible, [d] adopt the best and most irrefutable of men’s theories, and, borne upon this, sail through the dangers of life as upon a raft, unless someone should make that journey safer and less risky upon a firmer vessel of some divine doctrine. So even now, since you have said what you did, I will feel no shame at asking questions, and I will not blame myself in the future because I did not say what I think. As I examine what we said, both by myself and with Cebes, it does not seem to be adequate.

[e] Said Socrates: “You may well be right, my friend, but tell me how it is inadequate.” In this way, as it seems to me, he said: “One might make the same argument about harmony, lyre and

strings, that a harmony is something invisible, without body, beautiful and divine in the attuned lyre, [86] whereas the lyre itself and its strings are physical, bodily, composite, earthy, and akin to what is mortal. Then if someone breaks the lyre, cuts or breaks the strings and then insists, using the same argument as you, that the harmony must still exist and is not destroyed because it would be impossible for the lyre and the strings, which are mortal, still to exist when the strings are broken, and for the harmony, which is akin and of the same nature as the divine and [b] immortal, to be destroyed before that which is mortal; he would say that the harmony itself still must exist and that the wood and the strings must rot before the harmony can suffer. And indeed, Socrates, I think you must have this in mind, that we really do suppose the soul to be something of this kind; as the body is stretched and held together by the hot and the cold, the dry and the moist, and other such things, and [c] our soul is a mixture and harmony of those things when they are mixed with each other rightly and in due measure. If then the soul is a kind of harmony or attunement, clearly, when our body is relaxed or stretched without due measure by diseases and other evils, the soul must immediately be destroyed, even if it be most divine, as are the other harmonies found in music and all the works of artists, and the remains of each body last for a long time until they rot or are [d] burned. Consider what we shall say in answer to one who deems the soul to be a mixture of bodily elements and to be the first to perish in the process we call death.”

Socrates looked at us keenly, as was his habit, smiled, and said: “What Simmias says is quite fair. If one of you is more resourceful than I am, why did he not answer him, for he seems to have handled the argument competently. However, I think that before we answer him, we should hear Cebes’ objection, in [e] order that we may have time to deliberate on an answer. When we have heard him we should either agree with them, if we think them in tune with us or, if not, defend our own argument. Come then, Cebes. What is troubling you?”

I tell you, said Cebes, the argument seems to me to be at the same point as before and open to the [87] same objection. I do not deny that it has been very elegantly and, if it is not offensive to say so, sufficiently proved that our soul existed before it took on this present form, but I do not believe the same applies to its existing somewhere after our death. Not that I agree with Simmias’ objection that the soul is not stronger and much more lasting than the body, for I think it is superior in all these respects. “Why then,” the argument might say, “are you still unconvinced? Since you see that when the man dies, the weaker part continues to exist, do you not think that the more lasting part must be preserved during that time?” On [b] this point consider whether what I say makes sense.

Like Simmias, I too need an image, for I think this argument is much as if one said at the death of an old weaver that the man had not perished but was safe and sound somewhere, and offered as proof the fact that the cloak the old man had woven himself and was wearing was still sound and had not perished. [c] If one was not convinced, he would be asked whether a man lasts longer than a cloak which is in use and being worn, and if the answer was that a man lasts much longer, this would be taken as proof that the man was definitely safe and sound, since the more temporary thing had not perished. But Simmias, I do not think that is so, for consider what I say. Anybody could see that the man who said this was talking nonsense. That weaver had

woven and worn out many such cloaks. He perished after many of them, but [d] before the last. That does not mean that a man is inferior and weaker than a cloak. The image illustrates, I think, the relationship of the soul to the body, and anyone who says the same thing about them would appear to me to be talking sense, that the soul lasts a long time while the body is weaker and more short-lived. He might say that each soul wears out many bodies, especially if it lives many years. If the body were in a state of flux and perished while the man was still alive, and the soul wove afresh the [e] body that is worn out, yet it would be inevitable that whenever the soul perished it would be wearing the last body it wove and perish only before this last. Then when the soul perished, the body would show the weakness of its nature by soon decaying and disappearing. So we cannot trust this argument and be confident that our soul continues to exist somewhere [88] after our death. For, if one were to concede, even more than you do, to a man using that argument, if one were to grant him not only that the soul exists in the time before we are born, but that there is no reason why the soul of some should not exist and continue to exist after our death, and thus frequently be born and die in turn; if one were to grant him that the soul’s nature is so strong that it can survive many bodies, but if, having granted all this, one does not further agree that the soul is not damaged by its many births and is not, in the end, altogether destroyed in one of those deaths, he might say that no [b] one knows which death and dissolution of the body brings about the destruction of the soul, since not one of us can be aware of this. And in that case, any man who faces death with confidence is foolish, unless he can prove that the soul is altogether immortal. If he cannot, a man about to die must of necessity always fear for his soul, lest the present separation of the soul from the body bring about the complete destruction of the soul.

[c] When we heard what they said we were all depressed, as we told each other afterwards. We had been quite convinced by the previous argument, and they seemed to confuse us again, and to drive us to doubt not only what had already been said but also what was going to be said, lest we be worthless as critics or the subject itself admitted of no certainty.

ECHECRATES: By the gods, Phaedo, you have my sympathy, for as I listen to you now I find myself [d] saying to myself: “What argument shall we trust, now that that of Socrates, which was extremely convincing, has fallen into discredit?” The statement that the soul is some kind of harmony has a remarkable hold on me, now and always, and when it was mentioned it reminded me that I had myself previously thought so. And now I am again quite in need, as if from the beginning, of some other argument to convince me that the soul does not die along with the man. Tell me then, by Zeus, how Socrates tackled the argument. Was he obviously distressed, as you say you people were, or was he not, but quietly came to the rescue [e] of his argument, and did he do so satisfactorily or inadequately? Tell us everything as precisely as you can.

PHAEDO: I have certainly often admired Socrates, Echecrates, but never more than on this occasion. That he had a reply was perhaps not strange. What [89] I wondered at most in him was the pleasant, kind and admiring way he received the young men’s argument, and how sharply he was aware of the effect the discussion had on us, and then how well he healed our distress and, as it were, recalled us from our flight and defeat and turned us around to join him in the examination of their argument.

E: How did he do this? P: I will tell you. I happened to be sitting on his right by the couch on a low stool, so that he was sitting

well above me. He stroked my head and pressed [b] the hair on the back of my neck, for he was in the habit of playing with my hair at times. “Tomorrow, Phaedo,” he said, “you will probably cut this beautiful hair.”

Likely enough, Socrates, I said. Not if you take my advice, he said. Why not? said I. It is today, he said, that I shall cut my hair and you yours, if our argument dies on us, and we cannot revive

it. If I were you, and the argument escaped [c] me, I would take an oath, as the Argives15 did, not to let my hair grow before I fought again and defeated the argument of Simmias and Cebes.

But, I said, they say that not even Heracles could fight two people. Then call on me as your Iolaus, as long as the daylight lasts. I shall call on you, but in this case as Iolaus calling on Heracles. It makes no difference, he said, but first there is a certain experience we must be careful to avoid. What is that? I asked. [d] That we should not become misologues, as people become misanthropes. There is no greater evil one

can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse. Misology and misanthropy arise in the same way. Misanthropy

comes when a man without knowledge or skill has placed great trust in someone and believes him to be altogether truthful, sound, and trustworthy; then, a short time afterwards he finds him to be wicked and unreliable, and then this happens in another case; when one has frequently had that experience, especially [e] with those whom one believed to be one’s closest friends, then, in the end, after many such blows, one comes to hate all men and to believe that no one is sound in any way at all. Have you not seen this happen?

I surely have, I said. This is a shameful state of affairs, he said, and obviously due to an attempt to have human relations

without any skill in human affairs, for such skill would lead one to believe, what is in fact true, that the very [90] good and the very wicked are both quite rare, and that most men are between those extremes.

How do you mean? said I. The same as with the very tall and the very short, he said. Do you think anything is rarer than to find an

extremely tall man or an extremely short one? Or a dog or anything else whatever? Or again, one extremely swift or extremely slow, ugly or beautiful, white or black? Are you not aware that in all those cases the most extreme at either end are rare and few, but those in between are many and plentiful?

Certainly, I said. [b] Therefore, he said, if a contest of wickedness were established, there too the winners, you think, would

be very few? That is likely, said I. Likely indeed, he said, but arguments are not like men in this particular. I was merely following your lead

just now.16 The similarity lies rather in this: it is as when one who lacks skill in arguments puts his trust in an argument as being true, then shortly afterwards believes it to be false—as sometimes it is and sometimes it is not—and so with another argument and then another. You know how those in particular who spend their time studying contradiction in the end believe themselves to have become very wise and that [c] they alone have understood that there is no soundness or reliability in any object or in any argument, but that all that exists simply fluctuates up and down as if it were in the Euripus17 and does not remain in the same place for any time at all.

What you say, I said, is certainly true. It would be pitiable, Phaedo, he said, when there is a true and reliable argument and one that can be

understood, if a man who has dealt with such [d] arguments as appear at one time true, at another time untrue, should not blame himself or his own lack of skill but, because of his distress, in the end gladly shift the blame away from himself to the arguments, and spend the rest of his life hating and reviling reasonable discussion and so be deprived of truth and knowledge of reality.

Yes, by Zeus, I said, that would be pitiable indeed. This then is the first thing we should guard against, he said. We should not allow into our minds the [e]

conviction that argumentation has nothing sound about it; much rather we should believe that it is we who are not yet sound and that we must take courage and be eager to attain soundness, you and the others for the sake of your whole life still to come, and I for [91] the sake of death itself. I am in danger at this moment of not having a philosophical attitude about this, but like those who are quite uneducated, I am eager to get the better of you in argument, for the uneducated, when they engage in argument about anything, give no thought to the truth about the subject of discussion but are only eager that those present will accept the position they have set forth. I differ from them only to this extent: I shall not be eager to get the agreement of those present that what I say is true, except incidentally, but I shall be very eager that I should myself be thoroughly convinced that things are so. For I am thinking—see in how contentious a spirit—that if what I say is true, it is a fine thing to be convinced; if, on the other hand, nothing exists after death, at [b] least for this time before I die I shall distress those present less with lamentations and my folly will not continue to exist along with me—that would be a bad thing—but will come to an end in a short time. Thus prepared, Simmias and Cebes, he said, I come to deal with your argument. If you will take my advice, [c] you will give but little thought to Socrates but much more to the truth. If you think that what I say is true, agree with me; if not, oppose it with every argument and take care that in my eagerness I do not deceive myself and you and, like a bee, leave my sting in you when I go.

We must proceed, he said, and first remind me of what you said if I do not appear to remember it. Simmias, as I believe, is in doubt and fear that the soul, [d] though it is more divine and beautiful than the body, yet predeceases it, being a kind of harmony. Cebes, I thought, agrees with me that the soul lasts much

longer than the body, but that no one knows whether the soul often wears out many bodies and then, on leaving its last body, is now itself destroyed. This then is death, the destruction of the soul, since the body is always being destroyed. Are these the questions, Simmias and Cebes, which we must investigate?

[e] They both agreed that they were. Do you then, he asked, reject all our previous statements, or some but not others? Some, they both said, but not others. What, he said, about the statements we made that learning is recollection and that, if this was so, our [92]

soul must of necessity exist elsewhere before us, before it was imprisoned in the body? For myself, said Cebes, I was wonderfully convinced by it at the time and I stand by it now also, more than

by any other statement. That, said Simmias, is also my position, and I should be very surprised if I ever changed my opinion about

this. But you must change your opinion, my Theban friend, said Socrates, if you still believe that a harmony is a

composite thing, and that the soul is a kind of harmony of the elements of the body in a state of tension, for surely you will not allow yourself to maintain [b] that a composite harmony existed before those elements from which it had to be composed, or would you?

Never, Socrates, he said. Do you realize, he said, that this is what you are in fact saying when you state that the soul exists before it

takes on the form and body of a man and that it is composed of elements which do not yet exist? A harmony is not like that to which you compare it; the lyre and the strings and the notes, though still unharmonized, exist; the harmony is composed last [c] of all, and is the first to be destroyed. How will you harmonize this statement with your former one?

In no way, said Simmias. And surely, he said, a statement about harmony should do so more than any other. It should, said Simmias. So your statement is inconsistent? Consider which of your statements you prefer, that learning is

recollection or that the soul is a harmony. I much prefer the former, Socrates. I adopted the [d] latter without proof, because of a certain probability

and plausibility, which is why it appeals to most men. I know that arguments of which the proof is based on probability are pretentious and, if one does not guard against them, they certainly deceive one, in geometry and everything else. The theory of recollection and learning, however, was based on an assumption worthy of acceptance, for our soul was said to exist also before it came into the body, just as the reality does that is of the kind that we qualify by the words “which truly is,” and I convinced myself that I was quite correct to accept it. Therefore, I cannot [e] accept the theory that the soul is a harmony either from myself or anyone else.

What of this, Simmias? Do you think it natural for a harmony, or any other composite, to be in a different state from that of the elements of which it is composed? [93]

Not at all, said Simmias. Nor, as I think, can it act or be acted upon in a different way than its elements? He agreed. One must therefore suppose that a harmony does not direct its components, but is directed by them. He accepted this. A harmony is therefore far from making a movement, or uttering a sound, or doing anything else, in a

manner contrary to that of its parts. Far from it indeed, he said. Does not the nature of each harmony depend on the way it has been harmonized? I do not understand, he said. Will it not, if it is more and more fully harmonized, [b] be more and more fully a harmony, and if it is less

and less fully harmonized, it will be less and less fully a harmony? Certainly. Can this be true about the soul, that one soul is more and more fully a soul than another, or is less and less

fully a soul, even to the smallest extent? Not in any way. Come now, by Zeus, he said. One soul is said to have intelligence and virtue and to be good, another [c] to

have folly and wickedness and to be bad. Are those things truly said? They certainly are. What will someone who holds the theory that the soul is a harmony say that those things are which reside

in the soul, that is, virtue and wickedness? Are these some other harmony and disharmony? That the good soul is harmonized and, being a harmony, has within itself another harmony, whereas the evil soul is both itself a lack of harmony and has no other within itself?

I don’t know what to say, said Simmias, but one who holds that assumption must obviously say something of that kind.

[d] We have previously agreed, he said, that one soul is not more and not less a soul than another, and this means that one harmony is not more and more fully, or less and less fully, a harmony than another. Is that not so?

Certainly. Now that which is no more and no less a harmony is not more or less harmonized. Is that so? It is. Can that which is neither more nor less harmonized partake more or less of harmony, or does it do so

equally? Equally. [e] Then if a soul is neither more nor less a soul than another, it has been harmonized to the same extent? This is so. If that is so, it would have no greater share of disharmony or of harmony? It would not. That being the case, could one soul have more wickedness or virtue than another, if wickedness is

disharmony and virtue harmony? It could not. [94] But rather, Simmias, according to correct reasoning, no soul, if it is a harmony, will have any share of

wickedness, for harmony is surely altogether this very thing, harmony, and would never share in disharmony. It certainly would not. Nor would a soul, being altogether this very thing, a soul, share in wickedness? How could it, in view of what has been said? So it follows from this argument that all the souls of all living creatures will be equally good, if souls are by

nature equally this very thing, souls. I think so, Socrates. Does our argument seem right, he said, and does it seem that it should have come to this, if the hypothesis

[b] that the soul is a harmony was correct? Not in any way, he said. Further, of all the parts of a man, can you mention any other part that rules him than his soul, especially if

it is a wise soul? I cannot. Does it do so by following the affections of the body or by opposing them? I mean, for example, that when

the body is hot and thirsty the soul draws him to the opposite, to not drinking; when the body is hungry, to not eating, and we see a thousand other examples of the soul opposing the affections of the [c] body. Is that not so?

It certainly is. On the other hand we previously agreed that if the soul were a harmony, it would never be out of tune

with the stress and relaxation and the striking of the strings or anything else done to its composing elements, but that it would follow and never direct them?

We did so agree, of course. Well, does it now appear to do quite the opposite, ruling over all the elements of which one says it is [d]

composed, opposing nearly all of them throughout life, directing all their ways, inflicting harsh and painful punishment on them, at times in physical culture and medicine, at other times more gently by threats and exhortations, holding converse with desires and passions and fears as if it were one thing talking to a different one, as Homer wrote somewhere in the Odyssey where he says that Odysseus “struck his breast and rebuked his heart saying,

‘Endure, my heart, you have endured worse than this’”? [e] Do you think that when he composed this the poet thought that his soul was a harmony, a thing to be

directed by the affections of the body? Did he not rather regard it as ruling over them and mastering them, itself a much more divine thing than a harmony?

Yes, by Zeus, I think so, Socrates. Therefore, my good friend, it is quite wrong for us [95] to say that the soul is a harmony, and in saying so

we would disagree both with the divine poet Homer and with ourselves. That is so, he said. Very well, said Socrates. Harmonia of Thebes seems somehow reasonably propitious to us. How and by

what argument, my dear Cebes, can we propitiate Cadmus?18 I think, Cebes said, that you will find a way. You dealt with the argument about harmony in a manner that

was quite astonishing to me. When Simmias was [b] speaking of his difficulties I was very much wondering whether anyone would be able to deal with his argument, and I was quite dumbfounded when right away he could not resist your argument’s first onslaught. I should not wonder therefore if that of Cadmus suffered the same fate.

My good sir, said Socrates, do not boast, lest some malign influence upset the argument we are about to make. However, we leave that to the care of the god, but let us come to grips with it in the Homeric fashion, to see if there is anything in what you say. The sum of your problem is this: you consider that the [c] soul must be proved to be immortal and indestructible before a philosopher on the point of death, who is confident that he will fare much better in the underworld than if he had led any other kind of life, can avoid being foolish and simple-minded in this confidence. To prove that the soul is strong, that it is divine, that it existed before we were born as men, all this, you say, does not show the soul to be immortal but only long-lasting. That it existed for a very long time before, that it knew much and acted much, [d] makes it no more immortal because of that; indeed, its very entering into a human body was the beginning of its destruction, like a disease; it would live that life in distress and would in the end be destroyed in what we call death. You say it makes no difference whether it enters a body once or many times as far as the fear of each of us is concerned, for it is natural for a man who is no fool to be afraid, if he does not know and cannot prove that the soul is immortal. This, I think, is what you maintain, Cebes; I deliberately repeat it often, in order that no point may escape us, and that [e] you may add or subtract something if you wish.

And Cebes said: “There is nothing that I want to add or subtract at the moment. That is what I say.” Socrates paused for a long time, deep in thought. He then said: “This is no unimportant problem that you

raise, Cebes, for it requires a thorough investigation [96] of the cause of generation and destruction. I will, if you wish, give you an account of my experience in these matters. Then if something I say seems useful to you, make use of it to persuade us of your position.”

I surely do wish that, said Cebes. Listen then, and I will, Cebes, he said. When I was a young man I was wonderfully keen on that wisdom

which they call natural science, for I thought it splendid to know the causes of everything, why it comes to be, why it perishes and why it exists. I was often changing my mind in the investigation, in the [b] first instance, of questions such as these: Are living creatures nurtured when heat and cold produce a kind of putrefaction, as some say? Do we think with our blood, or air, or fire, or none of these, and does the brain provide our senses of hearing and sight and smell, from which come memory and opinion, and from memory and opinion which has become stable, comes knowledge? Then again, as I investigated how these things perish and what happens to things in the sky and on the earth, finally I became convinced that [c] I have no natural aptitude at all for that kind of investigation, and of this I will give you sufficient proof. This investigation made me quite blind even to those things which I and others thought that I clearly knew before, so that I unlearned what I thought I knew before, about many other things and specifically about how men grew. I thought before that it was obvious to anybody that men grew through [d] eating and drinking, for food adds flesh to flesh and bones to

bones, and in the same way appropriate parts were added to all other parts of the body, so that the man grew from an earlier small bulk to a large bulk later, and so a small man became big. That is what I thought then. Do you not think it was reasonable?

I do, said Cebes. Then further consider this: I thought my opinion was satisfactory, that when a large man stood by a [e]

small one he was taller by a head, and so a horse was taller than a horse. Even clearer than this, I thought that ten was more than eight because two had been added, and that a two-cubit length is larger than a cubit because it surpasses it by half its length.

And what do you think now about those things? That I am far, by Zeus, from believing that I know the cause of any of those things. I will not even allow

myself to say that where one is added to one either the one to which it is added or the one that is added becomes two, or that the one added and the one to [97] which it is added become two because of the addition of the one to the other. I wonder that, when each of them is separate from the other, each of them is one, nor are they then two, but that, when they come near to one another, this is the cause of their becoming two, the coming together and being placed closer to one another. Nor can I any longer be persuaded that when one thing is divided, this division is the cause [b] of its becoming two, for just now the cause of becoming two was the opposite. At that time it was their coming close together and one was added to the other, but now it is because one is taken and separated from the other.

I do not any longer persuade myself that I know why a unit or anything else comes to be, or perishes or exists by the old method of investigation, and I do not accept it, but I have a confused method of my own. One day I heard someone reading, as he said, [c] from a book of Anaxagoras, and saying that it is Mind that directs and is the cause of everything. I was delighted with this cause and it seemed to me good, in a way, that Mind should be the cause of all. I thought that if this were so, the directing Mind would direct everything and arrange each thing in the way that was best. If then one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, [d] one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is best. The same man must inevitably also know what is worse, for that is part of the same knowledge. As I reflected on this subject I was glad to think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher about the cause of things after my own heart, and that he would tell me, first, whether the earth is [e] flat or round, and then would explain why it is so of necessity, saying which is better, and that it was better to be so. If he said it was in the middle of the universe, he would go on to show that it was better for it to be in the middle, and if he showed me those things I should be prepared never to desire any other kind of [98] cause. I was ready to find out in the same way about the sun and the moon and the other heavenly bodies, about their relative speed, their turnings and whatever else happened to them, how it is best that each should act or be acted upon. I never thought that Anaxagoras, who said that those things were directed by Mind, would bring in any other cause for them than that it was best for them to be as they are. Once he had [b] given the best for each as the cause for each and the general cause of all, I thought he would go on to explain the common good for all, and I would not have exchanged my hopes for a fortune. I eagerly acquired his books and read them as quickly as I could in order to know the best and the worst as soon as possible.

This wonderful hope was dashed as I went on reading and saw that the man made no use of Mind, nor gave it any responsibility for the management of things, but mentioned as causes air and ether and water and many other strange things. That seemed [c] to me much like saying that Socrates’ actions are all due to his mind, and then in trying to tell the causes of everything I do, to say that the reason that I am sitting here is because my body consists of bones and sinews, because the bones are hard and are separated by joints, that the sinews are such as to contract and relax, that they surround the bones along with flesh and skin which hold them together, then as the bones [d] are hanging in their sockets, the relaxation and contraction of the sinews enable me to bend my limbs, and that is the cause of my sitting here with my limbs bent.

Again, he would mention other such causes for my talking to you: sounds and air and hearing, and a thousand other such things, but he would neglect to mention the true causes, that, after the Athenians decided it was better to condemn me, for this reason [e] it seemed best to me to sit here and more right to remain and to endure whatever penalty they ordered. For by the dog, I think these sinews and bones could long ago have been in Megara or among the Boeotians, [99] taken there by my belief as to the best course, if I had not thought it more right and honorable to endure whatever penalty the city ordered rather than escape and run away. To call those things causes is too absurd. If someone said that without bones and sinews and all such things, I should not be able to do what I decided, he would be right, but surely to say that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have chosen the best course, even though I act [b] with my mind, is to speak

very lazily and carelessly. Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. It is what the majority appear to do, like people groping in the dark; they call it a cause, thus giving it a name that does not belong to it. That is why one man surrounds the earth with a vortex to make the heavens keep it in place, another [c] makes the air support it like a wide lid. As for their capacity of being in the best place they could possibly be put, this they do not look for, nor do they believe it to have any divine force, but they believe that they will sometime discover a stronger and more immortal Atlas to hold everything together more, and they do not believe that the truly good and “binding” binds and holds them together. I would gladly become the disciple of any man who taught the workings of that kind of cause. However, since I was deprived and could neither discover it myself nor learn it from [d] another, do you wish me to give you an explanation of how, as a second best, I busied myself with the search for the cause, Cebes?

I would wish it above all else, he said. After this, he said, when I had wearied of investigating things, I thought that I must be careful to avoid

the experience of those who watch an eclipse of the sun, for some of them ruin their eyes unless they watch its reflection in water or some such material. [e] A similar thought crossed my mind, and I feared that my soul would be altogether blinded if I looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with each of my senses. So I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of things by means of words. However, perhaps this analogy is [100] inadequate, for I certainly do not admit that one who investigates things by means of words is dealing with images any more than one who looks at facts. However, I started in this manner: taking as my hypothesis in each case the theory that seemed to me the most compelling, I would consider as true, about cause and everything else, whatever agreed with this, and as untrue whatever did not so agree. But I want to put my meaning more clearly for I do not think that you understand me now.

No, by Zeus, said Cebes, not very well. This, he said, is what I mean. It is nothing new, [b] but what I have never stopped talking about, both

elsewhere and in the earlier part of our conversation. I am going to try to show you the kind of cause with which I have concerned myself. I turn back to those oft-mentioned things and proceed from them. I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest. If you grant me these and agree that they exist, I hope to show you the cause as a result, and to find the soul to be immortal.

Take it that I grant you this, said Cebes, and hasten [c] to your conclusion. Consider then, he said, whether you share my opinion as to what follows, for I think that, if there is

anything beautiful besides the Beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than that it shares in that Beautiful, and I say so with everything. Do you agree to this sort of cause? — I do.

I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes, and if someone tells me that a [d] thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons— for all these confuse me—but I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful. That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone [e] else. And if I stick to this I think I shall never fall into error. This is the safe answer for me or anyone else to give, namely, that it is through Beauty that beautiful things are made beautiful. Or do you not think so too?—I do.

And that it is through Bigness that big things are big and the bigger are bigger, and that smaller things are made small by Smallness?—Yes.

And you would not accept the statement that one [101] man is taller than another by a head19 and the shorter man shorter by the same, but you would bear witness that you mean nothing else than that everything that is bigger is made bigger by nothing else than by Bigness, and that is the cause of its being bigger, and the smaller is made smaller only by Smallness, and this is why it is smaller. I think you would be afraid that some opposite argument would confront you if you said that someone is bigger or smaller by a head, first, because the bigger is bigger and the smaller smaller by the same, then because the bigger is bigger [b] by a head which is small, and this would be strange, namely, that someone is made bigger by something small. Would you not be afraid of this?

I certainly would, said Cebes, laughing. Then you would be afraid to say that ten is more than eight by two, and that this is the cause of the excess,

and not magnitude and because of magnitude, or that two cubits is bigger than one cubit by half and not by Bigness, for this is the same fear.—Certainly.

Then would you not avoid saying that when one [c] is added to one it is the addition and when it is divided it is the division that is the cause of two? And you would loudly exclaim that you do not know how else each thing can come to be except by sharing in the particular reality in which it shares, and in these cases you do not know of any other cause of becoming two except by sharing in Twoness, and that the things that are to be two must share in this, as that which is to be one must share in Oneness, and you would dismiss these additions and divisions and other such subtleties, and leave them to those wiser than yourself to answer. But you, afraid, as they say, of your own [d] shadow and your inexperience, would cling to the safety of your own hypothesis and give that answer. If someone then attacked your hypothesis itself, you would ignore him and would not answer until you had examined whether the consequences that follow from it agree with one another or contradict one another. And when you must give an account of your hypothesis itself you will proceed in the same way: you will assume another hypothesis, the one which seems to you best of the higher ones until you come [e] to something acceptable, but you will not jumble the two as the debaters do by discussing the hypothesis and its consequences at the same time, if you wish to discover any truth. This they do not discuss at all nor give any thought to, but their wisdom enables them to mix everything up and yet to be pleased with themselves, but if you are a philosopher I think you [102] will do as I say.

What you say is very true, said Simmias and Cebes together. ECHECRATES: Yes, by Zeus, Phaedo, and they were right; I think he made these things wonderfully clear

to anyone of even small intelligence. PHAEDO: Yes indeed, Echecrates, and all those present thought so too. E: And so do we who were not present but hear of it now. What was said after that? P: As I recall it, when the above had been accepted, and it was agreed that each of the Forms [b] existed,

and that other things acquired their name by having a share in them, he followed this up by asking: If you say these things are so, when you then say that Simmias is taller than Socrates but shorter than Phaedo, do you not mean that there is in Simmias both tallness and shortness?—I do.

But, he said, do you agree that the words of the statement “Simmias is taller than Socrates” do not express the truth of the matter? It is not, surely, the [c] nature of Simmias to be taller than Socrates because he is Simmias but because of the tallness he happens to have? Nor is he taller than Socrates because Socrates is Socrates, but because Socrates has smallness compared with the tallness of the other?—True.

Nor is he shorter than Phaedo because Phaedo is Phaedo, but because Phaedo has tallness compared with the shortness of Simmias?—That is so.

So then Simmias is called both short and tall, being between the two, presenting his shortness to be overcome [d] by the tallness of one, and his tallness to overcome the shortness of the other. He smilingly added, I seem to be going to talk like a book, but it is as I say. The other agreed.

My purpose is that you may agree with me. Now it seems to me that not only Tallness itself is never willing to be tall and short at the same time, but also that the tallness in us20 will never admit the short or be overcome, but one of two things happens: either [e] it flees and retreats whenever its opposite, the short, approaches, or it is destroyed by its approach. It is not willing to endure and admit shortness and be other than it was, whereas I admit and endure shortness and still remain the same person and am this short man. But Tallness, being tall, cannot venture to be small. In the same way, the short in us is unwilling [103] to become or to be tall ever, nor does any other of the opposites become or be its opposite while still being what it was; either it goes away or is destroyed when that happens. — I altogether agree, said Cebes.

When he heard this, someone of those present— I have no clear memory of who it was—said: “By the gods, did we not agree earlier in our discussion21 to the very opposite of what is now being said, namely, that the larger came from the smaller and the smaller from the larger, and that this simply was how opposites came to be, from their opposites, but now I think we are saying that this would never happen?”

On hearing this, Socrates inclined his head towards the speaker and said: “You have bravely reminded [b] us, but you do not understand the difference between what is said now and what was said then, which was that an opposite thing came from an opposite thing; now we say that the opposite itself could never become opposite to itself, neither that in us nor that in nature. Then, my friend, we were talking of things that have opposite qualities and naming these after them, but now we say that these opposites themselves, from the presence of which in them things get their name, never can tolerate the coming to be from one [c] another.” At the same time he looked to Cebes and said: “Does anything of what this man says also disturb you?”

Not at the moment, said Cebes, but I do not deny that many things do disturb me.

We are altogether agreed then, he said, that an opposite will never be opposite to itself. — Entirely agreed. Consider then whether you will agree to this further point. There is something you call hot and something

you call cold.—There is. Are they the same as what you call snow and fire? [d] —By Zeus, no. So the hot is something other than fire, and the cold is something other than snow?—Yes. You think, I believe, that being snow it will not admit the hot, as we said before, and remain what it was

and be both snow and hot, but when the hot approaches it will either retreat before it or be destroyed. — Quite so.

So fire, as the cold approaches, will either go away or be destroyed; it will never venture to admit coldness and remain what it was, fire and cold.—What you [e] say is true.

It is true then about some of these things that not only the Form itself deserves its own name for all time, but there is something else that is not the Form but has its character whenever it exists. Perhaps I can make my meaning clearer: the Odd must always be given this name we now mention. Is that not so? —Certainly.

Is it the only one of existing things to be called odd—this is my question—or is there something else [104] than the Odd which one must nevertheless also always call odd, as well as by its own name, because it is such by nature as never to be separated from the Odd? I mean, for example, the number three and many others. Consider three: do you not think that it must always be called both by its own name and by that of the Odd, which is not the same as three? That is the nature of three, and of five, and of half of all the numbers; each of them is odd, but it is not [b] the Odd. Then again, two and four and the whole other column of numbers; each of them, while not being the same as the Even, is always even. Do you not agree?—Of course.

Look now. What I want to make clear is this: not only do those opposites not admit each other, but this is also true of those things which, while not being opposite to each other yet always contain the opposites, and it seems that these do not admit that Form which is opposite to that which is in them; when it approaches them, they either perish or give [c] way. Shall we not say that three will perish or undergo anything before, while remaining three, becoming even?—Certainly, said Cebes.

Yet surely two is not the opposite of three? — Indeed it is not. It is then not only opposite Forms that do not admit each other’s approach, but also some other things

that do not admit the onset of opposites.—Very true. Do you then want us, if we can, to define what these are?—I surely do. [d] Would they be the things that compel whatever they occupy not only to contain their Form but also

always that of some opposite?—How do you mean? As we were saying just now, you surely know that what the Form of three occupies must be not only three

but also odd.—Certainly. And we say that the opposite Form to the Form that achieves this result could never come to it.—It could

not. Now it is Oddness that has done this? — Yes. And opposite to this is the Form of the Even?—Yes. [e] So then the Form of the Even will never come to three?—Never. Then three has no share in the Even?—Never. So three is uneven?—Yes. As for what I said we must define, that is, what kind of things, while not being opposites to something, yet

do not admit the opposite, as, for example, the triad, though it is not the opposite of the Even, yet does not admit it because it always brings along the opposite of [105] the Even, and so the dyad in relation to the Odd, fire to the Cold, and very many other things, see whether you would define it thus: Not only does the opposite not admit its opposite, but that which brings along some opposite into that which it occupies; that which brings this along will not admit the opposite to that which it brings along. Refresh your memory; it is no worse for being heard often. Five does not admit the form of the Even, nor will ten, which is twice five, admit the form of the Odd. It is the opposite of something else, yet it will not admit the form of the Odd. Nor do one-and-a-half and other such [b] fractions admit the form of the Whole, nor will one-third, and so on, if you follow me and agree to this.

I certainly agree, he said, and I follow you. Tell me again from the beginning, he said, and do not answer in the words of the question, but do as I do.

I say that beyond that safe answer, which I spoke of first, I see another safe answer. If you should ask me what, coming into a body, makes it hot, my reply would not be that safe and ignorant one, that [c] it is heat, but our present argument provides a more sophisticated answer, namely, fire, and if you ask me what, on coming into a body, makes it sick, I will not say sickness but fever. Nor, if asked the presence of what in a number makes it odd, I will not say oddness but oneness, and so with other things. See if you now sufficiently understand what I want. — Quite sufficiently.

Answer me then, he said, what is it that, present in a body, makes it living?—A soul. And is that always so?—Of course. [d] Whatever the soul occupies, it always brings life to it?—It does. Is there, or is there not, an opposite to life? —There is. What is it?—Death. So the soul will never admit the opposite of that which it brings along, as we agree from what has been

said? Most certainly, said Cebes. Well, and what do we call that which does not admit the form of the even?—The uneven. What do we call that which will not admit the just and that which will not admit the musical? The unmusical, and the other the unjust. [e] Very well, what do we call that which does not admit death? The deathless, he said. Now the soul does not admit death?—No. So the soul is deathless?—It is. Very well, he said. Shall we say that this has been proved, do you think? Quite adequately proved, Socrates. Well now, Cebes, he said, if the uneven were of necessity indestructible, surely three would be

indestructible? — Of course. [106] And if the non-hot were of necessity indestructible, then whenever anyone brought heat to snow, the snow

would retreat safe and unthawed, for it could not be destroyed, nor again could it stand its ground and admit the heat?—What you say is true.

In the same way, if the non-cold were indestructible, then when some cold attacked the fire, it would neither be quenched nor destroyed, but retreat safely.—Necessarily.

Must then the same not be said of the deathless? [b] If the deathless is also indestructible, it is impossible for the soul to be destroyed when death comes upon it. For it follows from what has been said that it will not admit death or be dead, just as three, we said, will not be even nor will the odd; nor will fire be cold, nor the heat that is in the fire. But, someone might say, what prevents the odd, while not becoming [c] even as has been agreed, from being destroyed, and the even to come to be instead? We could not maintain against the man who said this that it is not destroyed, for the uneven is not indestructible. If we had agreed that it was indestructible we could easily have maintained that at the coming of the even, the odd and the three have gone away and the same would hold for fire and the hot and the other things.—Surely.

And so now, if we are agreed that the deathless is [d] indestructible, the soul, besides being deathless, is indestructible. If not, we need another argument.

There is no need for one as far as that goes, for hardly anything could resist destruction if the deathless, which lasts forever, would admit destruction.

All would agree, said Socrates, that the god, and the Form of life itself, and anything that is deathless, are never destroyed.—All men would agree, by Zeus, to that, and the gods, I imagine, even more so.

[e] If the deathless is indestructible, then the soul, if it is deathless, would also be indestructible?— Necessarily.

Then when death comes to man, the mortal part of him dies, it seems, but his deathless part goes away safe and indestructible, yielding the place to death. —So it appears.

Therefore the soul, Cebes, he said, is most certainly [107] deathless and indestructible and our souls will really dwell in the underworld.

I have nothing more to say against that, Socrates, said Cebes, nor can I doubt your arguments. If Simmias here or someone else has something to say, he should not remain silent, for I do not know to what further occasion other than the present he could put it off if he wants to say or to hear anything on these subjects.

Certainly, said Simmias, I myself have no remaining grounds for doubt after what has been said; nevertheless, in view of the importance of our subject and my low opinion of human weakness, I am bound [b] still to have some private misgivings about what we have said.

You are not only right to say this, Simmias, Socrates said, but our first hypotheses require clearer examination, even though we find them convincing. And if you analyze them adequately, you will, I think, follow the argument as far as a man can, and if the conclusion is clear, you will look no further.—That is true.

It is right to think then, gentlemen, that if the soul [c] is immortal, it requires our care not only for the time we call our life, but for the sake of all time, and that one is in terrible danger if one does not give it that care. If death were escape from everything, it would be a great boon to the wicked to get rid of the body and of their wickedness together with their soul. But now that the soul appears to be immortal, there is no escape from evil or salvation for it except by becoming [d] as good and wise as possible, for the soul goes to the underworld possessing nothing but its education and upbringing, which are said to bring the greatest benefit or harm to the dead right at the beginning of the journey yonder.

We are told that when each person dies, the guardian spirit who was allotted to him in life proceeds to lead him to a certain place, whence those who have been gathered together there must, after being judged, proceed to the underworld with the guide [e] who has been appointed to lead them thither from here. Having there undergone what they must and stayed there the appointed time, they are led back here by another guide after long periods of time. The journey is not as Aeschylus’ Telephus22 describes it. [108] He says that only one single path leads to Hades, but I think it is neither one nor simple, for then there would be no need of guides; one could not make any mistake if there were but one path. As it is, it is likely to have many forks and crossroads; and I base this judgment on the sacred rites and customs here.

The well-ordered and wise soul follows the guide and is not without familiarity with its surroundings, but the soul that is passionately attached to the body, as I said before, hovers around it and the visible world [b] for a long time, struggling and suffering much until it is led away by force and with difficulty by its appointed spirit. When the impure soul which has performed some impure deed joins the others after being involved in unjust killings, or committed other crimes which are akin to these and are actions of souls of this kind, everybody shuns it and turns away, unwilling to [c] be its fellow traveller or its guide; such a soul wanders alone completely at a loss until a certain time arrives and it is forcibly led to its proper dwelling place. On the other hand, the soul that has led a pure and moderate life finds fellow travellers and gods to guide it, and each of them dwells in a place suited to it.

There are many strange places upon the earth, and the earth itself is not such as those who are used to discourse upon it believe it to be in nature or size, as someone has convinced me.

[d] Simmias said: “What do you mean, Socrates? I have myself heard many things said about the earth, but certainly not the things that convince you. I should be glad to hear them.”

Indeed, Simmias, I do not think it requires the skill of Glaucus23 to tell you what they are, but to prove them true requires more than that skill, and I should perhaps not be able to do so. Also, even if I had the knowledge, my remaining time would not [e] be long enough to tell the tale. However, nothing prevents my telling you what I am convinced is the shape of the earth and what its regions are.

Even that is sufficient, said Simmias. Well then, he said, the first thing of which I am [109] convinced is that if the earth is a sphere in the

middle of the heavens, it has no need of air or any other force to prevent it from falling. The homogeneous nature of the heavens on all sides and the earth’s own equipoise are sufficient to hold it, for an object balanced in the middle of something homogeneous will have no tendency to incline more in any direction than any other but will remain unmoved. This, he said, is the first point of which I am persuaded.

And rightly so, said Simmias. Further, the earth is very large, and we live around [b] the sea in a small portion of it between Phasis and

the pillars of Heracles, like ants or frogs around a swamp; many other peoples live in many such parts of it. Everywhere about the earth there are numerous hollows of many kinds and shapes and sizes into which the water and the mist and the air have gathered. The earth itself is pure and lies in the pure sky where the stars are situated, which the majority of those who discourse on these subjects call the ether. [c] The water and mist and air are the sediment of the ether and they always flow into the hollows of the earth. We, who dwell in the

hollows of it, are unaware of this and we think that we live above, on the surface of the earth. It is as if someone who lived deep down in the middle of the ocean thought he was living on its surface. Seeing the sun and the other heavenly bodies through the water, he would think the sea to [d] be the sky; because he is slow and weak, he has never reached the surface of the sea or risen with his head above the water or come out of the sea to our region here, nor seen how much purer and more beautiful it is than his own region, nor has he ever heard of it from anyone who has seen it.

Our experience is the same: living in a certain hollow of the earth, we believe that we live upon its surface; the air we call the heavens, as if the stars made their way through it; this too is the same: because of our weakness and slowness we are not able to make our way to the upper limit of the air; if anyone got [e] to this upper limit, if anyone came to it or reached it on wings and his head rose above it, then just as fish on rising from the sea see things in our region, he would see things there and, if his nature could endure to contemplate them, he would know that there is the true heaven, the true light and the true earth, for the earth here, these stones and the whole [110] region, are spoiled and eaten away, just as things in the sea are by the salt water.

Nothing worth mentioning grows in the sea, nothing, one might say, is fully developed; there are caves and sand and endless slime and mud wherever there is earth — not comparable in any way with the beauties of our region. So those things above are in their turn far superior to the things we know. Indeed, if this is the moment to tell a tale, Simmias, it is worth hearing [b] about the nature of things on the surface of the earth under the heavens.

At any rate, Socrates, said Simmias, we should be glad to hear this story. Well then, my friend, in the first place it is said that the earth, looked at from above, looks like those

spherical balls made up of twelve pieces of leather; it is multi-colored, and of these colors those used by our painters give us an indication; up there the whole earth has these colors, but much brighter and purer [c] than these; one part is sea-green and of marvelous beauty, another is golden, another is white, whiter than chalk or snow; the earth is composed also of the other colors, more numerous and beautiful than any we have seen. The very hollows of the earth, full of [d] water and air, gleaming among the variety of other colors, present a color of their own so that the whole is seen as a continuum of variegated colors. On the surface of the earth the plants grow with corresponding beauty, the trees and the flowers and the fruits, and so with the hills and the stones, more beautiful in their smoothness and transparency and color. Our precious stones here are but fragments, our cornelians [e], jaspers, emeralds and the rest. All stones there are of that kind, and even more beautiful. The reason is that there they are pure, not eaten away or spoiled by decay and brine, or corroded by the water and air which have flowed into the hollows here and bring ugliness and disease upon earth, stones, the other animals and plants. The earth itself is adorned with [111] all these things, and also with gold and silver and other metals. These stand out, being numerous and massive and occurring everywhere, so that the earth is a sight for the blessed. There are many other living creatures upon the earth, and also men, some living inland, others at the edge of the air, as we live on the edge of the sea, others again live on islands surrounded by air close to the mainland. In a word, what [b] water and the sea are to us, the air is to them, and the ether is to them what the air is to us. The climate is such that they are without disease, and they live much longer than people do here; their eyesight, hearing and intelligence and all such are as superior to ours as air is superior to water and ether to air in purity; they have groves and temples dedicated to the gods, in which the gods really dwell, and they [c] communicate with them by speech and prophecy and by the sight of them; they see the sun and moon and stars as they are, and in other ways their happiness is in accord with this.

This then is the nature of the earth as a whole and of its surroundings; around the whole of it there are many regions in the hollows; some are deeper and more open than that in which we live; others are deeper and have a narrower opening than ours, and [d] there are some that have less depth and more width. All these are connected with each other below the surface of the earth in many places by narrow and broader channels, and thus have outlets through which much water flows from one to another as into mixing bowls; huge rivers of both hot and cold water thus flow beneath the earth eternally, much fire and large rivers of fire, and many of wet mud, both more pure and more muddy, such as those flowing in advance [e] of the lava and the stream of lava itself in Sicily. These streams then fill up every and all regions as the flow reaches each, and all these places move up and down with the oscillating movement of the earth. The natural cause of the oscillation is as follows: One of the hollows of the earth, which is also the biggest, [112] pierces through the whole earth; it is that which Homer mentioned when he said: “Far down where is the deepest pit below the earth …,” and which he elsewhere, and many other poets, call Tartarus; into this chasm all the rivers flow together, and again flow out of it, and each river is affected by the nature of the land through which it flows. The reason for [b] their flowing into and out of Tartarus is that this water has no bottom or solid base but it oscillates up and

down in waves, and the air and wind about it do the same, for they follow it when it flows to this or that part of the earth. Just as when people breathe, the flow of air goes in and out, so here the air oscillates with the water and creates terrible winds as it goes in and out. Whenever the water retreats to what we [c] call the lower part of the earth, it flows into those parts and fills them up as if the water were pumped in; when it leaves that part for this, it fills these parts again, and the parts filled flow through the channels and through the earth and in each case arrive at the places to which the channels lead and create seas and marshes and rivers and springs. From there the waters flow under the earth again, some flowing [d] around larger and more numerous regions, some around smaller and shallower ones, then flow back into Tartarus, some at a point much lower than where they issued forth, others only a little way, but all of them at a lower point, some of them at the opposite side of the chasm, some on the same side; some flow in a wide circle round the earth once or many times like snakes, then go as far down as possible, then go back into the chasm of Tartarus. From each side it is possible to flow down as far as the center, but not [e] beyond, for this part that faces the river flow from either side is steep.

There are many other large rivers of all kinds, and among these there are four of note; the biggest which flows on the outside (of the earth) in a circle is called Oceanus; opposite it and flowing in the opposite direction is the Acheron; it flows through many other [113] deserted regions and further underground makes its way to the Acherusian lake to which the souls of the majority come after death and, after remaining there for a certain appointed time, longer for some, shorter for others, they are sent back to birth as living creatures. The third river issues between the first two, and close to its source it falls into a region burning with [b] much fire and makes a lake larger than our sea, boiling with water and mud. From there it goes in a circle, foul and muddy, and winding on its way it comes, among other places, to the edge of the Acherusian lake but does not mingle with its waters; then, coiling many times underground it flows lower down into Tartarus; this is called the Pyriphlegethon, and its lava streams throw off fragments of it in various [c] parts of the earth. Opposite this the fourth river issues forth, which is called Stygion, and it is said to flow first into a terrible and wild region, all of it blue-gray in color, and the lake that this river forms by flowing into it is called the Styx. As its waters fall into the lake they acquire dread powers; then diving below and winding round it flows in the opposite direction from the Pyriphlegethon and into the opposite side of the Acherusian lake; its waters do not mingle with any other; it too flows in a circle and into Tartarus opposite the Pyriphlegethon. The name of that fourth river, the poets tell us, is Cocytus.

[d] Such is the nature of these things. When the dead arrive at the place to which each has been led by his guardian spirit, they are first judged as to whether they have led a good and pious life. Those who have lived an average life make their way to the Acheron and embark upon such vessels as there are for them and proceed to the lake. There they dwell and are purified by penalties for any wrongdoing they may [e] have committed; they are also suitably rewarded for their good deeds as each deserves. Those who are deemed incurable because of the enormity of their crimes, having committed many great sacrileges or wicked and unlawful murders and other such wrongs — their fitting fate is to be hurled into Tartarus never to emerge from it. Those who are deemed to have committed great but curable crimes, such as doing violence to their father or mother in a fit of temper but who have felt remorse for the rest of their [114] lives, or who have killed someone in a similar manner, these must of necessity be thrown into Tartarus, but a year later the current throws them out, those who are guilty of murder by way of Cocytus, and those who have done violence to their parents by way of the Pyriphlegethon. After they have been carried along to the Acherusian lake, they cry out and shout, some for those they have killed, others for those they have maltreated, and calling them they then pray to them [b] and beg them to allow them to step out into the lake and to receive them. If they persuade them, they do step out and their punishment comes to an end; if they do not, they are taken back into Tartarus and from there into the rivers, and this does not stop until they have persuaded those they have wronged, for this is the punishment which the judges imposed on them.

Those who are deemed to have lived an extremely pious life are freed and released from the regions of [c] the earth as from a prison; they make their way up to a pure dwelling place and live on the surface of the earth. Those who have purified themselves sufficiently by philosophy live in the future altogether without a body; they make their way to even more beautiful dwelling places which it is hard to describe clearly, nor do we now have the time to do so. Because of the things we have enunciated, Simmias, one must make every effort to share in virtue and wisdom in one’s life, for the reward is beautiful and the hope is great.

No sensible man would insist that these things are [d] as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal, and a man should repeat this to himself as if it were an incantation, which is why I have been prolonging my tale. That is the reason why a man should be of

good cheer about his own soul, if during life he has ignored the pleasures of the body and its [e] ornamentation as of no concern to him and doing him more harm than good, but has seriously concerned himself with the pleasures of learning, and adorned his soul not with alien but with its own ornaments, namely, moderation, righteousness, courage, freedom [115] and truth, and in that state awaits his journey to the underworld.

Now you, Simmias, Cebes and the rest of you, Socrates continued, will each take that journey at some other time but my fated day calls me now, as a tragic character might say, and it is about time for me to have my bath, for I think it better to have it before I drink the poison and save the women the trouble of washing the corpse.

[b] When Socrates had said this Crito spoke. Very well, Socrates, what are your instructions to me and the others about your children or anything else? What can we do that would please you most?—Nothing new, Crito, said Socrates, but what I am always saying, that you will please me and mine and yourselves by taking good care of your own selves in whatever you do, even if you do not agree with me now, but if you neglect your own selves, and are unwilling to live [c] following the tracks, as it were, of what we have said now and on previous occasions, you will achieve nothing even if you strongly agree with me at this moment.

We shall be eager to follow your advice, said Crito, but how shall we bury you? In any way you like, said Socrates, if you can catch me and I do not escape you. And laughing quietly,

looking at us, he said: I do not convince Crito that I am this Socrates talking to you here and ordering [d] all I say, but he thinks that I am the thing which he will soon be looking at as a corpse, and so he asks how he shall bury me. I have been saying for some time and at some length that after I have drunk the poison I shall no longer be with you but will leave you to go and enjoy some good fortunes of the blessed, but it seems that I have said all this to him in vain in an attempt to reassure you and myself too. Give a pledge to Crito on my behalf, he said, the opposite pledge to that he gave the jury. He pledged that I [e] would stay, you must pledge that I will not stay after I die, but that I shall go away, so that Crito will bear it more easily when he sees my body being burned or buried and will not be angry on my behalf, as if I were suffering terribly, and so that he should not say at the funeral that he is laying out, or carrying out, or burying Socrates. For know you well, my dear Crito, that to express oneself badly is not only faulty as far as the language goes, but does some harm to the soul. You must be of good cheer, and say you are [116] burying my body, and bury it in any way you like and think most customary.

After saying this he got up and went to another room to take his bath, and Crito followed him and he told us to wait for him. So we stayed, talking among ourselves, questioning what had been said, and then again talking of the great misfortune that had befallen us. We all felt as if we had lost a father and would be orphaned for the rest of our lives. When [b] he had washed, his children were brought to him—two of his sons were small and one was older—and the women of his household came to him. He spoke to them before Crito and gave them what instructions he wanted. Then he sent the women and children away, and he himself joined us. It was now close to sunset, for he had stayed inside for some time. He came and sat down after his bath and conversed for a short while, when the officer of the Eleven came and stood by him and said: “I shall not reproach you [c] as I do the others, Socrates. They are angry with me and curse me when obeying the orders of my superiors, I tell them to drink the poison. During the time you have been here I have come to know you in other ways as the noblest, the gentlest and the best man who has ever come here. So now too I know that you will not make trouble for me; you know who is responsible and you will direct your anger against them. You know what message I bring. Fare you well, and try to endure what you must as easily as possible.” [d] The officer was weeping as he turned away and went out. Socrates looked up at him and said: “Fare you well also, we shall do as you bid us.” And turning to us he said: “How pleasant the man is! During the whole time I have been here he has come in and conversed with me from time to time, a most agreeable man. And how genuinely he now weeps for me. Come, Crito, let us obey him. Let someone bring the poison if it is ready; if not, let the man prepare it.”

But Socrates, said Crito, I think the sun still shines [e] upon the hills and has not yet set. I know that others drink the poison quite a long time after they have received the order, eating and drinking quite a bit, and some of them enjoy intimacy with their loved ones. Do not hurry; there is still some time.

It is natural, Crito, for them to do so, said Socrates, for they think they derive some benefit from doing [117] this, but it is not fitting for me. I do not expect any benefit from drinking the poison a little later, except to become ridiculous in my own eyes for clinging to life, and be sparing of it when there is none left. So do as I ask and do not refuse me.

Hearing this, Crito nodded to the slave who was standing near him; the slave went out and after a time

came back with the man who was to administer the poison, carrying it made ready in a cup. When Socrates saw him he said: “Well, my good man, you are an expert in this, what must one do?” —“Just drink [b] it and walk around until your legs feel heavy, and then lie down and it will act of itself.” And he offered the cup to Socrates, who took it quite cheerfully, Echecrates, without a tremor or any change of feature or color, but looking at the man from under his eyebrows as was his wont, asked: “What do you say about pouring a libation from this drink? It is allowed?”—“We only mix as much as we believe will suffice,” said the man.

[c] I understand, Socrates said, but one is allowed, indeed one must, utter a prayer to the gods that the journey from here to yonder may be fortunate. This is my prayer and may it be so.

And while he was saying this, he was holding the cup, and then drained it calmly and easily. Most of us had been able to hold back our tears reasonably well up till then, but when we saw him drinking it and after he drank it, we could hold them back no longer; my own tears came in floods against my will. So I covered my face. I was weeping for myself, not [d] for him — for my misfortune in being deprived of such a comrade. Even before me, Crito was unable to restrain his tears and got up. Apollodorus had not ceased from weeping before, and at this moment his noisy tears and anger made everybody present break down, except Socrates. “What is this,” he said, “you strange fellows. It is mainly for this reason that I sent the women away, to avoid such unseemliness, for I [e] am told one should die in good omened silence. So keep quiet and control yourselves.”

His words made us ashamed, and we checked our tears. He walked around, and when he said his legs were heavy he lay on his back as he had been told to do, and the man who had given him the poison touched his body, and after a while tested his feet and legs, pressed hard upon his foot, and asked him if he felt this, and Socrates said no. Then he pressed [118] his calves, and made his way up his body and showed us that it was cold and stiff. He felt it himself and said that when the cold reached his heart he would be gone. As his belly was getting cold Socrates uncovered his head—he had covered it—and said—these were his last words —“Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius;24 make this offering to him and do not forget.”—“It shall be done,” said Crito, “tell us if there is anything else.” But there was no answer. Shortly afterwards Socrates made a movement; the man uncovered him and his eyes were fixed. Seeing this Crito closed his mouth and his eyes.

Such was the end of our comrade, Echecrates, a man who, we would say, was of all those we have known the best, and also the wisest and the most upright.

*Reprinted from Plato’s Phaedo, translated by G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1977), by permission of the publisher. The translation follows Burnet’s Oxford text except in rare instances. The only liberty taken is where the answers to Socrates’ questions are very brief, merely indicating assent or the like. In such instances, “he said,” the so-frequent repetition of which reads awkwardly in English, has been replaced by a dash, to indicate a change of speaker.

1. [Phaedo was a young friend of Socrates who later founded a school of philosophy at Elis. — G.M.A.G.]

2. [Phlius was a community in the northeastern part of the Peloponnesus where a Pythagorean society flourished about this time. we are told by Diogenes Laërtius (early third century A.D.) that Echecrates was a member of that society.]

3. [Legend says that Minos, king of Crete, compelled the Athenians to send seven youths and seven maidens every year to be sacrificed to the Minotaur until Theseus saved them and killed the monster.]

4. [The father of Critobulus is Crito, who in the dialogue named after him tries to persuade Socrates to escape from jail. He is also mentioned in Apology 33e and plays a prominent part in the death scene at the end of this dialogue. Several of the other friends of Socrates mentioned here also appear in other dialogues. Hermogenes is one of the speakers in the Cratylus. Epigenes is mentioned in Apology 33e, as is Aeschines. Aeschines was a writer of Socratic dialogues. Menexenus has a Part In the Lysis and has a dialogue named after him. Simmias and Cebes are mentioned in the Crito, 45b, as having come to Athens with enough money to secure Socrates’ escape.]

5. [It is interesting to note that Plato makes it clear that he was not present on the last day of Scorates’ life, whereas in the Apology he twice mentions (34a and 38b) that he was present at the trial. Whether this has any significance as regards the historical accuracy of the two works is anyone’s guess. Probably it just happened to be so, but these are the only instances in which Plato mentions himself in all his works.]

6. [The Eleven were the police commissioners of Athens.]

7. [Socrates refers to Evenus as a Sophist and teacher of the young in Apology 20a—b.]

8. [Philolaus was a contemporary Pythagorean. The reference to him here, as well as the fact that the story is told to Echecrates at Phlius, gives the whole dialogue a Pythagorean background, and this seems a recognition on Plato’s part of Pythagorean influence regarding the theories that follow, in particular, the theory of Forms and the purification of man’s eternal soul through intellectual activity.]

9. [“Even the poets” because poetry concerns itself with the world of sense and appeals to the passions and emotions of the lowest part of the soul (Republic 595a ff.), whereas in the Phaedo passions and emotions are attributed to the body.]

10. [That is, the true worshippers of Dionysus, as opposed to those who only carry the external symbols of his worship.]

11. [Endymion was granted eternal sleep by Zeus, in some versions at the request of Selene (the moon).]

12. [Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was born at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. He came to Athens as a young man and spent most of his life there in the study of natural philosophy. He is quoted later in the dialogue as claiming that the universe is directed by Mind (Nous). See 97c ff. The reference here is to his statement that in the original state of the world all its elements were thoroughly commingled.]

13. [In the Meno Socrates does precisely that. By means of a geometical diagram and merely by asking Meno’s slave questions, he elicits from him the answer that the square on the diagonal of a square is double the original square. There, too, this is taken to prove that knowledge is recollection.]

14. [The plural is puzzling, as only the Form of Equality, on the one hand, and the (imperfectly) equal “sticks and stones” have been mentioned. Commentators suggest that the plural here refers to mathematical equals such as the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle. Plato must have something of the kind in mind, but it is hard to see how he expects a reader who could not be familiar with his later work to realize it, especially as the “equal things” in the next line again refer to the particulars.]

15. [Herodotus (I, 82) tells us that after losing the city of Thyreae to the Spartans, the Argives swore not to let their hair grow again or their women wear golden ornaments until they had recaptured it.]

16. [Socrates presumably means that there are plenty of very bad arguments. It is not clear where he was following Phaedo in the argument.]

17. [The Euripus was the name of the straits between Euboea and Boeotia; its currents were both violent and variable.]

18. [Harmonia was in legend the wife of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes. Socrates’ punning joke is simply that, having dealt with Harmonia (harmony), we must now deal with Cadmus (i.e., Cebes, the other Theban).]

19. [This is very puzzling in English. In Greek the confusion is due to the double use of the dative, instrumental and causal, so that it could mean “because of a head,” which is nonsense of course, but the ambiguity is there and makes the statement of Socrates possible.]

20. [The “tallness in us” is not the Form, which is never immanent in the particular, nor need we imagine it to refer to another thing existing between the Form and the particular; it simply refers to the quality of tallness that is clearly inherent in the particulars. The expression could be used without reference to the theory of Forms at all.]

21. [The reference is to 70d–71a above.]

22. [The Telephus of Aeschylus is not extant, and little is known about it.]

23. [A proverbial expression meaning that a difficult task required the skill of Glaucus. Its origin is obscure, for there are several explanations given by the Scholiasts.]

24. [A cock was sacrificed to Asclepius by the sick people who slept in his temples, hoping for a cure. Socrates obviously means that death is a cure for the ills of life.]

Meno*

[70] MENO: Can you tell me, Socrates, can virtue1 be taught? Or is it not teachable but the result of practice, or is it neither of these, but men possess it by nature or in some other way?

SOCRATES: Before now, Meno, Thessalians had a high reputation among the Greeks and were admired for their horsemanship and their wealth, but [b] now, it seems to me, they are also admired for their wisdom, not least the fellow citizens of your friend Aristippus of Larissa. The responsibility for this reputation of yours lies with Gorgias,2 for when he came to your city he found that the leading Aleuadae, your lover Aristippus among them, loved him for his wisdom, and so did the other leading Thessalians. In particular, he accustomed you to give a bold and grand answer to any question you may be asked, as [c] experts are likely to do. Indeed, he himself was ready to answer any Greek who wished to question him, and every question was answered. But here in Athens, my dear Meno, the opposite is the case, as if there were a dearth of wisdom, and wisdom seems to have departed hence to go to you. If then you want to ask [71] one of us that sort of question, everyone will laugh and say: “Good stranger, you must think me happy indeed if you think I know whether virtue can be taught or how it comes to be; I am so far from knowing whether virtue can be taught or not that I do not even have any knowledge of what virtue itself is.”

I myself, Meno, am as poor as my fellow citizens [b] in this matter, and I blame myself for my complete ignorance about virtue. If I do not know what something is, how could I know what qualities it possesses? Or do you think that someone who does not know at all who Meno is could know whether he is good-looking or rich or well-born, or the opposite of these? Do you think that is possible?

M: I do not; but, Socrates, do you really not know what virtue is? Are we to report this to the folk back [c] home about you?

S: Not only that, my friend, but also that, as I believe, I have never yet met anyone else who did know. M: How so? Did you not meet Gorgias when he was here? S: I did. M: Did you then not think that he knew? S: I do not altogether remember, Meno, so that I cannot tell you now what I thought then. Perhaps he

does know; you know what he used to say, so you [d] remind me of what he said. You tell me yourself, if you are willing, for surely you share his views. — I do.

S: Let us leave Gorgias out of it, since he is not here. But Meno, by the gods, what do you yourself say that virtue is? Speak and do not begrudge us, so that I may have spoken a most unfortunate untruth when I said that I had never met anyone who knew, if you and Gorgias are shown to know.

M: It is not hard to tell you, Socrates. First, if [e] you want the virtue of a man, it is easy to say that a man’s virtue consists of being able to manage public affairs and in so doing to benefit his friends and harm his enemies and to be careful that no harm comes to himself; if you want the virtue of a woman, it is not difficult to describe: she must manage the home well, preserve its possessions, and be submissive to her husband; the virtue of a child, whether male or female, is different again, and so is that of an elderly man, if you want that, or if you want that of a free [72] man or a slave. And there are very many other virtues, so that one is not at a loss to say what virtue is. There is virtue for every action and every age, for every task of ours and every one of us — and Socrates, the same is true for wickedness.

S: I seem to be in great luck, Meno; while I am looking for one virtue, I have found you to have a whole swarm of them. But, Meno, to follow up the [b] image of swarms, if I were asking you what is the nature of bees, and you said that they are many and of all kinds, what would you answer if I asked you: “Do you mean that they are many and varied and different from one another in so far as they are bees? Or are they no different in that regard, but in some other respect, in their beauty, for example, or their size or in some other such way?” Tell me, what would you answer if thus questioned?

M: I would say that they do not differ from one another in being bees.

S: If I went on to say: “Tell me, what is this very thing, Meno, in which they are all the same and do not [c] differ from one another?” Would you be able to tell me?

M: I would. S: The same is true in the case of the virtues. Even if they are many and various, all of them have one and

the same form3 which makes them virtues, and it is right to look to this when one is asked to make clear what virtue is. Or do you not understand [d] what I mean?

M: I think I understand, but I certainly do not grasp the meaning of the question as fully as I want to. S: I am asking whether you think it is only in the case of virtue that there is one for man, another for

woman and so on, or is the same true in the case of health and size and strength? Do you think that there is one health for man and another for woman? Or, if it is health, does it have the same form everywhere, whether in man or in anything else whatever? [e]

M: The health of a man seems to me the same as that of a woman. S: And so with size and strength? If a woman is strong, that strength will be the same and have the same

form, for by “the same” I mean that strength is no different as far as being strength, whether in a man or a woman. Or do you think there is a difference?

M: I do not think so. S: And will there be any difference in the case of virtue, as far as being virtue is concerned, whether it be

in a child or an old man, in a woman or in a man? [73] M: I think, Socrates, that somehow this is no longer like those other cases.

S: How so? Did you not say that the virtue of a man consists of managing the city well,4 and that of a woman of managing the household?—I did.

S: Is it possible to manage a city well, or a household, or anything else, while not managing it moderately and justly? — Certainly not.

S: Then if they manage justly and moderately, [b] they must do so with justice and moderation? — Necessarily.

S: So both the man and the woman, if they are to be good, need the same things, justice and moderation. —So it seems.

S: What about a child and an old man? Can they possibly be good if they are intemperate and unjust?— Certainly not.

S: But if they are moderate and just?—Yes. [c] S: So all human beings are good in the same way, for they become good by acquiring the same qualities.

— It seems so. S: And they would not be good in the same way if they did not have the same virtue. —They certainly

would not be. S: Since then the virtue of all is the same, try to tell me and to remember what Gorgias, and you with

him, said that that same thing is. [d] M: What else but to be able to rule over people, if you are seeking one description to fit them all. S: That is indeed what I am seeking, but Meno, is virtue the same in the case of a child or a slave,

namely, for them to be able to rule over a master, and do you think that he who rules is still a slave? —I do not think so at all, Socrates.

S: It is not likely, my good man. Consider this further point: you say that virtue is to be able to rule. Shall we not add to this justly and not unjustly?

M: I think so, Socrates, for justice is virtue. [e] S: Is it virtue, Meno, or a virtue? — What do you mean? S: As with anything else. For example, if you wish, take roundness, about which I would say that it is a

shape, but not simply that it is shape. I would not so speak of it because there are other shapes. M: You are quite right. So I too say that not only justice is a virtue but there are many other virtues. [74] S: What are they? Tell me, as I could mention other shapes to you if you bade me do so, so do you

mention other virtues. M: I think courage is a virtue, and moderation, wisdom, and munificence, and very many others.

S: We are having the same trouble again, Meno, though in another way; we have found many virtues while looking for one, but we cannot find the one which covers all the others.

[b] M: I cannot yet find, Socrates, what you are looking for, one virtue for them all, as in the other cases. S: That is likely, but I am eager, if I can, that we should make progress, for you understand that the same

applies to everything. If someone asked you what I mentioned just now: “What is shape, Meno?” and you told him that it was roundness, and if then he said to you what I did: “Is roundness shape or a shape?” you would surely tell him that it is a shape? —I certainly would.

S: That would be because there are other [c] shapes?—Yes. S: And if he asked you further what they were, you would tell him?—I would. S: So too, if he asked you what color is, and you said it is white, and your questioner interrupted you, “Is

white color or a color?” you would say that it is a color, because there are also other colors?—I would. S: And if he bade you mention other colors, you would mention others that are no less colors than white

is?—Yes. [d] S: Then if he pursued the argument as I did and said: “We always arrive at the many; do not talk to me in

that way, but since you call all these many by one name, and say that no one of them is not a shape even though they are opposites, tell me what this is which applies as much to the round as to the straight and which you call shape, as you say the [e] round is as much a shape as the straight.” Do you not say that?—I do.

S: When you speak like that, do you assert that the round is no more round than it is straight, and that the straight is no more straight than it is round?

M: Certainly not, Socrates. S: Yet you say that the round is no more a shape than the straight is, nor the one more than the other.—

That is true. S: What then is this to which the name shape applies? Try to tell me. If then you answered the man who

was questioning about shape or color: “I do not understand what you want, my man, nor what you [75] mean,” he would probably wonder and say: “You do not understand that I am seeking that which is the same in all these cases?” Would you still have nothing to say, Meno, if one asked you: “What is this which applies to the round and the straight and the other things which you call shapes and which is the same in them all?” Try to say, that you may practice for your answer about virtue.

M: No, Socrates, but you tell me. [b] S: Do you want me to do you this favor? M: I certainly do. S: And you will then be willing to tell me about virtue? M: I will. S: We must certainly press on. The subject is worth it. M: It surely is. S: Come then, let us try to tell you what shape is. See whether you will accept that it is this: Let us say

that shape is that which alone of existing things always follows color. Is that satisfactory to you, or do [c] you look for it in some other way? I should be satisfied if you defined virtue in this way.

M: But that is foolish, Socrates. S: How do you mean? M: That shape, you say, always follows color. Well then, if someone were to say that he did not know

what color is, but that he had the same difficulty as he had about shape, what do you think your answer would be?

S: A true one, surely, and if my questioner was one of those clever and disputatious debaters, I would say to him: “I have given my answer; if it is wrong, it is your job to refute it.” Then, if they are friends [d] as you and I are, and want to discuss with each other, they must answer in a manner more gentle and more proper to discussion. By this I mean that the answers must not only be true, but in terms admittedly known to the questioner. I too will try to speak in these terms. [e] Do you call something “the end”? I mean such a thing as a limit or boundary, for all those are, I say, the same thing. Prodicus5 might disagree with us, but you surely call something “finished” or “completed” — that is what I want to express, nothing elaborate.

M: I do, and I think I understand what you mean.

[76] S: Further, you call something a plane, and something else a solid, as in geometry? M: I do. S: From this you may understand what I mean by shape, for I say this of every shape, that a shape is that

which limits a solid; in a word, a shape is the limit of a solid. M: And what do you say color is, Socrates? S: You are outrageous, Meno. You bother an [b] old man to answer questions, but you yourself are not

willing to recall and to tell me what Gorgias says that virtue is. M: After you have answered this, Socrates, I will tell you. S: Even someone who was blindfolded would know from your conversation that you are handsome and

still have lovers. M: Why so? S: Because you are forever giving orders in a discussion, as spoiled people do, who behave like tyrants as

long as they are young. And perhaps you have recognized that I am at a disadvantage with handsome people, [c] so I will do you the favor of an answer.

M: By all means do me that favor. S: Do you want me to answer after the manner of Gorgias, which you would most easily follow? M: Of course I want that.

S: Do you both say there are effluvia of things, as Empedocles6 does? — Certainly. S: And that there are channels through which the effluvia make their way? — Definitely. S: And some effluvia fit some of the channels, [d] while others are too small or too big?—That is so. S: And there is something which you call sight?—There is. S: From this, “comprehend what I state,” as Pindar said; for color is an effluvium from shapes which fits

the sight and is perceived. M: That seems to me to be an excellent answer, Socrates. S: Perhaps it was given in the manner to which you are accustomed. At the same time I think that you

can deduce from this answer what sound is, and smell, and many such things. — Quite so. [e]

S: It is a theatrical answer7 so it pleases you, Meno, more than that about shape.—It does. S: It is not better, son of Alexidemus, but I am convinced that the other is, and I think you would agree,

if you did not have to go away before the mysteries as you told me yesterday, but could remain and be initiated.

M: I would stay, Socrates, if you could tell me [77] many things like these. S: I shall certainly not be lacking in eagerness to tell you such things, both for your sake and my own, but

I may not be able to tell you many. Come now, you too try to fulfill your promise to me and tell me the nature of virtue as a whole and stop making many out of one, as jokers say whenever someone breaks something; but allow virtue to remain whole [b] and sound, and tell me what it is, for I have given you examples.

M: I think, Socrates, that virtue is, as the poet says, “to find joy in beautiful things and have power.” So I say that virtue is to desire beautiful things and have the power to acquire them.

S: Do you mean that the man who desires beautiful things desires good things? — Most certainly. S: Do you assume that there are people who [c] desire bad things, and others who desire good things? Do

you not think, my good man, that all men desire good things? M: I do not. S: But some desire bad things? — Yes. S: Do you mean that they believe the bad things to be good, or that they know they are bad and

nevertheless desire them?—I think there are both kinds. S: Do you think, Meno, that anyone, knowing that bad things are bad, nevertheless desires them? —I

certainly do. S: What do you mean by desiring? Is it to secure for oneself? — What else? [d] S: Does he think that the bad things benefit him who possesses them, or does he know they harm him? M: There are some who believe that the bad things benefit them, others who know that the bad things

harm them. S: And do you think that those who believe that bad things benefit them know that they are bad? M: No, that I cannot altogether believe. S: It is clear then that those who do not know [e] things to be bad do not desire what is bad, but they

desire those things that they believe to be good but that are in fact bad. It follows that those who have no knowledge of these things and believe them to be good clearly desire good things. Is that not so?—It is likely.

S: Well then, those who you say desire bad things, believing that bad things harm their possessor, know that they will be harmed by them? — Necessarily.

S: And do they not think that those who are [78] harmed are miserable to the extent that they are harmed?—That too is inevitable.

S: And that those who are miserable are unhappy?—I think so. S: Does anyone wish to be miserable and unhappy?—I do not think so, Socrates. S: No one then wants what is bad, Meno, unless he wants to be such. For what else is being miserable

but to desire bad things and secure them? M: You are probably right, Socrates, and no one [b] wants what is bad. S: Were you not saying just now that virtue is to desire good things and have the power to secure them?

—Yes, I was. S: The desiring part of this statement is common to everybody, and one man is no better than another in

this?—So it appears. S: Clearly then, if one man is better than another, he must be better at securing them. — Quite so. S: This then is virtue according to your argument, the power of securing good things. [c] M: I think, Socrates, that the case is altogether as you now understand it. S: Let us see then whether what you say is true, for you may well be right. You say that the capacity to

acquire good things is virtue?—I do. S: And by good things you mean, for example, health and wealth? M: Yes, and also to acquire gold and silver, also honors and offices in the city. S: By good things you do not mean other goods than these? M: No, but I mean all things of this kind. S: Very well. According to Meno, the hereditary [d] guest friend of the Great King, virtue is the

acquisition of gold and silver. Do you add to this acquiring, Meno, the words justly and piously, or does it make no difference to you but even if one secures these things unjustly, you call it virtue none the less?

M: Certainly not, Socrates. S: You would then call it wickedness?—Indeed I would. S: It seems then that the acquisition must be accompanied by justice or moderation or piety or [e] some

other part of virtue; if it is not, it will not be virtue, even though it provides good things. M: How could there be virtue without these? S: Then failing to secure gold and silver, whenever it would not be just to do so, either for oneself or

another, is not this failure to secure them also virtue? M: So it seems. S: Then to provide these goods would not be virtue [79] any more than not to provide them, but

apparently whatever is done with justice will be virtue, and what is done without anything of the kind is wickedness?

M: I think it must necessarily be as you say. S: We said a little while ago that each of these things was a part of virtue, namely, justice and moderation

and all such things? — Yes. S: Then you are playing with me, Meno. — How so, Socrates? S: Because I begged you just now not to break up or fragment virtue, and I gave examples of how you

should answer. You paid no attention, but you [b] tell me that virtue is to be able to secure good things with justice, and this, you say, is a part of virtue.

M: I do. S: It follows then from what you agree to, that to act in whatever you do with a part of virtue is virtue, for

you say that justice is a part of virtue, as are all such qualities. Why do I say this? Because when I begged you to tell me about virtue as a whole, you are far from telling me what it is. Rather, you say that every action is virtue if it is performed with a part of virtue, as if [c] you had told me what virtue as a whole is, and I would already know that, even if you fragment it into parts.8 I think you must face the same question from the beginning, my dear Meno, namely, what is virtue, if every action performed with a part of virtue is virtue? For that is what one is saying when he says that every action performed with justice is virtue. Do you not think you should face the same question again, or do you think one knows what a part of virtue is if one does not know virtue itself?—I do not think so.

[d] S: If you remember, when I was answering you about shape, we rejected the kind of answer that tried to answer in terms still being the subject of inquiry and not yet agreed upon. — And we were right to reject them.

S: Then surely, my good sir, you must not think, while the nature of virtue as a whole is still under inquiry, that by answering in terms of the parts of virtue you can make its nature clear to anyone or make anything else clear by speaking in this way, but only that the same question must be put to you again — what do [e] you take the nature of virtue to be when you say what you say? Or do you think there is no point in what I am saying? — I think what you say is right.

S: Answer me again then from the beginning: What do you and your friend say that virtue is? M: Socrates, before I even met you I used to hear [80] that you are always in a state of perplexity and that

you bring others to the same state, and now I think you are bewitching and beguiling me, simply putting me under a spell, so that I am quite perplexed. Indeed, if a joke is in order, you seem, in appearance and in every other way, to be like the broad torpedo fish, for it too makes anyone who comes close and touches it feel numb, and you now seem to have had that kind [b] of effect on me, for both my mind and my tongue are numb, and I have no answer to give you. Yet I have made many speeches about virtue before large audiences on a thousand occasions, very good speeches as I thought, but now I cannot even say what it is. I think you are wise not to sail away from Athens to go and stay elsewhere, for if you were to behave like this as a stranger in another city, you would be driven away for practising sorcery.

S: You are a rascal, Meno, and you nearly deceived me. M: Why so particularly, Socrates? S: I know why you drew this image of me. [c] M: Why do you think I did? S: So that I should draw an image of you in return. I know that all handsome men rejoice in images of

themselves; it is to their advantage, for I think that the images of beautiful people are also beautiful, but I will draw no image of you in turn. Now if the torpedo fish is itself numb and so makes others numb, then I resemble it, but not otherwise, for I myself do not have the answer when I perplex others, but I am more perplexed than anyone when I cause perplexity in others. So now I do not know what virtue is; perhaps you knew before you contacted me, but now you are certainly like one who does [d] not know. Nevertheless, I want to examine and seek together with you what it may be.

M: How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know?

[e] S: I know what you want to say, Meno. Do you realize what a debater’s argument you are bringing up, that a man cannot search either for what he knows or for what he does not know? He cannot search for what he knows — since he knows it, there is no need to search — nor for what he does not know, for he does not know what to look for.

M: Does that argument not seem sound to [81] you, Socrates? S: Not to me. M: Can you tell me why? S: I can. I have heard wise men and women talk about divine matters… . M: What did they say? S: What was, I thought, both true and beautiful.

M: What was it, and who were they? S: The speakers were among the priests and priestesses whose care it is to be able to give an account [b]

of their practices. Pindar too says it, and many others of the divine among our poets. What they say is this; see whether you think they speak the truth: They say that the human soul is immortal; at times it comes to an end, which they call dying, at times it is reborn, but it is never destroyed, and one must therefore live one’s life as piously as possible:

Persephone will return to the sun above in the ninth year the souls of those from whom she will exact punishment [c] for old miseries, and from these come noble kings, mighty in strength and greatest in wisdom, and for the rest of time men will call them sacred heroes.

As the soul is immortal, has been born often and has seen all things here and in the underworld, there is nothing which it has not learned; so it is in no way surprising that it can recollect the things it knew [d] before, both about virtue and other things. As the whole of nature is akin, and the soul has learned everything, nothing prevents a man, after recalling one thing only—a process men call learning—discovering everything else for himself, if he is brave and does not tire of the search, for searching and learning are, as a whole, recollection. We must, therefore, not believe that debater’s argument, for it would make us idle, and fainthearted men like to hear it, whereas my argument makes them energetic and [e] keen on the search. I trust that this is true, and I want to inquire along with you into the nature of virtue.

M: Yes, Socrates, but how do you mean that we do not learn, but that what we call learning is recollection? Can you teach me that this is so?

S: As I said just now, Meno, you are a rascal. You now ask me if I can teach you, when I say there [82] is no teaching but recollection, in order to show me up at once as contradicting myself.

M: No, by Zeus, Socrates, that was not my intention when I spoke, but just a habit. If you can somehow show me that things are as you say, please do so.

S: It is not easy, but I am nevertheless willing to do my best for your sake. Call one of these many [b] attendants of yours, whichever you like, that I may prove it to you in his case.

M: Certainly. You there, come forward. S: Is he a Greek? Does he speak Greek? M: Very much so. He was born in my household. S: Pay attention then whether you think he is recollecting or learning from me. M: I will pay attention. S: Tell me now, boy, you know that a square figure is like this? — I do. S: A square then is a figure in which all these [c] four sides are equal?—Yes indeed.

S: And it also has these lines through the middle equal?9 — Yes. S: And such a figure could be larger or smaller?—Certainly. S: If then this side were two feet, and this other side two feet, how many feet would the whole be?

Consider it this way: if it were two feet this way, and only one foot that way, the figure10 would be once two feet? — Yes.

[d] S: But if it is two feet also that way, it would surely be twice two feet?—Yes. S: How many feet is twice two feet? Work it out and tell me. — Four, Socrates. S: Now we could have another figure twice the size of this one, with the four sides equal like this one.—

Yes. S: How many feet will that be? — Eight. S: Come now, try to tell me how long each side [e] of this will be. The side of this is two feet. What

about each side of the one which is its double? — Obviously, Socrates, it will be twice the length. S: You see, Meno, that I am not teaching the boy anything, but all I do is question him. And now he

thinks he knows the length of the line on which an eight-foot figure is based. Do you agree? M: I do. S: And does he know? M: Certainly not.

S: He thinks it is a line twice the length? M: Yes. S: Watch him now recollecting things in order, as one must recollect. Tell me, boy, do you say that [83] a

figure double the size is based on a line double the length? Now I mean such a figure as this, not long on one side and short on the other, but equal in every direction like this one, and double the size, that is, eight feet. See whether you still believe that it will be based on a line double the length.—I do.

S: Now the line becomes double its length if we add another of the same length here?—Yes indeed. S: And the eight-foot square will be based on it, if there are four lines of that length?—Yes. [b] S: Well, let us draw from it four equal lines, and surely that is what you say is the eight-foot square?—

Certainly. S: And within this figure are four squares, each of which is equal to the four-foot square?—Yes. S: How big is it then? Is it not four times as big?—Of course. S: Is this square then, which is four times as big, its double? — No, by Zeus. S: How many times bigger is it?—Four times. S: Then, my boy, the figure based on a line [c] twice the length is not double but four times as big? —

You are right. S: And four times four is sixteen, is it not? — Yes. S: On how long a line should the eight-foot square be based? On this line we have a square that is four

times bigger, do we not?—Yes. S: Now this four-foot square is based on this line here, half the length?—Yes.

S: Very well. Is the eight-foot square not double this one and half that one?11—Yes. S: Will it not be based on a line longer than this one and shorter than that one? Is that not so?—I [d]

think so. S: Good, you answer what you think. And tell me, was this one not two feet long, and that one four feet?

—Yes. S: The line on which the eight-foot square is based must then be longer than this one of two feet, and

shorter than that one of four feet?—It must be. S: Try to tell me then how long a line you say [e] it is.—Three feet. S: Then if it is three feet, let us add the half of this one, and it will be three feet? For these are two feet,

and the other is one. And here, similarly, these are two feet and that one is one foot, and so the figure you mention comes to be?—Yes.

S: Now if it is three feet this way and three feet that way, will the whole figure be three times three feet? —So it seems.

S: How much is three times three feet? —Nine feet. S: And the double square was to be how many feet?—Eight. S: So the eight-foot figure cannot be based on the three-foot line?—Clearly not. S: But on how long a line? Try to tell us exactly, [84] and if you do not want to work it out, show me

from what line. — By Zeus, Socrates, I do not know. S: You realize, Meno, what point he has reached in his recollection. At first he did not know what the

basic line of the eight-foot square was; even now he does not yet know, but then he thought he knew, and answered confidently as if he did know, and he did not think himself at a loss, but now he does think [b] himself at a loss, and as he does not know, neither does he think he knows.

M: That is true. S: So he is now in a better position with regard to the matter he does not know? M: I agree with that too. S: Have we done him any harm by making him perplexed and numb as the torpedo fish does? M: I do not think so. S: Indeed, we have probably achieved something relevant to finding out how matters stand, for now, as

he does not know, he would be glad to find out, whereas before he thought he could easily make many fine

speeches to large audiences about the [c] square of double size and said that it must have a base twice as long. M: So it seems. S: Do you think that before he would have tried to find out that which he thought he knew though he

did not, before he fell into perplexity and realized he did not know and longed to know? M: I do not think so, Socrates. S: Has he then benefitted from being numbed? M: I think so. S: Look then how he will come out of his perplexity while searching along with me. I shall do nothing

more than ask questions and not teach him. [d] Watch whether you find me teaching and explaining things to him instead of asking for his opinion.

S: You tell me, is this not a four-foot figure? You understand? — I do. S: We add to it this figure which is equal to it?—Yes. S: And we add this third figure equal to each of them?—Yes.

S: Could we then fill in the space in the corner? — Certainly.12 S: So we have these four equal figures? — Yes.

S: Well then, how many times is the whole figure [e] larger than this one?13 — Four times. S: But we should have had one that was twice as large, or do you not remember?—I certainly do.

S: Does not this line from one corner to the [85] other cut each of these figures in two?14 — Yes. S: So these are four equal lines which enclose this figure? — They are. S: Consider now: how large is the figure? — I do not understand. S: Within these four figures, each line cuts off half of each, does it not?—Yes. S: How many of this size are there in this figure?—Four. S: How many in this?—Two. S: What is the relation of four to two?—Double. [b] S: How many feet in this? — Eight. S: Based on what line?—This one. S: That is, on the line that stretches from corner to corner of the four-foot figure? — Yes. — Clever men

call this the diagonal, so that if diagonal is its name, you say that the double figure would be that based on the diagonal? — Most certainly, Socrates.

S: What do you think, Meno? Has he, in his answers, expressed any opinion that was not his own? [c] M: No, they were all his own. S: And yet, as we said a short time ago, he did not know?—That is true. S: So these opinions were in him, were they not?—Yes. S: So the man who does not know has within himself true opinions about the things that he does not

know?—So it appears. S: These opinions have now just been stirred up like a dream, but if he were repeatedly asked these same

questions in various ways, you know that in the [d] end his knowledge about these things would be as accurate as anyone’s. — It is likely.

S: And he will know it without having been taught but only questioned, and find the knowledge within himself? — Yes.

S: And is not finding knowledge within oneself recollection? — Certainly. S: Must he not either have at some time acquired the knowledge he now possesses, or else have always

possessed it? — Yes. S: If he always had it, he would always have [e] known. If he acquired it, he cannot have done so in his

present life. Or has someone taught him geometry? For he will perform in the same way about all geometry, and all other knowledge. Has someone taught him everything? You should know, especially as he has been born and brought up in your house.

M: But I know that no one has taught him.

S: Yet he has these opinions, or doesn’t he? M: That seems indisputable, Socrates. [86] S: If he has not acquired them in his present life, is it not clear that he had them and had learned them at

some other time?—It seems so. S: Then that was the time when he was not a human being?—Yes. S: If then, during the time he exists and is not a human being he will have true opinions which, when

stirred by questioning, become knowledge, will not his soul have learned during all time? For it is clear that during all time he exists, either as a man or not.—So it seems.

S: [b] Then if the truth about reality is always in our soul, the soul would be immortal so that you should always confidently try to seek out and recollect what you do not know at present—that is, what you do not recollect?15

M: Somehow, Socrates, I think that what you say is right. S: I think so too, Meno. I do not insist that my argument is right in all other respects, but I would

contend at all costs both in word and deed as far as I could that we will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things [c] one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it.

M: In this too I think you are right, Socrates. S: Since we are of one mind that one should seek to find out what one does not know, shall we try to find

out together what virtue is? M: Certainly. But Socrates, I should be most pleased to investigate and hear your answer to my original

question, whether we should try on the assumption [d] that virtue is something teachable, or is a natural gift, or in whatever way it comes to men.

S: If I were directing you, Meno, and not only myself, we would not have investigated whether virtue is teachable or not before we had investigated what virtue itself is. But because you do not even attempt to rule yourself, in order that you may be free, but you try to rule me and do so, I will agree with you— for what can I do? So we must, it appears, inquire into the qualities of something the nature of which [e] we do not yet know. However, please relax your rule a little bit for me and agree to investigate whether it is teachable or not by means of a hypothesis. I mean the way geometers often carry on their investigations. For example, if they are asked whether a specific area [87] can be inscribed in the form of a triangle within a given circle, one of them might say: “I do not yet know whether that area has that property, but I think I have, as it were, a hypothesis that is of use for the problem, namely this: If that area is such that when one has applied it as a rectangle to the given straight line in the circle it is deficient by a figure similar to [b] the very figure which is applied, then I think one alternative results, whereas another results if it is impossible for this to happen. So, by using this hypothesis, I am willing to tell you what results with regard to inscribing it in the circle—that is, whether it is impossible or not.” So let us speak about virtue also, since we do not know either what it is or what qualities it possesses, and let us investigate whether it is teachable or not by means of a hypothesis, and say this: Among the things existing in the soul, of what sort is virtue, that it should be teachable or not? First, if it is another sort than knowledge, is it teachable or not, or, as we were just saying, recollectable? Let it [c] make no difference to us which term we use: Is it teachable? Or is it plain to anyone that men cannot be taught anything but knowledge?—I think so.

S: But, if virtue is a kind of knowledge, it is clear that it could be taught. — Of course. S: We have dealt with that question quickly, that if it is of one kind it can be taught, if it is of a different

kind, it cannot. — We have indeed. S: The next point to consider seems to be [d] whether virtue is knowledge or something else. —That

does seem to be the next point to consider. S: Well now, do we say that virtue is itself something good, and will this hypothesis stand firm for us,

that it is something good? — Of course. S: If then there is anything else good that is different and separate from knowledge, virtue might well not

be a kind of knowledge; but if there is nothing good that knowledge does not encompass, we would be right to suspect that it is a kind of knowledge. —That is so.

[e] S: Surely virtue makes us good? — Yes. S: And if we are good, we are beneficent, for all that is good is beneficial. Is that not so? — Yes.

S: So virtue is something beneficial? M: That necessarily follows from what has been agreed. S: Let us then examine what kinds of things benefit us, taking them up one by one: health, we say, and

strength, and beauty, and also wealth. We say that these things, and others of the same kind, benefit us, do we not?—We do.

S: Yet we say that these same things also sometimes [88] harm one. Do you agree or not? — I do. S: Look then, what directing factor determines in each case whether these things benefit or harm us? Is it

not the right use of them that benefits us, and the wrong use that harms us? — Certainly. S: Let us now look at the qualities of the soul. There is something you call moderation, and justice,

courage, intelligence, memory, munificence, and all such things?—There is. [b] S: Consider whichever of these you believe not to be knowledge but different from it; do they not at

times harm us, at other times benefit us? Courage, for example, when it is not wisdom but like a kind of recklessness: when a man is reckless without understanding, he is harmed; when with understanding, he is benefitted.—Yes.

S: The same is true of moderation and mental quickness; when they are learned and disciplined with understanding they are beneficial, but without understanding they are harmful?—Very much so.

[c] S: Therefore, in a word, all that the soul undertakes and endures, if directed by wisdom, ends in happiness, but if directed by ignorance, it ends in the opposite?—That is likely.

S: If then virtue is something in the soul and it must be beneficial, it must be knowledge, since all the qualities of the soul are in themselves neither [d] beneficial nor harmful, but accompanied by wisdom or folly they become harmful or beneficial. This argument shows that virtue, being beneficial, must be a kind of wisdom.—I agree.

S: Furthermore, those other things we were mentioning just now, wealth and the like, are at times good and at times harmful. Just as for the rest of the soul the direction of wisdom makes things beneficial, but harmful if directed by folly, so in these cases, if the soul [e] uses and directs them right it makes them beneficial, but bad use makes them harmful? — Quite so.

S: The wise soul directs them right, the foolish soul wrongly? — That is so. S: So one may say this about everything; all other human activities depend on the soul, and those of the

soul itself depend on wisdom if they are to be good. [89] According to this argument the beneficial would be wisdom, and we say that virtue is beneficial? — Certainly.

S: Virtue then, as a whole or in part, is wisdom? M: What you say, Socrates, seems to me quite right. S: Then, if that is so, the good are not so by nature?—I do not think they are. S: For if they were, this would follow: if the good [b] were so by nature, we would have people who knew

which among the young were by nature good; we would take those whom they had pointed out and guard them in the Acropolis, sealing them up there much more carefully than gold so that no one could corrupt them, and when they reached maturity they would be useful to their cities. — Reasonable enough, Socrates.

S: Since the good are not good by nature, does [c] learning make them so? M: Necessarily, as I now think, Socrates, and clearly, on our hypothesis, if virtue is knowledge, it can be

taught. S: Perhaps, by Zeus, but may it be that we were not right to agree to this? M: Yet it seemed to be right at the time. S: We should not only think it right at the time, but also now and in the future if it is to be at all sound. [d] M: What is the difficulty? What do you have in mind that you do not like about it and doubt that

virtue is knowledge? S: I will tell you, Meno. I am not saying that it is wrong to say that virtue is teachable if it is knowledge,

but look whether it is reasonable of me to doubt whether it is knowledge. Tell me this: if not only virtue but anything whatever can be taught, should there not be of necessity people who teach it and people who learn it? — I think so.

[e] S: Then again, if on the contrary there are no teachers or learners of something, we should be right to assume that the subject cannot be taught?

M: Quite so, but do you think that there are no teachers of virtue? S: I have often tried to find out whether there were any teachers of it, but in spite of all my efforts I

cannot find any. And yet I have searched for them with the help of many people, especially those whom I believed to be most experienced in this matter. And now, Meno, Anytus16 here has opportunely come to sit down by us. Let us share our search with him. It [90] would be reasonable for us to do so, for Anytus, in the first place, is the son of Anthemion, a man of wealth and wisdom, who did not become rich automatically or as the result of a gift like Ismenias the Theban, who recently acquired the possessions of Polycrates, but through his own wisdom and efforts. Further, he did not seem to be an arrogant or puffed up or offensive citizen in other ways, but he was a [b] well-mannered and well-behaved man. Also he gave our friend here a good upbringing and education, as the majority of Athenians believe, for they are electing him to the highest offices. It is right then to look for the teachers of virtue with the help of men such as he, whether there are any and if so who they are. Therefore, Anytus, please join me and your guest friend Meno here, in our inquiry as to who are the teachers of virtue. Look at it in this way: if we wanted [c] Meno to become a good physician, to what teachers would we send him? Would we not send him to the physicians?

A: Certainly. S: And if we wanted him to be a good shoemaker, to shoemakers? — Yes. S: And so with other pursuits?—Certainly. S: Tell me again on this same topic, like this: we say that we would be right to send him to the physicians

if we want him to become a physician; whenever we say that, we mean that it would be [d] reasonable to send him to those who practice the craft rather than to those who do not, and to those who exact fees for this very practice and have shown themselves to be teachers of anyone who wishes to come to them and learn. Is it not with this in mind that we would be right to send him?—Yes.

S: And the same is true about flute-playing and the other crafts? It would be very foolish for those [e] who want to make someone a fluteplayer to refuse to send him to those who profess to teach the craft and make money at it, but to send him to make trouble for others by seeking to learn from those who do not claim to be teachers or have a single pupil in that subject which we want the one we send to learn from them? Do you not think it very unreasonable to do so? — By Zeus, I do, and also very ignorant.

S: Quite right. However, you can now deliberate with me about our guest friend Meno here. He has been telling me for some time, Anytus, that he longs [91] to acquire that wisdom and virtue which enables men to manage their households and their cities well, to take care of their parents, to know how to welcome and to send away both citizens and strangers as a good man should. Consider to whom we should be [b] right to send him to learn this virtue. Or is it obvious in view of what was said just now that we should send him to those who profess to be teachers of virtue and have shown themselves to be available to any Greek who wishes to learn, and for this fix a fee and exact it?

A: And who do you say these are, Socrates? S: You surely know yourself that they are those whom men call sophists. A: By Heracles, hush, Socrates. May no one of [c] my household or friends, whether citizen or stranger,

be mad enough to go to these people and be harmed by them, for they clearly cause the ruin and corruption of their followers.

S: How do you mean, Anytus? Are these people, alone of those who claim the knowledge to benefit one, so different from the others that they not only do not benefit what one entrusts to them but on the [d] contrary corrupt it, even though they obviously expect to make money from the process? I find I cannot believe you, for I know that one man, Protagoras, made more money from this knowledge of his than Phidias who made such notably fine works, and ten other sculptors. Surely what you say is extraordinary, if those who mend old sandals and restore clothes [e] would be found out within the month if they returned the clothes and sandals in a worse state than they received them; if they did this they would soon die of starvation, but the whole of Greece has not noticed for forty years that Protagoras corrupts those who frequent him and sends them away in a worse moral condition than he received them. I believe that he was nearly seventy when he died and had practiced his craft for forty years. During all that time to this very day his reputation has stood high; and not only Protagoras but a great many others, some born before [92] him and some still alive today. Are we to say that you maintain that they deceive and harm the young knowingly, or that they themselves are not aware of it? Are we to deem those whom some people consider the wisest of men to be so mad as that?

A: They are far from being mad, Socrates. It is much rather those among the young who pay their [b] fees who are mad, and even more the relatives who entrust their young to them, and most of all the cities who

allow them to come in and do not drive out any citizen or stranger who attempts to behave in this manner. S: Has some sophist wronged you, Anytus, or why are you so hard on them? A: No, by Zeus, I have never met one of them, nor would I allow any one of my people to do so. S: Are you then altogether without any experience of these men? A: And may I remain so. [c] S: How then, my good sir, can you know whether there is any good in their instruction or not, if you

are altogether without experience of it? A: Easily, for I know who they are, whether I have experience of them or not. S: Perhaps you are a wizard, Anytus, for I wonder, from what you yourself say, how else you know about

these things. However, let us not try to find [d] out who the men are whose company would make Meno wicked — let them be the Sophists if you like — but tell us, and benefit your family friend here by telling him, to whom he should go in so large a city to acquire, to any worthwhile degree, the virtue I was just now describing.

A: Why did you not tell him yourself? S: I did mention those whom I thought to be teachers of it, but you say I am wrong, and perhaps [e] you

are right. You tell him in your turn to whom among the Athenians he should go. Tell him the name of anyone you want.

A: Why give him the name of one individual? Any Athenian gentleman he may meet, if he is willing to be persuaded, will make him a better man than the sophists would.

S: And have these gentlemen become virtuous automatically, without learning from anyone, and are [93] they able to teach others what they themselves never learned?

A: I believe that these men have learned from those who were gentlemen before them; or do you not think that there are many good men in this city?

S: I believe, Anytus, that there are many men here who are good at public affairs, and that there have been as many in the past, but have they been good teachers of their own virtue? That is the point we are discussing, not whether there are good men here or not, or whether there have been in the past, [b] but we have been investigating for some time whether virtue can be taught. And in the course of that investigation we are inquiring whether the good men of today and of the past knew how to pass on to another the virtue they themselves possessed, or whether a man cannot pass it on or receive it from another. This is what Meno and I have been investigating for some time. Look at it this way, from what you yourself have said. Would you not say that Themistocles was [c] a good man?—Yes. Even the best of men.

S: And therefore a good teacher of his own virtue if anyone was? A: I think so, if he wanted to be. S: But do you think he did not want some other people to be worthy men, and especially his own son? Or

do you think he begrudged him this, and [d] deliberately did not pass on to him his own virtue? Have you not heard that Themistocles taught his son Cleophantus to be a good horseman? He could remain standing upright on horseback and shoot javelins from that position and do many other remarkable things which his father had him taught and made skillful at, all of which required good teachers. Have you not heard this from your elders? — I have.

S: So one could not blame the poor natural [e] talents of the son for his failure in virtue? — Perhaps not. S: But have you ever heard anyone, young or old, say that Cleophantus, the son of Themistocles, was a

good and wise man at the same pursuits as his father? — Never. S: Are we to believe that he wanted to educate his son in those other things but not to do better than his

neighbors in that skill which he himself possessed, if indeed virtue can be taught? — Perhaps not, by Zeus. S: And yet he was, as you yourself agree, among [94] the best teachers of virtue in the past. Let us

consider another man, Aristides, the son of Lysimachus. Do you not agree that he was good? — I very definitely do.

S: He too gave his own son Lysimachus the best Athenian education in matters which are the business of teachers, and do you think he made him a better man than anyone else? For you have been in his [b] company and seen the kind of man he is. Or take Pericles, a man of such magnificent wisdom. You know that he brought up two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus? — I know.

S: You also know that he taught them to be as good horsemen as any Athenian, that he educated them in

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the arts, in gymnastics, and in all else that was a matter of skill not to be inferior to anyone, but did he not want to make them good men? I think he did, but this could not be taught. And lest you think that only a few most inferior Athenians are incapable in this respect, reflect that Thucydides17 too brought [c] up two sons, Melesias and Stephanus, that he educated them well in all other things. They were the best wrestlers in Athens—he entrusted the one to Xanthias and the other to Eudorus, who were thought to be the best wrestlers of the day, or do you not remember?

A: I remember I have heard that said. S: It is surely clear that he would not have taught [d] his boys what it costs money to teach, but have

failed to teach them what costs nothing—making them good men — if that could be taught? Or was Thucydides perhaps an inferior person who had not many friends among the Athenians and the allies? He belonged to a great house; he had great influence in the city and among the other Greeks, so that if virtue could be taught he would have found the man who could make his sons good men, be it a citizen or a stranger, if he himself did not have the time because [e] of his public concerns. But, friend Anytus, virtue can certainly not be taught.

A: I think, Socrates, that you easily speak ill of people. I would advise you, if you will listen to me, to be careful. Perhaps also in another city, and certainly here, it is easier to injure people than to benefit them. I think you know that yourself. [95]

S: I think, Meno, that Anytus is angry, and I am not at all surprised. He thinks, to begin with, that I am slandering those men, and then he believes himself to be one of them. If he ever realizes what slander is, he will cease from anger, but he does not know it now. You tell me, are there not worthy men among your people?—Certainly.

S: Well now, are they willing to offer themselves [b] to the young as teachers? Do they agree they are teachers, and that virtue can be taught?

M: No, by Zeus, Socrates, but sometimes you would hear them say that it can be taught, at other times, that it cannot.

S: Should we say that they are teachers of this subject, when they do not even agree on this point? —I do not think so, Socrates.

S: Further, do you think that these Sophists, who alone profess to be so, are teachers of virtue? M: I admire this most in Gorgias, Socrates, that [c] you would never hear him promising this. Indeed, he

ridicules the others when he hears them making this claim. He thinks one should make people clever speakers. S: You do not think then that the Sophists are teachers? M: I cannot tell, Socrates; like most people, at times I think they are, at other times I think that they are

not. S: Do you know that not only you and the other public men at times think that it can be taught, at [d]

other times that it cannot, but that the poet Theognis18 says the same thing? — Where? S: In his elegiacs: “Eat and drink with these men, and keep their company. Please those whose [e] power

is great, for you will learn goodness from the good. If you mingle with bad men you will lose even what wit you possess.” You see that here he speaks as if virtue can be taught? — So it appears.

S: Elsewhere, he changes somewhat: “If this could be done” he says, “and intelligence could be instilled,” somehow those who could do this “would collect large and numerous fees,” and further: “Never would a bad son be born of a good father, for he [96] would be persuaded by wise words, but you will never make a bad man good by teaching.” You realize that the poet is contradicting himself on the same subject?— He seems to be.

S: Can you mention any other subject of which those who claim to be teachers not only are not recognized to be teachers of others but are not recognized to have knowledge of it themselves, and are thought to [b] be poor in the very matter which they profess to teach? Or any other subject of which those who are recognized as worthy teachers at one time say it can be taught and at other times that it cannot? Would you say that people who are so confused about a subject can be effective teachers of it? — No, by Zeus, I would not.

S: If then neither the Sophists nor the worthy people themselves are teachers of this subject, clearly there would be no others?—I do not think there are.

[c] S: If there are no teachers, neither are there pupils? — As you say.

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S: And we agreed that a subject that has neither teachers nor pupils is not teachable?—We have so agreed.

S: Now there seem to be no teachers of virtue anywhere?—That is so. S: If there are no teachers, there are no learners?—That seems so. S: Then virtue cannot be taught? [d] M: Apparently not, if we have investigated this correctly. I certainly wonder, Socrates, whether there

are no good men either, or in what way good men come to be. S: We are probably poor specimens, you and I, Meno. Gorgias has not adequately educated you, nor

Prodicus me. We must then at all costs turn our attention to ourselves and find someone who will in some way make us better. I say this in view of our [e] recent investigation, for it is ridiculous that we failed to see that it is not only under the guidance of knowledge that men succeed in their affairs, and that is perhaps why the knowledge of how good men come to be escapes us.

M: How do you mean, Socrates? S: I mean this: we were right to agree that good men must be beneficent, and that this could not be

otherwise. Is that not so?—Yes. S: And that they will be beneficent if they give us correct guidance in our affairs. To this too we were

right to agree? — Yes. [97] S: But that one cannot guide correctly if one does not have knowledge; to this our agreement is likely to

be incorrect.—How do you mean? S: I will tell you. A man who knew the way to Larissa, or anywhere else you like, and went there and

guided others would surely lead them well and correctly?—Certainly. S: What if someone had had a correct opinion [b] as to which was the way but had not gone there nor

indeed had knowledge of it, would he not also lead correctly?—Certainly. S: And as long as he has the right opinion about that of which the other has knowledge, he will not be a

worse guide than the one who knows, as he has a true opinion, though not knowledge.—In no way worse. S: So true opinion is in no way a worse guide to correct action than knowledge. It is this that we omitted

in our investigation of the nature of virtue, [c] when we said that only knowledge can lead to correct action, for true opinion can do so also.—So it seems.

S: So correct opinion is no less useful than knowledge? M: Yes, to this extent, Socrates. But the man who has knowledge will always succeed, whereas he who

has true opinion will only succeed at times. S: How do you mean? Will he who has the right opinion not always succeed, as long as his opinion is

right? M: That appears to be so of necessity, and it makes me wonder, Socrates, this being the case, why [d]

knowledge is prized far more highly than right opinion, and why they are different. S: Do you know why you wonder, or shall I tell you? — By all means tell me. S: It is because you have paid no attention to the statues of Daedalus, but perhaps there are none in

Thessaly. M: What do you have in mind when you say this? S: That they too run away and escape if one [e] does not tie them down but remain in place if tied down.

— So what? S: To acquire an untied work of Daedalus is not worth much, like acquiring a runaway slave, for it does

not remain, but it is worth much if tied down, for his works are very beautiful. What am I thinking of when I say this? True opinions. For true opinions, [98] as long as they remain, are a fine thing and all they do is good, but they are not willing to remain long, and they escape from a man’s mind, so that they are not worth much until one ties them down by (giving) an account of the reason why. And that, Meno my friend, is recollection, as we previously agreed. After they are tied down, in the first place they become knowledge, and then they remain in place. That is why knowledge is prized higher than correct opinion, and knowledge differs from correct opinion in being tied down.

M: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, it seems to be something like that. [b] S: Indeed, I too speak as one who does not have knowledge but is guessing. However, I certainly do

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not think I am guessing that right opinion is a different thing from knowledge. If I claim to know anything else—and I would make that claim about few things—I would put this down as one of the things I know. — Rightly so, Socrates.

S: Well then, is it not correct that when true opinion guides the course of every action, it does no worse than knowledge? — I think you are right in this too.

[c] S: Correct opinion is then neither inferior to knowledge nor less useful in directing actions, nor is the man who has it less so than he who has knowledge.—That is so.

S: And we agreed that the good man is beneficent?—Yes. S: Since then it is not only through knowledge but also through right opinion that men are good, and [d]

beneficial to their cities when they are, and neither knowledge nor true opinion come to men by nature but are acquired—or do you think either of these comes by nature?—I do not think so.

S: Then if they do not come by nature, men are not so by nature either. — Surely not. S: As goodness does not come by nature, we inquired next whether it could be taught.—Yes. S: We thought it could be taught, if it was knowledge?—Yes. S: And that it was knowledge if it could be taught? — Quite so. S: And that if there were teachers of it, it could [e] be taught, but if there were not, it was not teachable?

—That is so. S: And then we agreed that there were no teachers of it?—We did. S: So we agreed that it was neither teachable nor knowledge?—Quite so. S: But we certainly agree that virtue is a good thing?—Yes. S: And that which guides correctly is both useful and good?—Certainly. S: And that only these two things, true belief [99] and knowledge, guide correctly, and that if a man

possesses these he gives correct guidance. The things that turn out right by some chance are not due to human guidance, but where there is correct human guidance it is due to two things, true belief or knowledge.—I think that is so.

S: Now because it cannot be taught, virtue no longer seems to be knowledge?—It seems not. S: So one of the two good and useful things has [b] been excluded, and knowledge is not the guide in

public affairs?—I do not think so. S: So it is not by some kind of wisdom, or by being wise, that such men lead their cities, those such as

Themistocles and those mentioned by Anytus just now? That is the reason why they cannot make others be like themselves, because it is not knowledge which makes them what they are.

M: It is likely to be as you say, Socrates. S: Therefore, if it is not through knowledge, the only alternative is that it is through right opinion that [c]

statesmen follow the right course for their cities. As regards knowledge, they are no different from soothsayers and prophets. They too say many true things when inspired, but they have no knowledge of what they are saying.—That is probably so.

S: And so, Meno, is it right to call divine these men who, without any understanding, are right in much that is of importance in what they say and do? — Certainly.

S: We should be right to call divine also those [d] soothsayers and prophets whom we just mentioned, and all the poets, and we should call no less divine and inspired those public men who are no less under the gods’ influence and possession, as their speeches lead to success in many important matters, though they have no knowledge of what they are saying. — Quite so.

S: Women too, Meno, call good men divine, and the Spartans, when they eulogize someone, say “This man is divine.”

[e] M: And they appear to be right, Socrates, though perhaps Anytus here will be annoyed with you for saying so.

S: I do not mind that; we shall talk to him again, but if we were right in the way in which we spoke and investigated in this whole discussion, virtue would be neither an inborn quality nor taught, but comes to those who possess it as a gift from the gods which is not accompanied by understanding, unless there [100] is someone among our statesmen who can make another into a statesman. If there were one, he could be said to be among the living as Homer said Teiresias was among the dead, namely, that “he alone retained his wits

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while the others flitted about like shadows.” In the same manner such a man would, as far as virtue is concerned, here also be the only true reality compared, as it were, with shadows.

M: I think that is an excellent way to put it, Socrates. [b] S: It follows from this reasoning, Meno, that virtue appears to be present in those of us who may possess

it as a gift from the gods. We shall have clear knowledge of this when, before we investigate how it comes to be present in men, we first try to find out what virtue in itself is. But now the time has come for me to go. You convince your guest friend Anytus here of these very things of which you have yourself been convinced, in order that he may be more amenable. If you succeed, you will also confer a benefit upon the Athenians.

*Reprinted from Plato’s Meno, translated by G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1976), by permission of the publisher. The translation follows Burnet’s Oxford text. The only liberty taken is where the answers to Socrates’ questions are very brief, merely indicating assent or the like. In such instances “he said,” the so-frequent repetition of which reads awkwardly in English, has been replaced by a dash, to indicate a change of speaker.

1. [The Greek word is aretē. It can refer to specific virtues such as moderation, courage, etc., but it is also used for the virtue or conglomeration of virtues that makes a man virtuous or good. In this dialogue it is mostly used in this more general sense. Socrates himself at times (e.g., 93b ff.) uses “good” as equivalent to virtuous. — G.M.A.G.]

2. [Gorgias was perhaps the most famous of the earlier generation of Sophists, those traveling teachers who arose in the late fifth century to fill the need for higher education. They all taught rhetoric, or the art of speaking, but as Meno tells us, Gorgias concentrated on this more than the others and made fewer general claims for his teaching (95c). He visited Athens in 427 B.C., and his rhetorical devices gave him an immediate success. Plato named one of his dialogues after him. Fairly substantive fragments of his writings are extant.]

3. [The Greek term is eidos, which Plato was to use for his separately existing eternal Forms. Its common meaning is stature or appearance. Socrates felt that if we apply the same name or epithet to a number of different things or actions, they must surely have a common characteristic to justify the use of the same term. A definition is then a description of this “form” or appearance, which it presents to the mind’s eye. In the earlier dialogues however, as here, this form is not thought of as having a separate existence, but as immanent.]

4. [When discussing goodness or morality, social and political virtues would be more immediately present to the Greek mind than they are to ours. In both Plato and Aristotle a good man is above all a good citizen, whereas the modern mind thinks of goodness mainly in more individual terms, such as sobriety or sexual morals. An extreme example of this occurred in a contemporary judge’s summation to the jury in the case of a woman of loose sexual behavior who was accused of murdering her husband. He actually said: “This is a case of murder, not of morals. The morals of the accused have nothing to do with it.”]

5. [Prodicus was a well-known Sophist who was especially keen on the exact meaning of words, and he was fond of making the proper distinctions between words of similar but not identical meanings. We see him in action in the Protagoras of Plato (especially 337a–c) where he appears with two other distinguished Sophists, Protagoras and Hippias. His insistence on the proper definition of words would naturally endear him to Socrates who, in Plato, always treats him with more sympathy than he does the other Sophists. The point here is that Prodicus would object to “end,” “limit,” and “boundary” being treated as “all the same thing.”]

6. [Empedocles (c. 493–433 B.C.) of Acragas in Sicily was a famous physical philosopher. For him there were four eternal elements (earth, water, air, and fire), the intermingling and separation of which produced the physical phenomena. The reference here is to his theories of sense perception.]

7. [Theatrical because it brings in the philosophical theories of Empedocles and a quotation from Pindar, instead of being in simple terms such as Socrates’ definition of shape.]

8. [That is, Meno is including the term to be defined in the definition.]

9. [Socrates draws a square ABCD. The sides are of course equal, and the “lines through the middle” are the lines joining the middle points of these sides, which also go through the center of the square, namely EF and GH. He then assumes the sides to be two feet.]

10. [That is, the rectangle ABFE, which is obviously two square feet.]

11. [That is, the eight-foot square is double the four-foot square and half the sixteen-foot square, double the square based on a line two feet long, and half the square based on a four-foot side, so it must be based on a line between two and four feet in length. The slave naturally

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suggests three feet, but that gives a nine-foot square, and is still wrong (83e).]

12. [Socrates now builds up his sixteen-foot square by joining three four-foot squares. Filling “the space in the corner” will give another four- foot square, which completes the sixteen-foot square containing four four-foot squares.]

13. [“This one” is any one of the inside squares of four feet.]

14. [Socrates now draws the diagonals of the four inside squares, namely FH, HE, EG, and GF, which together form the square GFHEG. We should note that Socrates here introduces a new element, which is not the result of a question but of his own knowledge, though the answer to the problem follows from questions. The new square contains four halves of a four-foot square, and is therefore eight feet.]

15. [This is what the whole passage on recollection with the slave is intended to prove, namely, that the sophism introduced by Meno — that one cannot find out what one does not know — is false.]

16. [Anytus was a successful democratic politician in Athens. His success must have come after the restoration of democratic government in Athens in 403 B.C., whereas Meno himself joined the expedition of Cyrus in 401 and never came back to Greece. So the conversation must have taken place about 402. Anytus was one of Socrates’ accusers in 399, and Plato obviously expects his readers to have this in mind.]

17. [Not the historian but Thucydides, the son of Melesias, an Athenian statesman who was an opponent of Pericles and who was ostracized in 440 B.C.]

18. [Theognis was a poet of mid-sixth century B.C. A collection of poems is extant (about twelve hundred lines), but the authenticity of a good deal of it is doubtful.]

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Symposium*

[172] APOLLODORUS: In fact, your question does not find me unprepared. Just the other day, as it happens, I was walking to the city from my home in Phaleron when a man I know, who was making his way behind me, saw me and called from a distance:

“The gentleman from Phaleron!” he yelled, trying to be funny. “Hey, Apollodorus, wait!” So I stopped and waited. “Apollodorus, I’ve been looking for you!” he said. [b] “You know there once was a gathering at Agathon’s

when Socrates, Alcibiades, and their friends had dinner together; I wanted to ask you about the speeches they made on Love. What were they? I heard a version from a man who had it from Phoenix, Philip’s son, but it was badly garbled, and he said you were the one to ask. So please, will you tell me all about it? After all, Socrates is your friend — who has a better right than you to report his conversation? But before you begin,” he added, “tell me this: were you there yourself?”

[c] “Your friend must have really garbled his story,” I replied, “if you think this affair was so recent that I could have been there.”

“I did think that,” he said. “Glaucon, how could you? You know very well Agathon hasn’t lived in Athens for many years, while [173]

it’s been less than three that I’ve been Socrates’ companion and made it my job to know exactly what he says and does each day. Before that, I simply drifted aimlessly. Of course, I used to think that what I was doing was important, but in fact I was the most worthless man on earth—as bad as you are this very moment: I used to think philosophy was the last thing a man should do.”

“Stop joking, Apollodorus,” he replied. “Just tell me when the party took place.” “When we were still children, when Agathon won the prize with his first tragedy. It was the day after he

and his troupe held their victory celebration.” “So it really was a long time ago,” he said. “Then who told you about it? Was it Socrates himself?” “Oh, for god’s sake, of course not!” I replied. “It [b] was the very same man who told Phoenix, a fellow

called Aristodemus, from Cydatheneum, a real runt of a man, who always went barefoot. He went to the party because, I think, he was obsessed with Socrates — one of the worst cases at that time. Naturally, I checked part of his story with Socrates, and Socrates agreed with his account.”

“Please tell me, then,” he said. “You speak and I’ll listen, as we walk to the city. This is the perfect opportunity.”

So this is what we talked about on our way; and [c] that’s why, as I said before, I’m not unprepared. Well, if I’m to tell you about it too — I’ll be glad to. After all, my greatest pleasure comes from philosophical conversation, even if I’m only a listener, whether or not I think it will be to my advantage. All other talk, especially the talk of rich businessmen like you, bores me to tears, and I’m sorry for you and your friends because you think your affairs are important when [d] really they’re totally trivial. Perhaps, in your turn, you think I’m a failure, and, believe me, I think that what you think is true. But as for all of you, I don’t just think you are failures — I know it for a fact.

FRIEND: You’ll never change, Apollodorus! Always nagging, even at yourself! I do believe you think everybody — yourself first of all — is totally worthless, except, of course, Socrates. I don’t know exactly how you came to be called “the maniac,” but you certainly talk like one, always furious with everyone, including yourself—but not with Socrates!

APOLLODORUS: Of course, my dear friend, it’s [e] perfectly obvious why I have these views about us all: it’s simply because I’m a maniac, and I’m raving!

FRIEND: It’s not worth arguing about this now, Apollodorus. Please do as I asked: tell me the speeches. APOLLODORUS: All right … Well, the speeches went something like this — but I’d better tell you the

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[174] whole story from the very beginning, as Aristodemus told it to me. He said, then, that one day he ran into Socrates, who had just bathed and put on his fancy sandals — both

very unusual events. So he asked him where he was going, and why he was looking so good. Socrates replied, “I’m going to Agathon’s for dinner. I managed to avoid yesterday’s victory party—I really

don’t like crowds—but I promised to be there today. So, naturally, I took great pains with my appearance: I’m going to the house of a good-looking man; I had to look my best. But let me ask you this,” he added, “I know you haven’t been invited to the dinner; [b] how would you like to come anyway?”

And Aristodemus answered, “I’ll do whatever you say.” “Come with me, then,” Socrates said, “and we shall prove the proverb wrong; the truth is, ‘Good men go

uninvited to Goodman’s feast.’1 Even Homer himself, when you think about it, did not much like this [c] proverb; he not only disregarded it, he violated it. Agamemnon, of course, is one of his great warriors, while he describes Menelaus as a ‘limp spearman.’ And yet, when Agamemnon offers a sacrifice and gives a feast, Homer has the weak Menelaus arrive uninvited at his superior’s table.”2

Aristodemus replied to this, “Socrates, I am afraid Homer’s description is bound to fit me better than yours. Mine is a case of an obvious inferior arriving uninvited at the table of a man of letters. I think you’d better figure out a good excuse for bringing me along, because, you know, I won’t admit I’ve come [d] without an invitation. I’ll say I’m your guest.”

“Let’s go,” he said. “We’ll think about what to say ‘as we proceed the two of us along the way.’ ”3 With these words, they set out. But as they were walking, Socrates began to think about something, lost

himself in thought, and kept lagging behind. Whenever Aristodemus stopped to wait for him, Socrates [e] would urge him to go on ahead. When he arrived at Agathon’s he found the gate wide open, and that, Aristodemus said, caused him to find himself in a very embarrassing situation: a household slave saw him the moment he arrived and took him immediately to the dining room, where the guests were already lying down on their couches, and dinner was about to be served.

As soon as Agathon saw him, he called: “Welcome, Aristodemus! What perfect timing! You’re just in time for dinner! I hope you’re not here for

any other reason—if you are, forget it. I looked all over for you yesterday, so I could invite you, but I couldn’t find you anywhere. But where is Socrates? How come you didn’t bring him along?”

So I turned around (Aristodemus said), and Socrates was nowhere to be seen. And I said that it was actually Socrates who had brought me along as his guest.

“I’m delighted he did,” Agathon replied. “But [175] where is he?” “He was directly behind me, but I have no idea where he is now.” “Go look for Socrates,” Agathon ordered a slave, “and bring him in. Aristodemus,” he added, “you can

share Eryximachus’ couch.” A slave brought water, and Aristodemus washed himself before he lay down. Then another slave entered

and said: “Socrates is here, but he’s gone off to the neighbor’s porch. He’s standing there and won’t come in even though I called him several times.”

“How strange,” Agathon replied. “Go back and bring him in. Don’t leave him there.” But Aristodemus stopped him. “No, no,” he said. [b] “Leave him alone. It’s one of his habits: every now

and then he just goes off like that and stands motionless, wherever he happens to be. I’m sure he’ll come in very soon, so don’t disturb him; let him be.”

“Well, all right, if you really think so,” Agathon said, and turned to the slaves: “Go ahead and serve the rest of us. What you serve is completely up to you; pretend nobody’s supervising you—as if I ever did! Imagine that we are all your own guests, myself [c] included. Give us good reason to praise your service.”

So they went ahead and started eating, but there was still no sign of Socrates. Agathon wanted to send for him many times, but Aristodemus wouldn’t let him. And, in fact, Socrates came in shortly afterward, as he always did—they were hardly halfway through their meal. Agathon, who, as it happened, was all alone on the farthest couch, immediately called: [d] “Socrates, come lie down next to me. Who knows, if I touch you, I may catch a bit of the wisdom that came to you under my neighbor’s porch. It’s clear you’ve seen the light. If you hadn’t, you’d still be standing there.”

Socrates sat down next to him and said, “How wonderful it would be, dear Agathon, if the foolish were filled with wisdom simply by touching the wise. If only wisdom were like water, which always flows [e] from a

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full cup into an empty one when we connect them with a piece of yarn — well, then I would consider it the greatest prize to have the chance to lie down next to you. I would soon be overflowing with your wonderful wisdom. My own wisdom is of no account—a shadow in a dream—while yours is bright and radiant and has a splendid future. Why, young as you are, you’re so brilliant I could call more than thirty thousand Greeks as witnesses.”

“Now you’ve gone too far, Socrates,” Agathon replied. “Well, eat your dinner. Dionysus will soon [176] enough be the judge of our claims to wisdom!”4

Socrates took his seat after that and had his meal, according to Aristodemus. When dinner was over, they poured a libation to the god, sang a hymn, and— in short — followed the whole ritual. Then they turned their attention to drinking. At that point Pausanias addressed the group:

“Well, gentlemen, how can we arrange to drink less tonight? To be honest, I still have a terrible hangover from yesterday, and I could really use a break. I daresay most of you could, too, since you were also [b] part of the celebration. So let’s try not to overdo it.”

Aristophanes replied: “Good idea, Pausanias. We’ve got to make a plan for going easy on the drink tonight. I was over my head last night myself, like the others.”

After that, up spoke Eryximachus, son of Acumenus: “Well said, both of you. But I still have one question: How do you feel, Agathon? Are you strong enough for serious drinking?”

“Absolutely not,” replied Agathon. “I’ve no strength left for anything.” [c] “What a lucky stroke for us,” Eryximachus said, “for me, for Aristodemus, for Phaedrus, and the rest—

that you large-capacity drinkers are already exhausted. Imagine how weak drinkers like ourselves feel after last night! Of course I don’t include Socrates in my claims: he can drink or not, and will be satisfied whatever we do. But since none of us seems particularly eager to overindulge, perhaps it would not be amiss for me to provide you with some accurate information [d] as to the nature of intoxication. If I have learned anything from medicine, it is the following point: inebriation is harmful to everyone. Personally, therefore, I always refrain from heavy drinking; and I advise others against it—especially people who are suffering the effects of a previous night’s excesses.”

“Well,” Phaedrus interrupted him, “I always follow your advice, especially when you speak as a doctor. In this case, if the others know what’s good for them, they too will do just as you say.”

At that point they all agreed not to get drunk that [e] evening; they decided to drink only as much as pleased them.

“It’s settled, then,” said Eryximachus. “We are resolved to force no one to drink more than he wants. I would like now to make a further motion: let us dispense with the flute-girl who just made her entrance; let her play for herself or, if she prefers, for the women in the house. Let us instead spend our evening in conversation. If you are so minded, I would like to propose a subject.” [177]

They all said they were quite willing, and urged him to make his proposal. So Eryximachus said: “Let me begin by citing Euripides’ Melanippe: ‘Not mine the tale.’ What I am about to tell belongs to

Phaedrus here, who is deeply indignant on this issue, and often complains to me about it: “Eryximachus,’ he says, isn’t it an awful thing! Our poets have composed hymns in honor of just about any

god you can think of; but has a single one of them given one moment’s thought to the god of [b] love, ancient and powerful as he is? As for our fancy intellectuals, they have written volumes praising Heracles and other heroes (as did the distinguished Prodicus). Well, perhaps that’s not surprising, but I’ve actually read a book by an accomplished author who saw [c] fit to extol the usefulness of salt! How could people pay attention to such trifles and never, not even once, write a proper hymn to Love? How could anyone ignore so great a god?’

“Now, Phaedrus, in my judgment, is quite right. I would like, therefore, to take up a contribution, as it were, on his behalf, and gratify his wish. Besides, I [d] think this a splendid time for all of us here to honor the god. If you agree, we can spend the whole evening in discussion, because I propose that each of us give as good a speech in praise of Love as he is capable of giving, in proper order from left to right. And let us begin with Phaedrus, who is at the head of the table and is, in addition, the father of our subject.”

“No one will vote against that, Eryximachus,” said Socrates. “How could I vote ‘No,’ when the only thing [e] I say I understand is the art of love? Could Agathon and Pausanias? Could Aristophanes, who thinks of nothing but Dionysus and Aphrodite? No one I can see here now could vote against your proposal.

“And though it’s not quite fair to those of us who have to speak last, if the first speeches turn out to be good enough and to exhaust our subject, I promise we won’t complain. So let Phaedrus begin, with the

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blessing of Fortune; let’s hear his praise of Love.” [178] They all agreed with Socrates, and pressed Phaedrus to start. Of course, Aristodemus couldn’t

remember exactly what everyone said, and I myself don’t remember everything he told me. But I’ll tell you what he remembered best, and what I consider the most important points.

As I say, he said Phaedrus spoke first, beginning more or less like this:

Love is a great god, wonderful in many ways to gods and men, and most marvelous of all is the way [b] he came into being. We honor him as one of the most ancient gods, and the proof of his great age is this: the parents of Love have no place in poetry or legend. According to Hesiod, the first to be born was Chaos,

… but then came Earth, broad-chested, a seat for all, forever safe, And Love.5

And Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod: after Chaos came Earth and Love, these two.6 And Parmenides tells of this beginning:

The very first god [she] designed was Love.7

All sides agree, then, that Love is one of the most [c] ancient gods. As such, he gives to us the greatest goods. I cannot say what greater good there is for a young boy than a gentle lover, or for a lover than a boy to love. There is a certain guidance each person needs for his whole life, if he is to live well; and nothing imparts this guidance — not high kinship, not public honor, not wealth — nothing imparts this guidance [d] as well as Love. What guidance do I mean? I mean a sense of shame at acting shamefully, and a sense of pride in acting well. Without these, nothing fine or great can be accomplished, in public or in private.

What I say is this: if a man in love is found doing something shameful, or accepting shameful treatment because he is a coward and makes no defense, then nothing would give him more pain than being seen by the boy he loves—not even being seen by [e] his father or his comrades. We see the same thing also in the boy he loves, that he is especially ashamed before his lover when he is caught in something shameful. If only there were a way to start a city or an army made up of lovers and the boys they love! Theirs would be the best possible system of society, for they would hold back from all that is shameful, and seek honor in each other’s eyes.8 Even a few of [179] them, in battle side by side, would conquer all the world, I’d say. For a man in love would never allow his loved one, of all people, to see him leaving ranks or dropping weapons. He’d rather die a thousand deaths! And as for leaving the boy behind, or not coming to his aid in danger—why, no one is so base that true Love could not inspire him with courage, [b] and make him as brave as if he’d been born a hero. When Homer says a god “breathes might” into some of the heroes, this is really Love’s gift to every lover.9

Besides, no one will die for you but a lover, and a lover will do this even if she’s a woman. Alcestis is proof to everyone in Greece that what I say is true.10 [c] Only she was willing to die in place of her husband, although his father and mother were still alive. Because of her love, she went so far beyond his parents in family feeling that she made them look like outsiders, as if they belonged to their son in name only. And when she did this her deed struck everyone, even the gods, as nobly done. The gods were so delighted, in fact, that they gave her the prize they reserve for a handful chosen [d] from the throngs of noble heroes — they sent her soul back from the dead. As you can see, the eager courage of love wins highest honors from the gods.

Orpheus, however, they sent unsatisfied from Hades, after showing him only an image of the woman he came for. They did not give him the woman herself, because they thought he was soft (he was, after all, a cithara-player) and did not dare to die like Alcestis for Love’s sake, but contrived to enter living into Hades. So they punished him for that, and made [e] him die at the hands of women.11

The honor they gave to Achilles is another matter. They sent him to the Isles of the Blest because he dared to stand by his lover Patroclus and avenge him, [180] even after he had learned from his mother that he would die if he killed Hector, but that if he chose otherwise he’d go home and end his life as an old man. Instead he chose to die for Patroclus, and more than that, he did it for a man whose life was already over. The gods were highly delighted at this, of course, and gave him special honor, because he made so much of his lover. Aeschylus talks nonsense when he claims Achilles was the lover;12 he was more beautiful than Patroclus, more beautiful than all the heroes, and still beardless. Besides he was much younger, as Homer

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says. In truth, the gods honor virtue most highly when [b] it belongs to Love. They are more impressed and

delighted, however, and are more generous with a loved one who cherishes his lover, than with a lover who cherishes the boy he loves. A lover is more godlike than his boy, you see, since he is inspired by a god. That’s why they gave a higher honor to Achilles than to Alcestis, and sent him to the Isles of the Blest.

Therefore I say Love is the most ancient of the gods, the most honored, and the most powerful in helping men gain virtue and blessedness, whether they are alive or have passed away.

That was more or less what Phaedrus said according [c] to Aristodemus. There followed several other speeches which he couldn’t remember very well. So he skipped them and went directly to the speech of Pausanias.

Phaedrus (Pausanias began), I’m not quite sure our subject has been well defined. Our charge has been simple—to speak in praise of Love. This would have been fine if Love himself were simple, too, but as a matter of fact, there are two kinds of Love. In view of this, it might be better to begin by making clear [d] which kind of Love we are to praise. Let me therefore try to put our discussion back on the right track and explain which kind of Love ought to be praised. Then I shall give him the praise he deserves, as the god he is.

It is a well-known fact that Love and Aphrodite are inseparable. If, therefore, Aphrodite were a single goddess, there could also be a single Love; but, since there are actually two goddesses of that name, there also are two kinds of Love. I don’t expect you’ll disagree with me about the two goddesses, will you? One is an older deity, the motherless daughter of Uranus, the god of heaven: she is known as Urania, or Heavenly Aphrodite. The other goddess is younger, the daughter of Zeus and Dione: her name is Pandemos, [e] or Common Aphrodite. It follows, therefore, that there is a Common as well as a Heavenly Love, depending on which goddess is Love’s partner. And although, of course, all the gods must be praised, we must still make an effort to keep these two gods apart.

The reason for this applies in the same way to every type of action: considered in itself, no action is either good or bad, honorable or shameful. Take, for example, [181] our own case. We had a choice between drinking, singing, or having a conversation. Now, in itself none of these is better than any other: how it comes out depends entirely on how it is performed. If it is done honorably and properly, it turns out to be honorable; if it is done improperly, it is disgraceful. And my point is that exactly this principle applies to being in love: Love is not in himself noble and worthy of praise; that depends on whether the sentiments he produces in us are themselves noble.

[b] Now the Common Aphrodite’s Love is himself truly common. As such, he strikes wherever he gets a chance. This, of course, is the love felt by the vulgar, who are attached to women no less than to boys, to the body more than to the soul, and to the least intelligent partners, since all they care about is completing the sexual act. Whether they do it honorably or not is of no concern. That is why they do whatever comes their way, sometimes good, sometimes bad; and which one it is is incidental to their purpose. For the Love who moves them belongs to a much younger goddess, who, through her parentage, partakes [c] of the nature both of the female and the male.

Contrast this with the Love of Heavenly Aphrodite. This goddess, whose descent is purely male (hence this love is for boys), is considerably older and therefore free from the lewdness of youth. That’s why those who are inspired by her Love are attracted to the male: they find pleasure in what is by nature stronger and more intelligent. But, even within the group that is attracted to handsome boys, some are not moved [d] purely by this Heavenly Love; those who are do not fall in love with little boys; they prefer older ones whose cheeks are showing the first traces of a beard — a sign that they have begun to form minds of their own. I am convinced that a man who falls in love with a young man of this age is generally prepared to share everything with the one he loves—he is eager, in fact, to spend the rest of his own life with him. He certainly does not aim to deceive him—to take advantage of him while he is still young and inexperienced and then, after exposing him to ridicule, to [e] move quickly on to someone else.

As a matter of fact, there should be a law forbidding affairs with young boys. If nothing else, all this time and effort would not be wasted on such an uncertain pursuit—and what is more uncertain than whether a particular boy will eventually make something of himself, physically or mentally? Good men, of course, are willing to make a law like this for themselves, but those other lovers, the vulgar ones, need external restraint. For just this reason we have placed every [182] possible legal obstacle to their seducing our own wives and daughters. These vulgar lovers are the people who have given love such a bad reputation that some have gone so far as to claim that taking any man as a lover is in itself disgraceful. Would anyone make this claim if he

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weren’t thinking of how hasty vulgar lovers are, and therefore how unfair to their loved ones? For nothing done properly and in accordance with our customs would ever have provoked such righteous disapproval.

I should point out, however, that, although the customs regarding Love in most cities are simple and easy to understand, here in Athens (and in Sparta as well) they are remarkably complex. In places where [b] the people are inarticulate, like Elis or Boeotia, tradition straightforwardly approves taking a lover in every case. No one there, young or old, would ever consider it shameful. The reason, I suspect, is that, being poor speakers, they want to save themselves the trouble of having to offer reasons and arguments in support of their suits.

By contrast, in places like Ionia and almost every other part of the Persian empire, taking a lover is always considered disgraceful. The Persian empire is absolute; that is why it condemns love as well as [c] philosophy and sport. It is no good for rulers if the people they rule cherish ambitions for themselves or form strong bonds of friendship with one another. That these are precisely the effects of philosophy, sport, and especially of Love is a lesson the tyrants of Athens learned directly from their own experience: Didn’t their reign come to a dismal end because of the bonds uniting Harmodius and Aristogiton in love and affection?13 [d]

So you can see that plain condemnation of Love reveals lust for power in the rulers and cowardice in the ruled, while indiscriminate approval testifies to general dullness and stupidity.

Our own customs, which, as I have already said, are much more difficult to understand, are also far superior. Recall, for example, that we consider it more honorable to declare your love rather than to keep it a secret, especially if you are in love with a youth of good family and accomplishment, even if he isn’t all that beautiful. Recall also that a lover is encouraged in every possible way; this means that what he does is not considered shameful. On the contrary, conquest is deemed noble, and failure shameful. And as for [e] attempts at conquest, our custom is to praise lovers for totally extraordinary acts — so extraordinary, in fact, [183] that if they performed them for any other purpose whatever, they would reap the most profound contempt. Suppose, for example, that in order to secure money, or a public post, or any other practical benefit from another person, a man were willing to do what lovers do for the ones they love. Imagine that in pressing his suit he went to his knees in public view and begged in the most humiliating way, that he swore all sorts of vows, that he spent the night at the other man’s doorstep, that he were anxious to provide services even a slave would have refused—well, you can be sure that everyone, his enemies no less than [b] his friends, would stand in his way. His enemies would jeer at his fawning servility, while his friends, ashamed on his behalf, would try everything to bring him back to his senses. But let a lover act in any of these ways, and everyone will immediately say what a charming man he is! No blame attaches to his behavior: custom treats it as noble through and through. And what is even more remarkable is that, at least according to popular wisdom, the gods will forgive a lover even [c] for breaking his vows — a lover’s vow, our people say, is no vow at all. The freedom given to the lover by both gods and men according to our custom is immense.

In view of all this, you might well conclude that in our city we consider the lover’s desire and the willingness to satisfy it as the noblest things in the world. When, on the other hand, you recall that fathers hire attendants for their sons as soon as they’re old enough to be attractive, and that an attendant’s main task is to prevent any contact between his charge and his suitors; when you recall how mercilessly a boy’s own friends tease him if they catch him at it, and how strongly their elders approve and even [d] encourage such mocking — when you take all this into account, you’re bound to come to the conclusion that we Athenians consider such behavior the most shameful thing in the world.

In my opinion, however, the fact of the matter is this. As I said earlier, love is, like everything else, complex: considered simply in itself, it is neither honorable nor a disgrace—its character depends entirely on the behavior it gives rise to. To give oneself to a vile man in a vile way is truly disgraceful behavior; by contrast, it is perfectly honorable to give oneself honorably to the right man. Now you may want to [e] know who counts as vile in this context. I’ll tell you: it is the common, vulgar lover, who loves the body rather than the soul, the man whose love is bound to be inconstant, since what he loves is itself mutable and unstable. The moment the body is no longer in bloom, “he flies off and away,”14 his promises and vows in tatters behind him. How different from this is a man who loves the right sort of character, and who remains its lover for life, attached as he is to something that is permanent. [184]

We can now see the point of our customs: they are designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, the proper love from the vile. That’s why we do everything we can to make it as easy as possible for lovers to press their suits and as difficult as possible for young men to comply; it is like a competition, a kind of test to determine to which sort each belongs. This explains two further facts: First, why we consider it shameful to yield too quickly: the passage of time in itself provides a good test in these matters. Second, why we also

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consider it shameful for a man to be seduced [b] by money or political power, either because he cringes at ill- treatment and will not endure it or because, once he has tasted the benefits of wealth and power, he will not rise above them. None of these benefits is stable or permanent, apart from the fact that no genuine affection can possibly be based upon them.

Our customs, then, provide for only one honorable way of taking a man as a lover. In addition to recognizing that the lover’s total and willing subjugation to [c] his beloved’s wishes is neither servile nor reprehensible, we allow that there is one—and only one— further reason for willingly subjecting oneself to another which is equally above reproach: that is subjection for the sake of virtue. If someone decides to put himself at another’s disposal because he thinks that this will make him better in wisdom or in any other part of virtue, we approve of his voluntary subjection: we consider it neither shameful nor servile. Both these principles—that is, both the principle governing the proper attitude toward the lover of young men and the principle governing the love of wisdom and of [d] virtue in general — must be combined if a young man is to accept a lover in an honorable way. When an older lover and a young man come together and each obeys the principle appropriate to him—when the lover realizes that he is justified in doing anything for a loved one who grants him favors, and when the young man understands that he is justified in performing any service for a lover who can make him [e] wise and virtuous — and when the lover is able to help the young man become wiser and better, and the young man is eager to be taught and improved by his lover — then, and only then, when these two principles coincide absolutely, is it ever honorable for a young man to accept a lover.

Only in this case, we should notice, is it never shameful to be deceived; in every other case it is [185] shameful, both for the deceiver and the person he deceives. Suppose, for example, that someone thinks his lover is rich and accepts him for his money; his action won’t be any less shameful if it turns out that he was deceived and his lover was a poor man after all. For the young man has already shown himself to be the sort of person who will do anything for money — and that is far from honorable. By the same token, suppose that someone takes a lover in the mistaken belief that this lover is a good man and likely to make him better himself, while in reality [b] the man is horrible, totally lacking in virtue; even so, it is noble for him to have been deceived. For he too has demonstrated something about himself: that he is the sort of person who will do anything for the sake of virtue—and what could be more honorable than that? It follows, therefore, that giving in to your lover for virtue’s sake is honorable, whatever the outcome. And this, of course, is the Heavenly Love of the heavenly goddess. Love’s value to the city as a whole and to the citizens is immeasurable, for he compels the [c] lover and his loved one alike to make virtue their central concern. All other forms of love belong to the vulgar goddess.

Phaedrus, I’m afraid this hasty improvisation will have to do as my contribution on the subject of Love. When Pausanias finally came to a pause (I’ve learned this sort of fine figure from our clever rhetoricians),

it was Aristophanes’ turn, according to Aristodemus. But he had such a bad case of the hiccups — he’d probably stuffed himself again, though, of course, it could have been anything—that making a speech was totally out of the question. So he turned [d] to the doctor, Eryximachus, who was next in line, and said to him:

“Eryximachus, it’s up to you — as well it should be. Cure me or take my turn.” “As a matter of fact,” Eryximachus replied, “I shall do both. I shall take your turn—you can speak in my

place as soon as you feel better—and I shall also cure you. While I am giving my speech, you should hold your breath for as long as you possibly can. This may [e] well eliminate your hiccups. If it fails, the best remedy is a thorough gargle. And if even this has no effect, then tickle your nose with a feather. A sneeze or two will cure even the most persistent case.”

“The sooner you start speaking, the better,” Aristophanes said. “I’ll follow your instructions to the letter.” This, then, was the speech of Eryximachus:

Pausanias introduced a crucial consideration in his speech, though in my opinion he did not develop it sufficiently. Let me therefore try to carry his argument to its logical conclusion. His distinction between the [186] two species of Love seems to me very useful indeed. But if I have learned a single lesson from my own field, the science of medicine, it is that Love does not occur only in the human soul; it is not simply the attraction we feel toward human beauty: it is a significantly broader phenomenon. It certainly occurs within the animal kingdom, and even in the world [b] of plants. In fact, it occurs everywhere in the universe. Love is a deity of the greatest importance: he directs everything that occurs, not only in the human domain, but also in that of the gods.

Let me begin with some remarks concerning medicine—I hope you will forgive my giving pride of place to

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my own profession. The point is that our very bodies manifest the two species of Love. Consider for a moment the marked difference, the radical dissimilarity, between healthy and diseased constitutions and the fact that dissimilar subjects desire and love objects that are themselves dissimilar. Therefore, the love manifested in health is fundamentally distinct from the love manifested in disease. And now recall that, as Pausanias claimed, it is as honorable to yield to a good man as it is shameful to consort with the [c] debauched. Well, my point is that the case of the human body is strictly parallel. Everything sound and healthy in the body must be encouraged and gratified; that is precisely the object of medicine. Conversely, whatever is unhealthy and unsound must be frustrated and rebuffed: that’s what it is to be an expert in medicine.

In short, medicine is simply the science of the [d] effects of Love on repletion and depletion of the body, and the hallmark of the accomplished physician is his ability to distinguish the Love that is noble from the Love that is ugly and disgraceful. A good practitioner knows how to affect the body and how to transform its desires; he can implant the proper species of Love when it is absent and eliminate the other sort whenever it occurs. The physician’s task is to effect a reconciliation and establish mutual love between the most basic bodily elements. Which are those elements? They are, of course, those that are most opposed to one another, as hot is to cold, bitter [e] to sweet, wet to dry, cases like those. In fact, our ancestor Asclepius first established medicine as a profession when he learned how to produce concord and love between such opposites — that is what those poet fellows say, and — this time — I concur with them.

[187] Medicine, therefore, is guided everywhere by the god of Love, and so are physical education and farming as well. Further, a moment’s reflection suffices to show that the case of poetry and music, too, is precisely the same. Indeed, this may have been just what Heraclitus had in mind, though his mode of expression certainly leaves much to be desired. The one, he says, “being at variance with itself is in agreement with itself like the attunement of a bow or a lyre.”15 Naturally, it is patently absurd to claim that an attunement or a harmony is in itself discordant or that its elements are still in discord with one another. Heraclitus probably meant that an expert musician [b] creates a harmony by resolving the prior discord between high and low notes. For surely there can be no harmony so long as high and low are still discordant; harmony, after all, is consonance, and consonance is a species of agreement. Discordant elements, as long as they are still in discord, cannot come to an agreement, and they therefore cannot produce a harmony. [c] Rhythm, for example, is produced only when fast and slow, though earlier discordant, are brought into agreement with each other. Music, like medicine, creates agreement by producing concord and love between these various opposites. Music is therefore simply the science of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony.

These effects are easily discernible if you consider the constitution of rhythm and harmony in themselves; Love does not occur in both his forms in this domain. But the moment you consider, in their turn, the effects of rhythm and harmony on their audience [d]—either through composition, which creates new verses and melodies, or through musical education, which teaches the correct performance of existing compositions— complications arise directly, and they require the treatment of a good practitioner. Ultimately, the identical argument applies once again: the love felt by good people or by those whom such love might improve in this regard must be encouraged and protected. This is the honorable, heavenly species of Love, produced by the melodies of [e] Urania, the Heavenly Muse. The other, produced by Polyhymnia, the muse of many songs, is common and vulgar. Extreme caution is indicated here: we must be careful to enjoy his pleasures without slipping into debauchery—this case, I might add, is strictly parallel to a serious issue in my own field, namely, the problem of regulating the appetite so as to be able to enjoy a fine meal without unhealthy aftereffects.

In music, therefore, as well as in medicine and in all the other domains, in matters divine as well as in human affairs, we must attend with the greatest possible care to these two species of Love, which are, [188] indeed, to be found everywhere. Even the seasons of the year exhibit their influence. When the elements to which I have already referred—hot and cold, wet and dry—are animated by the proper species of Love, they are in harmony with one another: their mixture is temperate, and so is the climate. Harvests are plentiful; men and all other living things are in good health; no harm can come to them. But when the sort of Love that is crude and impulsive controls the seasons, he brings death and destruction. He spreads the [b] plague and many other diseases among plants and animals; he causes frost and hail and blights. All these are the effects of the immodest and disordered species of Love on the movements of the stars and the seasons of the year, that is, on the objects studied by the science called astronomy.

Consider further the rites of sacrifice and the whole area with which the art of divination is concerned, [c] that is, the interaction between men and gods. Here, too, Love is the central concern: our object is to try to maintain the proper kind of Love and to attempt to cure the kind that is diseased. For what is the origin of all impiety? Our refusal to gratify the orderly kind of Love, and our deference to the other sort, when we should

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have been guided by the former sort of Love in every action in connection with our parents, living or dead, and with the gods. The task of divination is to keep watch over these two species of Love and to doctor them as necessary. Divination, therefore, [d] is the practice that produces loving affection between gods and men; it is simply the science of the effects of Love on justice and piety.

Such is the power of Love — so varied and great that in all cases it might be called absolute. Yet even so it is far greater when Love is directed, in temperance and justice, toward the good, whether in heaven or on earth: happiness and good fortune, the bonds of human society, concord with the gods above—all these are among his gifts.

Perhaps I, too, have omitted a great deal in this [e] discourse on Love. If so, I assure you, it was quite inadvertent. And if in fact I have overlooked certain points, it is now your task, Aristophanes, to complete the argument—unless, of course, you are planning on a different approach. In any case, proceed; your [189] hiccups seem cured.

Then Aristophanes took over (so Aristodemus said): “The hiccups have stopped all right — but not before I applied the Sneeze Treatment to them. Makes me wonder whether the ‘orderly sort of Love’ in the body calls for the sounds and itchings that constitute a sneeze, because the hiccups stopped immediately when I applied the Sneeze Treatment.”

“You’re good, Aristophanes,” Eryximachus answered. “But watch what you’re doing. You are making jokes before your speech, and you’re forcing me to prepare for you to say something funny, and to put [b] up my guard against you, when otherwise you might speak at peace.”

Then Aristophanes laughed. “Good point, Eryximachus. So let me ‘unsay what I have said.’ But don’t put up your guard. I’m not worried about saying something funny in my coming oration. That would be pure profit, and it comes with the territory of my Muse. What I’m worried about is that I might say something ridiculous.”

“Aristophanes, do you really think you can take a shot at me, and then escape? Use your head! Remember, as you speak, that you will be called upon to give an account. Though perhaps, if I decide to, I’ll let [c] you off.”

“Eryximachus,” Aristophanes said, “indeed I do have in mind a different approach to speaking than the one the two of you used, you and Pausanias. You see, I think people have entirely missed the power of Love, because, if they had grasped it, they’d have built the greatest temples and altars to him and made the greatest sacrifices. But as it is, none of this is done for him, though it should be, more than anything else! For he loves the human race more than any [d] other god, he stands by us in our troubles, and he cures those ills we humans are most happy to have mended. I shall, therefore, try to explain his power to you; and you, please pass my teaching on to everyone else.”

First you must learn what Human Nature was in the beginning and what has happened to it since, because long ago our nature was not what it is now, but very different. There were three kinds of human beings, that’s my first point — not two as there are [e] now, male and female. In addition to these, there was a third, a combination of those two; its name survives, though the kind itself has vanished. At that time, you see, the word “androgynous” really meant something: a form made up of male and female elements, though now there’s nothing but the word, and that’s used as an insult. My second point is that the shape of each human being was completely round, with back and sides in a circle; they had four hands each, as many legs as hands, and two faces, exactly [190] alike, on a rounded neck. Between the two faces, which were on opposite sides, was one head with four ears. There were two sets of sexual organs, and everything else was the way you’d imagine it from what I’ve told you. They walked upright, as we do now, whatever direction they wanted. And whenever they set out to run fast, they thrust out all their eight limbs, the ones they had then, and spun rapidly, the way gymnasts do cartwheels, by bringing their legs around straight.

Now here is why there were three kinds, and why they were as I described them: The male kind was [b] originally an offspring of the sun, the female of the earth, and the one that combined both genders was an offspring of the moon, because the moon shares in both. They were spherical, and so was their motion, because they were like their parents in the sky.

In strength and power, therefore, they were terrible, and they had great ambitions. They made an attempt on the gods, and Homer’s story about Ephialtes and Otus was originally about them: how they tried to [c] make an ascent to heaven so as to attack the gods.16 Then Zeus and the other gods met in council to discuss what to do, and they were sore perplexed. They couldn’t wipe out the human race with thunderbolts and kill

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them all off, as they had the giants, because that would wipe out the worship they receive, along with the sacrifices we humans give them. On the other hand, they couldn’t let them run riot. At last, after great effort, Zeus had an idea.

“I think I have a plan,” he said, “that would allow human beings to exist and stop their misbehaving: [d] they will give up being wicked when they lose their strength. So I shall now cut each of them in two. At one stroke they will lose their strength and also become more profitable to us, owing to the increase in their number. They shall walk upright on two legs. But if I find they still run riot and do not keep the peace,” he said, “I will cut them in two again, and they’ll have to make their way on one leg, hopping.”

[e] So saying, he cut those human beings in two, the way people cut sorb-apples before they dry them or the way they cut eggs with hairs. As he cut each one, he commanded Apollo to turn its face and half its neck towards the wound, so that each person would see that he’d been cut and keep better order. Then Zeus commanded Apollo to heal the rest of the wound, and Apollo did turn the face around, and he drew skin from all sides over what is now called the stomach, and there he made one mouth, as in a pouch with a drawstring, and fastened it at the center of the stomach. This is now called the navel. Then [191] he smoothed out the other wrinkles, of which there were many, and he shaped the breasts, using some such tool as shoemakers have for smoothing wrinkles out of leather on the form. But he left a few wrinkles around the stomach and the navel, to be a reminder of what happened long ago.

Now, since their natural form had been cut in two, each one longed for its own other half, and so they would throw their arms about each other, weaving themselves together, wanting to grow together. In that condition they would die from hunger and general [b] idleness, because they would not do anything apart from each other. Whenever one of the halves died and one was left, the one that was left still sought another and wove itself together with that. Sometimes the half he met came from a woman, as we’d call her now, sometimes it came from a man; either way, they kept on dying.

Then, however, Zeus took pity on them, and came up with another plan: he moved their genitals around to the front! Before then, you see, they used to have their genitals outside, like their faces, and they cast [c] seed and made children, not in one another, but in the ground, like cicadas. So Zeus brought about this relocation of genitals, and in doing so he invented interior reproduction, by the man in the woman. The purpose of this was so that, when a man embraced a woman, he would cast his seed and they would have children; but when male embraced male, they would at least have the satisfaction of intercourse, after which they could stop embracing, return to their jobs, and look after their other needs in life. This, [d] then, is the source of our desire to love each other. Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.

Each of us, then, is a “matching half’ of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him. That’s why a man who is split from the double sort (which used to be called “androgynous”) runs after women. Many lecherous men have come from this class, and so do the lecherous women [e] who run after men. Women who are split from a woman, however, pay no attention at all to men; they are oriented more towards women, and lesbians come from this class. People who are split from a male are male-oriented. While they are boys, because they are chips off the male block, they love men and enjoy lying with men and being embraced by men; those [192] are the best of boys and lads, because they are the most manly in their nature. Of course, some say such boys are shameless, but they’re lying. It’s not because they have no shame that such boys do this, you see, but because they are bold and brave and masculine, and they tend to cherish what is like themselves. Do you want me to prove it? Look, these are the only kind of boys who grow up to be real men in politics. [b] When they’re grown men, they are lovers of young men, and they naturally pay no attention to marriage or to making babies, except insofar as they are required by local custom. They, however, are quite satisfied to live their lives with one another unmarried. In every way, then, this sort of man grows up as a lover of young men and a lover of Love, always rejoicing in his own kind.

And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it’s to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: [c] the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don’t want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.

These are the people who finish out their lives together and still cannot say what it is they want from one another. No one would think it is the intimacy of sex — that mere sex is the reason each lover takes [d] so great and deep a joy in being with the other. It’s obvious that the soul of every lover longs for something else; his soul cannot say what it is, but like an oracle it has a sense of what it wants, and like an oracle it hides

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behind a riddle. Suppose two lovers are lying together and Hephaestus17 stands over them with his mending tools, asking, “What is it you human beings really want from each other?” And suppose they’re perplexed, and he asks them again: “Is this your heart’s desire, then—for the two of you to become parts of the same whole, as near as can be, and never to separate, day or night? Because if that’s your desire, I’d like to weld you together and join you into something that is naturally whole, so that the two of [e] you are made into one. Then the two of you would share one life, as long as you lived, because you would be one being, and by the same token, when you died, you would be one and not two in Hades, having died a single death. Look at your love, and see if this is what you desire: wouldn’t this be all the good fortune you could want?”

Surely you can see that no one who received such an offer would turn it down; no one would find anything else that he wanted. Instead, everyone would think he’d found out at last what he had always wanted: to come together and melt together with the one he loves, so that one person emerged from two. Why should this be so? It’s because, as I said, we used to be complete wholes in our original nature, and now “Love” is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete. [193]

Long ago we were united, as I said; but now the god has divided us as punishment for the wrong we did him, just as the Spartans divided the Arcadians.18 So there’s a danger that if we don’t keep order before the gods, we’ll be split in two again, and then we’ll be walking around in the condition of people carved on gravestones in bas-relief, sawn apart between the nostrils, like half dice. We should encourage all men, therefore, to treat the gods with all due reverence, so [b] that we may escape this fate and find wholeness instead. And we will, if Love is our guide and our commander. Let no one work against him. Whoever opposes Love is hateful to the gods, but if we become friends of the god and cease to quarrel with him, then we shall find the young men that are meant for us and win their love, as very few men do nowadays.

Now don’t get ideas, Eryximachus, and turn this speech into a comedy. Don’t think I’m pointing this [c] at Pausanias and Agathon. Probably, they both do belong to the group that are entirely masculine in nature. But I am speaking about everyone, men and women alike, and I say there’s just one way for the human race to flourish: we must bring love to its perfect conclusion, and each of us must win the favors of his very own young man, so that he can recover his original nature. If that is the ideal, then, of course, the nearest approach to it is best in present circumstances, and that is to win the favor of young men who are naturally sympathetic to us.

If we are to give due praise to the god who can [d] give us this blessing, then, we must praise Love. Love does the best that can be done for the time being: he draws us towards what belongs to us. But for the future, Love promises the greatest hope of all: if we treat the gods with due reverence, he will restore to us our original nature, and by healing us, he will make us blessed and happy.

“That,” he said, “is my speech about Love, Eryximachus. It is rather different from yours. As I begged you earlier, don’t make a comedy of it. I’d prefer to [e] hear what all the others will say — or, rather, what each of them will say, since Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left.”

“I found your speech delightful,” said Eryximachus, “so I’ll do as you say. Really, we’ve had such a rich feast of speeches on Love, that if I couldn’t vouch for the fact that Socrates and Agathon are masters of the art of love, I’d be afraid that they’d have nothing left to say. But as it is, I have no fears on this score.”

[194] Then Socrates said, “That’s because you did beautifully in the contest, Eryximachus. But if you ever get in my position, or rather the position I’ll be in after Agathon’s spoken so well, then you’ll really be afraid. You’ll be at your wit’s end, as I am now.”

“You’re trying to bewitch me, Socrates,” said Agathon, “by making me think the audience expects great [b] things of my speech, so I’ll get flustered.”

“Agathon!” said Socrates, “How forgetful do you think I am? I saw how brave and dignified you were when you walked right up to the theater platform along with the actors and looked straight out at that enormous audience. You were about to put your own writing on display, and you weren’t the least bit panicked. After seeing that, how could I expect you to be flustered by us, when we are so few?”

“Why, Socrates,” said Agathon. “You must think I have nothing but theater audiences on my mind! So you suppose I don’t realize that, if you’re intelligent, you find a few sensible men much more frightening than a senseless crowd?”

[c] “No,” he said, “It wouldn’t be very handsome of me to think you crude in any way, Agathon. I’m sure that if you ever run into people you consider wise, you’ll pay more attention to them than to ordinary people. But you can’t suppose we’re in that class; we were at the theater too, you know, part of the ordinary crowd. Still, if you did run into any wise men, other than yourself, you’d certainly be ashamed at the thought of doing

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anything ugly in front of them. Is that what you mean?” ‘That’s true,” he said. “On the other hand, you wouldn’t be ashamed to do something ugly in front of ordinary people. Is [d] that

it?” At that point Phaedrus interrupted: “Agathon, my friend, if you answer Socrates, he’ll no longer care

whether we get anywhere with what we’re doing here, so long as he has a partner for discussion. Especially if he’s handsome. Now, like you, I enjoy listening to Socrates in discussion, but it is my duty to see to the praising of Love and to exact a speech from every one of this group. When each of you two has made his offering to the god, then you can have your discussion.” [e]

“You’re doing a beautiful job, Phaedrus,” said Agathon. “There’s nothing to keep me from giving my speech. Socrates will have many opportunities for discussion later.”

I wish first to speak of how I ought to speak, and only then to speak. In my opinion, you see, all those who have spoken before me did not so much celebrate the god as congratulate human beings on the good things that come to them from the god. But who it is who gave these gifts, what he is like — no one has [195] spoken about that. Now, only one method is correct for every praise, no matter whose: you must explain what qualities in the subject of your speech enable him to give the benefits for which we praise him. So now, in the case of Love, it is right for us to praise him first for what he is and afterwards for his gifts.

I maintain, then, that while all the gods are happy, Love—if I may say so without giving offense—is the happiest of them all, for he is the most beautiful and the best. His great beauty lies in this: First, Phaedrus, he is the youngest of the gods.19 He proves my point [b] himself by fleeing old age in headlong flight, fast- moving though it is (that’s obvious — it comes after us faster than it should). Love was born to hate old age and will come nowhere near it. Love always lives with young people and is one of them: the old story holds good that like is always drawn to like. And though on many other points I agree with Phaedrus, I do not agree with this: that Love is more ancient than Cronus and Iapetos. No, I say that he is the [c] youngest of the gods and stays young forever.

Those old stories Hesiod and Parmenides tell about the gods — those things happened under Necessity, not Love, if what they say is true. For not one of all those violent deeds would have been done — no castrations, no imprisonments—if Love had been present among them. There would have been peace and brotherhood instead, as there has been now as long as Love has been king of the gods.

[d] So he is young. And besides being young, he is delicate. It takes a poet as good as Homer to show how delicate the god is. For Homer says that Mischief is a god and that she is delicate—well, that her feet are delicate, anyway! He says:

… hers are delicate feet: not on the ground Does she draw nigh; she walks instead upon the heads of men.20

A lovely proof, I think, to show how delicate she is: [e] she doesn’t walk on anything hard; she walks only on what is soft. We shall use the same proof about Love, then, to show that he is delicate. For he walks not on earth, not even on people’s skulls, which are not really soft at all, but in the softest of all the things that are, there he walks, there he has his home. For he makes his home in the characters, in the souls, of gods and men —and not even in every soul that comes along: when he encounters a soul with a harsh character, he turns away; but when he finds a soft and gentle character, he settles down in it. Always, then, he is touching with his feet and with the whole [196] of himself what is softest in the softest places. He must therefore be most delicate.

He is youngest, then, and most delicate; in addition he has a fluid, supple shape. For if he were hard, he would not be able to enfold a soul completely or escape notice when he first entered it or withdrew. Besides, his graceful good looks prove that he is balanced and fluid in his nature. Everyone knows that Love has extraordinary good looks, and between ugliness and Love there is unceasing war.

And the exquisite coloring of his skin! The way the god consorts with flowers shows that. For he never [b] settles in anything, be it a body or a soul, that cannot flower or has lost its bloom. His place is wherever it is flowery and fragrant; there he settles, there he stays.

Enough for now about the beauty of the god, though much remains still to be said. After this, we should speak of Love’s moral character.21 The main point is that Love is neither the cause nor the victim of any injustice; he does no wrong to gods or men, nor they to him. If anything has an effect on him, it is never by

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violence, for violence never touches Love. [c] And the effects he has on others are not forced, for every service we give to love we give willingly. And whatever one person agrees on with another, when both are willing, that is right and just; so say “the laws that are kings of society.”22

And besides justice, he has the biggest share of moderation.23 For moderation, by common agreement, is power over pleasures and passions, and no pleasure is more powerful than Love! But if they are weaker, they are under the power of Love, and he has the power; and because he has power over pleasures and passions, Love is exceptionally moderate.

And as for manly bravery, “Not even Ares can [d] stand up to” Love!24 For Ares has no hold on Love, but Love does on Ares—love of Aphrodite, so runs the tale.25 But he who has hold is more powerful than he who is held; and so, because Love has power over the bravest of the others, he is bravest of them all.

Now I have spoken about the god’s justice, moderation, and bravery; his wisdom remains.26 I must try not to leave out anything that can be said on this. In [e] the first place — to honor our profession as Eryximachus did his27 — the god is so skilled a poet that he can make others into poets: once Love touches him, anyone becomes a poet,

… howe’er uncultured he had been before.28

This, we may fittingly observe, testifies that Love is a good poet, good, in sum, at every kind of artistic production. For you can’t give to another what you [197] don’t have yourself, and you can’t teach what you don’t know.

And as to the production of animals — who will deny that they are all born and begotten through Love’s skill?

And as for artisans and professionals—don’t we know that whoever has this god for a teacher ends up in the light of fame, while a man untouched by Love ends in obscurity? Apollo, for one, invented archery, medicine, and prophecy when desire and [b] love showed the way. Even he, therefore, would be a pupil of Love, and so would the Muses in music, Hephaestus in bronze work, Athena in weaving, and Zeus in “the governance of gods and men.”

That too is how the gods’ quarrels were settled, once Love came to be among them — love of beauty, obviously, because love is not drawn to ugliness. Before that, as I said in the beginning, and as the poets say, many dreadful things happened among the gods, because Necessity was king. But once this god was [c] born, all goods came to gods and men alike through love of beauty.

This is how I think of Love, Phaedrus: first, he is himself the most beautiful and the best; after that, if anyone else is at all like that, Love is responsible. I am suddenly struck by a need to say something in poetic meter,29 that it is he who —

Gives peace to men and stillness to the sea, [d] Lays winds to rest, and careworn men to sleep.

Love fills us with togetherness and drains all of our divisiveness away. Love calls gatherings like these together. In feasts, in dances, and in ceremonies, he gives the lead. Love moves us to mildness, removes from us wildness. He is giver of kindness, never of meanness. Gracious, kindly30 — let wise men see and gods admire! Treasure to lovers, envy to others, father of elegance, luxury, delicacy, grace, yearning, desire. Love cares well for good men, cares not for bad ones. In pain, in fear, in desire, or speech, Love is our best [e] guide and guard; he is our comrade and our savior. Ornament of all gods and men, most beautiful leader and the best! Every man should follow Love, sing beautifully his hymns, and join with him in the song he sings that charms the mind of god or man.

This, Phaedrus, is the speech I have to offer. Let it be dedicated to the god, part of it in fun, part of it moderately serious, as best I could manage. [198]

When Agathon finished, Aristodemus said, everyone there burst into applause, so becoming to himself and to the god did they think the young man’s speech.

Then Socrates glanced at Eryximachus and said, “Now do you think I was foolish to feel the fear I felt before? Didn’t I speak like a prophet a while ago when I said that Agathon would give an amazing speech and I would be tongue-tied?”

“You were prophetic about one thing, I think,” said Eryximachus, “that Agathon would speak well. But

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you, tongue-tied? No, I don’t believe that.” [b] “Bless you,” said Socrates. “How am I not going to be tongue-tied, I or anyone else, after a speech

delivered with such beauty and variety? The other parts may not have been so wonderful, but that at the end! Who would not be struck dumb on hearing the beauty of the words and phrases? Anyway, I was worried that I’d not be able to say anything that came close to them in beauty, and so I would almost have [c] run away and escaped, if there had been a place to go. And, you see, the speech reminded me of Gorgias, so that I actually experienced what Homer describes: I was afraid that Agathon would end by sending the Gorgian head,31 awesome at speaking in a speech, against my speech, and this would turn me to stone by striking me dumb. Then I realized how ridiculous [d] I’d been to agree to join with you in praising Love and to say that I was a master of the art of love, when I knew nothing whatever of this business, of how anything whatever ought to be praised. In my foolishness, I thought you should tell the truth about whatever you praise, that this should be your basis, and that from this a speaker should select the most beautiful truths and arrange them most suitably. I was quite vain, thinking that I would talk well and that I knew the truth about praising anything whatever. But now [e] it appears that this is not what it is to praise anything whatever; rather, it is to apply to the object the grandest and the most beautiful qualities, whether he actually has them or not. And if they are false, that is no objection; for the proposal, apparently, was that everyone here make the rest of us think he is praising Love — and not that he actually praise him. I think that is why you stir up every word and apply it to [199] Love; your description of him and his gifts is designed to make him look better and more beautiful than anything else—to ignorant listeners, plainly, for of course he wouldn’t look that way to those who knew. And your praise did seem beautiful and respectful. But I didn’t even know the method for giving praise; and it was in ignorance that I agreed to take part in this. So “the tongue” promised, and “the mind” did not.32 Goodbye to that! I’m not giving another eulogy [b] using that method, not at all — I wouldn’t be able to do it!—but, if you wish, I d like to tell the truth my way. I want to avoid any comparison with your speeches, so as not to give you a reason to laugh at me. So look, Phaedrus, would a speech like this satisfy your requirement? You will hear the truth about Love, and the words and phrasing will take care of themselves.”

Then Aristodemus said that Phaedrus and the others urged him to speak in the way he thought was required, whatever it was.

“Well then, Phaedrus,” said Socrates, “allow me to ask Agathon a few little questions, so that, once I [c] have his agreement, I may speak on that basis.”

“You have my permission,” said Phaedrus. “Ask away.” After that, said Aristodemus, Socrates began: “Indeed, Agathon, my friend, I thought you led the way

beautifully into your speech when you said that one should first show the qualities of Love himself, and only then those of his deeds. I must admire that beginning. Come, then, since you have beautifully and magnificently expounded his qualities in other [d] ways, tell me this, too, about Love. Is Love such as to be a love of something or of nothing? I’m not asking if he is born of some mother or father (for the question whether Love is love of mother or of father would really be ridiculous), but it’s as if I’m asking this about a father—whether a father is the father of something or not. You d tell me, of course, if you wanted to give me a good answer, that it’s of a son or a daughter that a father is the father. Wouldn’t you?”

“Certainly,” said Agathon. “Then does the same go for the mother?” He agreed to that also. [e] “Well, then,” said Socrates, “answer a little more fully, and you will understand better what I want. If I

should ask, ‘What about this: a brother, just insofar as he is a brother, is he the brother of something or not’”? He said that he was. “And he’s of a brother or a sister, isn’t he?” He agreed. “Now try to tell me about love,” he said. “Is Love the love of nothing or of something?” “Of something, surely!” [200]

“Then keep this object of love in mind, and remember what it is.33 But tell me this much: does Love desire that of which it is the love, or not?”

“Certainly,” he said. “At the time he desires and loves something, does he actually have what he desires and loves at that time,

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or doesn’t he?” “He doesn’t. At least, that wouldn’t be likely,” he said. “Instead of what’s likely,” said Socrates, “ask yourself whether it’s necessary that this be so: a thing that

desires desires something of which it is in need; [b] otherwise, if it were not in need, it would not desire it. I can’t tell you, Agathon, how strongly it strikes me that this is necessary. But how about you?”

“I think so too.” “Good. Now then, would someone who is tall, want to be tall? Or someone who is strong want to be

strong?” “Impossible, on the basis of what we’ve agreed.” “Presumably because no one is in need of those things he already has.” “True.” “But maybe a strong man could want to be strong,” said Socrates, “or a fast one fast, or a healthy one [c]

healthy: in cases like these, you might think people really do want to be things they already are and do want to have qualities they already have — I bring them up so they won’t deceive us. But in these cases, Agathon, if you stop to think about them, you will see that these people are what they are at the present time, whether they want to be or not, by a logical necessity. And who, may I ask, would ever bother to desire what’s necessary in any event? But when someone says ‘I am healthy, but that’s just what I want to be,’ or ‘I am rich, but that’s just what I want [d] to be,’ or ‘I desire the very things that I have,’ let us say to him: ‘You already have riches and health and strength in your possession, my man, what you want is to possess these things in time to come, since in the present, whether you want to or not, you have them. Whenever you say, I desire what I already have, ask yourself whether you don’t mean this: I want the things I have now to be mine in the future as well.’ Wouldn’t he agree?”

According to Aristodemus, Agathon said that he would. So Socrates said, “Then this is what it is to love something which is not at hand, which the lover does not

have: it is to desire the preservation of what he [e] now has in time to come, so that he will have it then.” “Quite so,” he said. “So such a man or anyone else who has a desire desires what is not at hand and not present, what he does

not have, and what he is not, and that of which he is in need; for such are the objects of desire and love.” “Certainly,” he said. “Come, then,” said Socrates. “Let us review the points on which we’ve agreed. Aren’t they, first, that Love

is the love of something, and, second, that he [201] loves things of which he has a present need?” “Yes,” he said. “Now, remember, in addition to these points, what you said in your speech about what it is that Love

loves. If you like, I’ll remind you. I think you said something like this: that the gods’ quarrels were settled by love of beautiful things, for there is no love of ugly ones.34 Didn’t you say something like that?”

“I did,” said Agathon. “And that’s a suitable thing to say, my friend,” said Socrates. “But if this is so, wouldn’t Love have to be a

desire for beauty, and never for ugliness?” He agreed. [b] “And we also agreed that he loves just what he needs and does not have.” “Yes,” he said. “So Love needs beauty, then, and does not have it.” “Necessarily,” he said. “So! If something needs beauty and has got no beauty at all, would you still say that it is beautiful?” “Certainly not.” “Then do you still agree that Love is beautiful, if those things are so?” Then Agathon said, “It turns out, Socrates, I didn’t know what I was talking about in that speech.” [c] “It was a beautiful speech, anyway, Agathon,” said Socrates. “Now take it a little further. Don’t you think

that good things are always beautiful as well?” “I do.”

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“Then if Love needs beautiful things, and if all good things are beautiful, he will need good things too.” “As for me, Socrates,” he said, “I am unable to contradict you. Let it be as you say.” “Then it’s the truth, my beloved Agathon, that you are unable to contradict,” he said. “It is not hard at all

to contradict Socrates.”

Now I’ll let you go. I shall try to go through for you [d] the speech about Love I once heard from a woman of Mantinea, Diotima — a woman who was wise about many things besides this: once she even put off the plague for ten years by telling the Athenians what sacrifices to make. She is the one who taught me the art of love, and I shall go through her speech as best I can on my own, using what Agathon and I have agreed to as a basis.

Following your lead, Agathon, one should first describe who Love is and what he is like, and afterwards [e] describe his works — I think it will be easiest for me to proceed the way Diotima did and tell you how she questioned me.

You see, I had told her almost the same things Agathon told me just now: that Love is a great god and that he belongs to beautiful things.35 And she used the very same arguments against me that I used against Agathon; she showed how, according to my very own speech, Love is neither beautiful nor good.

So I said, “What do you mean, Diotima? Is Love ugly, then, and bad?” But she said, “Watch your tongue! Do you really [202] think that, if a thing is not beautiful, it has to be

ugly?” “I certainly do.” “And if a thing’s not wise, it’s ignorant? Or haven’t you found out yet that there’s something in between

wisdom and ignorance?” “What’s that?” “It’s judging things correctly without being able to give a reason. Surely you see that this is not the same as

knowing—for how could knowledge be unreasoning? And it’s not ignorance either—for how could what hits the truth be ignorance? Correct judgment, of course, has this character: it is in between understanding and ignorance.”

[b] “True,” said I, “as you say.” “Then don’t force whatever is not beautiful to be ugly, or whatever is not good to be bad. It’s the same

with Love: when you agree he is neither good nor beautiful, you need not think he is ugly and bad; he could be something in between,” she said.

“Yet everyone agrees he’s a great god,” I said. “Only those who don’t know?” she said. “Is that how you mean ‘everyone’? Or do you include those who

do know?” “Oh, everyone together.” And she laughed. “Socrates, how could those who [c] say that he’s not a god at all agree that he’s a great

god?” “Who says that?” I asked. “You, for one,” she said, “and I for another.” “How can you say this!” I exclaimed. “That’s easy,” said she. “Tell me, wouldn’t you say that all gods are beautiful and happy? Surely you’d never

say a god is not beautiful or happy?” “Zeus! Not I,” I said. “Well, by calling anyone ‘happy,’ don’t you mean they possess good and beautiful things?” “Certainly.” [d] “What about Love? You agreed he needs good and beautiful things, and that’s why he desires them—

because he needs them.” “I certainly did.” “Then how could he be a god if he has no share in good and beautiful things?” “There’s no way he could, apparently.”

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“Now do you see? You don’t believe Love is a god either!” “Then, what could Love be?” I asked. “A mortal?” “Certainly not.” “Then, what is he?” “He’s like what we mentioned before,” she said. “He is in between mortal and immortal.” “What do you mean, Diotima?” “He’s a great spirit, Socrates. Everything spiritual, [e] you see, is in between god and mortal.” “What is their function?” I asked. “They are messengers who shuttle back and forth between the two, conveying prayer and sacrifice from

men to gods, while to men they bring commands from the gods and gifts in return for sacrifices. Being in the middle of the two, they round out the whole and bind fast the all to all. Through them all divination passes, through them the art of priests in sacrifice [203] and ritual, in enchantment, prophecy, and sorcery. Gods do not mix with men; they mingle and converse with us through spirits instead, whether we are awake or asleep. He who is wise in any of these ways is a man of the spirit, but he who is wise in any other way, in a profession or any manual work, is merely a mechanic. These spirits are many and various, then, and one of them is Love.”

“Who are his father and mother?” I asked. [b] “That’s rather a long story,” she said. “I’ll tell it to you, all the same.” “When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a celebration. Poros, the son of Metis, was there among

them.36 When they had feasted, Penia came begging, as poverty does when there’s a party, and stayed by the gates. Now Poros got drunk on nectar (there was no wine yet, you see) and, feeling drowsy, went into the garden of Zeus, where he fell asleep. Then Penia [c] schemed up a plan to relieve her lack of resources: she would get a child from Poros. So she lay beside him and got pregnant with Love. That is why Love was born to follow Aphrodite and serve her: because he was conceived on the day of her birth. And that’s why he is also by nature a lover of beauty, because Aphrodite herself is especially beautiful.

“As the son of Poros and Penia, his lot in life is set to be like theirs. In the first place, he is always poor, and he’s far from being delicate and [d] beautiful (as ordinary people think he is); instead, he is tough and shriveled and shoeless and homeless, always lying on the dirt without a bed, sleeping at people’s doorsteps and in roadsides under the sky, having his mother’s nature, always living with Need. But on his father’s side he is a schemer after the beautiful and the good; he is brave, impetuous, and intense, an awesome hunter, always weaving snares, resourceful in his pursuit of intelligence, a lover of wisdom37 through all his life, a genius with enchantments, potions, and clever pleadings.

[e] “He is by nature neither immortal nor mortal. But now he springs to life when he gets his way; now he dies — all in the very same day. Because he is his father’s son, however, he keeps coming back to life, but then anything he finds his way to always slips away, and for this reason Love is never completely without resources, nor is he ever rich.

[204] “He is in between wisdom and ignorance as well. In fact, you see, none of the gods loves wisdom or wants to become wise—for they are wise—and no one else who is wise already loves wisdom; on the other hand, no one who is ignorant will love wisdom either or want to become wise. For what’s especially difficult about being ignorant is that you are content with yourself, even though you’re neither beautiful and good nor intelligent. If you don’t think you need anything, of course you won’t want what you don’t think you need.”

“In that case, Diotima, who are the people who love wisdom, if they are neither wise nor ignorant?” [b] “That’s obvious,” she said. “A child could tell you. Those who love wisdom fall in between those two

extremes. And Love is one of them, because he is in love with what is beautiful, and wisdom is extremely beautiful. It follows that Love must be a lover of wisdom and, as such, is in between being wise and being ignorant. This, too, comes to him from his parentage, from a father who is wise and resourceful and a mother who is not wise and lacks resource.

“My dear Socrates, that, then, is the nature of the Spirit called Love. Considering what you thought [c] about Love, it’s no surprise that you were led into thinking of Love as you did. On the basis of what you say, I conclude that you thought Love was being loved, rather than being a lover. I think that’s why Love struck you as beautiful in every way: because it is what is really beautiful and graceful that deserves to be loved, and this is perfect and highly blessed; but being a lover takes a different form, which I have just described.”

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So I said, “All right then, my friend. What you say about Love is beautiful, but if you’re right, what use is Love to human beings?” [d]

“I’ll try to teach you that, Socrates, after I finish this. So far I’ve been explaining the character and the parentage of Love. Now, according to you, he is love for beautiful things. But suppose someone asks us, ‘Socrates and Diotima, what is the point of loving beautiful things?’

“It’s clearer this way: ‘The lover of beautiful things has a desire; what does he desire?’” “That they become his own,” I said. “But that answer calls for still another question, that is, ‘What will this man have, when the beautiful

things he wants have become his own?’” I said there was no way I could give a ready answer to that question. [e] Then she said, “Suppose someone changes the question, putting ‘good’ in place of ‘beautiful,’ and asks you

this: ‘Tell me, Socrates, a lover of good things has a desire; what does he desire?’” “That they become his own,” I said. “And what will he have, when the good things he wants have become his own?”

“This time it’s easier to come up with the answer,” [205] I said. “He’ll have happiness.”38 “That’s what makes happy people happy, isn’t it—possessing good things. There’s no need to ask further,

‘What’s the point of wanting happiness?’ The answer you gave seems to be final.” “True,” I said. “Now this desire for happiness, this kind of love — do you think it is common to all human beings and

that everyone wants to have good things forever and ever? What would you say?” “Just that,” I said. “It is common to all.” “Then, Socrates, why don’t we say that everyone [b] is in love,” she asked, “since everyone always loves the

same things? Instead, we say some people are in love and others not; why is that?” “I wonder about that myself,” I said. “It’s nothing to wonder about,” she said. “It’s because we divide out a special kind of love, and we refer to it

by the word that means the whole — ‘love’; and for the other kinds of love we use other words.” “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you know, for example, that ‘poetry’ has a very wide range.39 After all, everything that is responsible [c] for creating something out of nothing is a kind of poetry; and so all the creations of every craft and profession are themselves a kind of poetry, and everyone who practices a craft is a poet.”

“True.” “Nevertheless,” she said, “as you also know, these craftsmen are not called poets. We have other words for

them, and out of the whole of poetry we have marked off one part, the part the Muses give us with melody and rhythm, and we refer to this by the word that means the whole. For this alone is called ‘poetry,’ and those who practice this part of poetry are called poets.”

[d] “True.” “That’s also how it is with love. The main point is this: every desire for good things or for happiness is ‘the

supreme and treacherous love’ in everyone. But those who pursue this along any of its many other ways— through making money, or through the love of sports, or through philosophy—we don’t say that these people are in love, and we don’t call them lovers. It’s only when people are devoted exclusively to one special kind of love that we use these words that really belong to the whole of it: ‘love’ and ‘in love’ and ‘lovers.’”

“I am beginning to see your point,” I said. “Now there is a certain story,” she said, “according to which lovers are those people who seek their other

[e] halves. But according to my story, a lover does not seek the half or the whole, unless, my friend, it turns out to be good as well. I say this because people are even willing to cut off their own arms and legs if they think they are diseased. I don’t think an individual takes joy in what belongs to him personally unless by ‘belonging to me’ he means ‘good’ and by ‘belonging to another’ he means ‘bad.’ That’s because what everyone loves is really nothing other than the good. Do [206] you disagree?”

“Zeus! Not I,” I said. “Now, then,” she said. “Can we simply say that people love the good?”

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“Yes,” I said. “But shouldn’t we add that, in loving it, they want the good to be theirs?” “We should.” “And not only that,” she said. “They want the good to be theirs forever, don’t they?” “We should add that too.” “In a word, then, love is wanting to possess the good forever.” “That’s very true,” I said. [b]

“This, then, is the object of love,”40 she said. “Now, how do lovers pursue it? We’d rightly say that when they are in love they do something with eagerness and zeal. But what is it precisely that they do? Can you say?”

“If I could,” I said, “I wouldn’t be your student, filled with admiration for your wisdom, and trying to learn these very things.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” she said. “It is giving birth in beauty,41 whether in body or in soul.” “It would take divination to figure out what you [c] mean. I can’t.” “Well, I’ll tell you more clearly,” she said. “All of us are pregnant, Socrates, both in body and in soul, and,

as soon as we come to a certain age, we naturally desire to give birth. Now no one can possibly give birth in anything ugly; only in something beautiful. That’s because when a man and a woman come together in order to give birth, this is a godly affair. Pregnancy, reproduction — this is an immortal thing for a mortal animal to do, and it cannot occur in [d] anything that is out of harmony, but ugliness is out of harmony with all that is godly. Beauty, however, is in harmony with the divine. Therefore the goddess who presides at childbirth — she’s called Moira or Eilithuia — is really Beauty.42 That’s why, whenever pregnant animals or persons draw near to beauty, they become gentle and joyfully disposed and give birth and reproduce; but near ugliness they are foulfaced and draw back in pain; they turn away and shrink back and do not reproduce, and because they hold on to what they carry inside them, the labor is painful. This is the source of the great excitement about beauty [e] that comes to anyone who is pregnant and already teeming with life: beauty releases them from their great pain. You see, Socrates,” she said, “what Love wants is not beauty, as you think it is.”

“Well, what is it, then?” “Reproduction and birth in beauty.” “Maybe,” I said. “Certainly,” she said. “Now, why reproduction? It’s because reproduction goes on forever; it is what [207]

mortals have in place of immortality. A lover must desire immortality along with the good, if what we agreed earlier was right, that Love wants to possess the good forever. It follows from our argument that Love must desire immortality.”

All this she taught me, on those occasions when she spoke on the art of love. And once she asked, “What do you think causes love and desire, Socrates? Don’t you see what an awful state a wild animal is in when it wants to reproduce? Footed and winged [b] animals alike, all are plagued by the disease of Love. First they are sick for intercourse with each other, then for nurturing their young—for their sake the weakest animals stand ready to do battle against the strongest and even to die for them, and they may be racked with famine in order to feed their young. They would do anything for their sake. Human beings, you’d think, would do this because they understand the reason for it; but what causes wild animals to be [c] in such a state of love? Can you say?”

And I said again that I didn’t know. So she said, “How do you think you’ll ever master the art of love, if you don’t know that?” “But that’s why I came to you, Diotima, as I just said. I knew I needed a teacher. So tell me what causes

this, and everything else that belongs to the art of love.” “If you really believe that Love by its nature aims at what we have often agreed it does, then don’t be

surprised at the answer,” she said. “For among animals [d] the principle is the same as with us, and mortal nature seeks so far as possible to live forever and be immortal. And this is possible in one way only: by reproduction, because it always leaves behind a new young one in place of the old. Even while each living thing is said to be alive and to be the same—as a person is said to be the same from childhood till he turns into an old man—even then he never consists of the same things, though he is called the same, but he is

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always being renewed and in other respects passing away, in his hair and flesh and bones and blood and his [e] entire body. And it’s not just in his body, but in his soul, too, for none of his manners, customs, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, or fears ever remains the same, but some are coming to be in him while others are passing away. And what is still far stranger than that is that not only does one branch of knowledge come to be in us while another passes away and [208] that we are never the same even in respect of our knowledge, but that each single piece of knowledge has the same fate. For what we call studying exists because knowledge is leaving us, because forgetting is the departure of knowledge, while studying puts back a fresh memory in place of what went away, thereby preserving a piece of knowledge, so that it seems to be the same. And in that way everything [b] mortal is preserved, not, like the divine, by always being the same in every way, but because what is departing and aging leaves behind something new, something such as it had been. By this device, Socrates,” she said, “what is mortal shares in immortality, whether it is a body or anything else, while the immortal has another way. So don’t be surprised if everything naturally values its own offspring, because it is for the sake of immortality that everything shows this zeal, which is Love.”

Yet when I heard her speech I was amazed, and [c] spoke: “Well,” said I, “Most wise Diotima, is this really the way it is?”

And in the manner of a perfect Sophist she said, “Be sure of it, Socrates. Look, if you will, at how human beings seek honor. You’d be amazed at their irrationality, if you didn’t have in mind what I spoke about and if you hadn’t pondered the awful state of love they’re in, wanting to become famous and ‘to lay up glory immortal forever,’ and how they’re ready to brave any danger for the sake of this, much more than they are for their children; and they are prepared [d] to spend money, suffer through all sorts of ordeals, and even die for the sake of glory. Do you really think that Alcestis would have died for Admetus,” she asked, “or that Achilles would have died after Patroclus, or that your Codrus would have died so as to preserve the throne for his sons,43 if they hadn’t expected the memory of their virtue — which we still hold in honor — to be immortal? Far from it,” she said. “I believe that anyone will do anything for the sake of [e] immortal virtue and the glorious fame that follows; and the better the people, the more they will do, for they are all in love with immortality.

“Now, some people are pregnant in body, and for this reason turn more to women and pursue love in that way, providing themselves through childbirth with immortality and remembrance and happiness, as they think, for all time to come; while others are [209] pregnant in soul — because there surely are those who are even more pregnant in their souls than in their bodies, and these are pregnant with what is fitting for a soul to bear and bring to birth. And what is fitting? Wisdom and the rest of virtue, which all poets beget, as well as all the craftsmen who are said to be creative. But by far the greatest and most beautiful part of wisdom deals with the proper ordering of cities and households, and that is called moderation and justice. When someone has been pregnant with these in his [b] soul from early youth, while he is still a virgin, and, having arrived at the proper age, desires to beget and give birth, he too will certainly go about seeking the beauty in which he would beget; for he will never beget in anything ugly. Since he is pregnant, then, he is much more drawn to bodies that are beautiful than to those that are ugly; and if he also has the luck to find a soul that is beautiful and noble and well-formed, he is even more drawn to this combination; such a man makes him instantly teem with ideas and arguments about virtue — the qualities a virtuous [c] man should have and the customary activities in which he should engage; and so he tries to educate him. In my view, you see, when he makes contact with someone beautiful and keeps company with him, he conceives and gives birth to what he has been carrying inside him for ages. And whether they are together or apart, he remembers that beauty. And in common with him he nurtures the newborn; such people, therefore, have much more to share than do the parents of human children, and have a firmer bond of friendship, because the children in whom they have a share are more beautiful and more immortal. Everyone would rather have such children than [d] human ones, and would look up to Homer, Hesiod, and the other good poets with envy and admiration for the offspring they have left behind—offspring, which, because they are immortal themselves, provide their parents with immortal glory and remembrance. For example,” she said, “those are the sort of children Lycurgus44 left behind in Sparta as the saviors of Sparta and virtually all of Greece. Among you the honor goes to Solon for his creation of your laws. Other [e] men in other places everywhere, Greek or barbarian, have brought a host of beautiful deeds into the light and begotten every kind of virtue. Already many shrines have sprung up to honor them for their immortal children, which hasn’t happened yet to anyone for human offspring.

“Even you, Socrates, could probably come to be [210] initiated into these rites of love. But as for the purpose of these rites when they are done correctly—that is the final and highest mystery, and I don’t know if you are capable of it. I myself will tell you,” she said, “and I won’t stint any effort. And you must try to follow if you can.

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“A lover who goes about this matter correctly must begin in his youth to devote himself to beautiful bodies. First, if the leader45 leads aright, he should love one body and beget beautiful ideas there; then [b] he should realize that the beauty of any one body is brother to the beauty of any other and that if he is to pursue beauty of form he’d be very foolish not to think that the beauty of all bodies is one and the same. When he grasps this, he must become a lover of all beautiful bodies, and he must think that this wild gaping after just one body is a small thing and despise it.

“After this he must think that the beauty of people’s souls is more valuable than the beauty of their bodies, so that if someone is decent in his soul, even though [c] he is scarcely blooming in his body, our lover must be content to love and care for him and to seek to give birth to such ideas as will make young men better. The result is that our lover will be forced to gaze at the beauty of activities and laws and to see that all this is akin to itself, with the result that he will think that the beauty of bodies is a thing of no importance. After customs he must move on to various kinds of knowledge. The result is that he will see the [d] beauty of knowledge and be looking mainly not at beauty in a single example — as a servant would who favored the beauty of a little boy or a man or a single custom (being a slave, of course, he’s low and small-minded)— but the lover is turned to the great sea of beauty, and, gazing upon this, he gives birth to many gloriously beautiful ideas and theories, in unstinting [e] love of wisdom,46 until, having grown and been strengthened there, he catches sight of such knowledge, and it is the knowledge of such beauty… .

“Try to pay attention to me,” she said, “as best you can. You see, the man who has been thus far guided in matters of Love, who has beheld beautiful things in the right order and correctly, is coming now to the goal of Loving: all of a sudden he will catch sight of something wonderfully beautiful in its nature; that, Socrates, is the reason for all his earlier labors: [211]

“First, it always is and neither comes to be nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes. Second, it is not beautiful this way and ugly that way, nor beautiful at one time and ugly at another, nor beautiful in relation to one thing and ugly in relation to another; nor is it beautiful here but ugly there, as it would be if it were beautiful for some people and ugly for others. Nor will the beautiful appear to him in the guise of a face or hands or anything else that belongs to the body. It will not appear to him as one idea or one kind of knowledge. It is not anywhere in another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or [b] in anything else, but itself by itself with itself, it is always one in form; and all the other beautiful things share in that, in such a way that when those others come to be or pass away, this does not become the least bit smaller or greater nor suffer any change. So when someone rises by these stages, through loving boys correctly, and begins to see this beauty, he has almost grasped his goal. This is what it is to go aright, [c] or be led by another, into the mystery of Love: one goes always upwards for the sake of this Beauty, starting out from beautiful things and using them like rising stairs: from one body to two and from two to all beautiful bodies, then from beautiful bodies to beautiful customs, and from customs to learning beautiful things, and from these lessons he arrives47 in the end at this lesson, which is learning of this very Beauty, so that in the end he comes to know [d] just what it is to be beautiful.

“And there in life, Socrates, my friend,” said the woman from Mantinea, “there if anywhere should a person live his life, beholding that Beauty. If you once see that, it won’t occur to you to measure beauty by gold or clothing or beautiful boys and youths— who, if you see them now, strike you out of your senses, and make you, you and many others, eager to be with the boys you love and look at them forever, if there were any way to do that, forgetting food and drink, everything but looking at them and being with [e] them. But how would it be, in our view,” she said, “if someone got to see the Beautiful itself, absolute, pure, unmixed, not polluted by human flesh or colors or any other great nonsense of mortality, but if he [212] could see the divine Beauty itself in its one form? Do you think it would be a poor life for a human being to look there and to behold it by that which he ought, and to be with it? Or haven’t you remembered,” she said, “that in that life alone, when he looks at Beauty in the only way that Beauty can be seen — only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue (because he’s in touch with no images), but to true virtue (because he is in touch with the true Beauty). The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given birth to true [b] virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.”

This, Phaedrus and the rest of you, was what Diotima told me. I was persuaded. And once persuaded, I try to persuade others too that human nature can find no better workmate for acquiring this than Love. That’s why I say that every man must honor Love, why I honor the rites of Love myself and practice them with special diligence, and why I commend them to others. Now and always I praise the power [c] and courage of Love so far as I am able. Consider this speech, then, Phaedrus, if you wish, a speech in praise of Love. Or if not, call it whatever and however you please to call it.

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Socrates’ speech finished to loud applause. Meanwhile, Aristophanes was trying to make himself heard over their cheers in order to make a response to something Socrates had said about his own speech.48 Then, all of a sudden, there was even more noise. A large drunken party had arrived at the courtyard door and they were rattling it loudly, accompanied by the shrieks of some flute-girl they had brought along. Agathon at that point called to his slaves:

[d] “Go see who it is. If it’s people we know, invite them in. If not, tell them the party’s over, and we’re about to turn in.”

A moment later they heard Alcibiades shouting in the courtyard, very drunk and very loud. He wanted to know where Agathon was, he demanded to see Agathon at once. Actually, he was half-carried into the house by the flute-girl and by some other companions [e] of his, but, at the door, he managed to stand by himself, crowned with a beautiful wreath of violets and ivy and ribbons in his hair.

“Good evening, gentlemen. I’m plastered,” he announced. “May I join your party? Or should I crown Agathon with this wreath—which is all I came to do, anyway—and make myself scarce? I really couldn’t make it yesterday,” he continued, “but nothing could stop me tonight! See, I’m wearing the garland myself. I want this crown to come directly from my head to the head that belongs, I don’t mind saying, to the cleverest and best looking man in town. Ah, you [213] laugh; you think I’m drunk! Fine, go ahead — I know I’m right anyway. Well, what do you say? May I join you on these terms? Will you have a drink with me or not?”

Naturally they all made a big fuss. They implored him to join them, they begged him to take a seat, and Agathon called him to his side. So Alcibiades, again with the help of his friends, approached Agathon. At the same time, he kept trying to take his ribbons off so that he could crown Agathon with them, but all he succeeded in doing was to push them further down his head until they finally slipped over his eyes. What with the ivy and all, he didn’t see Socrates, who had made room for him on the couch as soon as he saw him. So Alcibiades sat down between Socrates and Agathon and, as soon as he did [b] so, he put his arms around Agathon, kissed him, and placed the ribbons on his head.

Agathon asked his slaves to take Alcibiades’ sandals off. “We can all three fit on my couch,” he said. “What a good idea!” Alcibiades replied. “But wait a moment! Who’s the third?” As he said this, he turned around, and it was only then that he saw Socrates. No sooner had he seen him

than he leaped up and cried: “Good lord, what’s going on here? It’s Socrates! [c] You’ve trapped me again! You always do this to me —

all of a sudden you’ll turn up out of nowhere where I least expect you! Well, what do you want now? Why did you choose this particular couch? Why aren’t you with Aristophanes or anyone else we could tease you about? But no, you figured out a way to find a place next to the most handsome man in the room!”

“I beg you, Agathon,” Socrates said, “protect me [d] from this man! You can’t imagine what it’s like to be in love with him: from the very first moment he realized how I felt about him, he hasn’t allowed me to say two words to anybody else — what am I saying, I can’t so much as look at an attractive man but he flies into a fit of jealous rage. He yells; he threatens; he can hardly keep from slapping me around! Please, try to keep him under control. Could you perhaps make him forgive me? And if you can’t, if he gets violent, will you defend me? The fierceness of his passion terrifies me!”

“I shall never forgive you!” Alcibiades cried. “I [e] promise you, you’ll pay for this! But for the moment,” he said, turning to Agathon, “give me some of these ribbons. I’d better make a wreath for him as well— look at that magnificent head! Otherwise, I know, he’ll make a scene. He’ll be grumbling that, though I crowned you for your first victory, I didn’t honor him even though he has never lost an argument in his life.”

So Alcibiades took the ribbons, arranged them on Socrates’ head, and lay back on the couch. Immediately, however, he started up again:

“Friends, you look sober to me; we can’t have that! Let’s have a drink! Remember our agreement? We need a master of ceremonies; who should it be? … Well, at least till you are all too drunk to care, I elect … myself! Who else? Agathon, I want the largest cup around … No! Wait! You! Bring me that cooling [214] jar over there!”

He’d seen the cooling jar, and he realized it could hold more than two quarts of wine. He had the slaves fill it to the brim, drained it, and ordered them to fill it up again for Socrates.

“Not that the trick will have any effect on him,” he told the group. “Socrates will drink whatever you put in front of him, but no one yet has seen him drunk.”

The slave filled the jar and, while Socrates was drinking, Eryximachus said to Alcibiades:

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[b] “This is certainly most improper. We cannot simply pour the wine down our throats in silence: we must have some conversation, or at least a song. What we are doing now is hardly civilized.”

What Alcibiades said to him was this: “O Eryximachus, best possible son to the best possible, the most temperate father: Hi!” “Greetings to you, too,” Eryximachus replied. “Now what do you suggest we do?”

“Whatever you say. Ours to obey you, ‘For a medical mind is worth a million others.’49 Please prescribe what you think fit.”

“Listen to me,” Eryximachus said. “Earlier this evening we decided to use this occasion to offer a [c] series of encomia of Love. We all took our turn—in good order, from left to right—and gave our speeches, each according to his ability. You are the only one not to have spoken yet, though, if I may say so, you have certainly drunk your share. It’s only proper, therefore, that you take your turn now. After you have spoken, you can decide on a topic for Socrates on your right; he can then do the same for the man to his right, and we can go around the table once again.”

“Well said, O Eryximachus,” Alcibiades replied. “But do you really think it’s fair to put my drunken ramblings next to your sober orations? And anyway, my dear fellow, I hope you didn’t believe a single [d] word Socrates said: the truth is just the opposite! He’s the one who will most surely beat me up if I dare praise anyone else in his presence—even a god!”

“Hold your tongue!” Socrates said. “By god, don’t you dare deny it!” Alcibiades shouted. “I would never — never—praise anyone else with you

around.” “Well, why not just do that, if you want?” Eryximachus suggested. “Why don’t you offer an encomium [e]

to Socrates?” “What do you mean?” asked Alcibiades. “Do you really think so, Eryximachus? Should I unleash myself

upon him? Should I give him his punishment in front of all of you?” “Now, wait a minute,” Socrates said. “What do you have in mind? Are you going to praise me only in

order to mock me? Is that it?” “I’ll only tell the truth—please, let me!” “I would certainly like to hear the truth from you. By all means, go ahead,” Socrates replied. “Nothing can stop me now,” said Alcibiades. “But here’s what you can do: if I say anything that’s not true,

you can just interrupt, if you want, and correct [215] me; at worst, there’ll be mistakes in my speech, not lies. But you can’t hold it against me if I don’t get everything in the right order — I’ll say things as they come to mind. It is no easy task for one in my condition to give a smooth and orderly account of your bizarreness!”

I’ll try to praise Socrates, my friends, but I’ll have to use an image. And though he may think I’m trying to make fun of him, I assure you my image is no [b] joke: it aims at the truth. Look at him! Isn’t he just like a statue of Silenus? You know the kind of statue I mean; you’ll find them in any shop in town. It’s a Silenus sitting, his flute50 or his pipes in his hands, and it’s hollow. It’s split right down the middle, and inside it’s full of tiny statues of the gods. Now look at him again! Isn’t he also just like the satyr Marsyas?51

Nobody, not even you, Socrates, can deny that you look like them. But the resemblance goes beyond appearance, as you’re about to hear.

You are impudent, contemptuous, and vile! No? If you won’t admit it, I’ll bring witnesses. And you’re quite a fluteplayer, aren’t you? In fact, you’re much [c] more marvelous than Marsyas, who needed instruments to cast his spells on people. And so does anyone who plays his tunes today—for even the tunes Olympus52 played are Marsyas’ work, since Olympus learned everything from him. Whether they are played by the greatest flautist or the meanest flutegirl, his melodies have in themselves the power to possess and so reveal those people who are ready for the god and his mysteries. That’s because his melodies are themselves divine. The only difference between you and Marsyas is that you need no instruments; [d] you do exactly what he does, but with words alone. You know, people hardly ever take a speaker seriously, even if he’s the greatest orator; but let anyone — man, woman, or child—listen to you or even to a poor account of what you say—and we are all transported, completely possessed.

If I were to describe for you what an extraordinary effect his words have always had on me (I can feel it this moment even as I’m speaking), you might [e] actually suspect that I’m drunk! Still, I swear to you, the

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moment he starts to speak, I am beside myself: my heart starts leaping in my chest, the tears come streaming down my face, even the frenzied Corybantes53 seem sane compared to me — and, let me tell you, I am not alone. I have heard Pericles and many other great orators, and I have admired their speeches. But nothing like this ever happened to me: they never upset me so deeply that my very own soul started protesting that my life — my life! —was no better than the most miserable slave’s. And yet that is exactly how this Marsyas here at my side makes me feel all the [216] time: he makes it seem that my life isn’t worth living! You can’t say that isn’t true, Socrates. I know very well that you could make me feel that way this very moment if I gave you half a chance. He always traps me, you see, and he makes me admit that my political career is a waste of time, while all that matters is just what I most neglect: my personal shortcomings, which cry out for the closest attention. So I refuse to listen to him; I stop my ears and tear myself away from him, for, like the Sirens, he could make me [b] stay by his side till I die.

Socrates is the only man in the world who has made me feel shame—ah, you didn’t think I had it in me, did you? Yes, he makes me feel ashamed: I know perfectly well that I can’t prove he’s wrong when he tells me what I should do; yet, the moment I leave his side, I go back to my old ways: I cave in to my desire to please the crowd. My whole life has become one constant effort to escape from him and keep away, but when I see him, I feel deeply ashamed, because I’m doing nothing about my way of life, though I have [c] already agreed with him that I should. Sometimes, believe me, I think I would be happier if he were dead. And yet I know that if he dies I’ll be even more miserable. I can’t live with him, and I can’t live without him! What can I do about him?

That’s the effect of this satyr’s music — on me and many others. But that’s the least of it. He’s like these creatures in all sorts of other ways; his powers are really extraordinary. Let me tell you about them, because, you can be sure of it, none of you really understands him. But, now I’ve started, I’m going to show you what he really is.

To begin with, he’s crazy about beautiful boys; he constantly follows them around in a perpetual daze. Also, he likes to say he’s ignorant and knows nothing. Isn’t this just like Silenus? Of course it is! And all this is just on the surface, like the outsides of those statues of Silenus. I wonder, my fellow drinkers, if you have any idea what a sober and temperate man he proves to be once you have looked inside. Believe me, it couldn’t matter less to him whether a boy is [e] beautiful. You can’t imagine how little he cares whether a person is beautiful, or rich, or famous in any other way that most people admire. He considers all these possessions beneath contempt, and that’s exactly how he considers all of us as well. In public, I tell you, his whole life is one big game—a game of irony. I don’t know if any of you have seen him when he’s really serious. But I once caught him when he was open like Silenus’ statues, and I had a glimpse [217] of the figures he keeps hidden within: they were so godlike—so bright and beautiful, so utterly amazing—that I no longer had a choice—I just had to do whatever he told me.

What I thought at the time was that what he really wanted was me, and that seemed to me the luckiest coincidence: all I had to do was to let him have his way with me, and he would teach me everything he knew — believe me, I had a lot of confidence in my looks. Naturally, up to that time we’d never been alone together; one of my attendants had always been [b] present. But with this in mind, I sent the attendant away, and met Socrates alone. (You see, in this company I must tell the whole truth: so pay attention. And, Socrates, if I say anything untrue, I want you to correct me.)

So there I was, my friends, alone with him at last. My idea, naturally, was that he’d take advantage of the opportunity to tell me whatever it is that lovers say when they find themselves alone; I relished the moment. But no such luck! Nothing of the sort occurred. Socrates had his usual sort of conversation with me, and at the end of the day he went off. [c]

My next idea was to invite him to the gymnasium with me. We took exercise together, and I was sure that this would lead to something. He took exercise and wrestled with me many times when no one else was present. What can I tell you? I got nowhere. When I realized that my ploy had failed, I decided on a frontal attack. I refused to retreat from a battle I myself had begun, and I needed to know just where matters stood. So what I did was to invite him to dinner, as if I were his lover and he my young prey! To tell the truth, it took him quite a while to accept my invitation, but one day he finally arrived. That [d] first time he left right after dinner: I was too shy to try to stop him. But on my next attempt, I started some discussion just as we were finishing our meal and kept him talking late into the night. When he said he should be going, I used the lateness of the hour as an excuse and managed to persuade him to spend the night at my house. He had had his meal on the couch next to mine, so he just made himself [e] comfortable and lay down on it. No one else was there.

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Now you must admit that my story so far has been perfectly decent; I could have told it in any company. But you’d never have heard me tell the rest of it, as you’re about to do, if it weren’t that, as the saying goes, “there’s truth in wine when the slaves have left” — and when they’re present, too. Also, would it be fair to Socrates for me to praise him and yet to fail to reveal one of his proudest accomplishments? And, furthermore, you know what people say about snakebite — that you’ll only talk about it with your [218] fellow victims: only they will understand the pain and forgive you for all the things it made you do. Well, something much more painful than a snake has bitten me in my most sensitive part—I mean my heart, or my soul, or whatever you want to call it, which has been struck and bitten by philosophy, whose grip on young and eager souls is much more vicious than a viper’s and makes them do the most amazing things. Now, all you people here, Phaedrus, Agathon, Eryximachus, [b] Pausanias, Aristodemus, Aristophanes — I need not mention Socrates himself— and all the rest, have all shared in the madness, the Bacchic frenzy of philosophy. And that’s why you will hear the rest of my story; you will understand and forgive both what I did then and what I say now. As for the house slaves and for anyone else who is not an initiate, my story’s not for you: block your ears!

[c] To get back to the story. The lights were out; the slaves had left; the time was right, I thought, to come to the point and tell him freely what I had in mind. So I shook him and whispered:

“Socrates, are you asleep?” “No, no, not at all,” he replied. “You know what I’ve been thinking?” “Well, no, not really.” “I think,” I said, “you’re the only worthy lover I have ever had — and yet, look how shy you are with me!

Well, here’s how I look at it. It would be really [d] stupid not to give you anything you want: you can have me, my belongings, anything my friends might have. Nothing is more important to me than becoming the best man I can be, and no one can help me more than you to reach that aim. With a man like you, in fact, I’d be much more ashamed of what wise people would say if I did not take you as my lover, than I would of what all the others, in their foolishness, would say if I did.”

He heard me out, and then he said in that absolutely inimitable ironic manner of his: “Dear Alcibiades, if you are right in what you say [e] about me, you are already more accomplished than

you think. If I really have in me the power to make you a better man, then you can see in me a beauty that is really beyond description and makes your own remarkable good looks pale in comparison. But, then, is this a fair exchange that you propose? You seem to me to want more than your proper share: you offer me the merest appearance of beauty, and in return [219] you want the thing itself, ‘gold in exchange for bronze.’54

“Still, my dear boy, you should think twice, because you could be wrong, and I may be of no use to you. The mind’s sight becomes sharp only when the body’s eyes go past their prime—and you are still a good long time away from that.”

When I heard this I replied: “I really have nothing more to say. I’ve told you exactly what I think. Now it’s your turn to consider what

you think best for you and me.” [b] “You’re right about that,” he answered. “In the future, let’s consider things together. We’ll always do

what seems the best to the two of us.” His words made me think that my own had finally hit their mark, that he was smitten by my arrows. I

didn’t give him a chance to say another word. I stood up immediately and placed my mantle over the light cloak which, though it was the middle of winter, was his only clothing. I slipped underneath the cloak and [c] put my arms around this man — this utterly unnatural, this truly extraordinary man—and spent the whole night next to him. Socrates, you can’t deny a word of it. But in spite of all my efforts, this hopelessly arrogant, this unbelievably insolent man—he turned me down! He spurned my beauty, of which I was so proud, members of the jury—for this is really what you are: you’re here to sit in judgment of Socrates’ amazing arrogance and pride. Be sure of it, I swear to you by all the gods and goddesses together, my [d] night with Socrates went no further than if I had spent it with my own father or older brother!

How do you think I felt after that? Of course, I was deeply humiliated, but also I couldn’t help admiring his natural character, his moderation, his fortitude—here was a man whose strength and wisdom went beyond my wildest dreams! How could I bring myself to hate him? I couldn’t bear to lose his friendship. [e] But how could I possibly win him over? I knew very well that money meant much less to him than enemy weapons ever meant to Ajax,55 and the only trap by means of which I had thought I might capture him had already proved a

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dismal failure. I had no idea what to do, no purpose in life; ah, no one else has ever known the real meaning of slavery!

All this had already occurred when Athens invaded Potidaea,56 where we served together and shared the same mess. Now, first, he took the hardships of the campaign much better than I ever did—much better, in fact, than anyone in the whole army. When we were cut off from our supplies, as often happens in [220] the field, no one else stood up to hunger as well as he did. And yet he was the one man who could really enjoy a feast; and though he didn’t much want to drink, when he had to, he could drink the best of us under the table. Still, and most amazingly, no one ever saw him drunk (as we’ll straightaway put to the test).

Add to this his amazing resistance to the cold — [b] and, let me tell you, the winter there is something awful. Once, I remember, it was frightfully cold; no one so much as stuck his nose outside. If we absolutely had to leave our tent, we wrapped ourselves in anything we could lay our hands on and tied extra pieces of felt or sheepskin over our boots. Well, Socrates went out in that weather wearing nothing but this same old light cloak, and even in bare feet he made better progress on the ice than the other soldiers did in their boots. You should have seen the looks they [c] gave him; they thought he was only doing it to spite them!

So much for that! But you should hear what else he did during that same campaign,

The exploit our strong-hearted hero dared to do.57

One day, at dawn, he started thinking about some problem or other; he just stood outside, trying to figure it out. He couldn’t resolve it, but he wouldn’t give up. He simply stood there, glued to the same spot. By midday, many soldiers had seen him, and, quite mystified, they told everyone that Socrates had been standing there all day, thinking about something. He was still there when evening came, [d] and after dinner some Ionians moved their bedding outside, where it was cooler and more comfortable (all this took place in the summer), but mainly in order to watch if Socrates was going to stay out there all night. And so he did; he stood on the very same spot until dawn! He only left next morning, when the sun came out, and he made his prayers to the new day.

And if you would like to know what he was like in battle—this is a tribute he really deserves. You know that I was decorated for bravery during that [e] campaign: well, during that very battle, Socrates single- handedly saved my life! He absolutely did! He just refused to leave me behind when I was wounded, and he rescued not only me but my armor as well. For my part, Socrates, I told them right then that the decoration really belonged to you, and you can blame me neither for doing so then nor for saying so now. But the generals, who seemed much more concerned with my social position, insisted on giving the decoration to me, and, I must say, you were more eager than the generals themselves for me to have it.

You should also have seen him at our horrible retreat from Delium.58 I was there with the cavalry, [221] while Socrates was a foot soldier. The army had already dispersed in all directions, and Socrates was retreating together with Laches. I happened to see them just by chance, and the moment I did I started shouting encouragements to them, telling them I was never going to leave their side, and so on. That day I had a better opportunity to watch Socrates than I ever had at Potidaea, for, being on horseback, I wasn’t [b] in very great danger. Well, it was easy to see that he was remarkably more collected than Laches. But when I looked again I couldn’t get your words, Aristophanes, out of my mind: in the midst of battle he was making his way exactly as he does around town,

… with swagg’ring gait and roving eye.59

He was observing everything quite calmly, looking out for friendly troops and keeping an eye on the enemy. Even from a great distance it was obvious that this was a very brave man, who would put up a terrific fight if anyone approached him. This is what saved both of them. For, as a rule, you try to put as much distance as you can between yourself and such men in battle; you go after the others, those who run [c] away helter- skelter.

You could say many other marvelous things in praise of Socrates. Perhaps he shares some of his specific accomplishments with others. But, as a whole, he is unique; he is like no one else in the past and no one in the present—this is by far the most amazing thing about him. For we might be able to form an idea of what Achilles was like by comparing him to Brasidas or some other great warrior, or we might compare Pericles [d] with Nestor or Antenor or one of the other great orators.60 There is a parallel for everyone — everyone else, that is. But this man here is so bizarre, his ways and his ideas are so unusual, that, search as you might, you’ll

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never find anyone else, alive or dead, who’s even remotely like him. The best you can do is not to compare him to anything human, but to liken him, as I do, to Silenus and the satyrs, and the same goes for his ideas and arguments.

Come to think of it, I should have mentioned this much earlier: even his ideas and arguments are just [e] like those hollow statues of Silenus. If you were to listen to his arguments, at first they’d strike you as totally ridiculous; they’re clothed in words as coarse as the hides worn by the most vulgar satyrs. He’s always going on about pack asses, or blacksmiths, or cobblers, or tanners; he’s always making the same tired old points in the same tired old words. If you [222] are foolish, or simply unfamiliar with him, you’d find it impossible not to laugh at his arguments. But if you see them when they open up like the statues, if you go behind their surface, you’ll realize that no other arguments make any sense. They’re truly worthy of a god, bursting with figures of virtue inside. They’re of great — no, of the greatest—importance for anyone who wants to become a truly good man.

[b] Well, this is my praise of Socrates, though I haven’t spared him my reproach, either; I told you how horribly he treated me—and not only me but also Charmides, Euthydemus, and many others. He has deceived us all: he presents himself as your lover, and, before you know it, you’re in love with him yourself! I warn you, Agathon, don’t let him fool you! Remember our torments; be on your guard: don’t [c] wait, like the fool in the proverb, to learn your lesson from your own misfortune.61

Alcibiades’ frankness provoked a lot of laughter, especially since it was obvious that he was still in love with Socrates, who immediately said to him:

“You’re perfectly sober after all, Alcibiades. Otherwise you could never have concealed your motive so gracefully: how casually you let it drop, almost like an afterthought, at the very end of your speech! As if the real point of all this has not been simply to make trouble between Agathon and me! You think [d] that I should be in love with you and no one else, while you, and no one else, should be in love with Agathon — well, we were not deceived; we’ve seen through your little satyr play. Agathon, my friend, don’t let him get away with it: let no one come between us!”

Agathon said to Socrates: “I’m beginning to think you’re right; isn’t it proof [e] of that that he literally came between us here on the

couch? Why would he do this if he weren’t set on separating us? But he won’t get away with it; I’m coming right over to lie down next to you.”

“Wonderful,” Socrates said. “Come here, on my other side.” “My god!” cried Alcibiades. “How I suffer in his hands! He kicks me when I’m down; he never lets me go.

Come, don’t be selfish, Socrates; at least, let’s compromise: let Agathon lie down between us.” “Why, that’s impossible,” Socrates said. “You have already delivered your praise of me, and now it’s my

turn to praise whoever’s on my right. But if Agathon were next to you, he’d have to praise me all over again instead of having me speak in his honor, as I [223] very much want to do in any case. Don’t be jealous; let me praise the boy.”

“Oh, marvelous,” Agathon cried. “Alcibiades, nothing can make me stay next to you now. I m moving no matter what. I simply must hear what Socrates has to say about me.”

“There we go again,” said Alcibiades. “It’s the same old story: when Socrates is around, nobody else can get close to a good-looking man. Look how smoothly and plausibly he found a reason for Agathon to lie [b] down next to him!”

And then, all of a sudden, while Agathon was changing places, a large drunken group, finding the gates open because someone was just leaving, walked into the room and joined the party. There was noise everywhere, and everyone was made to start drinking again in no particular order.

At that point, Aristodemus said, Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and some others among the original guests [c] made their excuses and left. He himself fell asleep and slept for a long time (it was winter, and the nights were quite long). He woke up just as dawn was about to break; the roosters were crowing already. He saw that the others had either left or were asleep on their couches and that only Agathon, Aristophanes, and Socrates were still awake, drinking out of a large cup [d] which they were passing around from left to right. Socrates was talking to them. Aristodemus couldn’t remember exactly what they were saying — he’d missed the first part of their discussion, and he was half-asleep anyway—but the main point was that Socrates was trying to prove to them that authors should be able to write both comedy and tragedy: the skillful tragic dramatist should also be a comic poet. He was about to clinch his argument, though, to tell the truth, sleepy as they were, they were hardly able to follow his reasoning. In fact, Aristophanes fell asleep in the middle of the discussion, and very

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soon thereafter, as day was breaking, Agathon also drifted off. But after getting them off to sleep, Socrates got up and left, and Aristodemus followed him, as always. He

said that Socrates went directly to the Lyceum, washed up, spent the rest of the day just as he always did, and only then, as evening was falling, went home to rest.

*Reprinted from Plato, Symposium, translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989), by permission of the publisher.

1. [Agathon’s name could be translated “Goodman.” The proverb is, “Good men go uninvited to an inferior man’s feast” (Eupolis fr. 289 Kock). — P.W.]

2. [Menelaus calls on Agamemnon at Iliad ii.408. Menelaus is called a limp spearman at xvii.587–88.]

3. [An allusion to Iliad x.224, “When two go together, one has an idea before the other.”]

4. [Dionysus was the god of wine and drunkenness.]

5. [Theogony 116–20, 118 omitted.]

6. [Acusilaus was an early-fifth-century writer of genealogies.]

7. [Parmenides, B 13 Diels-Kranz.]

8. [Accepting the deletion of ē in e5.]

9. [Cf. Iliad x.482, xv.262; Odyssey ix.381.]

10. [Alcestis was the self-sacrificing wife of Admetus, whom Apollo gave a chance to live if anyone would go to Hades in his place.]

11. [Orpheus was a musician of legendary powers, who charmed his way into the underworld in search of his dead wife, Eurydice.]

12. [In his play, The Myrmidons. In Homer there is no hint of sexual attachment between Achilles and Patroclus.]

13. [Harmodius and Aristogiton attempted to overthrow the tyrant Hippias in 514 B.C. Although their attempt failed, the tyranny fell three years later, and the lovers were celebrated as tyrannicides.]

14. [Iliad ii.71.]

15. [Heraclitus of Ephesus, a philosopher of the early fifth century, was known for his enigmatic sayings. This one is quoted elsewhere in a slightly different form, frg. B 51 Diels-Kranz.]

16. [Iliad v.385, Odyssey xi.305 ff.]

17. [Cf. Odyssey viii.266 ff.]

18. [Arcadia included the city of Mantinea, which opposed Sparta, and was rewarded by having its population divided and dispersed in 385 B.C. Aristophanes seems to be referring anachronistically to those events; such anachronisms are not uncommon in Plato.]

19. [Contrast 178b.]

20. [Iliad xix.91–93. “Mischief” translates Atē.]

21. [“Moral character”: aretē, i.e., virtue.]

22. [A proverbial expression attributed by Aristotle (Rhetoric 1406a17–13) to the fourth-century liberal thinker and rhetorician Alcidamas.]

23. [Sōphrosunē. The word can be translated also as “temperance” and, most literally, “sound-mindedness.” (Plato and Aristotle generally contrast sōphrosunē as a virtue with self-control: the person with sōphrosunē is naturally well-tempered in every way and so does not need to control himself, or hold himself back.)]

24. [From Sophocles, fragment 134b Dindorf: “Even Ares cannot withstand Necessity.” Ares is the god of war.]

25. [See Odyssey viii.166–366. Aphrodite’s husband Hephaestus made a snare that caught Ares in bed with Aphrodite.]

26. [“Wisdom” translates sophia, which Agathon treats as roughly equivalent to technē (professional skill); he refers mainly to the ability to produce things. Accordingly “wisdom” translates sophia in the first instance; afterward in this passage it is “skill” or “art.”]

27. [At 186b.]

28. [Euripides, Stheneboea (frg. 666 Nauck).]

29. [After these two lines of poetry, Agathon continues with an extremely poetical prose peroration.]

30. [Accepting the emendation aganos at d5.]

31. [“Gorgian head” is a pun on “Gorgon’s head.” In his peroration Agathon had spoken in the style of Gorgias, and this style was considered to be irresistibly powerful. The sight of a Gorgon’s head would turn a man to stone.]

32. [The allusion is to Euripides, Hippolytus 612.]

33. [Cf. 197b.]

34. [197b3–5.]

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35. [The Greek is ambiguous between “Love loves beautiful things” and “Love is one of the beautiful things.” Agathon had asserted the former (197b5, 201a5), and this will be a premise in Diotima’s argument, but he asserted the latter as well (195a7), and this is what Diotima proceeds to refute.]

36. [Poros means “way,” “resource.” His mother’s name, Mētis, means “cunning.” Penia means “poverty.”]

37. [I.e., a philosopher.]

38. [Eudaimonia: no English word catches the full range of this term, which is used for the whole of well-being and the good, flourishing life.]

39. [“Poetry” translates poiēsis, lit. ‘making,’ which can be used for any kind of production or creation. However, the word poiētēs, lit. ‘maker,’ was used mainly for poets — writers of metrical verses that were actually set to music.]

40. [Accepting the emendation toutou in bl.]

41. [The preposition is ambiguous between “within” and “in the presence of.” Diotima may mean that the lover causes the newborn (which may be an idea) to come to be within a beautiful person; or she may mean that he is stimulated to give birth to it in the presence of a beautiful person.]

42. [Moira is known mainly as a Fate, but she was also a birth goddess (Iliad xxiv.209), and was identified with the birth goddess Eilithuia (Pindar, Olympian Odes vi.42, Nemean Odes vii.1).]

43. [Codrus was the legendary last king of Athens. He gave his life to satisfy a prophecy that promised victory to Athens and salvation from the invading Dorians if their king was killed by the enemy.]

44. [Lycurgus was supposed to have been the founder of the oligarchic laws and stern customs of Sparta.]

45. [The leader: Love.]

46. [I.e., philosophy.]

47. [Reading teleutēsēi at c7.]

48. [Cf. 205d-e.]

49. [Iliad xi.514.j

50. [This is the conventional translation of the word, but the aulos was in fact a reed instrument and not a flute. It was held by the ancients to be the instrument that most strongly arouses the emotions.]

51. [Satyrs had the sexual appetites and manners of wild beasts and were usually portrayed with large erections. Sometimes they had horses’ tails or ears, sometimes the traits of goats. Marsyas, in myth, dared to compete in music with Apollo and was skinned alive for his impudence.]

52. [Olympus was a legendary musician who was said to be loved by Marsyas (Minos 318b5) and to have made music that moved its listeners out of their senses.]

53. [Legendary worshippers of Cybele, who brought about their own derangement through music and dance.]

54. [Iliad vi.232–36 tells the famous story of the exchange by Glaucus of golden armor for bronze.]

55. [Ajax, a hero of the Greek army at Troy, carried an enormous shield and so was virtually invulnerable to enemy weapons.]

56. [Potidaea, a city in Thrace allied to Athens, was induced by Corinth to revolt in 432 B.C. The city was besieged by the Athenians and eventually defeated in a bloody local war, 432–430 B.C.]

57. [Odyssey iv.242, 271.]

58. [At Delium, a town on the Boeotian coastline just north of Attica, a major Athenian expeditionary force was routed by a Boeotian army in 424 B.C. For another description of Socrates’ action during the retreat, see Laches 181b.]

59. [Cf. Aristophanes, Clouds 362.]

60. [Brasidas, among the most effective Spartan generals during the Peloponnesian War, was mortally wounded while defeating the Athenians at Amphipolis in 422 B.C. Antenor (for the Trojans) and Nestor (for the Greeks) were legendary wise counselors during the Trojan War.]

61. [Cf. Iliad xvii.32.]

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Republic*

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Book I

[327] I went down to the Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, the son of Ariston. I wanted to say a prayer to the goddess,1 and I was also curious to see how they would manage the festival, since they were holding it for the first time. I thought the procession of the local residents was a fine one and that the one conducted by the Thracians was no less outstanding. After we had said our prayer and seen the procession, we started back [b] towards Athens. Polemarchus saw us from a distance as we were setting off for home and told his slave to run and ask us to wait for him. The slave caught hold of my cloak from behind: Polemarchus wants you to wait, he said. I turned around and asked where Polemarchus was. He’s coming up behind you, he said, please wait for him. And Glaucon replied: All right, we will.

[c] Just then Polemarchus caught up with us. Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother,2 was with him and so were Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and some others, all of whom were apparently on their way from the procession.

Polemarchus said: It looks to me, Socrates, as if you two are starting off for Athens. It looks the way it is, then, I said. Do you see how many we are? he said. I do. Well, you must either prove stronger than we are, or you will have to stay here. Isn’t there another alternative, namely, that we persuade you to let us go? But could you persuade us, if we won’t listen? Certainly not, Glaucon said. Well, we won’t listen; you’d better make up your mind to that. Don’t you know, Adeimantus said, that there is to be a torch race on horseback for the goddess tonight?

[328] On horseback? I said. That’s something new. Are they going to race on horseback and hand the torches on

in relays, or what? In relays, Polemarchus said, and there will be an all-night festival that will be well worth seeing. After

dinner, we’ll go out to look at it. We’ll be joined there by many of the young men, and we’ll talk. So don’t go; stay.

It seems, Glaucon said, that we’ll have to stay. [b] If you think so, I said, then we must. So we went to Polemarchus’ house, and there we found Lysias and Euthydemus, the brothers of

Polemarchus, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, Charmantides of Paeania, and Clitophon the son of Aristonymus.3 Polemarchus’ father, Cephalus, was also there, and I thought he looked quite old, as I hadn’t seen him for some time. He was sitting on a sort of [c] cushioned chair with a wreath on his head, as he had been offering a sacrifice in the courtyard. There was a circle of chairs, and we sat down by him.

As soon as he saw me, Cephalus welcomed me and said: Socrates, you don’t come down to the Piraeus to see us as often as you should. If it were still easy for me to walk to town, you wouldn’t have to come here; we’d come to you. But, as it is, you ought to come here more often, for you should know that as the [d] physical pleasures wither away, my desire for conversation and its pleasures grows. So do as I say: Stay with these young men now, but come regularly to see us, just as you would to friends or relatives.

Indeed, Cephalus, I replied, I enjoy talking with the very old, for we should ask them, as we might ask those who have travelled a road that we too will [e] probably have to follow, what kind of road it is, whether rough and difficult or smooth and easy. And I’d gladly find out from you what you think about this, as you have reached the point in life the poets call “the threshold of old age.”4 Is it a difficult time? What is your report about it?

By god, Socrates, I’ll tell you exactly what I think. [329] A number of us, who are more or less the same age, often get together in accordance with the old saying.5 When we meet, the majority complain about the lost pleasures they remember from their youth, those of sex, drinking parties, feasts, and the other things that go along with them, and they get angry as if they had been deprived of important things and had lived well then but are now hardly living at all. Some others moan about the abuse heaped on old people by their [b]

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relatives, and because of this they repeat over and over that old age is the cause of many evils. But I don’t think they blame the real cause, Socrates, for if old age were really the cause, I should have suffered in the same way and so should everyone else of my age. But as it is, I’ve met some who don’t feel like that in the least. Indeed, I was once present when someone asked the poet Sophocles: “How are you as [c] far as sex goes, Sophocles? Can you still make love with a woman?” “Quiet, man,” the poet replied, “I am very glad to have escaped from all that, like a slave who has escaped from a savage and tyrannical master.” I thought at the time that he was right, and I still do, for old age brings peace and freedom from all such things. When the appetites relax and cease to importune us, everything Sophocles said comes to pass, and we escape from many mad masters. In these [d] matters and in those concerning relatives, the real cause isn’t old age, Socrates, but the way people live. If they are moderate and contented, old age, too, is only moderately onerous; if they aren’t, both old age and youth are hard to bear.

I admired him for saying that and I wanted him [e] to tell me more, so I urged him on: When you say things like that, Cephalus, I suppose that the majority of people don’t agree, they think that you bear old age more easily not because of the way you live but because you’re wealthy, for the wealthy, they say, have many consolations.

That’s true; they don’t agree. And there is something in what they say, though not as much as they think. Themistocles’ retort is relevant here. When someone from Seriphus insulted him by saying that his high reputation was due to his city and not to [330] himself, he replied that, had he been a Seriphian, he wouldn’t be famous, but neither would the other even if he had been an Athenian.6 The same applies to those who aren’t rich and find old age hard to bear: A good person wouldn’t easily bear old age if he were poor, but a bad one wouldn’t be at peace with himself even if he were wealthy.

Did you inherit most of your wealth, Cephalus, I asked, or did you make it for yourself? What did I make for myself, Socrates, you ask. As a money-maker I’m in a sort of mean between my [b]

grandfather and my father. My grandfather and namesake inherited about the same amount of wealth as I possess but multiplied it many times. My father, Lysanias, however, diminished that amount to even less than I have now. As for me, I’m satisfied to leave my sons here not less but a little more than I inherited.

The reason I asked is that you don’t seem to love money too much. And those who haven’t made their own money are usually like you. But those who have [c] made it for themselves are twice as fond of it as those who haven’t. Just as poets love their poems and fathers love their children, so those who have made their own money don’t just care about it because it’s useful, as other people do, but because it’s something they’ve made themselves. This makes them poor company, for they haven’t a good word to say about anything except money.

That’s true. It certainly is. But tell me something else. What’s [d] the greatest good you’ve received from being very

wealthy? What I have to say probably wouldn’t persuade most people. But you know, Socrates, that when someone

thinks his end is near, he becomes frightened and concerned about things he didn’t fear before. It’s then that the stories we’re told about Hades, about how people who’ve been unjust here must pay the penalty there — stories he used to make fun of— [e] twist his soul this way and that for fear they’re true. And whether because of the weakness of old age or because he is now closer to what happens in Hades and has a clearer view of it, or whatever it is, he is filled with foreboding and fear, and he examines himself to see whether he has been unjust to anyone. If he finds many injustices in his life, he awakes from sleep in terror, as children do, and lives in anticipation of bad things to come. But someone who knows that [331] he hasn’t been unjust has sweet good hope as his constant companion—a nurse to his old age, as Pindar7 says, for he puts it charmingly, Socrates, when he says that when someone lives a just and pious life

Sweet hope is in his heart, Nurse and companion to his age. Hope, captain of the ever-twisting Minds of mortal men.

How wonderfully well he puts that. It’s in this connection that wealth is most valuable, I’d say, not for every man but for a decent and orderly one. Wealth can [b] do a lot to save us from having to cheat or deceive someone against our will and from having to depart for that other place in fear because we owe sacrifice to a

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god or money to a person. It has many other uses, but, benefit for benefit, I’d say that this is how it is most useful to a man of any understanding.

A fine sentiment, Cephalus, but, speaking of this [c] very thing itself, namely, justice,8 are we to say unconditionally that it is speaking the truth and paying whatever debts one has incurred? Or is doing these things sometimes just, sometimes unjust? I mean this sort of thing, for example: Everyone would surely agree that if a sane man lends weapons to a friend and then asks for them back when he is out of his mind, the friend shouldn’t return them, and wouldn’t be acting justly if he did. Nor should anyone be willing to tell the whole truth to someone who is out of his mind.

That’s true. [d] Then the definition of justice isn’t speaking the truth and repaying what one has borrowed.

It certainly is, Socrates, said Polemarchus, interrupting, if indeed we’re to trust Simonides at all.9 Well, then, Cephalus said, I’ll hand over the argument to you, as I have to look after the sacrifice. So, Polemarchus said, am I then to be your heir in everything? You certainly are, Cephalus said, laughing, and off he went to the sacrifice. Then tell us, heir to the argument, I said, just what Simonides stated about justice that you consider [e]

correct. He stated that it is just to give to each what is owed to him. And it’s a fine saying, in my view. Well, now, it isn’t easy to doubt Simonides, for he’s a wise and godlike man. But what exactly does he

mean? Perhaps you know, Polemarchus, but I don’t understand him. Clearly, he doesn’t mean what we said a moment ago, that it is just to give back whatever a person has lent to you, even if he’s out of his mind when he asks for it. And yet what he has lent to you is surely something that’s owed to him, isn’t it? [332]

Yes. But it is absolutely not to be given to him when he’s out of his mind? That’s true. Then it seems that Simonides must have meant something different when he says that to return what is

owed is just. Something different indeed, by god. He means that friends owe it to their friends to do good for them,

never harm. I follow you. Someone doesn’t give a lender back what he’s owed by giving him gold, if doing so would [b]

be harmful, and both he and the lender are friends. Isn’t that what you think Simonides meant? It is. But what about this? Should one also give one’s enemies whatever is owed to them? By all means, one should give them what is owed to them. And in my view what enemies owe to each

other is appropriately and precisely — something bad. It seems then that Simonides was speaking in riddles— just like a poet! — when he said what justice is, [c]

for he thought it just to give to each what is appropriate to him, and this is what he called giving him what is owed to him.

What else did you think he meant? Then what do you think he’d answer if someone asked him: “Simonides, which of the things that are owed

or that are appropriate for someone or something to have does the craft10 we call medicine give, and to whom or what does it give them?”

It’s clear that it gives medicines, food, and drink to bodies. And what owed or appropriate things does the craft we call cooking give, and to whom or what does it

give them? [d] It gives seasonings to food. Good. Now, what does the craft we call justice give, and to whom or what does it give it? If we are to follow the previous answers, Socrates, it gives benefits to friends and does harm to enemies. Simonides means, then, that to treat friends well and enemies badly is justice? I believe so.

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And who is most capable of treating friends well and enemies badly in matters of disease and health? A doctor.

[e] And who can do so best in a storm at sea? A ship’s captain. What about the just person? In what actions and what work is he most capable of benefiting friends and

harming enemies? In wars and alliances, I suppose. All right. Now, when people aren’t sick, Polemarchus, a doctor is useless to them? True. And so is a ship’s captain to those who aren’t sailing? Yes. And to people who aren’t at war, a just man is useless? No, I don’t think that at all. Justice is also useful in peacetime, then? It is. [333] And so is farming, isn’t it? Yes. For getting produce? Yes. And shoemaking as well? Yes. For getting shoes, I think you’d say? Certainly. Well, then, what is justice useful for getting and using in peacetime? Contracts, Socrates. And by contracts do you mean partnerships, or what? I mean partnerships. Is someone a good and useful partner in a game of checkers because he’s just or because he’s a checkers

player? [b] Because he’s a checkers player. And in laying bricks and stones, is a just person a better and more useful partner than a builder? Not at all. In what kind of partnership, then, is a just person a better partner than a builder or a lyre-player, in the

way that a lyre-player is better than a just person at hitting the right notes? In money matters, I think. Except perhaps, Polemarchus, in using money, for whenever one needs to buy a horse jointly, I think a

horse breeder is a more useful partner, isn’t he? [c] Apparently. And when one needs to buy a boat, it’s a boatbuilder or a ship’s captain? Probably. In what joint use of silver or gold, then, is a just person a more useful partner than the others? When it must be deposited for safekeeping, Socrates. You mean whenever there is no need to use them but only to keep them? That’s right. Then it is when money isn’t being used that justice is useful for it? [d] I’m afraid so. And whenever one needs to keep a pruning knife safe, but not to use it, justice is useful both in

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partnerships and for the individual. When you need to use it, however, it is skill at vine pruning that’s useful? Apparently. You’ll agree, then, that when one needs to keep a shield or a lyre safe and not to use them, justice is a

useful thing, but when you need to use them, it is soldiery or musicianship that’s useful? Necessarily. And so, too, with everything else, justice is useless when they are in use but useful when they aren’t? It looks that way. In that case, justice isn’t worth much, since it is [e] only useful for useless things. But let’s look into the

following point. Isn’t the person most able to land a blow, whether in boxing or any other kind of fight, also most able to guard against it?

Certainly. And the one who is most able to guard against disease is also most able to produce it unnoticed? So it seems to me, anyway. And the one who is the best guardian of an army is the very one who can steal the enemy’s plans [334] and

dispositions? Certainly. Whenever someone is a clever guardian, then, he is also a clever thief. Probably so. If a just person is clever at guarding money, therefore, he must also be clever at stealing it. According to our argument, at any rate. A just person has turned out then, it seems, to be a kind of thief. Maybe you learned this from Homer, for

he’s fond of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather [b] of Odysseus, whom he describes as better than everyone at lying and stealing.11 According to you, Homer, and Simonides, then, justice seems to be some sort of craft of stealing, one that benefits friends and harms enemies. Isn’t that what you meant?

No, by god, it isn’t. I don’t know any more what I did mean, but I still believe that to benefit one’s friends and harm one’s enemies is justice.

Speaking of friends, do you mean those a person believes to be good and useful to him or those who [c] actually are good and useful, even if he doesn’t think they are, and similarly with enemies?

Probably, one loves those one considers good and useful and hates those one considers bad and harmful. But surely people often make mistakes about this, believing many people to be good and useful when they

aren’t, and making the opposite mistake about enemies? They do indeed. And then good people are their enemies and bad ones their friends? That’s right. And so it’s just to benefit bad people and harm good ones? [d] Apparently. But good people are just and able to do no wrong? True. Then, according to your account, it’s just to do bad things to those who do no injustice. No, that’s not just at all, Socrates; my account must be a bad one. It’s just, then, is it, to harm unjust people and benefit just ones? That’s obviously a more attractive view than the other one, anyway. Then, it follows, Polemarchus, that it is just for the many, who are mistaken in their judgment, to harm

their friends, who are bad, and benefit their enemies, who are good. And so we arrive at a conclusion opposite [e] to what we said Simonides meant.

That certainly follows. But let’s change our definition, for it seems that we didn’t define friends and enemies correctly.

How did we define them, Polemarchus?

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We said that a friend is someone who is believed to be useful. And how are we to change that now? Someone who is both believed to be useful and is useful is a friend; someone who is believed to be useful

but isn’t, is believed to be a friend but isn’t. And the same for the enemy. [335] According to this account, then, a good person will be a friend and a bad one an enemy. Yes. So you want us to add something to what we said before about justice, when we said that it is just to treat

friends well and enemies badly. You want us to add to this that it is just to treat well a friend who is good and to harm an enemy who is bad?

[b] Right. That seems fine to me. Is it, then, the role of a just man to harm anyone? Certainly, he must harm those who are both bad and enemies. Do horses become better or worse when they are harmed? Worse.

With respect to the virtue12 that makes dogs good or the one that makes horses good? The one that makes horses good. And when dogs are harmed, they become worse in the virtue that makes dogs good, not horses? Necessarily. Then won’t we say the same about human beings, [c] too, that when they are harmed they become worse

in human virtue? Indeed. But isn’t justice human virtue? Yes, certainly. Then people who are harmed must become more unjust? So it seems. Can musicians make people unmusical through music? They cannot. Or horsemen make people unhorsemanlike through horsemanship? No. Well, then, can those who are just make people unjust through justice? In a word, can those who are good

make people bad through virtue? [d] They cannot. It isn’t the function of heat to cool things but of its opposite? Yes. Nor the function of dryness to make things wet but of its opposite? Indeed. Nor the function of goodness to harm but of its opposite? Apparently. And a just person is good? Indeed. Then, Polemarchus, it isn’t the function of a just person to harm a friend or anyone else, rather it is the

function of his opposite, an unjust person? In my view that’s completely true, Socrates. If anyone tells us, then, that it is just to give to each what he’s owed and understands by this that a [e] just

man should harm his enemies and benefit his friends, he isn’t wise to say it, since what he says isn’t true, for it has become clear to us that it is never just to harm anyone?

I agree.

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You and I shall fight as partners, then, against anyone who tells us that Simonides, Bias, Pittacus, or any of our other wise and blessedly happy men said this.13

I, at any rate, am willing to be your partner in the battle. Do you know to whom I think the saying belongs that it is just to benefit friends and harm enemies? [336] Who? I think it belongs to Periander, or Perdiccas, or Xerxes, or Ismenias of Corinth, or some other wealthy

man who believed himself to have great power.14 That’s absolutely true. All right, since it has become apparent that justice and the just aren’t what such people say they are, what

else could they be? While we were speaking, Thrasymachus had tried [b] many times to take over the discussion but was

restrained by those sitting near him, who wanted to hear our argument to the end. When we paused after what I’d just said, however, he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. He coiled himself up like a wild beast about to spring, and he hurled himself at us as if to tear us to pieces.

Polemarchus and I were frightened and flustered as he roared into our midst: What nonsense have you two been talking, Socrates? Why do you act like idiots [c] by giving way to one another? If you truly want to know what justice is, don’t just ask questions and then refute the answers simply to satisfy your competitiveness or love of honor. You know very well that it is easier to ask questions than answer them. Give an answer yourself, and tell us what you say the just is. [d] And don’t tell me that it’s the right, the beneficial, the profitable, the gainful, or the advantageous, but tell me clearly and exactly what you mean; for I won’t accept such nonsense from you.

His words startled me, and, looking at him, I was afraid. And I think that if I hadn’t seen him before he stared at me, I’d have been dumbstruck. But as it was, I happened to look at him just as our discussion [e] began to exasperate him, so I was able to answer, and, trembling a little, I said: Don’t be too hard on us, Thrasymachus, for if Polemarchus and I made an error in our investigation, you should know that we did so unwillingly. If we were searching for gold, we’d never willingly give way to each other, if by doing so we’d destroy our chance of finding it. So don’t think that in searching for justice, a thing more valuable than even a large quantity of gold, we’d mindlessly give way to one another or be less than completely serious about finding it. You surely mustn’t think that, but rather — as I do — that we’re incapable of finding it. Hence it’s surely far more appropriate for us to be pitied by you clever people than to be given rough treatment. [337]

When he heard that, he gave a loud, sarcastic laugh. By Heracles, he said, that’s just Socrates’ usual irony.15 I knew, and I said so to these people earlier, that you’d be unwilling to answer and that, if someone questioned you, you’d be ironical and do anything rather than give an answer.

That’s because you’re a clever fellow, Thrasymachus. You knew very well that if you ask someone how much twelve is, and, as you ask, you warn him by saying “Don’t tell me, man, that twelve is twice [b] six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, for I won’t accept such nonsense,” then you’ll see clearly, I think, that no one could answer a question framed like that. And if he said to you: “What are you saying, Thrasymachus, am I not to give any of the answers you mention, not even if twelve happens to be one of those things? I’m amazed. Do you want me to say something other than the truth? Or do you mean something else?” What answer would you give him? [c]

Well, so you think the two cases are alike? Why shouldn’t they be alike? But even if they aren’t alike, yet seem so to the person you asked, do you

think him any less likely to give the answer that seems right to him, whether we forbid him to or not? Is that what you’re going to do, give one of the forbidden answers? I wouldn’t be surprised—provided that it’s the one that seems right to me after I’ve investigated the

matter. What if I show you a different answer about justice than all these—and a better one? What would you [d]

deserve then? What else than the appropriate penalty for one who doesn’t know, namely, to learn from the one who does

know? Therefore, that’s what I deserve. You amuse me, but in addition to learning, you must pay a fine. I will as soon as I have some money.

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He has some already, said Glaucon. If it’s a matter of money, speak, Thrasymachus, for we’ll all contribute for Socrates.

I know, he said, so that Socrates can carry on as [e] usual. He gives no answer himself, and then, when someone else does give one, he takes up the argument and refutes it.

How can someone give an answer, I said, when he doesn’t know it and doesn’t claim to know it, and when an eminent man forbids him to express the opinion he has? It’s much more appropriate for you [338] to answer, since you say you know and can tell us. So do it as a favor to me, and don’t begrudge your teaching to Glaucon and the others.

While I was saying this, Glaucon and the others begged him to speak. It was obvious that Thrasymachus thought he had a fine answer and that he wanted to earn their admiration by giving it, but he pretended that he wanted to indulge his love of victory by forcing me to answer. However, he agreed in the end, and [b] then said: There you have Socrates’ wisdom; he himself isn’t willing to teach, but he goes around learning from others and isn’t even grateful to them.

When you say that I learn from others you are right, Thrasymachus, but when you say that I’m not grateful, that isn’t true. I show what gratitude I can, but since I have no money, I can give only praise. But just how enthusiastically I give it when someone seems to me to speak well, you’ll know as soon as you’ve answered, for I think that you will speak well.

Listen, then. I say that justice is nothing other than [c] the advantage of the stronger. Well, why don’t you praise me? But then you’d do anything to avoid having to do that.

I must first understand you, for I don’t yet know what you mean. The advantage of the stronger, you say, is just. What do you mean, Thrasymachus? Surely you don’t mean something like this: Polydamus, the pancratist,16 is stronger than we are; it is to his advantage to eat beef to build up his physical strength; therefore, this food is also advantageous and just for [d] us who are weaker than he is?

You disgust me, Socrates. Your trick is to take hold of the argument at the point where you can do it the most harm.

Not at all, but tell us more clearly what you mean. Don’t you know that some cities are ruled by a tyranny, some by a democracy, and some by an aristocracy? Of course. And in each city this element is stronger, namely, the ruler? Certainly. And each makes laws to its own advantage. Democracy makes democratic laws, tyranny makes tyrannical

[e] laws, and so on with the others. And they declare what they have made — what is to their own advantage — to be just for their subjects, and they punish anyone who goes against this as lawless and unjust. This, then, is what I say justice is, the same in all cities, the advantage of the established rule. Since the established rule is surely stronger, anyone who reasons [339] correctly will conclude that the just is the same everywhere, namely, the advantage of the stronger.

Now I see what you mean. Whether it’s true or not, I’ll try to find out. But you yourself have answered that the just is the advantageous, Thrasymachus, whereas you forbade that answer to me. True, you’ve added “of the stronger” to it.

And I suppose you think that’s an insignificant addition. [b] It isn’t clear yet whether it’s significant. But it is clear that we must investigate to see whether or not it’s

true. I agree that the just is some kind of advantage. But you add that it’s of the stronger. I don’t know about that. We’ll have to look into it.

Go ahead and look. We will. Tell me, don’t you also say that it is just to obey the rulers? I do. And are the rulers in all cities infallible, or are they liable to error? [c] No doubt they are liable to error. When they undertake to make laws, therefore, they make some correctly, others incorrectly? I suppose so. And a law is correct if it prescribes what is to the rulers’ own advantage and incorrect if it prescribes what

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is to their disadvantage? Is that what you mean? It is. And whatever laws they make must be obeyed by their subjects, and this is justice? Of course. Then, according to your account, it is just to do [d] not only what is to the advantage of the stronger, but

also the opposite, what is not to their advantage. What are you saying? The same as you. But let’s examine it more fully. Haven’t we agreed that, in giving orders to their subjects,

the rulers are sometimes in error as to what is best for themselves, and yet that it is just for their subjects to do whatever their rulers order? Haven’t we agreed to that much?

I think so. Then you must also think that you have agreed [e] that it is just to do what is disadvantageous to the rulers

and those who are stronger, whenever they unintentionally order what is bad for themselves. But you also say that it is just for the others to obey the orders they give. You’re terribly clever, Thrasymachus, but doesn’t it necessarily follow that it is just to do the opposite of what you said, since the weaker are then ordered to do what is disadvantageous to the stronger?

By god, Socrates, said Polemarchus, that’s quite [340] clear. If you are to be his witness anyway, said Clitophon, interrupting. Who needs a witness? Polemarchus replied. Thrasymachus himself agrees that the rulers sometimes order

what is bad for themselves and that it is just for the others to do it. That, Polemarchus, is because Thrasymachus maintained that it is just to obey the orders of the rulers. He also maintained, Clitophon, that the advantage [b] of the stronger is just. And having maintained both

principles he went on to agree that the stronger sometimes gives orders to those who are weaker than he is — in other words, to his subjects — that are disadvantageous to the stronger himself. From these agreements it follows that what is to the advantage of the stronger is no more just than what is not to his advantage.

But, Clitophon responded, he said that the advantage of the stronger is what the stronger believes to be his advantage. This is what the weaker must do, and this is what he maintained the just to be.

That isn’t what he said, Polemarchus replied. It makes no difference, Polemarchus, I said. If Thrasymachus wants to put it that way now, let’s [c] accept

it. Tell me, Thrasymachus, is this what you wanted to say the just is, namely, what the stronger believes to be to his advantage, whether it is in fact to his advantage or not? Is that what we are to say you mean?

Not at all. Do you think I’d call someone who is in error stronger at the very moment he errs? I did think that was what you meant when you agreed that the rulers aren’t infallible but are liable to error. That’s because you are a false witness in arguments, Socrates. When someone makes an error in the

treatment [d] of patients, do you call him a doctor in regard to that very error? Or when someone makes an error in accounting, do you call him an accountant in regard to that very error in calculation? I think that we express ourselves in words that, taken literally, do say that a doctor is in error, or an accountant, or a grammarian. But each of these, insofar as he is what we call him, never errs, so that, according to the [e] precise account (and you are a stickler for precise accounts), no craftsman ever errs. It’s when his knowledge fails him that he makes an error, and in regard to that error he is no craftsman. No craftsman, expert, or ruler makes an error at the moment when he is ruling, even though everyone will say that a physician or a ruler makes errors. It’s in this loose way that you must also take the answer I gave earlier. But the most precise answer is this. A ruler, insofar as he is a ruler, [341] never makes errors and unerringly decrees what is best for himself, and this his subject must do. Thus, as I said from the first, it is just to do what is to the advantage of the stronger.

All right, Thrasymachus, so you think I’m a false witness? You certainly are. And you think that I asked the questions I did in order to harm you in the argument? I know it very well, but it won’t do you any good. You’ll never be able to trick me, so you can’t harm [b]

me that way, and without trickery you’ll never be able to overpower me in argument. I wouldn’t so much as try, Thrasymachus. But in order to prevent this sort of thing from happening again,

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define clearly whether it is the ruler and stronger in the ordinary sense or in the precise sense whose advantage you said it is just for the weaker to promote as the advantage of the stronger.

I mean the ruler in the most precise sense. Now practice your harm-doing and false witnessing on that if you can — I ask no concessions from you — but you certainly won’t be able to.

Do you think that I’m crazy enough to try to shave [c] a lion or to bear false witness against Thrasymachus?

You certainly tried just now, though you were a loser at that too. Enough of this. Tell me: Is a doctor in the precise sense, whom you mentioned before, a money-maker or

someone who treats the sick? Tell me about the one who is really a doctor. He’s the one who treats the sick. What about a ship’s captain? Is a captain in the precise sense a ruler of sailors or a sailor? A ruler of sailors. We shouldn’t, I think, take into account the fact [d] that he sails in a ship, and he shouldn’t be called a

sailor for that reason, for it isn’t because of his sailing that he is called a ship’s captain, but because of his craft and his rule over sailors?

That’s true. And is there something advantageous to each of these, that is, to bodies and to sailors? Certainly. And aren’t the respective crafts by nature set over them to seek and provide what is to their advantage? They are. And is there any advantage for each of the crafts themselves except to be as complete or perfect as possible? [e] What are you asking? This: If you asked me whether our bodies are sufficient in themselves, or whether they need something

else, I’d answer: “They certainly have needs. And because of this, because our bodies are deficient rather than self-sufficient, the craft of medicine has now been discovered. The craft of medicine was developed to provide what is advantageous for a body.” Do you think that I’m right in saying this or not?

You are right. [342] Now, is medicine deficient? Does a craft need some further virtue, as the eyes are in need of sight,

and the ears of hearing, so that another craft is needed to seek and provide what is advantageous to them?17 Does a craft itself have some similar deficiency, so that each craft needs another, to seek out what is to its advantage? And does the craft that does the seeking need still another, and so on without end? Or does each seek out what is to its own advantage by itself? Or does it need neither itself nor another craft to seek [b] out what is advantageous to it, because of its own deficiencies? Or is it that there is no deficiency or error in any craft? That it isn’t appropriate for any craft to seek what is to the advantage of anything except that of which it is the craft? And that, since it is itself correct, it is without either fault or impurity, as long as it is wholly and precisely the craft that it is? Consider this with the preciseness of language you mentioned. Is it so or not?

It appears to be so. Medicine doesn’t seek its own advantage, then, but that of the body? [c] Yes. And horse-breeding doesn’t seek its own advantage, but that of horses? Indeed, no other craft seeks its

own advantage—for it has no further needs—but the advantage of that of which it is the craft? Apparently so. Now, surely, Thrasymachus, the crafts rule over and are stronger than the things of which they are the

crafts? Very reluctantly, he conceded this as well. No kind of knowledge seeks or orders what is advantageous to itself, then, but what is advantageous to the

weaker, which is subject to it. [d] He tried to fight this conclusion, but he conceded it in the end. And after he had, I said: Surely, then, no

doctor, insofar as he is a doctor, seeks or orders what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to his patient? We agreed that a doctor in the precise sense is a ruler of bodies, not a money-maker. Wasn’t that

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agreed? Yes. So a ship’s captain in the precise sense is a ruler of sailors, not a sailor? [e] That’s what we agreed. Doesn’t it follow that a ship’s captain or ruler won’t seek and order what is advantageous to himself, but

what is advantageous to a sailor? He reluctantly agreed. So, then, Thrasymachus, no one in any position of rule, insofar as he is a ruler, seeks or orders what is

advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to his subjects; the ones of whom he is himself the craftsman. It is to his subjects and what is advantageous and proper to them that he looks, and everything he says and does he says and does for them.

When we reached this point in the argument, and [343] it was clear to all that his account of justice had turned into its opposite, instead of answering, Thrasymachus said: Tell me, Socrates, do you still have a wet nurse?

What’s this? Hadn’t you better answer my questions rather than asking me such things? Because she’s letting you run around with a snotty nose, and doesn’t wipe it when she needs to! Why, for

all she cares, you don’t even know about sheep and shepherds. Just what is it I don’t know? You think that shepherds and cowherds seek the [b] good of their sheep and cattle, and fatten them and

take care of them, looking to something other than their master’s good and their own. Moreover, you believe that rulers in cities — true rulers, that is — think about their subjects differently than one does about sheep, and that night and day they think of something besides their own advantage. You are so [c] far from understanding about justice and what’s just, about injustice and what’s unjust, that you don’t realize that justice is really the good of another, the advantage of the stronger and the ruler, and harmful to the one who obeys and serves. Injustice is the opposite, it rules the truly simple and just, and those it rules do what is to the advantage of the other and stronger, and they make the one they serve happy, but themselves not at all. You must look at it as [d] follows, my most simple Socrates: A just man always gets less than an unjust one. First, in their contracts with one another, you’ll never find, when the partnership ends, that a just partner has got more than an unjust one, but less. Second, in matters relating to the city, when taxes are to be paid, a just man pays more on the same property, an unjust one less, but when the city is giving out refunds, a just man gets nothing, while an unjust one makes a large profit. [e] Finally, when each of them holds a ruling position in some public office, a just person, even if he isn’t penalized in other ways, finds that his private affairs deteriorate because he has to neglect them, that he gains no advantage from the public purse because of his justice, and that he’s hated by his relatives and acquaintances when he’s unwilling to do them an unjust favor. The opposite is true of an unjust man in every respect. Therefore, I repeat what I said before: A person of great power outdoes everyone else.18 Consider him if you want to figure out how much more [344] advantageous it is for the individual to be just rather than unjust. You’ll understand this most easily if you turn your thoughts to the most complete injustice, the one that makes the doer of injustice happiest and the sufferers of it, who are unwilling to do injustice, most wretched. This is tyranny, which through stealth or force appropriates the property of others, whether sacred or profane, public or private, not little by little, but all at once. If someone commits only one part of injustice and is caught, he’s punished and greatly [b] reproached—such partly unjust people are called temple-robbers,19 kidnappers, housebreakers, robbers, and thieves when they commit these crimes. But when someone, in addition to appropriating their possessions, kidnaps and enslaves the citizens as well, instead of these shameful names he is called happy and blessed, not only by the citizens themselves, but [c] by all who learn that he has done the whole of injustice. Those who reproach injustice do so because they are afraid not of doing it but of suffering it. So, Socrates, injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice. And, as I said from the first, justice is what is advantageous to the stronger, while injustice is to one’s own profit and advantage.

Having emptied this great flood of words into our [d] ears all at once like a bath attendant, Thrasymachus intended to leave. But those present didn’t let him and made him stay to give an account of what he had said. I too begged him to stay, and I said to him: After hurling such a speech at us, Thrasymachus, do you intend to leave before adequately instructing us or finding out whether you are right or not? Or do [e] you think it a small matter to determine which whole way of life would make living most worthwhile for each of us?

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Is that what I seem to you to think? Thrasymachus said. Either that, or else you care nothing for us and aren’t worried about whether we’ll live better or worse lives

because of our ignorance of what you say you know. So show some willingness to teach it to us. It wouldn’t be a bad investment for you to be the benefactor of a group as large as ours. For my own [345] part, I’ll tell you that I am not persuaded. I don’t believe that injustice is more profitable than justice, not even if you give it full scope and put no obstacles in its way. Suppose that there is an unjust person, and suppose he does have the power to do injustice, whether by trickery or open warfare; nonetheless, he doesn’t persuade me that injustice is more profitable [b] than justice. Perhaps someone here, besides myself, feels the same as I do. So come now, and persuade us that we are wrong to esteem justice more highly than injustice in planning our lives.

And how am I to persuade you, if you aren’t persuaded by what I said just now? What more can I do? Am I to take my argument and pour it into your very soul?

God forbid! Don’t do that! But, first, stick to what you’ve said, and then, if you change your position, do it openly and don’t deceive us. You see, Thrasymachus, that having defined the true doctor — to continue [c] examining the things you said before — you didn’t consider it necessary later to keep a precise guard on the true shepherd. You think that, insofar as he’s a shepherd, he fattens sheep, not looking to what is best for the sheep but to a banquet, like a guest about to be entertained at a feast, or to a future sale, like a money-maker rather than a shepherd. Shepherding is concerned only to provide what is best [d] for the things it is set over, and it is itself adequately provided with all it needs to be at its best when it doesn’t fall short in any way of being the craft of shepherding. That’s why I thought it necessary for us to agree before20 that every kind of rule, insofar as it rules, doesn’t seek anything other than what is best for the things it rules and cares for, and this is true both of public and private kinds of rule. But do you think that those who rule cities, the true rulers, [e] rule willingly?

I don’t think it, by god, I know it. But, Thrasymachus, don’t you realize that in other kinds of rule no one wants to rule for its own sake, but

they ask for pay, thinking that their ruling will benefit not themselves but their subjects? Tell me, doesn’t every craft differ from every other in having [346] a different function? Please don’t answer contrary to what you believe, so that we can come to some definite conclusion.

Yes, that’s what differentiates them. And each craft benefits us in its own peculiar way, different from the others. For example, medicine gives

us health, navigation gives us safety while sailing, and so on with the others? Certainly. And wage-earning gives us wages, for this is its function? Or would you call medicine the same as [b]

navigation? Indeed, if you want to define matters precisely, as you proposed, even if someone who is a ship’s captain becomes healthy because sailing is advantageous to his health, you wouldn’t for that reason call his craft medicine?

Certainly not. Nor would you call wage-earning medicine, even if someone becomes healthy while earning wages? Certainly not. Nor would you call medicine wage-earning, even if someone earns pay while healing? No. [c] We are agreed, then, that each craft brings its own peculiar benefit? It does. Then whatever benefit all craftsmen receive in common must clearly result from their joint practice of

some additional craft that benefits each of them? So it seems. And we say that the additional craft in question, which benefits the craftsmen by earning them wages, is

the craft of wage-earning? He reluctantly agreed. Then this benefit, receiving wages, doesn’t result [d] from their own craft, but rather, if we’re to examine

this precisely, medicine provides health, and wage-earning provides wages; house-building provides a house, and wage-earning, which accompanies it, provides a wage; and so on with the other crafts. Each of them does its own work and benefits the things it is set over. So, if wages aren’t added, is there any benefit that the

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craftsman gets from his craft? Apparently none. But he still provides a benefit when he works for [e] nothing? Yes, I think he does. Then, it is clear now, Thrasymachus, that no craft or rule provides for its own advantage, but, as we’ve

been saying for some time, it provides and orders for its subject and aims at its advantage, that of the weaker, not of the stronger. That’s why I said just now, Thrasymachus, that no one willingly chooses to rule and to take other people’s troubles in hand and straighten them out, but each asks for wages; for [347] anyone who intends to practice his craft well never does or orders what is best for himself—at least not when he orders as his craft prescribes — but what is best for his subject. It is because of this, it seems, that wages must be provided to a person if he’s to be willing to rule, whether in the form of money or honor or a penalty if he refuses.

What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. I know the first two kinds of wages, but I don’t understand what penalty you mean or how you can call it a wage.

Then you don’t understand the best people’s kind of wages, the kind that moves the most decent to rule, when they are willing to rule at all. Don’t you know [b] that the love of honor and the love of money are despised, and rightly so?

I do. Therefore good people won’t be willing to rule for the sake of either money or honor. They don’t want to

be paid wages openly for ruling and get called hired hands, nor to take them in secret from their rule and be called thieves. And they won’t rule for the sake of honor, because they aren’t ambitious honor-lovers. So, if they’re to be willing to rule, some compulsion [c] or punishment must be brought to bear on them—perhaps that’s why it is thought shameful to seek to rule before one is compelled to. Now, the greatest punishment, if one isn’t willing to rule, is to be ruled by someone worse than oneself. And I think that it’s fear of this that makes decent people rule when they do. They approach ruling not as something good or something to be enjoyed, but as something necessary, since it can’t be entrusted to anyone better [d] than—or even as good as —themselves. In a city of good men, if it came into being, the citizens would fight in order not to rule, just as they do now in order to rule. There it would be quite clear that anyone who is really a true ruler doesn’t by nature seek his own advantage but that of his subjects. And everyone, knowing this, would rather be benefited by others than take the trouble to benefit them. So I can’t at all agree with Thrasymachus that justice is the advantage of the stronger—but we’ll look further into that another time. What Thrasymachus is now saying [e]—that the life of an unjust person is better than that of a just one—seems to be of far greater importance. Which life would you choose, Glaucon? And which of our views do you consider truer?

I certainly think that the life of a just person is more profitable. Did you hear all of the good things Thrasymachus listed a moment ago for the unjust life? [348] I heard, but I wasn’t persuaded. Then, do you want us to persuade him, if we’re able to find a way, that what he says isn’t true? Of course I do. If we oppose him with a parallel speech about the blessings of the just life, and then he replies, and then

we do, we’d have to count and measure the good things mentioned on each side, and we’d need a jury to decide the case. But if, on the other hand, [b] we investigate the question, as we’ve been doing, by seeking agreement with each other, we ourselves can be both jury and advocates at once.

Certainly. Which approach do you prefer? I asked. The second. Come, then, Thrasymachus, I said, answer us from the beginning. You say that complete injustice is more

profitable than complete justice? I certainly do say that, and I’ve told you why. [c] Well, then, what do you say about this? Do you call one of the two a virtue and the other a vice? Of course. That is to say, you call justice a virtue and injustice a vice?

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That’s hardly likely, since I say that injustice is profitable and justice isn’t. Then, what exactly do you say? The opposite. That justice is a vice? No, just very high-minded simplicity. [d] Then do you call being unjust being low-minded? No, I call it good judgment. You consider unjust people, then, Thrasymachus, to be clever and good? Yes, those who are completely unjust, who can bring cities and whole communities under their power.

Perhaps, you think I meant pickpockets? Not that such crimes aren’t also profitable, if they’re not found out, but they aren’t worth mentioning by comparison to what I’m talking about.

I’m not unaware of what you want to say. But I [e] wonder about this: Do you really include injustice with virtue and wisdom, and justice with their opposites?

I certainly do. That’s harder, and it isn’t easy now to know what to say. If you had declared that injustice is more

profitable, but agreed that it is a vice or shameful, as some others do, we could have discussed the matter on the basis of conventional beliefs. But now, obviously, you’ll say that injustice is fine and strong and [349] apply to it all the attributes we used to apply to justice, since you dare to include it with virtue and wisdom.

You’ve divined my views exactly. Nonetheless, we mustn’t shrink from pursuing the argument and looking into this, just as long as I take

you to be saying what you really think. And I believe that you aren’t joking now, Thrasymachus, but are saying what you believe to be the truth.

What difference does it make to you, whether I believe it or not? It’s my account you’re supposed to be refuting.

It makes no difference. But try to answer this further [b] question: Do you think that a just person wants to outdo21 someone else who’s just?

Not at all, for he wouldn’t then be as polite and innocent as he is. Or to outdo someone who does a just action? No, he doesn’t even want to do that. And does he claim that he deserves to outdo an unjust person and believe that it is just for him to do so, or

doesn’t he believe that? He’d want to outdo him, and he’d claim to deserve to do so, but he wouldn’t be able. That’s not what I asked, but whether a just person wants to outdo an unjust person but not a just one,

thinking that this is what he deserves? [c] He does. What about an unjust person? Does he claim that he deserves to outdo a just person or someone who does

a just action? Of course he does; he thinks he deserves to outdo everyone. Then will an unjust person also outdo an unjust person or someone who does an unjust action, and will he

strive to get the most he can for himself from everyone? He will. Then, let’s put it this way: A just person doesn’t outdo someone like himself but someone unlike himself,

whereas an unjust person outdoes both like and unlike. [d] Very well put. An unjust person is clever and good, and a just one is neither? That’s well put, too. It follows, then, that an unjust person is like clever and good people, while the other isn’t? Of course that’s so. How could he fail to be like them when he has their qualities, while the other isn’t like

them?

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Fine. Then each of them has the qualities of the people he’s like? Of course. All right, Thrasymachus. Do you call one person musical and another nonmusical? [e] I do. Which of them is clever in music, and which isn’t? The musical one is clever, of course, and the other isn’t. And the things he’s clever in, he’s good in, and the things he isn’t clever in, he’s bad in? Yes. Isn’t the same true of a doctor? It is. Do you think that a musician, in tuning his lyre and in tightening and loosening the strings, wants to

outdo another musician, claiming that this is what he deserves?22 I do not. But he does want to outdo a nonmusician? Necessarily. What about a doctor? Does he, when prescribing [350] food and drink, want to outdo another doctor or

someone who does the action that medicine prescribes? Certainly not. But he does want to outdo a nondoctor? Yes. In any branch of knowledge or ignorance, do you think that a knowledgeable person would intentionally

try to outdo other knowledgeable people or say something better or different than they do, rather than doing or saying the very same thing as those like him?

Well, perhaps it must be as you say. And what about an ignorant person? Doesn’t he want to outdo both a knowledgeable person and an [b]

ignorant one? Probably. A knowledgeable person is clever? I agree. And a clever one is good? I agree. Therefore, a good and clever person doesn’t want to outdo those like himself but those who are unlike him

and his opposite. So it seems. But a bad and ignorant person wants to outdo both his like and his opposite. Apparently. Now, Thrasymachus, we found that an unjust person tries to outdo those like him and those unlike him?

Didn’t you say that? I did. And that a just person won’t outdo his like but his unlike? [c] Yes. Then, a just person is like a clever and good one, and an unjust is like an ignorant and bad one. It looks that way. Moreover, we agreed that each has the qualities of the one he resembles. Yes, we did. Then, a just person has turned out to be good and clever, and an unjust one ignorant and bad. Thrasymachus agreed to all this, not easily as I’m telling it, but reluctantly, with toil, trouble, and— [d]

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since it was summer — a quantity of sweat that was a wonder to behold. And then I saw something I’d never seen before—Thrasymachus blushing. But, in any case, after we’d agreed that justice is virtue and wisdom and that injustice is vice and ignorance, I said: All right, let’s take that as established. But we also said that injustice is powerful, or don’t you remember that, Thrasymachus?

I remember, but I’m not satisfied with what you’re now saying. I could make a speech about it, but, if I did, I know that you’d accuse me of engaging in oratory. So either allow me to speak, or, if you want [e] to ask questions, go ahead, and I’ll say, “All right,” and nod yes and no, as one does to old wives’ tales.

Don’t do that, contrary to your own opinion. I’ll answer so as to please you, since you won’t let me make a speech. What else do you want? Nothing, by god. But if that’s what you’re going to do, go ahead and do it. I’ll ask my questions. Ask ahead. I’ll ask what I asked before, so that we may proceed with our argument about justice and injustice in an

[351] orderly fashion, for surely it was claimed that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice. But, now, if justice is indeed wisdom and virtue, it will easily be shown to be stronger than injustice, since injustice is ignorance (no one could now be ignorant of that). However, I don’t want to state the matter so unconditionally, Thrasymachus, but to look into it in some such way as this. Would you say that it is unjust for a city to [b] try to enslave other cities unjustly and to hold them in subjection when it has enslaved many of them?

Of course, that’s what the best city will especially do, the one that is most completely unjust. I understand that’s your position, but the point I want to examine is this: Will the city that becomes

stronger than another achieve this power without justice, or will it need the help of justice? If what you said a moment ago stands, and justice [c] is cleverness or wisdom, it will need the help of

justice, but if things are as I stated, it will need the help of injustice. I’m impressed, Thrasymachus, that you don’t merely nod yes or no but give very fine answers. That’s because I’m trying to please you. You’re doing well at it, too. So please me some more by answering this question: Do you think that a city,

an army, a band of robbers or thieves, or any other tribe with a common unjust purpose would be able to achieve it if they were unjust to each other?

[d] No, indeed. What if they weren’t unjust to one another? Would they achieve more? Certainly. Injustice, Thrasymachus, causes civil war, hatred, and fighting among themselves, while justice brings

friendship and a sense of common purpose. Isn’t that so? Let it be so, in order not to disagree with you. You’re still doing well on that front. So tell me this: If the effect of injustice is to produce hatred wherever

it occurs, then, whenever it arises, whether among free men or slaves, won’t it cause them to hate one another, engage in civil war, and prevent [e] them from achieving any common purpose?

Certainly. What if it arises between two people? Won’t they be at odds, hate each other, and be enemies to one

another and to just people? They will. Does injustice lose its power to cause dissension when it arises within a single individual, or will it preserve

it intact? Let it preserve it intact. Apparently, then, injustice has the power, first, to make whatever it arises in — whether it is a city, a

family, an army, or anything else — incapable of [352] achieving anything as a unit, because of the civil wars and differences it creates, and, second, it makes that unit an enemy to itself and to what is in every way its opposite, namely, justice. Isn’t that so?

Certainly. And even in a single individual, it has by its nature the very same effect. First, it makes him incapable of

achieving anything, because he is in a state of civil war and not of one mind; second, it makes him his own

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enemy, as well as the enemy of just people. Hasn’t it that effect? Yes. And the gods too are just? Let it be so. So an unjust person is also an enemy of the gods, Thrasymachus, while a just person is their friend? [b] Enjoy your banquet of words! Have no fear, I won’t oppose you. That would make these people hate me. Come, then, complete the banquet for me by continuing to answer as you’ve been doing. We have shown

that just people are cleverer and more capable of doing things, while unjust ones aren’t even able to act together, for when we speak of a powerful achievement by unjust men acting together, what we [c] say isn’t altogether true. They would never have been able to keep their hands off each other if they were completely unjust. But clearly there must have been some sort of justice in them that at least prevented them from doing injustice among themselves at the same time as they were doing it to others. And it was this that enabled them to achieve what they did. When they started doing unjust things, they were only halfway corrupted by their injustice (for those who are all bad and completely unjust are completely incapable of accomplishing anything). These are the things I understand to hold, not the ones you first maintained. We must now examine, as we proposed [d] before,23 whether just people also live better and are happier than unjust ones. I think it’s clear already that this is so, but we must look into it further, since the argument concerns no ordinary topic but the way we ought to live.

Go ahead and look. I will. Tell me, do you think there is such a thing as the function of a horse? I do. [e] And would you define the function of a horse or of anything else as that which one can do only with it or

best with it? I don’t understand. Let me put it this way: Is it possible to see with anything other than eyes? Certainly not. Or to hear with anything other than ears? No. Then, we are right to say that seeing and hearing are the functions of eyes and ears? Of course. What about this? Could you use a dagger or a [353] carving knife or lots of other things in pruning a vine? Of course. But wouldn’t you do a finer job with a pruning knife designed for the purpose than with anything else? You would. Then shall we take pruning to be its function? Yes. Now, I think you’ll understand what I was asking earlier when I asked whether the function of each thing

is what it alone can do or what it does better than anything else. I understand, and I think that this is the function [b] of each.

All right. Does each thing to which a particular function is assigned also have a virtue?24 Let’s go over the same ground again. We say that eyes have some function?

They do. So there is also a virtue of eyes? There is. And ears have a function? Yes. So there is also a virtue of ears? There is.

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And all other things are the same, aren’t they? They are. And could eyes perform their function well if they [c] lacked their peculiar virtue and had the vice instead? How could they, for don’t you mean if they had blindness instead of sight? Whatever their virtue is, for I’m not now asking about that but about whether anything that has a function

performs it well by means of its own peculiar virtue and badly by means of its vice? That’s true, it does. So ears, too, deprived of their own virtue, perform their function badly? That’s right. And the same could be said about everything else? [d] So it seems. Come, then, and let’s consider this: Is there some function of a soul that you couldn’t perform with

anything else, for example, taking care of things, ruling, deliberating, and the like? Is there anything other than a soul to which you could rightly assign these, and say that they are its peculiar function?

No, none of them. What of living? Isn’t that a function of a soul? It certainly is. And don’t we also say that there is a virtue of a soul? We do. Then, will a soul ever perform its function well, Thrasymachus, if it is deprived of its own peculiar [e]

virtue, or is that impossible? It’s impossible. Doesn’t it follow, then, that a bad soul rules and takes care of things badly and that a good soul does all

these things well? It does. Now, we agreed that justice is a soul’s virtue, and injustice its vice? We did. Then, it follows that a just soul and a just man will live well, and an unjust one badly. Apparently so, according to your argument. And surely anyone who lives well is blessed and happy, and anyone who doesn’t is the opposite. [354] Of course. Therefore, a just person is happy, and an unjust one wretched. So be it. It profits no one to be wretched but to be happy. Of course. And so, Thrasymachus, injustice is never more profitable than justice. Let that be your banquet, Socrates, at the feast of Bendis. Given by you, Thrasymachus, after you became gentle and ceased to give me rough treatment. Yet I

haven’t had a fine banquet. But that’s my fault not yours. I seem to have behaved like a glutton, snatching [b] at every dish that passes and tasting it before properly savoring its predecessor. Before finding the answer to our first inquiry about what justice is, I let that go and turned to investigate whether it is a kind of vice and ignorance or a kind of wisdom and virtue. Then an argument came up about injustice being more profitable than justice, and I couldn’t refrain from abandoning the previous one and following up on that. Hence the result of the discussion, as far as I’m [c] concerned, is that I know nothing, for when I don’t know what justice is, I’ll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy.

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Book II

[357] When I said this, I thought I had done with the discussion, but it turned out to have been only a prelude. Glaucon showed his characteristic courage on this occasion too and refused to accept Thrasymachus’ abandonment of the argument. Socrates, he said, do you want to seem to have persuaded us that it is better in every way to be just than unjust, or do [b] you want truly to convince us of this?

I want truly to convince you, I said, if I can. Well, then, you certainly aren’t doing what you want. Tell me, do you think there is a kind of good we

welcome, not because we desire what comes from it, but because we welcome it for its own sake — joy, for example, and all the harmless pleasures that have no results beyond the joy of having them?

Certainly, I think there are such things. And is there a kind of good we like for its own sake [c] and also for the sake of what comes from it—

knowing, for example, and seeing and being healthy? We welcome such things, I suppose, on both counts. Yes. And do you also see a third kind of good, such as physical training, medical treatment when sick, medicine

itself, and the other ways of making money? We’d say that these are onerous but beneficial to us, and we wouldn’t choose them for their own sakes, but for the sake of the rewards and other things that [d] come from them.

There is also this third kind. But what of it? Where do you put justice? I myself put it among the finest goods, as something [358] to be valued by anyone who is going to be

blessed with happiness, both because of itself and because of what comes from it. That isn’t most people’s opinion. They’d say that justice belongs to the onerous kind, and is to be practiced

for the sake of the rewards and popularity that come from a reputation for justice, but is to be avoided because of itself as something burdensome.

I know that’s the general opinion. Thrasymachus faulted justice on these grounds a moment ago and praised injustice, but it seems that I’m a slow learner.

Come, then, and listen to me as well, and see whether you still have that problem, for I think that [b] Thrasymachus gave up before he had to, charmed by you as if he were a snake. But I’m not yet satisfied by the argument on either side. I want to know what justice and injustice are and what power each itself has when it’s by itself in the soul. I want to leave out of account their rewards and what comes from each of them. So, if you agree, I’ll renew the argument of Thrasymachus. First, I’ll state what kind of thing people consider justice to be and what its origins are. [c] Second, I’ll argue that all who practice it do so unwillingly, as something necessary, not as something good. Third, I’ll argue that they have good reason to act as they do, for the life of an unjust person is, they say, much better than that of a just one.

It isn’t, Socrates, that I believe any of that myself. I’m perplexed, indeed, and my ears are deafened listening to Thrasymachus and countless others. But I’ve yet to hear anyone defend justice in the way I want, proving that it is better than injustice. I want [d] to hear it praised by itself, and I think that I’m most likely to hear this from you. Therefore, I’m going to speak at length in praise of the unjust life, and in doing so I’ll show you the way I want to hear you praising justice and denouncing injustice. But see whether you want me to do that or not.

I want that most of all. Indeed, what subject could someone with any understanding enjoy discussing more often?

Excellent. Then let’s discuss the first subject I mentioned— what justice is and what its origins are. [e] They say that to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice bad, but that the badness of suffering

it so far exceeds the goodness of doing it that those who have done and suffered injustice and tasted both, but who lack the power to do it and avoid suffering it, decide that it is profitable to come to an agreement with each other neither to do injustice nor to suffer [359] it. As a result, they begin to make laws and covenants, and what the law commands they call lawful and just. This, they say, is the origin and essence of justice. It is intermediate between the best and the worst. The best is to do injustice without paying the penalty; the worst is to suffer it without being able to take revenge. Justice is a mean between these two extremes. People value it not as a good but because [b] they are too weak to do injustice with impunity. Someone who has the power to

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do this, however, and is a true man wouldn’t make an agreement with anyone not to do injustice in order not to suffer it. For him that would be madness. This is the nature of justice, according to the argument, Socrates, and these are its natural origins.

We can see most clearly that those who practice justice do it unwillingly and because they lack the power [c] to do injustice, if in our thoughts we grant to a just and an unjust person the freedom to do whatever they like. We can then follow both of them and see where their desires would lead. And we’ll catch the just person red-handed travelling the same road as the unjust. The reason for this is the desire to outdo others and get more and more.1 This is what anyone’s nature naturally pursues as good, but nature is forced by law into the perversion of treating fairness with respect.

The freedom I mentioned would be most easily realized if both people had the power they say the ancestor of Gyges of Lydia possessed. The story goes [d] that he was a shepherd in the service of the ruler of Lydia. There was a violent thunderstorm, and an earthquake broke open the ground and created a chasm at the place where he was tending his sheep. Seeing this, he was filled with amazement and went down into it. And there, in addition to many other wonders of which we’re told, he saw a hollow bronze horse. There were windowlike openings in it, and, peeping in, he saw a corpse, which seemed to be of more than human size, wearing nothing but a gold [e] ring on its finger. He took the ring and came out of the chasm. He wore the ring at the usual monthly meeting that reported to the king on the state of the flocks. And as he was sitting among the others, he happened to turn the setting of the ring towards himself to the inside of his hand. When he did this, he became invisible to those sitting near him, and they went on talking as if he had gone. He wondered at [360] this, and, fingering the ring, he turned the setting outwards again and became visible. So he experimented with the ring to test whether it indeed had this power — and it did. If he turned the setting inward, he became invisible; if he turned it outward, he became visible again. When he realized this, he at once arranged to become one of the messengers sent to report to the king. And when he arrived there, he seduced the king’s wife, attacked the king with her help, killed him, and took over the kingdom. [b]

Let’s suppose, then, that there were two such rings, one worn by a just and the other by an unjust person. Now, no one, it seems, would be so incorruptible that he would stay on the path of justice or stay away from other people’s property, when he could take whatever he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished, and do all the other things that would make [c] him like a god among humans. Rather his actions would be in no way different from those of an unjust person, and both would follow the same path. This, some would say, is a great proof that one is never just willingly but only when compelled to be. No one believes justice to be a good when it is kept private, since, wherever either person thinks he can do injustice with impunity, he does it. Indeed, every man believes that injustice is far more profitable to himself than justice. And any exponent of this argument will [d] say he’s right, for someone who didn’t want to do injustice, given this sort of opportunity, and who didn’t touch other people’s property would be thought wretched and stupid by everyone aware of the situation, though, of course, they’d praise him in public, deceiving each other for fear of suffering injustice. So much for my second topic.

As for the choice between the lives we’re discussing, we’ll be able to make a correct judgment about that [e] only if we separate the most just and the most unjust. Otherwise we won’t be able to do it. Here’s the separation I have in mind. We’ll subtract nothing from the injustice of an unjust person and nothing from the justice of a just one, but we’ll take each to be complete in his own way of life. First, therefore, we must suppose that an unjust person will act as clever craftsmen [361] do: A first-rate captain or doctor, for example, knows the difference between what his craft can and can’t do. He attempts the first but lets the second go by, and if he happens to slip, he can put things right. In the same way, an unjust person’s successful attempts at injustice must remain undetected, if he is to be fully unjust. Anyone who is caught should be thought inept, for the extreme of injustice is to be believed to be just without being just. And our completely unjust person must be given complete injustice; nothing may be subtracted from it. We must allow that, while doing the greatest injustice, he has nonetheless provided himself with the greatest reputation for justice. [b] If he happens to make a slip, he must be able to put it right. If any of his unjust activities should be discovered, he must be able to speak persuasively or to use force. And if force is needed, he must have the help of courage and strength and of the substantial wealth and friends with which he has provided himself.

Having hypothesized such a person, let’s now in our argument put beside him a just man, who is simple and noble and who, as Aeschylus says, doesn’t want to be believed to be good but to be so.2 We [c] must take away his reputation, for a reputation for justice would bring him honor and rewards, so that it wouldn’t be clear whether he is just for the sake of justice itself or for the sake of those honors and rewards. We must strip him of everything except justice and make his situation the opposite of an unjust person’s. Though he does no

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injustice, he must have the greatest reputation for it, so that his justice may be tested full-strength and not diluted by wrongdoing and what comes from it. Let him stay like that unchanged [d] until he dies — just, but all his life believed to be unjust. In this way, both will reach the extremes, the one of justice and the other of injustice, and we’ll be able to judge which of them is happier.

Whew! Glaucon, I said, how vigorously you’ve scoured each of the men for our competition, just as you would a pair of statues for an art competition.

I do the best I can, he replied. Since the two are as I’ve described, in any case, it shouldn’t be difficult to complete the account of the kind of life that awaits each of them, but it must be done. And if what I say sounds crude, Socrates, remember that it isn’t I who [e] speak but those who praise injustice at the expense of justice. They’ll say that a just person in such circumstances will be whipped, stretched on a rack, chained, blinded with fire, and, at the end, when he has suffered every kind of evil, he’ll be impaled, and will realize then that one shouldn’t want to be just but to be believed to be just. Indeed, Aeschylus’ words [362] are far more correctly applied to unjust people than to just ones, for the supporters of injustice will say that a really unjust person, having a way of life based on the truth about things and not living in accordance with opinion, doesn’t want simply to be believed to be unjust but actually to be so—

Harvesting a deep furrow in his mind, Where wise counsels propagate. [b]

He rules his city because of his reputation for justice; he marries into any family he wishes; he gives his children in marriage to anyone he wishes; he has contracts and partnerships with anyone he wants; and besides benefiting himself in all these ways, he profits because he has no scruples about doing injustice. In any contest, public or private, he’s the winner and outdoes3 his enemies. And by outdoing them, he becomes wealthy, benefiting his friends and harming his enemies. He makes adequate sacrifices to the gods and sets up magnificent offerings to them. [c] He takes better care of the gods, therefore, (and, indeed, of the human beings he’s fond of) than a just person does. Hence it’s likely that the gods, in turn, will take better care of him than of a just person. That’s what they say, Socrates, that gods and humans provide a better life for unjust people than for just ones.

When Glaucon had said this, I had it in mind to respond, but his brother Adeimantus intervened: You [d] surely don’t think that the position has been adequately stated?

Why not? I said. The most important thing to say hasn’t been said yet.

Well, then, I replied, a man’s brother must stand by him, as the saying goes.4 If Glaucon has omitted something, you must help him. Yet what he has said is enough to throw me to the canvas and make me unable to come to the aid of justice.

Nonsense, he said. Hear what more I have to say, for we should also fully explore the arguments that are opposed to the ones Glaucon gave, the ones [e] that praise justice and find fault with injustice, so that what I take to be his intention may be clearer.

When fathers speak to their sons, they say that one must be just, as do all the others who have charge of anyone. But they don’t praise justice itself, only the [363] high reputations it leads to and the consequences of being thought to be just, such as the public offices, marriages, and other things Glaucon listed. But they elaborate even further on the consequences of reputation. By bringing in the esteem of the gods, they are able to talk about the abundant good things that they themselves and the noble Hesiod and Homer say that the gods give to the pious,5 for Hesiod says that the [b] gods make the oak trees

Bear acorns at the top and bees in the middle And make fleecy sheep heavy laden with wool

for the just, and tells of many other good things akin to these. And Homer is similar:

When a good king, in his piety, Upholds justice, the black earth bears Wheat and barley for him, and his [c] trees are heavy with fruit. His sheep bear lambs unfailingly, and the sea yields up its fish.

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Musaeus and his son make the gods give the just more headstrong goods than these.6 In their stories, they lead the just to Hades, seat them on couches, provide them with a symposium of pious people, crown them with wreaths, and make them spend all their time drinking — as if they thought drunkenness was the finest wage of virtue. Others stretch even [d] further the wages that virtue receives from the gods, for they say that someone who is pious and keeps his promises leaves his children’s children and a whole race behind him. In these and other similar ways, they praise justice. They bury the impious and unjust in mud in Hades; force them to carry water in a sieve; bring them into bad repute while they’re still alive, and all those penalties that Glaucon gave to the just person they give to the unjust. But they have nothing [e] else to say. This, then, is the way people praise justice and find fault with injustice.

Besides this, Socrates, consider another form of argument about justice and injustice employed both by private individuals and by poets. All go on repeating with one voice that justice and moderation are fine things, but hard and onerous, while licentiousness [364] and injustice are sweet and easy to acquire and are shameful only in opinion and law. They add that unjust deeds are for the most part more profitable than just ones, and, whether in public or private, they willingly honor vicious people who have wealth and other types of power and declare them to be happy. But they dishonor and disregard the weak and the poor, even though they agree that they are better than the others. [b]

But the most wonderful of all these arguments concerns what they have to say about the gods and virtue. They say that the gods, too, assign misfortune and a bad life to many good people, and the opposite fate to their opposites. Begging priests and prophets frequent the doors of the rich and persuade them that they possess a god-given power founded on sacrifices and incantations. If the rich person or any of his ancestors has committed an injustice, they can [c] fix it with pleasant rituals. Moreover, if he wishes to injure some enemy, then, at little expense, he’ll be able to harm just and unjust alike, for by means of spells and enchantments they can persuade the gods to serve them. And the poets are brought forward as witnesses to all these accounts. Some harp on the ease of vice, as follows:

Vice in abundance is easy to get; The road is smooth and begins beside you, [d] But the gods have put sweat between us and virtue,

and a road that is long, rough, and steep.7 Others quote Homer to bear witness that the gods can be influenced by humans, since he said:

The gods themselves can be swayed by prayer, And with sacrifices and soothing promises, Incense and libations, human beings turn [e] them from their purpose

When someone has transgressed and sinned.8

And they present a noisy throng of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, offspring as they say of Selene and the Muses, in accordance with which they perform their rituals.9 And they persuade not only individuals but whole cities that the unjust deeds of the living or the dead can be absolved or purified through ritual [365] sacrifices and pleasant games. These initiations, as they call them, free people from punishment hereafter, while a terrible fate awaits those who have not performed the rituals.

When all such sayings about the attitudes of gods and humans to virtue and vice are so often repeated, Socrates, what effect do you suppose they have on the souls of young people? I mean those who are clever and are able to flit from one of these sayings to another, so to speak, and gather from them an impression of what sort of person he should be and of how best to travel the road of life. He would surely [b] ask himself Pindar’s question, “Should I by justice or by crooked deceit scale this high wall and live my life guarded and secure?” And he’ll answer: “The various sayings suggest that there is no advantage in my being just if I’m not also thought just, while the troubles and penalties of being just are apparent. But they tell me that an unjust person, who has secured for himself a reputation for justice, lives the life of a god. Since, then, ‘opinion forcibly overcomes truth’ [c] and ‘controls happiness,’ as the wise men say, I must surely turn entirely to it.10 I should create a façade of illusory virtue around me to deceive those who come near, but keep behind it the greedy and crafty fox of the wise Archilochus.”11

“But surely,” someone will object, “it isn’t easy for vice to remain always hidden.” We’ll reply that nothing great is easy. And, in any case, if we’re to be happy, we must follow the path indicated in these [d] accounts.

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To remain undiscovered we’ll form secret societies and political clubs. And there are teachers of persuasion to make us clever in dealing with assemblies and law courts. Therefore, using persuasion in one place and force in another, we’ll outdo others12 without paying a penalty.

“What about the gods? Surely, we can’t hide from them or use violent force against them!” Well, if the gods don’t exist or don’t concern themselves with human affairs, why should we worry at all about hiding from them? If they do exist and do concern themselves with us, we’ve learned all we know about them [e] from the laws and the poets who give their genealogies — nowhere else. But these are the very people who tell us that the gods can be persuaded and influenced by sacrifices, gentle prayers, and offerings. Hence, we should believe them on both matters or neither. If we believe them, we should be unjust and offer sacrifices from the fruits of our injustice. If we are just, our only gain is not to be punished by the [366] gods, since we lose the profits of injustice. But if we are unjust, we get the profits of our crimes and transgressions and afterwards persuade the gods by prayer and escape without punishment.

“But in Hades won’t we pay the penalty for crimes committed here, either ourselves or our children’s children?” “My friend,” the young man will say as he does his calculation, “mystery rites have great power and the gods have great power of absolution. The greatest cities tell us this, as do those children of the gods who have become poets and prophets.” [b]

Why, then, should we still choose justice over the greatest injustice? Many eminent authorities agree that, if we practice such injustice with a false façade, we’ll do well at the hands of gods and humans, living and dying as we’ve a mind to. So, given all that has been said, Socrates, how is it possible for anyone of [c] any power — whether of mind, wealth, body, or birth — to be willing to honor justice and not laugh aloud when he hears it praised? Indeed, if anyone can show that what we’ve said is false and has adequate knowledge that justice is best, he’ll surely be full not of anger but of forgiveness for the unjust. He knows that, apart from someone of godlike character who is disgusted by injustice or one who has gained knowledge [d] and avoids injustice for that reason, no one is just willingly. Through cowardice or old age or some other weakness, people do indeed object to injustice. But it’s obvious that they do so only because they lack the power to do injustice, for the first of them to acquire it is the first to do as much injustice as he can.

And all of this has no other cause than the one that led Glaucon and me to say to you: “Socrates, of all of you who claim to praise justice, from the original heroes of old whose words survive, to the men of the [e] present day, not one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except by mentioning the reputations, honors, and rewards that are their consequences. No one has ever adequately described what each itself does of its own power by its presence in the soul of the person who possesses it, even if it remains hidden from gods and humans. No one, whether in poetry or in private conversations, has adequately argued that injustice is the worst thing a soul can have in it and that justice is the greatest good. If you had treated the subject in this way and persuaded us from youth, [367] we wouldn’t now be guarding against one another’s injustices, but each would be his own best guardian, afraid that by doing injustice he’d be living with the worst thing possible.”

Thrasymachus or anyone else might say what we’ve said, Socrates, or maybe even more, in discussing justice and injustice—crudely inverting their powers, in my opinion. And, frankly, it’s because I want to [b] hear the opposite from you that I speak with all the force I can muster. So don’t merely give us a theoretical argument that justice is stronger than injustice, but tell us what each itself does, because of its own powers, to someone who possesses it, that makes injustice bad and justice good. Follow Glaucon’s advice, and don’t take reputations into account, for if you don’t deprive justice and injustice of their true reputations and attach false ones to them, we’ll say that you are not praising them but their reputations and that you’re encouraging us to be unjust in secret. In [c] that case, we’ll say that you agree with Thrasymachus that justice is the good of another, the advantage of the stronger, while injustice is one’s own advantage and profit, though not the advantage of the weaker.

You agree that justice is one of the greatest goods, the ones that are worth getting for the sake of what comes from them, but much more so for their own sake, such as seeing, hearing, knowing, being healthy, [d] and all other goods that are fruitful by their own nature and not simply because of reputation. Therefore, praise justice as a good of that kind, explaining how — because of its very self — it benefits its possessors and how injustice harms them. Leave wages and reputations for others to praise.

Others would satisfy me if they praised justice and blamed injustice in that way, extolling the wages of one and denigrating those of the other. But you, unless you order me to be satisfied, wouldn’t, for you’ve spent your whole life investigating this and [e] nothing else. Don’t, then, give us only a theoretical argument that justice is stronger than injustice, but show what effect each has because of itself on the person who has it—the one for good and the other for bad—whether it remains hidden from gods and human beings or not.

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While I’d always admired the natures of Glaucon and Adeimantus, I was especially pleased on this occasion, [368] and I said: You are the sons of a great man, and Glaucon’s lover began his elegy well when he wrote, celebrating your achievements at the battle of Megara,

Sons of Ariston, godlike offspring of a famous man.

That’s well said in my opinion, for you must indeed be affected by the divine if you’re not convinced that injustice is better than justice and yet can speak on its behalf as you have done. And I believe that you really are unconvinced by your own words. I infer [b] this from the way you live, for if I had only your words to go on, I wouldn’t trust you. The more I trust you, however, the more I’m at a loss as to what to do. I don’t see how I can be of help. Indeed, I believe I’m incapable of it. And here’s my evidence. I thought what I said to Thrasymachus showed that justice is better than injustice, but you won’t accept it from me. On the other hand, I don’t see how I can refuse my help, for I fear that it may even be impious to have breath in one’s body and the ability to speak and yet to stand idly by and not defend justice when [c] it is being prosecuted. So the best course is to give justice any assistance I can.

Glaucon and the others begged me not to abandon the argument but to help in every way to track down what justice and injustice are and what the truth about their benefits is. So I told them what I had in mind: The investigation we’re undertaking is not an easy one but requires keen eyesight. [d] Therefore, since we aren’t clever people, we should adopt the method of investigation that we’d use if, lacking keen eyesight, we were told to read small letters from a distance and then noticed that the same letters existed elsewhere in a larger size and on a larger surface. We’d consider it a godsend, I think, to be allowed to read the larger ones first and then to examine the smaller ones, to see whether they really are the same.

That’s certainly true, said Adeimantus, but how is [e] this case similar to our investigation of justice? I’ll tell you. We say, don’t we, that there is the justice of a single man and also the justice of a whole city? Certainly. And a city is larger than a single man? It is larger. Perhaps, then, there is more justice in the larger thing, and it will be easier to learn what it is. So, if you’re

willing, let’s first find out what sort of thing [369] justice is in a city and afterwards look for it in the individual, observing the ways in which the smaller is similar to the larger.

That seems fine to me. If we could watch a city coming to be in theory, wouldn’t we also see its justice coming to be, and its

injustice as well? Probably so. And when that process is completed, we can hope to find what we are looking for more easily? [b] Of course. Do you think we should try to carry it out, then? It’s no small task, in my view. So think it over. We have already, said Adeimantus. Don’t even consider doing anything else. I think a city comes to be because none of us is self-sufficient, but we all need many things. Do you think

that a city is founded on any other principle? No. And because people need many things, and because one person calls on a second out of one need [c] and

on a third out of a different need, many people gather in a single place to live together as partners and helpers. And such a settlement is called a city.13 Isn’t that so?

It is. And if they share things with one another, giving and taking, they do so because each believes that this is

better for himself? That’s right. Come, then, let’s create a city in theory from its beginnings. And it’s our needs, it seems, that will create it. It is, indeed. Surely our first and greatest need is to provide food to sustain life. [d]

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Certainly. Our second is for shelter, and our third for clothes and such. That’s right. How, then, will a city be able to provide all this? Won’t one person have to be a farmer, another a builder,

and another a weaver? And shouldn’t we add a cobbler and someone else to provide medical care? All right. So the essential minimum for a city is four or five men? Apparently. [e] And what about this? Must each of them contribute his own work for the common use of all? For

example, will a farmer provide food for everyone, spending quadruple the time and labor to provide food to be shared by them all? Or will he not bother about that, producing one quarter the food in one quarter the time, and spending the other three quarters, one in [370] building a house, one in the production of clothes, and one in making shoes, not troubling to associate with the others, but minding his own business on his own?

Perhaps, Socrates, Adeimantus replied, the way you suggested first would be easier than the other. That certainly wouldn’t be surprising, for, even as you were speaking it occurred to me that, in the first

place, we aren’t all born alike, but each of us differs somewhat in nature from the others, one being suited to one task, another to another. [b] Or don’t you think so?

I do. Second, does one person do a better job if he practices many crafts or — since he’s one person himself— if

he practices one? If he practices one. It’s clear, at any rate, I think, that if one misses the right moment in anything, the work is spoiled. It is. That’s because the thing to be done won’t wait on the leisure of the doer, but the doer must of necessity

pay close attention to his work rather than treating it [c] as a secondary occupation. Yes, he must. The result, then, is that more plentiful and better-quality goods are more easily produced if each person

does one thing for which he is naturally suited, does it at the right time, and is released from having to do any of the others.

Absolutely. Then, Adeimantus, we’re going to need more than four citizens to provide the things we’ve mentioned, for

a farmer won’t make his own plough, not if it’s to be a good one, nor his hoe, nor any of his other [d] farming tools. Neither will a builder — and he, too, needs lots of things. And the same is true of a weaver and a cobbler, isn’t it?

It is. Hence, carpenters, metal workers, and many other craftsmen of that sort will share our little city and make

it bigger. That’s right. Yet it won’t be a huge settlement even if we add cowherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen in order [e]

that the farmers have cows to do their ploughing, the builders have oxen to share with the farmers in hauling their materials, and the weavers and cobblers have hides and fleeces to use.

It won’t be a small one either, if it has to hold all those. Moreover, it’s almost impossible to establish a city in a place where nothing has to be imported. Indeed it is. So we’ll need yet further people to import from other cities whatever is needed. Yes. And if an importer goes empty-handed to another city, without a cargo of the things needed by the city

from which he’s to bring back what his own city needs, he’ll come away empty-handed, won’t he? [371] So it seems.

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Therefore our citizens must not only produce enough for themselves at home but also goods of the right quality and quantity to satisfy the requirements of others.

They must. So we’ll need more farmers and other craftsmen in our city. Yes. And others to take care of imports and exports. And they’re called merchants, aren’t they? Yes. So we’ll need merchants, too. Certainly. And if the trade is by sea, we’ll need a good many others who know how to sail. [b] A good many, indeed. And how will those in the city itself share the things that each produces? It was for the sake of this that we

made their partnership and founded their city. Clearly, they must do it by buying and selling. Then we’ll need a marketplace and a currency for such exchange. Certainly. If a farmer or any other craftsman brings some of his products to market, and he doesn’t arrive at the [c]

same time as those who want to exchange things with him, is he to sit idly in the marketplace, away from his own work?

Not at all. There’ll be people who’ll notice this and provide the requisite service—in well-organized cities they’ll usually be those whose bodies are weakest and who aren’t fit to do any other work. They’ll stay around the market exchanging money for the goods [d] of those who have something to sell and then exchanging those goods for the money of those who want them.

Then, to fill this need there will have to be retailers in our city, for aren’t those who establish themselves in the marketplace to provide this service of buying and selling called retailers, while those who travel between cities are called merchants?

That’s right. There are other servants, I think, whose minds [e] alone wouldn’t qualify them for membership in our

society but whose bodies are strong enough for labor. These sell the use of their strength for a price called a wage and hence are themselves called wage-earners. Isn’t that so?

Certainly. So wage-earners complete our city? I think so. Well, Adeimantus, has our city grown to completeness, then? Perhaps it has. Then where are justice and injustice to be found in it? With which of the things we examined did they

come in? I’ve no idea, Socrates, unless it was somewhere [372] in some need that these people have of one another. You may be right, but we must look into it and not grow weary. First, then, let’s see what sort of life our

citizens will lead when they’ve been provided for in the way we have been describing. They’ll produce bread, wine, clothes, and shoes, won’t they? They’ll build houses, work naked and barefoot in the summer, [b] and wear adequate clothing and shoes in the winter. For food, they’ll knead and cook the flour and meal they’ve made from wheat and barley. They’ll put their honest cakes and loaves on reeds or clean leaves, and, reclining on beds strewn with yew and myrtle, they’ll feast with their children, drink their wine, and, crowned with wreaths, hymn the gods. They’ll enjoy sex with one another but bear no more children than their resources allow, lest they fall into either poverty [c] or war.

It seems that you make your people feast without any delicacies, Glaucon interrupted. True enough, I said, I was forgetting that they’ll obviously need salt, olives, cheese, boiled roots, and

vegetables of the sort they cook in the country. We’ll give them desserts, too, of course, consisting of figs, chickpeas, and beans, and they’ll roast myrtle and acorns before the fire,14 drinking moderately. And so they’ll

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live in peace and good health, and when they [d] die at a ripe old age, they’ll bequeath a similar life to their children.

If you were founding a city for pigs, Socrates, he replied, wouldn’t you fatten them on the same diet? Then how should I feed these people, Glaucon? I asked. In the conventional way. If they aren’t to suffer hardship, they should recline on proper couches, dine at a

table, and have the delicacies and desserts that people have nowadays. [e] All right, I understand. It isn’t merely the origin of a city that we’re considering, it seems, but the origin of

a luxurious city. And that may not be a bad idea, for by examining it, we might very well see how justice and injustice grow up in cities. Yet the true city, in my opinion, is the one we’ve described, the healthy one, as it were. But let’s study a city with a fever, if that’s what you want. There’s nothing to stop us. The things I mentioned earlier and the way of life I [373] described won’t satisfy some people, it seems, but couches, tables, and other furniture will have to be added, and, of course, all sorts of delicacies, perfumed oils, incense, prostitutes, and pastries. We mustn’t provide them only with the necessities we mentioned at first, such as houses, clothes, and shoes, but painting and embroidery must be begun, and gold, ivory, and the like acquired. Isn’t that so?

Yes. [b] Then we must enlarge our city, for the healthy one is no longer adequate. We must increase it in size and

fill it with a multitude of things that go beyond what is necessary for a city — hunters, for example, and artists or imitators, many of whom work with shapes and colors, many with music. And there’ll be poets and their assistants, actors, choral dancers, contractors, and makers of all kinds of devices, including, among other things, those needed for the adornment of women. And so we’ll need more servants, too. Or don’t you think that we’ll need tutors, wet [c] nurses, nannies, beauticians, barbers, chefs, cooks, and swineherds? We didn’t need any of these in our earlier city, but we’ll need them in this one. And we’ll also need many more cattle, won’t we, if the people are going to eat meat?

Of course. And if we live like that, we’ll have a far greater [d] need for doctors than we did before? Much greater. And the land, I suppose, that used to be adequate to feed the population we had then, will cease to be

adequate and become too small. What do you think? The same. Then we’ll have to seize some of our neighbors’ land if we’re to have enough pasture and ploughland. And

won’t our neighbors want to seize part of ours as well, if they too have surrendered themselves to the endless acquisition of money and have overstepped the limit of their necessities?

[e] That’s completely inevitable, Socrates. Then our next step will be war, Glaucon, won’t it? It will. We won’t say yet whether the effects of war are good or bad but only that we’ve now found the origins of

war. It comes from those same desires that are most of all responsible for the bad things that happen to cities and the individuals in them.

That’s right. Then the city must be further enlarged, and not just by a small number, either, but by a whole army, which

will do battle with the invaders in defense of [374] the city’s substantial wealth and all the other things we mentioned.

Why aren’t the citizens themselves adequate for that purpose? They won’t be, if the agreement you and the rest of us made when we were founding the city was a good

one, for surely we agreed, if you remember, that it’s impossible for a single person to practice many crafts or professions well.

That’s true. Well, then, don’t you think that warfare is a profession? [b] Of course. Then should we be more concerned about cobbling than about warfare?

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Not at all. But we prevented a cobbler from trying to be a farmer, weaver, or builder at the same time and said that he

must remain a cobbler in order to produce fine work. And each of the others, too, was to work all his life at a single trade for which he had a natural aptitude and keep away from all the others, so as not to miss the right moment to practice his own work well. Now, [c] isn’t it of the greatest importance that warfare be practiced well? And is fighting a war so easy that a farmer or a cobbler or any other craftsman can be a soldier at the same time? Though no one can become so much as a good player of checkers or dice if he considers it only as a sideline and doesn’t practice it from childhood. Or can someone pick up a shield or any other weapon or tool of war and immediately perform adequately in an infantry battle or any other kind? No other [d] tool makes anyone who picks it up a craftsman or champion unless he has acquired the requisite knowledge and has had sufficient practice.

If tools could make anyone who picked them up an expert, they’d be valuable indeed. Then to the degree that the work of the guardians is most important, it requires most freedom from other

[e] things and the greatest skill and devotion. I should think so. And doesn’t it also require a person whose nature is suited to that way of life? Certainly. Then our job, it seems, is to select, if we can, the kind of nature suited to guard the city. It is. By god, it’s no trivial task that we’ve taken on. But insofar as we are able, we mustn’t shrink from it. No, we mustn’t. [375] Do you think that, when it comes to guarding, there is any difference between the nature of a pedigree

young dog and that of a well-born youth? What do you mean? Well, each needs keen senses, speed to catch what it sees, and strength in case it has to fight it out with

what it captures. They both need all these things. And each must be courageous if indeed he’s to fight well. Of course. And will a horse, a dog, or any other animal be courageous, if he isn’t spirited? Or haven’t you noticed just

how invincible and unbeatable spirit is, so that its presence [b] makes the whole soul fearless and unconquerable?

I have noticed that. The physical qualities of the guardians are clear, then. Yes. And as far as their souls are concerned, they must be spirited. That too. But if they have natures like that, Glaucon, won’t they be savage to each other and to the rest of the

citizens? By god, it will be hard for them to be anything else. Yet surely they must be gentle to their own people [c] and harsh to the enemy. If they aren’t, they won’t

wait around for others to destroy the city but will do it themselves first. That’s true. What are we to do, then? Where are we to find a character that is both gentle and high-spirited at the

same time? After all, a gentle nature is the opposite of a spirited one. Apparently. If someone lacks either gentleness or spirit, he can’t be a good guardian. Yet it seems impossible to

combine [d] them. It follows that a good guardian cannot exist. It looks like it.

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I couldn’t see a way out, but on reexamining what had gone before, I said: We deserve to be stuck, for we’ve lost sight of the analogy we put forward.

How do you mean? We overlooked the fact that there are natures of the sort we thought impossible, natures in which these

opposites are indeed combined. Where? You can see them in other animals, too, but especially in the one to which we compared the guardian, for

you know, of course, that a pedigree dog naturally [e] has a character of this sort — he is gentle as can be to those he’s used to and knows, but the opposite to those he doesn’t know.

I do know that. So the combination we want is possible after all, and our search for the good guardian is not contrary to

nature. Apparently not.

Then do you think that our future guardian, besides being spirited, must also be by nature philosophical?15 How do you mean? I don’t understand. [376] It’s something else you see in dogs, and it makes you wonder at the animal. What? When a dog sees someone it doesn’t know, it gets angry before anything bad happens to it. But when it

knows someone, it welcomes him, even if it has never received anything good from him. Haven’t you ever wondered at that?

I’ve never paid any attention to it, but obviously that is the way a dog behaves. Surely this is a refined quality in its nature and one that is truly philosophical. [b] In what way philosophical? Because it judges anything it sees to be either a friend or an enemy, on no other basis than that it knows

the one and doesn’t know the other. And how could it be anything besides a lover of learning, if it defines what is its own and what is alien to it in terms of knowledge and ignorance?

It couldn’t. But surely the love of learning is the same thing as philosophy or the love of wisdom? It is. Then, may we confidently assume in the case of a human being, too, that if he is to be gentle toward his

own and those he knows, he must be a lover of learning and wisdom? [c] We may. Philosophy, spirit, speed, and strength must all, then, be combined in the nature of anyone who is to be a

fine and good guardian of our city. Absolutely.

The natural assets that a good guardian needs and the education he must have to develop them in the best possible way are the next topic. The appropriate basic education for future guardians, Socrates claims, is the traditional one consisting of music and poetry, on the one hand, and physical training, on the other. His discussion of it continues into Book III.

— C.D.C.R.

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Book III

[412b] … All right, then what’s the next thing we have to determine? Isn’t it which of these same people will rule and which be ruled?

[c] Of course. Now, isn’t it obvious that the rulers must be older and the ruled younger? Yes, it is. And mustn’t the rulers also be the best of them? That, too. And aren’t the best farmers the ones who are best at farming? Yes. Then, as the rulers must be the best of the guardians, mustn’t they be the ones who are best at guarding

the city? Yes. Then, in the first place, mustn’t they be knowledgeable and capable, and mustn’t they care for the city? [d] That’s right. Now, one cares most for what one loves. Necessarily. And someone loves something most of all when he believes that the same things are advantageous to it as

to himself and supposes that if it does well, he’ll do well, and that if it does badly, then he’ll do badly too. That’s right. Then we must choose from among our guardians those men who, upon examination, seem most of all [e]

to believe throughout their lives that they must eagerly pursue what is advantageous to the city and be wholly unwilling to do the opposite.

Such people would be suitable for the job at any rate. I think we must observe them at all ages to see whether they are guardians of this conviction and make

sure that neither compulsion nor magic spells will get them to discard or forget their belief that they must do what is best for the city.

What do you mean by discarding? I’ll tell you. I think the discarding of a belief is either voluntary or involuntary — voluntary when one

learns that the belief is false, involuntary in the case [413] of all true beliefs. I understand voluntary discarding but not involuntary. What’s that? Don’t you know that people are voluntarily deprived of bad things, but involuntarily deprived

of good ones? And isn’t being deceived about the truth a bad thing, while possessing the truth is good? Or don’t you think that to believe the things that are is to possess the truth?

That’s right, and I do think that people are involuntarily deprived of true opinions. But can’t they also be so deprived by theft, magic spells, and compulsion? [b] Now, I don’t understand again. I’m afraid I must be talking like a tragic poet! By “the victims of theft” I mean those who are persuaded to

change their minds or those who forget, because time, in the latter case, and argument, in the former, takes away their opinions without their realizing it. Do you understand now?

Yes. By “the compelled” I mean those whom pain or suffering causes to change their mind. I understand that, and you’re right. The “victims of magic,” I think you’d agree, are those who change their mind because they are under [c]

the spell of pleasure or fear. It seems to me that everything that deceives does so by casting a spell. Then, as I said just now, we must find out who are the best guardians of their conviction that they must

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always do what they believe to be best for the city. We must keep them under observation from childhood and set them tasks that are most likely to make them forget such a conviction or be deceived out of it, and we must select whoever keeps on remembering [d] it and isn’t easily deceived, and reject the others. Do you agree?

Yes. And we must subject them to labors, pains, and contests in which we can watch for these traits. That’s right. Then we must also set up a competition for the third way in which people are deprived of their

convictions, namely, magic. Like those who lead colts into noise and tumult to see if they’re afraid, we must expose our young people to fears and pleasures, testing them more thoroughly than gold is tested by fire. If [e] someone is hard to put under a spell, is apparently gracious in everything, is a good guardian of himself and the music and poetry he has learned, and if he always shows himself to be rhythmical and harmonious, then he is the best person both for himself and for the city. Anyone who is tested in this way as a [414] child, youth, and adult, and always comes out of it untainted, is to be made a ruler as well as a guardian; he is to be honored in life and to receive after his death the most prized tombs and memorials. But anyone who fails to prove himself in this way is to be rejected. It seems to me, Glaucon, that rulers and guardians must be selected and appointed in some such way as this, though we’ve provided only a general pattern and not the exact details.

It also seems to me that they must be selected in this sort of way. Then, isn’t it truly most correct to call these people [b] complete guardians, since they will guard against

external enemies and internal friends, so that the one will lack the power and the other the desire to harm the city? The young people we’ve hitherto called guardians we’ll now call auxiliaries and supporters of the guardians’ convictions.

I agree. How, then, could we devise one of those useful falsehoods we were talking about a while ago, one [c] noble

falsehood that would, in the best case, persuade even the rulers, but if that’s not possible, then the others in the city?

What sort of falsehood? Nothing new, but a Phoenician story which describes something that has happened in many places. At

least, that’s what the poets say, and they’ve persuaded many people to believe it too. It hasn’t happened among us, and I don’t even know if it could. It would certainly take a lot of persuasion to get people to believe it.

You seem hesitant to tell the story. When you hear it, you’ll realize that I have every reason to hesitate. Speak, and don’t be afraid. I’ll tell it, then, though I don’t know where I’ll get [d] the audacity or even what words I’ll use. I’ll first try

to persuade the rulers and the soldiers and then the rest of the city that the upbringing and the education we gave them, and the experiences that went with them, were a sort of dream, that in fact they themselves, their weapons, and the other craftsmen’s tools were at that time really being fashioned and nurtured [e] inside the earth, and that when the work was completed, the earth, who is their mother, delivered all of them up into the world. Therefore, if anyone attacks the land in which they live, they must plan on its behalf and defend it as their mother and nurse and think of the other citizens as their earthborn brothers.

It isn’t for nothing that you were so shy about telling your falsehood. Appropriately so. Nevertheless, listen to the rest of the story. “All of you in the city are brothers,” we’ll

[415] say to them in telling our story, “but the god who made you mixed some gold into those who are adequately equipped to rule, because they are most valuable. He put silver in those who are auxiliaries and iron and bronze in the farmers and other craftsmen. For the most part you will produce children like yourselves, but, because you are all related, a silver child will occasionally be born from a golden parent, and vice [b] versa, and all the others from each other. So the first and most important command from the god to the rulers is that there is nothing that they must guard better or watch more carefully than the mixture of metals in the souls of the next generation. If an offspring of theirs should be found to have a mixture of iron or bronze, they must not pity him in any way, but give him the rank appropriate to his nature and drive him out to join the craftsmen and farmers. But [c] if an offspring of these people is found to have a mixture of gold or silver, they will honor him and take him up to join the guardians or the auxiliaries, for there is an oracle which says that the city will be ruined if it ever has an iron or a bronze guardian.” So, do you have any device that will make

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our citizens believe this story? I can’t see any way to make them believe it themselves, but perhaps there is one in the case of their [d] sons

and later generations and all the other people who come after them. I understand pretty much what you mean, but even that would help to make them care more for the city

and each other. However, let’s leave this matter wherever tradition takes it. And let’s now arm our earthborn and lead them forth with their rulers in charge. And as they march, let them look for the best place in the city to have their camp, a site from which they can most easily control those within, if anyone is unwilling to obey the laws, or repel any outside [e] enemy who comes like a wolf upon the flock. And when they have established their camp and made the requisite sacrifices, they must see to their sleeping quarters. What do you say?

I agree. And won’t these quarters protect them adequately both in winter and summer? Of course, for it seems to me that you mean their housing. Yes, but housing for soldiers, not for money-makers. How do you mean to distinguish these from one another? [416] I’ll try to tell you. The most terrible and most shameful thing of all is for a shepherd to rear dogs as

auxiliaries to help him with his flocks in such a way that, through licentiousness, hunger, or some other bad trait of character, they do evil to the sheep and become like wolves instead of dogs.

That’s certainly a terrible thing. Isn’t it necessary, therefore, to guard in every way [b] against our auxiliaries doing anything like that to the

citizens because they are stronger, thereby becoming savage masters instead of kindly allies? It is necessary. And wouldn’t a really good education endow them with the greatest caution in this regard? But surely they have had an education like that. Perhaps we shouldn’t assert this dogmatically, Glaucon. What we can assert is what we were saying just

now, that they must have the right education, whatever it is, if they are to have what will most make them gentle to each other and to those they [c] are guarding.

That’s right. Now, someone with some understanding might say that, besides this education, they must also have the

kind of housing and other property that will neither prevent them from being the best guardians nor encourage [d] them to do evil to the other citizens.

That’s true. Consider, then, whether or not they should live in some such way as this, if they’re to be the kind of men

we described. First, none of them should possess any private property beyond what is wholly necessary. Second, none of them should have a house or storeroom that isn’t open for all to enter at will. Third, whatever sustenance moderate and courageous warrior-athletes require in order to have neither shortfall [e] nor surplus in a given year they’ll receive by taxation on the other citizens as a salary for their guardianship. Fourth, they’ll have common messes and live together like soldiers in a camp. We’ll tell them that they always have gold and silver of a divine sort in their souls as a gift from the gods and so have no further need of human gold. Indeed, we’ll tell them that it’s impious for them to defile this divine possession by any admixture of such gold, because many impious deeds have been done that involve the currency used by ordinary people, while their own is pure. Hence, [417] for them alone among the city’s population, it is unlawful to touch or handle gold or silver. They mustn’t be under the same roof as it, wear it as jewelry, or drink from gold or silver goblets. In this way they’d save both themselves and the city. But if they acquire private land, houses, and currency themselves, they’ll be household managers and farmers instead of guardians — hostile masters of the other citizens instead of [b] their allies. They’ll spend their whole lives hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, more afraid of internal than of external enemies, and they’ll hasten both themselves and the whole city to almost immediate ruin. For all these reasons, let’s say that the guardians must be provided with housing and the rest in this way, and establish this as a law. Or don’t you agree?

I certainly do, Glaucon said.

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Book IV

… Well, son of Ariston, your city might now be said [427d] to be established. The next step is to get an adequate light somewhere and to call upon your brother as well as Polemarchus and the others, so as to look inside it and see where the justice and the injustice might be in it, what the difference between them is, and which of the two the person who is to be happy should possess, whether its possession is unnoticed by all the gods and human beings or not.

You’re talking nonsense, Glaucon said. You promised to look for them yourself because you said it was impious for you not to come to the rescue of justice in every way you could. [e]

That’s true, and I must do what I promised, but you’ll have to help. We will. I hope to find it in this way. I think our city, if indeed it has been correctly founded, is completely good. Necessarily so. Clearly, then, it is wise, courageous, moderate, and just. Clearly. Then, if we find any of these in it, what’s left over will be the ones we haven’t found? [428] Of course. Therefore, as with any other four things, if we were looking for any one of them in something and

recognized it first, that would be enough for us, but if we recognized the other three first, this itself would be sufficient to enable us to recognize what we are looking for. Clearly it couldn’t be anything other than what’s left over.

That’s right. Therefore, since there are four virtues, mustn’t we look for them in the same way? Clearly. Now, the first thing I think I can see clearly in the city is wisdom, and there seems to be something odd

[b] about it. What’s that? I think that the city we described is really wise. And that’s because it has good judgment, isn’t it? Yes. Now, this very thing, good judgment, is clearly some kind of knowledge, for it’s through knowledge, not

ignorance, that people judge well. Clearly. But there are many kinds of knowledge in the city. Of course. Is it because of the knowledge possessed by its carpenters, then, that the city is to be called wise and sound

in judgment? Not at all. It’s called skilled in carpentry because [c] of that. Then it isn’t to be called wise because of the knowledge by which it arranges to have the best wooden

implements. No, indeed. What about the knowledge of bronze items or the like? It isn’t because of any knowledge of that sort. Nor because of the knowledge of how to raise a harvest from the earth, for it’s called skilled in farming

because of that. I should think so. Then, is there some knowledge possessed by some of the citizens in the city we just founded that doesn’t

judge about any particular matter but about the city as a whole and the maintenance of good relations, both internally and with other cities? [d]

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There is indeed. What is this knowledge, and who has it? It is guardianship, and it is possessed by those rulers we just now called complete guardians. Then, what does this knowledge entitle you to say about the city? That it has good judgment and is really wise. Who do you think that there will be more of in our city, metal-workers or these true guardians? [e] There will be far more metal-workers. Indeed, of all those who are called by a certain name because they have some kind of knowledge, aren’t the

guardians the least numerous? By far. Then, a whole city established according to nature would be wise because of the smallest class and part in

it, namely the governing or ruling one. And to this class, which seems to be by nature the smallest, belongs a share of the knowledge that alone among [429] all the other kinds of knowledge is to be called wisdom.

That’s completely true. Then we’ve found one of the four virtues, as well as its place in the city, though I don’t know how we

found it. Our way of finding it seems good enough to me. And surely courage and the part of the city it’s in, the part on account of which the city is called

courageous, aren’t difficult to see. How is that? Who, in calling the city cowardly or courageous, would look anywhere other than to the part of it that [b]

fights and does battle on its behalf? No one would look anywhere else. At any rate, I don’t think that the courage or cowardice of its other citizens would cause the city itself to be

called either courageous or cowardly. No, it wouldn’t. The city is courageous, then, because of a part of itself that has the power to preserve through everything

its belief about what things are to be feared, namely, that they are the things and kinds of things [c] that the lawgiver declared to be such in the course of educating it. Or don’t you call that courage?

I don’t completely understand what you mean. Please, say it again. I mean that courage is a kind of preservation. What sort of preservation? That preservation of the belief that has been inculcated by the law through education about what things

and sorts of things are to be feared. And by preserving this belief “through everything,” I mean preserving [d] it and not abandoning it because of pains, pleasures, desires, or fears. If you like, I’ll compare it to something I think it resembles.

I’d like that. You know that dyers, who want to dye wool purple, first pick out from the many colors of wool the one

that is naturally white, then they carefully prepare this in various ways, so that it will absorb the color as well as possible, and only at that point do they apply the purple dye. When something is dyed in [e] this way, the color is fast — no amount of washing, whether with soap or without it, can remove it. But you also know what happens to material if it hasn’t been dyed in this way, but instead is dyed purple or some other color without careful preparation.

I know that it looks washed out and ridiculous. Then, you should understand that, as far as we could, we were doing something similar when we selected

our soldiers and educated them in music [430] and physical training. What we were contriving was nothing other than this: That because they had the proper nature and upbringing, they would absorb the laws in the finest possible way, just like a dye, so that their belief about what they should fear and all the rest would become so fast that even such extremely effective detergents as pleasure, pain, fear, and desire wouldn’t wash it out—and pleasure is much more [b] potent than any powder, washing soda, or soap. This power to preserve

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through everything the correct and law-inculcated belief about what is to be feared and what isn’t is what I call courage, unless, of course, you say otherwise.

I have nothing different to say, for I assume that you don’t consider the correct belief about these same things, which you find in animals and slaves, and which is not the result of education, to be inculcated by law, and that you don’t call it courage but something else.

[c] That’s absolutely true. Then I accept your account of courage. Accept it instead as my account of civic courage, and you will be right. We’ll discuss courage more fully

some other time, if you like. At present, our inquiry concerns not it but justice. And what we’ve said is sufficient for that purpose.

You’re quite right.

There are now two things left for us to find in the city, namely, moderation1 and — the goal of our entire inquiry—justice. [d]

That’s right. Is there a way we could find justice so as not to have to bother with moderation any further? I don’t know any, and I wouldn’t want justice to appear first if that means that we won’t investigate

moderation. So if you want to please me, look for the latter first. I’m certainly willing. It would be wrong not to be. [e] Look, then. We will. Seen from here, it is more like a kind of consonance and harmony than the previous ones. In what way? Moderation is surely a kind of order, the mastery of certain kinds of pleasures and desires. People indicate

as much when they use the phrase “self-control” and other similar phrases. I don’t know just what they mean by them, but they are, so to speak, like tracks or clues that moderation has left behind in language. Isn’t that so?

Absolutely. Yet isn’t the expression “self-control” ridiculous? The stronger self that does the controlling is the same as

the weaker self that gets controlled, so that only one person is referred to in all such expressions. [431] Of course. Nonetheless, the expression is apparently trying to indicate that, in the soul of that very person, there is a

better part and a worse one and that, whenever the naturally better part is in control of the worse, this is expressed by saying that the person is self-controlled or master of himself. At any rate, one praises someone by calling him self-controlled. But when, on the other hand, the smaller and better part is overpowered by the larger, because of bad upbringing or bad company, [b] this is called being self-defeated or licentious and is a reproach.

Appropriately so. Take a look at our new city, and you’ll find one of these in it. You’ll say that it is rightly called self-

controlled, if indeed something in which the better rules the worse is properly called moderate and self- controlled.

I am looking, and what you say is true. Now, one finds all kinds of diverse desires, pleasures, [c] and pains, mostly in children, women, household

slaves, and in those of the inferior majority who are called free. That’s right. But you meet with the desires that are simple, measured, and directed by calculation in accordance with

understanding and correct belief only in the few people who are born with the best natures and receive the best education.

That’s true. Then, don’t you see that in your city, too, the desires of the inferior many are controlled by the [d] wisdom

and desires of the superior few? I do.

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Therefore, if any city is said to be in control of itself and of its pleasures and desires, it is this one. Absolutely. And isn’t it, therefore, also moderate because of all this? It is. And, further, if indeed the ruler and the ruled in [e] any city share the same belief about who should rule,

it is in this one. Or don’t you agree? I agree entirely. And when the citizens agree in this way, in which of them do you say moderation is located? In the ruler

or the ruled? I suppose in both. Then, you see how right we were to divine that moderation resembles a kind of harmony? How so? Because, unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in one part, making the city brave and wise

respectively, moderation spreads throughout the [432] whole. It makes the weakest, the strongest, and those in between — whether in regard to reason, physical strength, numbers, wealth, or anything else — all sing the same song together. And this unanimity, this agreement between the naturally worse and the naturally better as to which of the two is to rule both in the city and in each one, is rightly called moderation.

I agree completely. [b] All right. We’ve now found, at least from the point of view of our present beliefs, three out of the four

virtues in our city. So what kind of virtue is left, then, that makes the city share even further in virtue? Surely, it’s clear that it is justice.

That is clear. Then, Glaucon, we must station ourselves like hunters surrounding a wood and focus our understanding,

so that justice doesn’t escape us and vanish into obscurity, for obviously it’s around here somewhere. So look and try eagerly to catch sight of it, [c] and if you happen to see it before I do, you can tell me about it.

I wish I could, but you’ll make better use of me if you take me to be a follower who can see things when you point them out to him.

Follow, then, and join me in a prayer. I’ll do that, just so long as you lead. I certainly will, though the place seems to be impenetrable and full of shadows. It is certainly dark and

hard to search through. But all the same, we must go on. Indeed we must. [d] And then I caught sight of something. Ah ha! Glaucon, it looks as though there’s a track here, so it seems

that our quarry won’t altogether escape us. That’s good news. Either that, or we’ve just been stupid. In what way? Because what we are looking for seems to have been rolling around at our feet from the very beginning,

and we didn’t see it, which was ridiculous of us. Just as people sometimes search for the very thing they are holding in their hands, so we didn’t look in the right direction but gazed off into the distance, [e] and that’s probably why we didn’t notice it.

What do you mean? I mean that, though we’ve been talking and hearing about it for a long time, I think we didn’t understand

what we were saying or that, in a way, we were talking about justice. That’s a long prelude for someone who wants to hear the answer. Then listen and see whether there’s anything in [433] what I say. Justice, I think, is exactly what we said

must be established throughout the city when we were founding it — either that or some form of it. We stated, and often repeated, if you remember, that everyone must practice one of the occupations in the city for which he is naturally best suited.

Yes, we did keep saying that.

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Moreover, we’ve heard many people say and have often said ourselves that justice is doing one’s own [b] work and not meddling with what isn’t one’s own.

Yes, we have. Then, it turns out that this doing one’s own work— provided that it comes to be in a certain way—is

justice. And do you know what I take as evidence of this? No, tell me. I think that this is what was left over in the city when moderation, courage, and wisdom have been found.

It is the power that makes it possible for them to grow in the city and that preserves them when [c] they’ve grown for as long as it remains there itself. And of course we said that justice would be what was left over when we had found the other three.

Yes, that must be so. And surely, if we had to decide which of the four will make the city good by its presence, it would be a

hard decision. Is it the agreement in belief between the rulers and the ruled? Or the preservation among the soldiers of the law-inspired belief about what is to be feared and what isn’t? Or the wisdom and guardianship [d] of the rulers? Or is it, above all, the fact that every child, woman, slave, freeman, craftsman, ruler, and ruled each does his own work and doesn’t meddle with what is other people’s?

How could this fail to be a hard decision? It seems, then, that the power that consists in everyone’s doing his own work rivals wisdom, moderation,

[e] and courage in its contribution to the virtue of the city. It certainly does. And wouldn’t you call this rival to the others in its contribution to the city’s virtue justice? Absolutely. Look at it this way if you want to be convinced. Won’t you order your rulers to act as judges in the city’s

courts? Of course. And won’t their sole aim in delivering judgments be that no citizen should have what belongs to another

or be deprived of what is his own? They’ll have no aim but that. Because that is just? Yes. Therefore, from this point of view also, the having and doing of one’s own would be accepted as justice.

[434] That’s right. Consider, then, and see whether you agree with me about this. If a carpenter attempts to do the work of a

cobbler, or a cobbler that of a carpenter, or they exchange their tools or honors with one another, or if the same person tries to do both jobs, and all other such exchanges are made, do you think that does any great harm to the city?

Not much. But I suppose that when someone, who is by nature a craftsman or some other kind of money-maker, is

puffed up by wealth, or by having a majority of votes, or by his own strength, or by some other such thing, [b] and attempts to enter the class of soldiers, or one of the unworthy soldiers tries to enter that of the judges and guardians, and these exchange their tools and honors, or when the same person tries to do all these things at once, then I think you’ll agree that these exchanges and this sort of meddling bring the city to ruin.

Absolutely. Meddling and exchange between these three classes, then, is the greatest harm that can happen to the city

and would rightly be called the worst thing someone could do to it. [c] Exactly. And wouldn’t you say that the worst thing that someone could do to his city is injustice? Of course. Then, that exchange and meddling is injustice. Or to put it the other way around: For the money-making,

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auxiliary, and guardian classes each to do its own work in the city, is the opposite. That’s justice, isn’t it, and makes the city just?

I agree. Justice is that and nothing else. [d] Let’s not take that as secure just yet, but if we find that the same form, when it comes to be in each

individual person, is accepted as justice there as well, we can assent to it. What else can we say? But if that isn’t what we find, we must look for something else to be justice. For the moment, however, let’s complete the present inquiry. We thought that, if we first tried to observe justice in some larger thing that possessed it, this would make it easier to observe in a single individual. We agreed that this larger thing is a city, and so we established the best city we could, [e] knowing well that justice would be in one that was good. So, let’s apply what has come to light in the city to an individual, and if it is accepted there, all will be well. But if something different is found in the individual, then we must go back and test that on the city. And if we do this, and compare them [435] side by side, we might well make justice light up as if we were rubbing fire-sticks together. And, when it has come to light, we can get a secure grip on it for ourselves.

You’re following the road we set, and we must do as you say. Well, then, are things called by the same name, whether they are bigger or smaller than one another, like

or unlike with respect to that to which that name applies? Alike. Then a just man won’t differ at all from a just city [b] in respect to the form of justice; rather he’ll be like

the city. He will. But a city was thought to be just when each of the three natural classes within it did its own work, and it

was thought to be moderate, courageous, and wise because of certain other conditions and states of theirs. That’s true. Then, if an individual has these same three parts in his soul, we will expect him to be correctly called [c] by

the same names as the city if he has the same conditions in them. Necessarily so. Then once again we’ve come upon an easy question, namely, does the soul have these three parts in it or

not? It doesn’t look easy to me. Perhaps, Socrates, there’s some truth in the old saying that everything fine is

difficult. Apparently so. But you should know, Glaucon, that, in my opinion, we will never get a precise answer [d]

using our present methods of argument — although there is another longer and fuller road that does lead to such an answer. But perhaps we can get an answer that’s up to the standard of our previous statements and inquiries.

Isn’t that satisfactory? It would be enough for me at present. In that case, it will be fully enough for me too. Then don’t weary, but go on with the inquiry. Well, then, we are surely compelled to agree that each of us has within himself the same parts and [e]

characteristics as the city? Where else would they come from? It would be ridiculous for anyone to think that spiritedness didn’t come to be in cities from such individuals as the Thracians, Scythians, and others who live to the north of us who are held to possess spirit, or that the same isn’t true of the love of learning, which is mostly associated with our part of the world, or of the love of money, which one might say is [436] conspicuously displayed by the Phoenicians and Egyptians.

It would. That’s the way it is, anyway, and it isn’t hard to understand. Certainly not. But this is hard. Do we do these things with the same part of ourselves, or do we do them with three

different parts? Do we learn with one part, get angry with another, and with some third part desire the pleasures of food, drink, sex, and the others that are closely akin to them? Or, when we set out after something, do we act with the whole of our soul, in each case? This is what’s hard to determine in a way that’s [b] up to the standards of our argument.

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I think so too. Well, then, let’s try to determine in that way whether these parts are the same or different. How? It is obvious that the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same part of itself, in

relation to the same thing, at the same time. So, if we ever find this happening in the soul, we’ll know that we aren’t dealing with one thing but many. [c]

All right. Then consider what I’m about to say. Say on. Is it possible for the same thing to stand still and move at the same time in the same part of itself? Not at all. Let’s make our agreement more precise in order to avoid disputes later on. If someone said that a person

who is standing still but moving his hands and head is moving and standing still at the same time, we wouldn’t consider, I think, that he ought to put it like that. What he ought to say is that one part of the person is standing still and another part is moving. [d] Isn’t that so?

It is. And if our interlocutor became even more amusing and was sophisticated enough to say that whole

spinning tops stand still and move at the same time when the peg is fixed in the same place and they revolve, and that the same is true of anything else moving in a circular motion on the same spot, we wouldn’t agree, because it isn’t with respect to the same parts of themselves that such things both stand still and [e] move. We’d say that they have an axis and a circumference and that with respect to the axis they stand still, since they don’t wobble to either side, while with respect to the circumference they move in a circle. But if they do wobble to the left or right, front or back, while they are spinning, we’d say that they aren’t standing still in any way.

And we d be right. No such statement will disturb us, then, or make us believe that the same thing can be, do, or undergo

opposites, at the same time, in the same respect, and [437] in relation to the same thing. They won’t make me believe it, at least. Nevertheless, in order to avoid going through all these objections one by one and taking a long time to

prove them all untrue, let’s hypothesize that this is corrrect and carry on. But we agree that if it should ever be shown to be incorrect, all the consequences we’ve drawn from it will also be lost.

We should agree to that. Then wouldn’t you consider all the following, [b] whether they are doings or undergoings, as pairs of

opposites: Assent and dissent, wanting to have something and rejecting it, taking something and pushing it away?

Yes, they are opposites. What about these? Wouldn’t you include thirst, hunger, the appetites as a whole, and wishing and [c]

willing somewhere in the class we mentioned? Wouldn’t you say that the soul of someone who has an appetite for a thing wants what he has an appetite for and takes to himself what it is his will to have, and that insofar as he wishes something to be given to him, his soul, since it desires this to come about, nods assent to it as if in answer to a question?

I would. What about not willing, not wishing, and not having an appetite? Aren’t these among the very opposites

— cases in which the soul pushes and drives things away? Of course. [d] Then won’t we say that there is a class of things called appetites and that the clearest examples are hunger

and thirst? We will. One of these is for food and the other for drink? Yes.

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Now, insofar as it is thirst, is it an appetite in the soul for more than that for which we say that it is the appetite? For example, is thirst thirst for hot drink or cold, or much drink or little, or, in a word, for drink of a certain sort? Or isn’t it rather that, where heat is present as well as thirst, it causes the appetite to be for something cold as well, and where cold for [e] something hot, and where there is much thirst because of the presence of muchness, it will cause the desire to be for much, and where little for little? But thirst itself will never be for anything other than what it is in its nature to be for, namely, drink itself, and hunger for food.

That’s the way it is, each appetite itself is only for its natural object, while the appetite for something of a certain sort depends on additions.

Therefore, let no one catch us unprepared or disturb us by claiming that no one has an appetite for [438] drink but rather good drink, nor food but good food, on the grounds that everyone after all has appetite for good things, so that if thirst is an appetite, it will be an appetite for good drink or whatever, and similarly with the others.2

All the same, the person who says that has a point. But it seems to me that, in the case of all things that are related to something, those that are of a particular

sort are related to a particular sort of thing, [b] while those that are merely themselves are related to a thing that is merely itself.

I don’t understand. Don’t you understand that the greater is such as to be greater than something? Of course. Than the less? Yes. And the much greater than the much less, isn’t that so? Yes. And the once greater to the once less? And the going-to-be greater than the going-to-be less? Certainly. And isn’t the same true of the more and the [c] fewer, the double and the half, heavier and lighter, faster

and slower, the hot and the cold, and all other such things? Of course. And what about the various kinds of knowledge? Doesn’t the same apply? Knowledge itself is knowledge

of what can be learned itself (or whatever it is that knowledge is of), while a particular sort of knowledge is of a particular sort of thing. For example, when knowledge of building houses came to be, [d] didn’t it differ from the other kinds of knowledge, and so was called knowledge of building?

Of course. And wasn’t that because it was a different sort of knowledge from all the others? Yes. And wasn’t it because it was of a particular sort of thing that it itself became a particular sort of

knowledge? And isn’t this true of all crafts and kinds of knowledge? It is. Well, then, this is what I was trying to say — if you understand it now — when I said that of all things

that are related to something, those that are merely themselves are related to things that are merely themselves, while those that are of a particular sort are related to things of a particular sort. However, I don’t [e] mean that the sorts in question have to be the same for them both. For example, knowledge of health or disease isn’t healthy or diseased, and knowledge of good and bad doesn’t itself become good or bad. I mean that, when knowledge became, not knowledge of the thing itself that knowledge is of, but knowledge of something of a particular sort, the result was that it itself became a particular sort of knowledge, and this caused it to be no longer called knowledge without qualification, but — with the addition of the relevant sort —medical knowledge or whatever.

I understand, and I think that that’s the way it is. Then as for thirst, wouldn’t you include it among things that are related to something? Surely thirst is

related to … [439] I know it’s related to drink.

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Therefore a particular sort of thirst is for a particular sort of drink. But thirst itself isn’t for much or little, good or bad, or, in a word, for drink of a particular sort. Rather, thirst itself is in its nature only for drink itself.

Absolutely. Hence the soul of the thirsty person, insofar as he’s thirsty, doesn’t wish anything else but to drink, and it

wants this and is impelled towards it. [b] Clearly. Therefore, if something draws it back when it is thirsting, wouldn’t that be something different in it from

whatever thirsts and drives it like a beast to drink? It can’t be, we say, that the same thing, with the same part of itself, in relation to the same, at the same time, does opposite things.

No, it can’t. In the same way, I suppose, it’s wrong to say of the archer that his hands at the same time push the bow

away and draw it towards him. We ought to say that one hand pushes it away and the other draws it towards him.

Absolutely. [c] Now, would we assert that sometimes there are thirsty people who don’t wish to drink? Certainly, it happens often to many different people. What, then, should one say about them? Isn’t it that there is something in their soul, bidding them to

drink, and something different, forbidding them to do so, that overrules the thing that bids? I think so. Doesn’t that which forbids in such cases come into play — if it comes into play at all — as a result of

rational calculation, while what drives and drags them to drink is a result of feelings and diseases? [d] Apparently. Hence it isn’t unreasonable for us to claim that they are two, and different from one another. We’ll call the

part of the soul with which it calculates the rational part and the part with which it lusts, hungers, thirsts, and gets excited by other appetites the irrational appetitive part, companion of certain indulgences and pleasures.

[e] Yes. Indeed, that’s a reasonable thing to think. Then, let these two parts be distinguished in the soul. Now, is the spirited part by which we get angry a

third part or is it of the same nature as either of the other two? Perhaps it’s like the appetitive part. But I’ve heard something relevant to this, and I believe it. Leontius, the son of Aglaion, was going up from

the Piraeus along the outside of the North Wall when he saw some corpses lying at the executioner’s feet. He had an appetite to look at them but at the same time he was disgusted and turned away. For a time he struggled with himself and covered his face, but, finally, overpowered by the appetite, he pushed [440] his eyes wide open and rushed towards the corpses, saying, “Look for yourselves, you evil wretches, take your fill of the beautiful sight!”3

I’ve heard that story myself. It certainly proves that anger sometimes makes war against the appetites, as one thing against another. Besides, don’t we often notice in other cases that when appetite forces someone contrary to rational

calculation, he reproaches himself and gets angry [b] with that in him that’s doing the forcing, so that of the two factions that are fighting a civil war, so to speak, spirit allies itself with reason? But I don’t think you can say that you’ve ever seen spirit, either in yourself or anyone else, ally itself with an appetite to do what reason has decided must not be done.

No, by god, I haven’t. What happens when a person thinks that he has [c] done something unjust? Isn’t it true that the nobler he

is, the less he resents it if he suffers hunger, cold, or the like at the hands of someone whom he believes to be inflicting this on him justly, and won’t his spirit, as I say, refuse to be aroused?

That’s true. But what happens if, instead, he believes that someone has been unjust to him? Isn’t the spirit within him

boiling and angry, fighting for what he believes to be just? Won’t it endure hunger, cold, and the like and keep on till it is victorious, not ceasing from [d] noble actions until it either wins, dies, or calms down, called to heel

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by the reason within him, like a dog by a shepherd? Spirit is certainly like that. And, of course, we made the auxiliaries in our city like dogs obedient to the

rulers, who are themselves like shepherds of a city. You well understand what I’m trying to say. But also reflect on this further point. What? [e] The position of the spirited part seems to be the opposite of what we thought before. Then we thought of

it as something appetitive, but now we say that it is far from being that, for in the civil war in the soul it aligns itself far more with the rational part.

Absolutely. Then is it also different from the rational part, or is it some form of it, so that there are two parts in the

soul — the rational and the appetitive — instead of three? Or rather, just as there were three classes in the city that held it together, the money-making, the [441] auxiliary, and the deliberative, is the spirited part a third thing in the soul that is by nature the helper of the rational part, provided that it hasn’t been corrupted by a bad upbringing?

It must be a third. Yes, provided that we can show it is different from the rational part, as we saw earlier it was from the

appetitive one. It isn’t difficult to show that it is different. Even in small children, one can see that they are full of spirit

right from birth, while as far as rational calculation is concerned, some never seem to get a share of it, while the majority do so quite late. [b]

That’s really well put. And in animals too one can see that what you say is true. Besides, our earlier quotation from Homer bears it out, where he says,

He struck his chest and spoke to his heart.4

For here Homer clearly represents the part that has calculated about better and worse as different from [c] the part that is angry without calculation.

That’s exactly right. Well, then, we’ve now made our difficult way through a sea of argument. We are pretty much agreed that

the same number and the same kinds of classes as are in the city are also in the soul of each individual. That’s true. Therefore, it necessarily follows that the individual is wise in the same way and in the same part of himself

as the city. That’s right. And isn’t the individual courageous in the same [d] way and in the same part of himself as the city? And

isn’t everything else that has to do with virtue the same in both? Necessarily. Moreover, Glaucon, I suppose we’ll say that a man is just in the same way as a city. That too is entirely necessary. And we surely haven’t forgotten that the city was just because each of the three classes in it was doing its

own work. I don’t think we could forget that. Then we must also remember that each one of us in whom each part is doing its own work will himself [e]

be just and do his own. Of course, we must. Therefore, isn’t it appropriate for the rational part to rule, since it is really wise and exercises foresight on

behalf of the whole soul, and for the spirited part to obey it and be its ally? It certainly is. And isn’t it, as we were saying, a mixture of music and poetry, on the one hand, and physical training, on

the other, that makes the two parts harmonious, stretching and nurturing the rational part with fine words and learning, relaxing the other part through [442] soothing stories, and making it gentle by means of

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harmony and rhythm? That’s precisely it. And these two, having been nurtured in this way, and having truly learned their own roles and been

educated in them, will govern the appetitive part, which is the largest part in each person’s soul and is by nature most insatiable for money. They’ll watch over it to see that it isn’t filled with the so-called pleasures of the body and that it doesn’t become so big and strong that it no longer does its own work but attempts to enslave and rule over the classes it [b] isn’t fitted to rule, thereby overturning everyone’s whole life.

That’s right. Then, wouldn’t these two parts also do the finest job of guarding the whole soul and body against external

enemies — reason by planning, spirit by fighting, following its leader, and carrying out the leader’s decisions through its courage?

Yes, that’s true. And it is because of the spirited part, I suppose, that we call a single individual courageous, namely, [c]

when it preserves through pains and pleasures the declarations of reason about what is to be feared and what isn’t.

That’s right. And we’ll call him wise because of that small part of himself that rules in him and makes those declarations

and has within it the knowledge of what is advantageous for each part and for the whole soul, which is the community of all three parts.

Absolutely. And isn’t he moderate because of the friendly and harmonious relations between these same parts, namely,

when the ruler and the ruled believe in common that the rational part should rule and don’t engage in civil war against it? [d]

Moderation is surely nothing other than that, both in the city and in the individual. And, of course, a person will be just because of what we’ve so often mentioned, and in that way. Necessarily. Well, then, is the justice in us at all indistinct? Does it seem to be something different from what we found

in the city? It doesn’t seem so to me. If there are still any doubts in our soul about this, we could dispel them altogether by appealing to ordinary

cases. [e] Which ones? For example, if we had to come to an agreement about whether someone similar in nature and training to

our city had embezzled a deposit of gold or silver that he had accepted, who do you think would consider him to have done it rather than someone who isn’t like him? [443]

No one. And would he have anything to do with temple robberies, thefts, betrayals of friends in private life or of

cities in public life? No, nothing. And he’d be in no way untrustworthy in keeping an oath or other agreement. How could he be? And adultery, disrespect for parents, and neglect of the gods would be more in keeping with every other

kind of character than his. With every one. And isn’t the cause of all this that every part within [b] him does its own work, whether it’s ruling or being

ruled? Yes, that and nothing else. Then, are you still looking for justice to be something other than this power, the one that produces men

and cities of the sort we’ve described? No, I certainly am not.

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Then the dream we had has been completely fulfilled — our suspicion that, with the help of some god, we had hit upon the origin and pattern of justice [c] right at the beginning in founding our city.5

Absolutely. Indeed, Glaucon, the principle that it is right for someone who is by nature a cobbler to practice cobblery

and nothing else, for the carpenter to practice carpentry, and the same for the others is a sort of image of justice — that’s why it’s beneficial.

Apparently. And in truth justice is, it seems, something of this sort. However, it isn’t concerned with someone’s doing

his own externally, but with what is inside him, [d] with what is truly himself and his own. One who is just does not allow any part of himself to do the work of another part or allow the various classes within him to meddle with each other. He regulates well what is really his own and rules himself. He puts himself in order, is his own friend, and harmonizes the three parts of himself like three limiting notes in a musical scale—high, low, and middle. He binds together those parts and any others there may be in between, and from having been many things he [e] becomes entirely one, moderate and harmonious. Only then does he act. And when he does anything, whether acquiring wealth, taking care of his body, engaging in politics, or in private contracts—in all of these, he believes that the action is just and fine that preserves this inner harmony and helps achieve it, and calls it so, and regards as wisdom the knowledge that oversees such actions. And he believes that the action that destroys this harmony is unjust, and calls it [444] so, and regards the belief that oversees it as ignorance.

That’s absolutely true, Socrates. Well, then, if we claim to have found the just man, the just city, and what the justice is that is in them, I

don’t suppose that we’ll seem to be telling a complete falsehood. No, we certainly won’t. Shall we claim it, then? We shall. So be it. Now, I suppose we must look for injustice. Clearly. Surely, it must be a kind of civil war between the three parts, a meddling and doing of another’s work, [b]

a rebellion by some part against the whole soul in order to rule it inappropriately. The rebellious part is by nature suited to be a slave, while the other part is not a slave but belongs to the ruling class. We’ll say something like that, I suppose, and that the turmoil and straying of these parts are injustice, licentiousness, cowardice, ignorance, and, in a word, the whole of vice.

That’s what they are. So, if justice and injustice are really clear enough to us, then acting justly, acting unjustly, and doing [c]

injustice are also clear. How so? Because just and unjust actions are no different for the soul than healthy and unhealthy things are for the

body. In what way? Healthy things produce health, unhealthy ones disease. Yes. And don’t just actions produce justice in the soul and unjust ones injustice? [d] Necessarily. To produce health is to establish the components of the body in a natural relation of control and being

controlled, one by another, while to produce disease is to establish a relation of ruling and being ruled contrary to nature.

That’s right. Then, isn’t to produce justice to establish the parts of the soul in a natural relation of control, one by

another, while to produce injustice is to establish a relation of ruling and being ruled contrary to nature? Precisely.

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Virtue seems, then, to be a kind of health, fine condition, and well-being of the soul, while vice is [e] disease, shameful condition, and weakness.

That’s true. And don’t fine ways of living lead one to the possession of virtue, shameful ones to vice? Necessarily. So it now remains, it seems, to inquire whether it [445] is more profitable to act justly, live in a fine way,

and be just, whether one is known to be so or not, or to act unjustly and be unjust, provided that one doesn’t pay the penalty and become better as a result of punishment.

But, Socrates, this inquiry looks ridiculous to me now that justice and injustice have been shown to be as we have described. Even if one has every kind of food and drink, lots of money, and every sort of power to rule, life is thought to be not worth living when the body’s nature is ruined. So even if someone [b] can do whatever he wishes, except what will free him from vice and injustice and make him acquire justice and virtue, how can it be worth living when his soul — the very thing by which he lives — is ruined and in turmoil?

Yes, it is ridiculous. Nevertheless, now that we’ve come far enough to be able to see most clearly that this is so, we mustn’t give up.

That’s absolutely the last thing we must do. Then come here, so that you can see how many [c] forms of vice there are, anyhow that I consider worthy

of examination. I’m following you, just tell me. Well, from the vantage point we’ve reached in our argument, it seems to me that there is one form of

virtue and an unlimited number of forms of vice, four of which are worth mentioning. How do you mean? It seems likely that there are as many types of soul as there are specific types of political constitution. How many is that? [d] Five forms of constitution and five of souls. What are they? One is the constitution we’ve been describing. And it has two names. If one outstanding man emerges

among the rulers, it’s called a kingship; if more than one, it’s called an aristocracy. That’s true. Therefore, I say that this is one form of constitution. Whether one man emerges or many, none of the

significant laws of the city would be changed, if they followed the upbringing and education we described. [e] Probably not.

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Book V

Book V continues the discussion of virtue and vice in souls and cities that was begun at the end of Book IV. But it is immediately interrupted by Polemarchus and the other interlocutors, all of whom want Socrates to explain the remark he made in passing at 423e–424a about the guardians possessing their wives and children in common. Socrates’ lengthy response to their request occupies the majority of the book. In it he makes the revolutionary proposal that children should be brought up by the city rather than by their biological parents, and that men and women with the same natural ability should receive the same education and training and do the same kind of work. Hence there will be female guardians and rulers in the kallipolis, as well as male ones.

Glaucon agrees that a city of the sort Socrates has described would be the best one, but he wonders whether or not it could ever really come about. Socrates undertakes to show that it could. The smallest change that would transform an already existing city into the kallipolis is if its kings or rulers become philosophers or if philosophers become its kings or rulers. This proposal, Socrates thinks, is likely to produce even more outrage than those about women and children, but he thinks that outrage will subside when he explains what true philosophers are really like.

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Book VI

… The subject of women and children has been adequately dealt with, but that of the rulers has to be [e] taken up again from the beginning. We said, if you remember, that they must show themselves to be lovers of their city when tested by pleasure and pain and that they must hold on to their resolve through [503] labors, fears, and all other adversities. Anyone who was incapable of doing so was to be rejected, while anyone who came through unchanged—like gold tested in a fire — was to be made ruler and receive prizes both while he lived and after his death. These were the sort of things we were saying while our argument, afraid of stirring up the very problems that now confront us, veiled its face and slipped by. [b]

That’s very true; I do remember it. We hesitated to say the things we’ve now dared to say anyway. So let’s now also dare to say that those who

are to be made our guardians in the most exact sense of the term must be philosophers. Let’s do it. Then you should understand that there will probably be only a few of them, for they have to have the

nature we described, and its parts mostly grow in separation and are rarely found in the same person. [c] What do you mean? You know that ease of learning, good memory, quick wits, smartness, youthful passion, high-mindedness,

and all the other things that go along with these are rarely willing to grow together in a mind that will choose an orderly life that is quiet and completely stable, for the people who possess the former traits are carried by their quick wits wherever chance leads them and have no stability at all.

That’s true. On the other hand, people with stable characters, who don’t change easily, who aren’t easily frightened in

battle, and whom one would employ because of their [d] greater reliability, exhibit similar traits when it comes to learning: They are as hard to move and teach as people whose brains have become numb, and they are filled with sleep and yawning whenever they have to learn anything.

That’s so. Yet we say that someone must have a fine and goodly share of both characters, or he won’t receive the

truest education, honors, or rule. That’s right. Then, don’t you think that such people will be rare? Of course. Therefore they must be tested in the labors, fears, and [e] pleasures we mentioned previously. But they

must also be exercised in many other subjects — which we didn’t mention but are adding now — to see whether they can tolerate the most important subjects or will shrink from [504] them like the cowards who shrink from other tests.

It’s appropriate to examine them like that. But what do you mean by the most important subjects? Do you remember when we distinguished three parts in the soul, in order to help bring out what justice,

moderation, courage, and wisdom each is? If I didn’t remember that, it wouldn’t be just for me to hear the rest. What about what preceded it? What was that? We said, I believe, that, in order to get the finest possible view of these matters, we would need to take [b]

a longer road that would make them plain to anyone who took it but that it was possible to give demonstrations of what they are that would be up to the standard of the previous argument.1 And you said that that would be satisfactory. So it seems to me that our discussion at that time fell short of exactness, but whether or not it satisfied you is for you to say.

I thought you gave us good measure and so, apparently, did the others. Any measure of such things that falls short in any way of that which is is not good measure, for nothing [c]

incomplete is the measure of anything, although people are sometimes of the opinion that an incomplete treatment is nonetheless adequate and makes further investigation unnecessary.

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Indeed, laziness causes many people to think that. It is a thought that a guardian of a city and its laws can well do without. Probably so. Well, then, he must take the longer road and put as much effort into learning as into physical training, for

otherwise, as we were just saying, he will never reach the goal of the most important subject and the [d] most appropriate one for him to learn.

Aren’t these virtues, then, the most important things? he asked. Is there anything even more important than justice and the other virtues we discussed?

There is something more important. However, even for the virtues themselves, it isn’t enough to look at a mere sketch, as we did before, while neglecting the most complete account. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, to strain every nerve to attain the utmost exactness and clarity about other things of little value and not to consider the most important things worthy of the greatest exactness? [e]

It certainly is. But do you think that anyone is going to let you off without asking you what this most important subject is and what it concerns?

No, indeed, and you can ask me too. You’ve certainly heard the answer often enough, but now either you aren’t thinking or you intend to make trouble for me again by interrupting. And I suspect the latter, [505] for you’ve often heard it said that the form of the good is the most important thing to learn about and that it’s by their relation to it that just things and the others become useful and beneficial. You know very well now that I am going to say this, and, besides, that we have no adequate knowledge of it. And you also know that, if we don’t know it, even the fullest possible knowledge of other things is of no benefit to us, any more than if we acquire any possession without the good of it. Or do you think that it is any advantage to have every kind of possession without the good of [b] it? Or to know everything except the good, thereby knowing nothing fine or good?

No, by god, I don’t. Furthermore, you certainly know that the majority believe that pleasure is the good, while the more

sophisticated believe that it is knowledge. Indeed I do. And you know that those who believe this can’t tell us what sort of knowledge it is, however, but in the

end are forced to say that it is knowledge of the good. And that’s ridiculous. Of course it is. They blame us for not knowing the [c] good and then turn around and talk to us as if we

did know it. They say that it is knowledge of the good — as if we understood what they’re speaking about when they utter the word “good.”

That’s completely true. What about those who define the good as pleasure? Are they any less full of confusion than the others?

Aren’t even they forced to admit that there are bad pleasures? Most definitely. So, I think, they have to agree that the same things are both good and bad. Isn’t that true? [d] Of course. It’s clear, then, isn’t it, why there are many large controversies about this? How could it be otherwise? And isn’t this also clear? In the case of just and beautiful things, many people are content with what are

believed to be so, even if they aren’t really so, and they act, acquire, and form their own beliefs on that basis. Nobody is satisfied to acquire things that are merely believed to be good, however, but everyone wants the things that really are good and disdains mere belief here.

That’s right. Every soul pursues the good and does whatever it does for its sake. It divines that the good is something,

[e] but it is perplexed and cannot adequately grasp what it is or acquire the sort of stable beliefs it has about other things, and so it misses the benefit, if any, that even those other things may give. Will we allow the best people in the city, to whom we entrust everything, to be so in the dark about something of this kind and [506] of this importance?

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That’s the last thing we’d do. I don’t suppose, at least, that just and fine things will have acquired much of a guardian in someone who

doesn’t even know in what way they are good. And I divine that no one will have adequate knowledge of them until he knows this.

You’ve divined well. But won’t our constitution be perfectly ordered, if a guardian who knows these things is in charge of it? [b] Necessarily. But, Socrates, you must also tell us whether you consider the good to be knowledge or

pleasure or something else altogether. What a man! It’s been clear for some time that other people’s opinions about these matters wouldn’t satisfy

you. Well, Socrates, it doesn’t seem right to me for you to be willing to state other people’s convictions but not

your own, especially when you’ve spent so much time occupied with these matters. [c] What? Do you think it’s right to talk about things one doesn’t know as if one does know them? Not as if one knows them, he said, but one ought to be willing to state one’s opinions as such. What? Haven’t you noticed that opinions without knowledge are shameful and ugly things? The best of

them are blind—or do you think that those who express a true opinion without understanding are any different from blind people who happen to travel the right road?

They’re no different. Do you want to look at shameful, blind, and crooked things, then, when you might hear illuminating and

fine ones from other people? [d] By god, Socrates, Glaucon said, don’t desert us with the end almost in sight. We’ll be satisfied if you

discuss the good as you discussed justice, moderation, and the rest. That, my friend, I said, would satisfy me too, but I’m afraid that I won’t be up to it and that I’ll disgrace

myself and look ridiculous by trying. So let’s abandon the quest for what the good itself is for the time being, for [e] even to arrive at my own view about it is too big a topic for the discussion we are now started on. But I am willing to tell you about what is apparently an offspring of the good and most like it. Is that agreeable to you, or would you rather we let the whole matter drop?

It is. The story about the father remains a debt you’ll pay another time. I wish that I could pay the debt in full, and you [507] receive it instead of just the interest. So here, then, is

this child and offspring of the good. But be careful that I don’t somehow deceive you unintentionally by giving you an illegitimate account of the child.2

We’ll be as careful as possible, so speak on. I will when we’ve come to an agreement and recalled some things that we’ve already said both here and

many other times. [b] Which ones? We say that there are many beautiful things and many good things, and so on for each kind, and in this

way we distinguish them in words. We do. And beauty itself and good itself and all the things that we thereby set down as many, reversing ourselves,

we set down according to a single form of each, believing that there is but one, and call it “the being” of each.3 That’s true. And we say that the many beautiful things and the rest are visible but not intelligible, while the forms are

intelligible but not visible. That’s completely true. [c] With what part of ourselves do we see visible things? With our sight. And so audible things are heard by hearing, and with our other senses we perceive all the other perceptible

things. That’s right.

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Have you considered how lavish the maker of our senses was in making the power to see and be seen? I can’t say I have. Well, consider it this way. Do hearing and sound need another kind of thing in order for the former to

hear and the latter to be heard, a third thing in whose absence the one won’t hear or the other be heard? [d] No, they need nothing else. And if there are any others that need such a thing, there can’t be many of them. Can you think of one? I can’t. You don’t realize that sight and the visible have such a need? How so? Sight may be present in the eyes, and the one who has it may try to use it, and colors may be present in

things, but unless a third kind of thing is present, which is naturally adapted for this very purpose, you know that sight will see nothing, and the colors will [e] remain unseen.

What kind of thing do you mean? I mean what you call light. You’re right. Then it isn’t an insignificant kind of link that connects the sense of sight and the power to be seen— [508]

it is a more valuable link than any other linked things have got, if indeed light is something valuable. And, of course, it’s very valuable. Which of the gods in heaven would you name as the cause and controller of this, the one whose light

causes our sight to see in the best way and the visible things to be seen? The same one you and others would name. Obviously, the answer to your question is the sun. And isn’t sight by nature related to that god in this way? Which way? Sight isn’t the sun, neither sight itself nor that in which it comes to be, namely, the eye. [b] No, it certainly isn’t. But I think that it is the most sunlike of the senses. Very much so. And it receives from the sun the power it has, just like an influx from an overflowing treasury. Certainly. The sun is not sight, but isn’t it the cause of sight itself and seen by it? That’s right. Let’s say, then, that this is what I called the offspring of the good, which the good begot as its analogue.

What the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and intelligible things, the [c] sun is in the visible realm, in relation to sight and visible things.

How? Explain a bit more. You know that, when we turn our eyes to things whose colors are no longer in the light of day but in the

gloom of night, the eyes are dimmed and seem nearly blind, as if clear vision were no longer in them. Of course. Yet whenever one turns them on things illuminated by the sun, they see clearly, and vision appears in [d]

those very same eyes? Indeed. Well, understand the soul in the same way: When it focuses on something illuminated by truth and what

is, it understands, knows, and apparently possesses understanding, but when it focuses on what is mixed with obscurity, on what comes to be and passes away, it opines and is dimmed, changes its opinions this way and that, and seems bereft of understanding.

It does seem that way. So that what gives truth to the things known and [e] the power to know to the knower is the form of the

good. And though it is the cause of knowledge and truth, it is also an object of knowledge. Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the good is other and more beautiful than they. In the visible realm, light

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and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think that they are the sun, so here [509] it is right to think of knowledge and truth as goodlike but wrong to think that either of them is the good — for the good is yet more prized.

This is an inconceivably beautiful thing you’re talking about, if it provides both knowledge and truth and is superior to them in beauty. You surely don’t think that a thing like that could be pleasure.

Hush! Let’s examine its image in more detail as follows. [b] How? You’ll be willing to say, I think, that the sun not only provides visible things with the power to be seen but

also with coming to be, growth, and nourishment, although it is not itself coming to be. How could it be? Therefore, you should also say that not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the

good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power. And Glaucon comically said: By Apollo, what a daemonic superiority! [c] It’s your own fault; you forced me to tell you my opinion about it. And I don’t want you to stop either. So continue to explain its similarity to the sun, if you’ve omitted

anything. I’m certainly omitting a lot. Well, don’t, not even the smallest thing. I think I’ll have to omit a fair bit, but, as far as is possible at the moment, I won’t omit anything

voluntarily. Don’t. Understand, then, that, as we said, there are these two things, one sovereign of the intelligible kind and [d]

place, the other of the visible (I don’t say “of heaven” so as not to seem to you to be playing the Sophist with the name).4 In any case, you have two kinds of thing, visible and intelligible.

Right.

It is like a line divided into two unequal sections.5 Then divide each section — namely, that of the visible and that of the intelligible — in the same ratio as the line. In terms now of relative clarity and opacity, one subsection of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, first, shadows, then reflections in [e] water and in all close-packed, smooth, and shiny materials, [510] and everything of that sort, if you understand.

I do. In the other subsection of the visible, put the originals of these images, namely, the animals around us, all

the plants, and the whole class of manufactured things. Consider them put. Would you be willing to say that, as regards truth and untruth, the division is in this proportion: As the

opinable is to the knowable, so the likeness is to the thing that it is like? [b] Certainly. Consider now how the section of the intelligible is to be divided. How? As follows: In one subsection, the soul, using as images the things that were imitated before, is forced to

investigate from hypotheses, proceeding not to a first principle but to a conclusion. In the other subsection, however, it makes its way to a first principle that is not a hypothesis, proceeding from a hypothesis but without the images used in the previous subsection, using forms themselves and making its investigation through them.

I don’t yet fully understand what you mean. Let’s try again. You’ll understand it more easily [c] after the following preamble. I think you know that

students of geometry, calculation, and the like hypothesize the odd and the even, the various figures, the three kinds of angles, and other things akin to these in each of their investigations, as if they knew them. They make these their hypotheses and don’t think it necessary to give any account of them, either to themselves or to others, as if they were clear to everyone. And going from these first principles through [d] the remaining steps, they arrive in full agreement.

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I certainly know that much. Then you also know that, although they use visible figures and make claims about them, their thought isn’t

directed to them but to those other things that they are like. They make their claims for the sake of the square itself and the diagonal itself, not the diagonal they draw, and similarly with the others. These figures that they make and draw, of which shadows [e] and reflections in water are images, they now in turn use as images, in seeking to see those others themselves that one cannot see except by means of thought. [511]

That’s true. This, then, is the kind of thing that, on the one hand, I said is intelligible, and, on the other, is such that

the soul is forced to use hypotheses in the investigation of it, not travelling up to a first principle, since it cannot reach beyond its hypotheses, but using as images those very things of which images were made in the section below, and which, by comparison to their images, were thought to be clear and to be valued as such.

I understand that you mean what happens in geometry and related sciences. [b] Then also understand that, by the other subsection of the intelligible, I mean that which reason itself

grasps by the power of dialectic. It does not consider these hypotheses as first principles but truly as hypotheses — but as stepping stones to take off from, enabling it to reach the unhypothetical first principle of everything. Having grasped this principle, it reverses itself and, keeping hold of what follows from it, comes down to a conclusion without making use of anything visible at all, but only of forms themselves, moving on from forms to forms, and ending in forms. [c]

I understand, if not yet adequately (for in my opinion you’re speaking of an enormous task), that you want to distinguish the intelligible part of that which is, the part studied by the science of dialectic, as clearer than the part studied by the so-called sciences, for which their hypotheses are first principles. And although those who study the objects of these sciences are forced to do so by means of thought rather than sense perception, still, because they do not go back to a genuine first principle, but proceed from hypotheses, [d] you don’t think that they understand them, even though, given such a principle, they are intelligible. And you seem to me to call the state of the geometers thought but not understanding, thought being intermediate between opinion and understanding.

Your exposition is most adequate. Thus there are four such conditions in the soul, corresponding to the four subsections of our line: Understanding for the highest, thought for the second, belief for the third, and imaging for the last. Arrange them in a [e] ratio, and consider that each shares in clarity to the degree that the subsection it is set over shares in truth.

I understand, agree, and arrange them as you say.

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Book VII

[514] Next, I said, compare the effect of education and of the lack of it on our nature to an experience like this: Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling, with an entrance a long way up, which is both open to the light and as wide as the cave itself. They’ve been there since childhood, fixed in the same place, with their necks and legs fettered, able to see only in front of them, because their bonds prevent them from turning their heads around. Light is provided by a fire burning far above and behind [b] them. Also behind them, but on higher ground, there is a path stretching between them and the fire. Imagine that along this path a low wall has been built, like the screen in front of puppeteers above which they show their puppets.

I’m imagining it. Then also imagine that there are people along the wall, carrying all kinds of artifacts that project above it

— statues of people and other animals, made out of [c] stone, wood, and every material. And, as you’d expect, [515] some of the carriers are talking, and some are silent.

It’s a strange image you’re describing, and strange prisoners. They’re like us. Do you suppose, first of all, that these prisoners see anything of themselves and one

another besides the shadows that the fire casts on the wall in front of them? How could they, if they have to keep their heads [b] motionless throughout life? What about the things being carried along the wall? Isn’t the same true of them? Of course. And if they could talk to one another, don’t you think they’d suppose that the names they used applied to

the things they see passing before them?1 They’d have to. And what if their prison also had an echo from the wall facing them? Don’t you think they’d believe that

the shadows passing in front of them were talking whenever one of the carriers passing along the wall was doing so?

I certainly do. Then the prisoners would in every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of [c] those

artifacts. They must surely believe that. Consider, then, what being released from their bonds and cured of their ignorance would naturally be like,

if something like this came to pass. When one of them was freed and suddenly compelled to stand up, turn his head, walk, and look up toward the light, he’d be pained and dazzled and unable to see the things whose shadows he’d seen before. What do you think he’d say, if we told him that what he’d [d] seen before was inconsequential, but that now — because he is a bit closer to the things that are and is turned towards things that are more—he sees more correctly? Or, to put it another way, if we pointed to each of the things passing by, asked him what each of them is, and compelled him to answer, don’t you think he’d be at a loss and that he’d believe that the things he saw earlier were truer than the ones he was now being shown?

Much truer. And if someone compelled him to look at the light itself, wouldn’t his eyes hurt, and wouldn’t he turn [e]

around and flee towards the things he’s able to see, believing that they’re really clearer than the ones he’s being shown?

He would. And if someone dragged him away from there by force, up the rough, steep path, and didn’t let him go

until he had dragged him into the sunlight, wouldn’t he be pained and irritated at being treated that way? And when he came into the light, with the [516] sun filling his eyes, wouldn’t he be unable to see a single one of the things now said to be true?

He would be unable to see them, at least at first. I suppose, then, that he’d need time to get adjusted before he could see things in the world above. At first,

he’d see shadows most easily, then images of men and other things in water, then the things themselves. Of

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these, he’d be able to study the things in the sky and the sky itself more easily at night, looking at the light of the stars and the moon, than during [b] the day, looking at the sun and the light of the sun.

Of course. Finally, I suppose, he’d be able to see the sun, not images of it in water or some alien place, but the sun

itself, in its own place, and be able to study it. Necessarily so. And at this point he would infer and conclude that the sun provides the seasons and the years, governs

everything in the visible world, and is in some way [c] the cause of all the things that he used to see. It’s clear that would be his next step. What about when he reminds himself of his first dwelling place, his fellow prisoners, and what passed for

wisdom there? Don’t you think that he’d count himself happy for the change and pity the others? Certainly. And if there had been any honors, praises, or prizes among them for the one who was sharpest at

identifying the shadows as they passed by and who best remembered which usually came earlier, which later, [d] and which simultaneously, and who could thus best divine the future, do you think that our man would desire these rewards or envy those among the prisoners who were honored and held power? Instead, wouldn’t he feel, with Homer, that he’d much prefer to “work the earth as a serf to another, one without possessions,”2 and go through any sufferings, rather than share their opinions and live as they do?

[e] I suppose he would rather suffer anything than live like that. Consider this too. If this man went down into the cave again and sat down in his same seat, wouldn’t his

eyes — coming suddenly out of the sun like that — be filled with darkness? They certainly would. And before his eyes had recovered — and the adjustment would not be quick — while his vision was still

dim, if he had to compete again with the perpetual [517] prisoners in recognizing the shadows, wouldn’t he invite ridicule? Wouldn’t it be said of him that he’d returned from his upward journey with his eyesight ruined and that it isn’t worthwhile even to try to travel upward? And, as for anyone who tried to free them and lead them upward, if they could somehow get their hands on him, wouldn’t they kill him?

They certainly would. This whole image, Glaucon, must be fitted together with what we said before. The visible realm should [b]

be likened to the prison dwelling, and the light of the fire inside it to the power of the sun. And if you interpret the upward journey and the study of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, you’ll grasp what I hope to convey, since that is what you wanted to hear about. Whether it’s true or not, only the god knows. But this is how I see it: In the knowable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached only with difficulty. Once one has seen it, however, one must conclude that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything, that it produces both light and [c] its source in the visible realm, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it.

I have the same thought, at least as far as I’m able. Come, then, share with me this thought also: It isn’t surprising that the ones who get to this point are

unwilling to occupy themselves with human affairs and that their souls are always pressing upwards, eager to spend their time above, for, after all, this is surely what we’d expect, if indeed things fit the image I described before. [d]

It is. What about what happens when someone turns from divine study to the evils of human life? Do you think

it’s surprising, since his sight is still dim, and he hasn’t yet become accustomed to the darkness around him, that he behaves awkwardly and appears completely ridiculous if he’s compelled, either in the courts or elsewhere, to contend about the shadows of justice or the statues of which they are the shadows and to dispute about the way these things are understood by people who have never seen justice itself? [e]

That’s not surprising at all. No, it isn’t. But anyone with any understanding would remember that the eyes may be confused in [518]

two ways and from two causes, namely, when they’ve come from the light into the darkness and when they’ve come from the darkness into the light. Realizing that the same applies to the soul, when someone sees a soul

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disturbed and unable to see something, he won’t laugh mindlessly, but he’ll take into consideration whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed through not having yet become accustomed to the dark or whether it has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is dazzled by the increased brilliance. Then he’ll declare the first soul happy in its experience and life, and he’ll pity the [b] latter — but even if he chose to make fun of it, at least he’d be less ridiculous than if he laughed at a soul that has come from the light above.

What you say is very reasonable. If that’s true, then here’s what we must think about these matters: Education isn’t what some people

declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls [c] that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes. They do say that. But our present discussion, on the other hand, shows that the power to learn is present in everyone’s soul

and that the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body. This instrument cannot be turned around from that which is coming into being without turning the whole soul until it is able to study that which is and the brightest thing that is, namely, the one we call the [d] good. Isn’t that right?

Yes. Then education is the craft concerned with doing this very thing, this turning around, and with how the

soul can most easily and effectively be made to do it. It isn’t the craft of putting sight into the soul. Education takes for granted that sight is there but that it isn’t turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it appropriately.

So it seems. Now, it looks as though the other so-called virtues of the soul are akin to those of the body, for they really

aren’t there beforehand but are added later by [e] habit and practice. However, the virtue of reason seems to belong above all to something more divine, which never loses its power but is either useful and beneficial or useless and harmful, depending on the way it is turned. Or have you never noticed this about [519] people who are said to be vicious but clever, how keen the vision of their little souls is and how sharply it distinguishes the things it is turned towards? This shows that its sight isn’t inferior but rather is forced to serve evil ends, so that the sharper it sees, the more evil it accomplishes.

Absolutely. However, if a nature of this sort had been hammered at from childhood and freed from the bonds of

kinship with becoming, which have been fastened to it by feasting, greed, and other such pleasures and which, like leaden weights, pull its vision downwards [b]— if, being rid of these, it turned to look at true things, then I say that the same soul of the same person would see these most sharply, just as it now does the things it is presently turned towards.

Probably so. And what about the uneducated who have no experience of truth? Isn’t it likely—indeed, doesn’t it follow

necessarily from what was said before—that they will never adequately govern a city? But neither would those who’ve been allowed to spend their whole lives being educated. The former would fail because they don’t have a single goal at which all their actions, [c] public and private, inevitably aim; the latter would fail because they’d refuse to act, thinking that they had settled while still alive in the faraway Isles of the Blessed.3

That’s true. It is our task as founders, then, to compel the best natures to reach the study we said before is the most

important, namely, to make the ascent and see the good. But when they’ve made it and looked sufficiently, we mustn’t allow them to do what they’re [d] allowed to do today.

What’s that? To stay there and refuse to go down again to the prisoners in the cave and share their labors and honors,

whether they are of less worth or of greater. Then are we to do them an injustice by making them live a worse life when they could live a better one? You are forgetting again that it isn’t the law’s concern to make any one class in the city outstandingly [e]

happy but to contrive to spread happiness throughout the city by bringing the citizens into harmony with each other through persuasion or compulsion and by making them share with each other the benefits that each class can confer on the community. The law produces such people in the city, not in order to [520] allow them to turn in whatever direction they want, but to make use of them to bind the city together.

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That’s true, I had forgotten. Observe, then, Glaucon, that we won’t be doing an injustice to those who’ve become philosophers in our

city and that what we’ll say to them, when we compel them to guard and care for the others, will be just. We’ll say: “When people like you come to be in other cities, they’re justified in not sharing in [b] their city’s labors, for they’ve grown there spontaneously, against the will of the constitution. And what grows of its own accord and owes no debt for its upbringing has justice on its side when it isn’t keen to pay anyone for that upbringing. But we’ve made you kings in our city and leaders of the swarm, as it were, both for yourselves and for the rest of the city. You’re better and more completely educated than the [c] others and are better able to share in both types of life.4 Therefore each of you in turn must go down to live in the common dwelling place of the others and grow accustomed to seeing in the dark. When you are used to it, you’ll see vastly better than the people there. And because you’ve seen the truth about fine, just, and good things, you’ll know each image for what it is and also that of which it is the image. Thus, for you and for us, the city will be governed, not like the majority of cities nowadays, by people who fight over shadows and struggle against one another in order to rule — as if that were a great good — but by [d] people who are awake rather than dreaming, for the truth is surely this: A city whose prospective rulers are least eager to rule must of necessity be most free from civil war, whereas a city with the opposite kind of rulers is governed in the opposite way.”

Absolutely. Then do you think that those we’ve nurtured will disobey us and refuse to share the labors of the city, each

in turn, while living the greater part of their time with one another in the pure realm? It isn’t possible, for we’ll be giving just orders to [e] just people. Each of them will certainly go to rule as to

something compulsory, however, which is exactly the opposite of what’s done by those who now rule in each city. This is how it is. If you can find a way of life that’s better than ruling for the prospective rulers, your well-governed city will become a possibility, for only in it will the truly rich rule — not those [521] who are rich in gold but those who are rich in the wealth that the happy must have, namely, a good and rational life. But if beggars hungry for private goods go into public life, thinking that the good is there for the seizing, then the well-governed city is impossible, for then ruling is something fought over, and this civil and domestic war destroys these people and the rest of the city as well.

That’s very true. Can you name any life that despises political rule besides that of the true philosopher? [b] No, by god, I can’t. But surely it is those who are not lovers of ruling who must rule, for if they don’t, the lovers of it, who are

rivals, will fight over it. Of course. Then who will you compel to become guardians of the city, if not those who have the best understanding

of what matters for good government and who have other honors than political ones, and a better life as well? No one.

The next topic is the education of the philosopher-kings. (1) Their initial education is in music and poetry, physical training, and elementary mathematics. (2) This is followed by two or three years of compulsory physical training, rather like the military service that some countries still require. (3) Those who are most successful in these studies next receive ten years of education in mathematical science. (4) Those who are again most successful receive five years of training in dialectic. (5) Those who are still most successful receive fifteen years of practical political training. Finally, (6) those who are also successful in practical politics are “compelled to lift up the radiant light of their souls” to the good itself and are equipped to be philosopher-kings.

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Book VIII

The description of the kallipolis and of the man whose character resembles it—the philosopher-king — is now complete, and Socrates returns to the argument interrupted at the beginning of Book V. He describes four individual character types and the four types of constitutions that result when people who possess them rule in a city. He presents these as four stages in the increasing corruption or decline of the kallipolis, and he explains, by appeal to the mathematical myth of the geometrical number, why the kallipolis will decline. However, embedded in the myth is the serious philosophical suggestion that the kallipolis will decline because the philosopher-kings have to rely on sense perception in putting their eugenics policy into practice.

The first of the bad cities Socrates describes is a timocracy. It is ruled by people whose souls are themselves ruled by the spirited part of their soul, in which the desire for honor, victories, and good reputation are located. It is the second- best city to the kallipolis. The third-best city is an oligarchy. It is ruled by people whose souls are ruled by their necessary appetites. The fourth-best city is a democracy. It is ruled by people whose souls are ruled by unnecessary appetites. The worst city of all is a tyranny. It is ruled by someone whose soul is ruled by its lawless and unnecessary appetites.

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Book IX

[571] It remains, I said, to consider the tyrannical man himself, how he evolves from a democrat, what he is like when he has come into being, and whether he is wretched or blessedly happy.

Yes, he said, he is the one who is still missing. And do you know what else I think is still missing? What? I don’t think we have adequately distinguished the kinds and numbers of our desires, and, if that subject

isn’t adequately dealt with, our entire investigation [b] will be less clear. Well, isn’t now as fine a time as any to discuss the matter? It certainly is. Consider, then, what I want to know about our desires. It’s this: Some of our unnecessary

pleasures and desires seem to me to be lawless. They are probably present in everyone, but they are held in check by the laws and by the better desires in alliance with reason. In a few people, they have been eliminated entirely or only a few weak ones remain, while in others they are [c] stronger and more numerous.

What desires do you mean? Those that are awakened in sleep, when the rest of the soul — the rational, gentle, and ruling part—

slumbers. Then the beastly and savage part, full of food and drink, casts off sleep and seeks to find a way to gratify itself. You know that there is nothing it won’t dare to do at such a time, free of all control by shame or reason. It doesn’t shrink from trying to have sex with a mother, as it supposes, or with anyone else at all, whether man, god, or beast. It will commit [d] any foul murder, and there is no food it refuses to eat. In a word, it omits no act of folly or shamelessness.

That’s completely true. On the other hand, I suppose that someone who is healthy and moderate with himself goes to sleep only

after having done the following: First, he rouses his rational part and feasts it on fine arguments and speculations; second, he neither starves nor feasts his [e] appetites, so that they will slumber and not disturb his best part with either their pleasure or their pain, but they’ll leave it alone, pure and by itself, to get [572] on with its investigations, to yearn after and perceive something, it knows not what, whether it is past, present, or future; third, he soothes his spirited part in the same way, for example, by not falling asleep with his spirit still aroused after an outburst of anger. And when he has quieted these two parts and aroused the third, in which reason resides, and so takes his rest, you know that it is then that he best grasps the truth and that the visions that appear in his dreams are least lawless. [b]

Entirely so.

However, we’ve been carried away from what we wanted to establish, which is this: Our dreams make it clear that there is a dangerous, wild, and lawless form of desire in everyone, even in those of us who seem to be entirely moderate or measured. See whether you think I’m talking sense and whether or not you agree with me.

I do agree. Recall, then, what we said a democratic man is like. He was produced by being brought up from youth by

a thrifty father who valued only those desires that make money and who despised the unnecessary [c] ones that aim at frivolity and display. Isn’t that right?

Yes. And by associating with more sophisticated men, who are full of the latter desires, he starts to indulge in

every kind of insolence and to adopt their form of behavior, because of his hatred of his father’s thrift. But, because he has a better nature than his corrupters, he is pulled in both directions and settles down in the middle between his father’s way of life and theirs. And enjoying each in moderation, as he supposes, [d] he leads a life that is neither slavish nor lawless and from having been oligarchic he becomes democratic.

That was and is our opinion about this type of man. Suppose now that this man has in turn become older and that he has a son who is brought up in his father’s

ethos. All right.

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And further suppose that the same things that happened to his father now happen to him. First, he is led to all the kinds of lawlessness that those who are [e] leading him call freedom. Then his father and the rest of the household come to the aid of the middle desires, while the others help the other ones. Then, when those clever enchanters and tyrant-makers have no hope of keeping hold of the young man in any other way, they contrive to plant in him a powerful erotic love, like a great winged drone, to be the leader of those idle desires that spend whatever is at hand. [573] Or do you think that erotic love is anything other than an enormous drone in such people?

I don’t think that it could be anything else. And when the other desires — filled with incense, myrrh, wreaths, wine, and the other pleasures found in

their company — buzz around the drone, nurturing it and making it grow as large as possible, they plant the sting of longing in it. Then this leader of the soul adopts madness as its bodyguard and becomes [b] frenzied. If it finds any beliefs or desires in the man that are thought to be good or that still have some shame, it destroys them and throws them out, until it’s purged him of moderation and filled him with imported madness.

You’ve perfectly described the evolution of a tyrannical man. Is this the reason that erotic love has long been called a tyrant? It looks that way. Then doesn’t a drunken man have something of [c] a tyrannical mind? Yes, he has. And a man who is mad and deranged attempts to rule not just human beings, but gods as well, and expects

that he will be able to succeed. He certainly does. Then a man becomes tyrannical in the precise sense of the term when either his nature or his way of life or

both of them together make him drunk, filled with erotic desire, and mad. Absolutely. This, then, it seems, is how a tyrannical man comes to be. But what way does he live? No doubt you’re going to tell me, just as posers of riddles usually do. [d] I am. I think that someone in whom the tyrant of erotic love dwells and in whom it directs everything next

goes in for feasts, revelries, luxuries, girlfriends, and all that sort of thing. Necessarily. And don’t many terrible desires grow up day and night beside the tyrannical one, needing many things to

satisfy them? Indeed they do. Hence any income someone like that has is soon spent. Of course. Then borrowing follows, and expenditure of capital. [e] What else? And when everything is gone, won’t the violent crowd of desires that has nested within him inevitably

shout in protest? And driven by the stings of the other desires and especially by erotic love itself (which leads all of them as its bodyguard), won’t he become frenzied and look to see who possesses anything that he could take, by either deceit or force? [574]

He certainly will. Consequently, he must acquire wealth from every source or live in great pain and suffering. He must. And just as the pleasures that are latecomers outdo the older ones and steal away their satisfactions, won’t

the man himself think that he deserves to outdo his father and mother, even though he is younger than they are—to take and spend his father’s wealth when he’s spent his own share?

Of course. And if they won’t give it to him, won’t he first try [b] to steal it from them by deceitful means? Certainly.

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And if that doesn’t work, wouldn’t he seize it by force? I suppose so. And if the old man and woman put up a fight, would he be careful to refrain from acting like a tyrant? I’m not very optimistic about their fate, if they do. But, good god, Adeimantus, do you think he’d sacrifice his long-loved and irreplaceable mother for a

recently acquired girlfriend whom he can do without? Or that for the sake of a newfound and replaceable [c] boyfriend in the bloom of youth, he’d strike his aged and irreplaceable father, his oldest friend? Or that he’d make his parents the slaves of these others, if he brought them under the same roof?

Yes, indeed he would. It seems to be a very great blessing to produce a tyrannical son! It certainly does! What about when the possessions of his father and [d] mother give out? With that great swarm of

pleasures inside him, won’t he first try to break into someone’s house or snatch someone’s coat late at night? Then won’t he try to loot a temple? And in all this, the old traditional opinions that he had held from childhood about what is fine or shameful — opinions that are accounted just — are overcome by the opinions, newly released from slavery, that are now the bodyguard of erotic love and hold sway along with it. When he [e] himself was subject to the laws and his father and had a democratic constitution within him, these opinions used only to be freed in sleep. Now, however, under the tyranny of erotic love, he has permanently become while awake what he used to become occasionally while asleep, and he won’t hold back from any terrible murder or from any kind of food or act. But, rather, erotic love lives like a tyrant within him, in complete [575] anarchy and lawlessness as his sole ruler, and drives him, as if he were a city, to dare anything that will provide sustenance for itself and the unruly mob around it (some of whose members have come in from the outside as a result of his keeping bad company, while others have come from within, freed and let loose by his own bad habits). Isn’t this the life that a tyrannical man leads?

It is indeed. Now, if there are only a few such men in a city, and the rest of the people are moderate, this mob will leave

the city in order to act as a bodyguard to some other tyrant or to serve as mercenaries if there [b] happens to be a war going on somewhere. But if they chance to live in a time of peace and quiet, they’ll remain in the city and bring about lots of little evils.

What sort of evils do you mean? They steal, break into houses, snatch purses, steal clothes, rob temples, and sell people into slavery.

Sometimes, if they are good speakers, they become sycophants and bear false witness and accept bribes.1 These evils are small, provided that there happen to be only a few such people. [c] Yes, for small things are small by comparison to big ones. And when it comes to producing wickedness

and misery in a city, all these evils together don’t, as the saying goes, come within a mile of the rule of a tyrant. But when such people become numerous and conscious of their numbers, it is they—aided by the foolishness of the people—who create a tyrant. And he, more than any of them, has in his soul the greatest and strongest tyrant of all. [d]

Naturally, for he’d be the most tyrannical. That’s if the city happens to yield willingly, but if it resists him, then, just as he once chastised his mother

and father, he’ll now chastise his fatherland, if he can, by bringing in new friends and making his fatherland and his dear old motherland (as the Cretans call it) their slaves and keeping them that way, for this is surely the end at which such a man’s desires are directed.

It most certainly is. [e] Now, in private life, before a tyrannical man attains power, isn’t he this sort of person—one who associates

primarily with flatterers who are ready to obey him in everything? Or if he himself happens to need anything from other people, isn’t he willing to fawn on them and make every gesture of friendship, as if he were [576] dealing with his own family? But once he gets what he wants, don’t they become strangers again?

Yes, they certainly do. So someone with a tyrannical nature lives his whole life without being friends with anyone, always a

master to one man or a slave to another and never getting a taste of either freedom or true friendship. That’s right.

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Wouldn’t we be right to call someone like that untrustworthy? Of course. And isn’t he as unjust as anyone can be? If indeed [b] what we earlier agreed about justice was right. And it certainly was right.

Then, let’s sum up the worst type of man: His waking life is like the nightmare we described earlier.2 That’s right. And he evolves from someone by nature most tyrannical who achieves sole rule. And the longer he

remains tyrant, the more like the nightmare he becomes. That’s inevitable, said Glaucon, taking over the argument. Well, then, I said, isn’t the man who is clearly most vicious also clearly most wretched? And isn’t the one

[c] who for the longest time is most of all a tyrant, most wretched for the longest time? If, that is to say, truth rather than majority opinion is to settle these questions.

That much is certain, at any rate. And isn’t a tyrannical man like a city ruled by a tyrant, a democratic man like a city ruled by a democracy,

and similarly with the others? Of course. And won’t the relations between the cities with respect to virtue and happiness be the same as those

between the men? [d] Certainly. Then how does the city ruled by a tyrant compare to the city ruled by kings that we described first? They are total opposites: one is the best, and the other the worst. I won’t ask you which is which, since it’s obvious. But is your judgment the same with regard to their

happiness and wretchedness? And let’s not be dazzled by looking at one man — a tyrant — or at the few who surround him, but since it is essential to go into the city and study the whole of it, let’s not give our opinion, till we’ve gone down and looked into every corner. [e]

That’s right, for it’s clear to everyone that there is no city more wretched than one ruled by a tyrant and none more happy than one ruled by kings.

Would I be right, then, to make the same challenge about the individuals, assuming, first, that the person who is fit to judge them is someone who in thought [577] can go down into a person’s character and examine it thoroughly, someone who doesn’t judge from outside, the way a child does, who is dazzled by the façade that tyrants adopt for the outside world to see, but is able to see right through that sort of thing? And, second, that he’s someone—since we’d all listen to him if he were — who is competent to judge, because he has lived in the same house with a tyrant and witnessed his behavior at home and his treatment of each member of his household when he is stripped of his theatrical façade, and has also seen how he behaves when in danger from the people? Shouldn’t [b] we ask the person who has seen all that to tell us how the tyrant compares to the others in happiness and wretchedness?

That’s also right. Then do you want us to pretend that we are among those who can give such a judgment and that we have

already met tyrannical people, so that we’ll have someone to answer our questions? I certainly do. Come, then, and look at it this way for me: Bearing in mind the resemblance between the city and the [c]

man, look at each in turn and describe its condition. What kinds of things do you want me to describe? First, speaking of the city, would you say that a tyrannical city is free or enslaved? It is as enslaved as it is possible to be. Yet you see in it people who are masters and free. I do see a few like that, but the whole city, so to speak, and the most decent part of it are wretched,

dishonored slaves. Then, if man and city are alike, mustn’t the same structure be in him too? And mustn’t his soul be full [d]

of slavery and unfreedom, with the most decent parts enslaved and with a small part, the maddest and most

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vicious, as their master? It must. What will you say about such a soul then? Is it free or slave? Slave, of course. And isn’t the enslaved and tyrannical city least likely to do what it wants? Certainly. Then a tyrannical soul — I’m talking about the whole soul — will also be least likely to do what it wants

and, forcibly driven by the stings of a dronish [e] gadfly, will be full of disorder and regret. How could it be anything else? Is a tyrannically ruled city rich or poor? Poor. Then a tyrannical soul, too, must always be poor [578] and unsatisfiable. That’s right. What about fear? Aren’t a tyrannical city and man full of it? Absolutely. And do you think that you’ll find more wailing, groaning, lamenting, and grieving in any other city? Certainly not. Then, are such things more common in anyone besides a tyrannical man, who is maddened by his desires

and erotic loves? How could they be? It is in view of all these things, I suppose, and [b] others like them, that you judged this to be the most

wretched of cities. And wasn’t I right? Of course you were. But what do you say about a tyrannical man, when you look at these same things? He’s by far the most wretched of all of them. There you’re no longer right. How is that? I don’t think that this man has yet reached the extreme of wretchedness. Then who has? Perhaps you’ll agree that this next case is even more wretched. Which one? The one who is tyrannical but doesn’t live a private [c] life, because some misfortune provides him with the

opportunity to become an actual tyrant. On the basis of what was said before, I assume that what you say is true. Yes, but in matters of this sort, it isn’t enough just to assume these things; one needs to investigate

carefully the two men in question by means of argument, for the investigation concerns the most important thing, namely, the good life and the bad one.

That’s absolutely right. Then consider whether I’m talking sense or not, for I think our investigation will be helped by the

following examples. [d] What are they? We should look at all the wealthy private citizens in our cities who have many slaves, for, like a tyrant, they

rule over many, although not over so many as he does. That’s right. And you know that they’re secure and do not fear their slaves. What have they got to be afraid of? Nothing. And do you know why?

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Yes. It’s because the whole city is ready to defend each of its individual citizens. You’re right. But what if some god were to lift one of these men, his fifty or more slaves, and his wife [e]

and children out of the city and deposit him with his slaves and other property in a deserted place, where no free person could come to his assistance? How frightened would he be that he himself and his wife and children would be killed by the slaves?

Very frightened indeed. And wouldn’t he be compelled to fawn on some of his own slaves, promise them lots of things, and [579]

free them, even though he didn’t want to? And wouldn’t he himself have become a panderer to slaves? He’d have to or else be killed. What if the god were to settle many other neighbors around him, who wouldn’t tolerate anyone to claim

that he was the master of another and who would inflict the worst punishments on anyone they caught doing it?

I suppose that he’d have even worse troubles, since he’d be surrounded by nothing but vigilant enemies. [b] And isn’t this the kind of prison in which the tyrant is held—the one whose nature is such as we have

described it, filled with fears and erotic loves of all kinds? Even though his soul is really greedy for it, he’s the only one in the whole city who can’t travel abroad or see the sights that other free people want to see. Instead, he lives like a woman, mostly confined to his own house, and envying any other citizen who happens to travel abroad and see something worth-[c] while.

That’s entirely so. Then, isn’t this harvest of evils a measure of the difference between a tyrannical man who is badly

governed on the inside — whom you judged to be most wretched just now — and one who doesn’t live a private life but is compelled by some chance to be a tyrant, who tries to rule others when he can’t even control himself. He’s just like an exhausted body without any self-control, which, instead of living privately, is compelled to compete and fight with other bodies [d] all its life.

That’s exactly what he’s like, Socrates, and what you say is absolutely true. And so, Glaucon, isn’t this a completely wretched condition to be in, and doesn’t the reigning tyrant have

an even harder life than the one you judged to be hardest? He certainly does. In truth, then, and whatever some people may think, a real tyrant is really a slave, compelled to engage in

the worst kind of fawning, slavery, and pandering to the worst kind of people. He’s so far from satisfying his desires in any way that it is clear— [e] if one happens to know that one must study his whole soul—that he’s in the greatest need of most things and truly poor. And, if indeed his state is like that of the city he rules, then he’s full of fear, convulsions, and pains throughout his life. And it is like it, isn’t it?

Of course it is. And we’ll also attribute to the man what we mentioned [580] before, namely, that he is inevitably envious,

untrustworthy, unjust, friendless, impious, host and nurse to every kind of vice, and that his ruling makes him even more so. And because of all these, he is extremely unfortunate and goes on to make those near him like himself.

No one with any understanding could possibly contradict you.

Come, then, and like the judge who makes the final decision,3 tell me who among the five — the king, the timocrat, the oligarch, the democrat, and the tyrant — is first in happiness, who second, and so on [b] in order.

That’s easy. I rank them in virtue and vice, in happiness and its opposite, in the order of their appearance, as I might judge choruses.

Shall we, then, hire a herald, or shall I myself announce that the son of Ariston has given as his verdict that the best, the most just, and the most happy is the most kingly, who rules like a king over [c] himself, and that the worst, the most unjust, and the most wretched is the most tyrannical, who most tyrannizes himself and the city he rules?

Let it be so announced. And shall I add to the announcement that it holds, whether these things remain hidden from every god

and human being or not?

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Add it. Good. Then that is one of our proofs. And there’d be a second, if you happen to think that there is

anything in this. [d] In what? In the fact that the soul of each individual is divided into three parts, in just the way that a city is, for that’s

the reason I think that there is another proof. What is it? This: it seems to me that there are three pleasures corresponding to the three parts of the soul, one peculiar

to each part, and similarly with desires and kinds of rule. What do you mean? The first, we say, is the part with which a person learns, and the second the part with which he gets angry.

As for the third, we had no one special name for it, since it’s multiform, so we named it after the biggest and strongest thing in it. Hence we called it [e] the appetitive part, because of the intensity of its appetites for food, drink, sex, and all the things associated with them, but we also called it the money-loving part, because such appetites are most easily satisfied by means of money. [581]

And rightly so. Then, if we said that its pleasure and love are for profit, wouldn’t that best determine its central feature for

the purposes of our argument and insure that we are clear about what we mean when we speak of this part of the soul, and wouldn’t we be right to call it money-loving and profit-loving?

That’s how it seems to me, at least. What about the spirited part? Don’t we say that it is wholly dedicated to the pursuit of control, victory,

and high repute? [b] Certainly. Then wouldn’t it be appropriate for us to call it victory-loving and honor-loving? It would be most appropriate. Now, it is clear to everyone that the part with which we learn is always wholly straining to know where the

truth lies and that, of the three parts, it cares least for money and reputation. By far the least. Then wouldn’t it be appropriate for us to call it learning-loving and philosophical? Of course. And doesn’t this part rule in some people’s souls, while one of the other parts — whichever it happens [c]

to be — rules in other people’s? That’s right. And isn’t that the reason we say that there are three primary kinds of people: philosophic, victory-loving,

and profit-loving? That’s it precisely. And also three forms of pleasure, one assigned to each of them? Certainly. And do you realize that, if you chose to ask three such people in turn to tell you which of their lives is most

pleasant, each would give the highest praise to his own? Won’t a money-maker say that the plea [d] sure of being honored and that of learning are worthless compared to that of making a profit, if he gets no money from them?

He will. What about an honor-lover? Doesn’t he think that the pleasure of making money is vulgar and that the

pleasure of learning — except insofar as it brings him honor—is smoke and nonsense? He does. And as for a philosopher, what do you suppose he thinks the other pleasures are worth compared to that

[e] of knowing where the truth lies and always being in some such pleasant condition while learning? Won’t he think that they are far behind? And won’t he call them really necessary, since he’d have no need for them if they weren’t necessary for life?

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He will: we can be sure of that. Then, since there’s a dispute between the different forms of pleasure and between the lives themselves, not

about which way of living is finer or more shameful or better or worse, but about which is more pleasant and less painful, how are we to know which of them is speaking most truly? [582]

Don’t ask me. Look at it this way: How are we to judge things if we want to judge them well? Isn’t it by experience,

reason, and argument? Or could anyone have better criteria than these? How could he? Consider, then: Which of the three men has most experience of the pleasures we mentioned? Does a

profit-lover learn what the truth itself is like or acquire more experience of the pleasure of knowing it than a philosopher does of making a profit? [b]

There’s a big difference between them. A philosopher has of necessity tasted the other pleasures since childhood, but it isn’t necessary for a profit-lover to taste or experience the pleasure of learning the nature of the things that are and how sweet it is. Indeed, even if he were eager to taste it, he couldn’t easily do so.

Then a philosopher is far superior to a profit-lover in his experience of both their pleasures. He certainly is. [c] What about an honor-lover? Has he more experience of the pleasure of knowing than a philosopher has of

the pleasure of being honored? No, for honor comes to each of them, provided that he accomplishes his aim. A rich man is honored by

many people, so is a courageous one and a wise one, but the pleasure of studying the things that are cannot be tasted by anyone except a philosopher.

Then, as far as experience goes, he is the finest judge of the three. [d] By far. And he alone has gained his experience in the company of reason. Of course. Moreover, the instrument one must use to judge isn’t the instrument of a profit-lover or an honor-lover

but a philosopher. What instrument is that? Arguments, for didn’t we say that we must judge by means of them? Yes. And argument is a philosopher’s instrument most of all. Of course. Now, if wealth and profit were the best means of judging things, the praise and blame of a profit-lover [e]

would necessarily be truest. That’s right. And if honor, victory, and courage were the best means, wouldn’t it be the praise and blame of an honor-

lover? Clearly. But since the best means are experience, reason, and argument … The praise of a wisdom-lover and argument-lover is necessarily truest. Then, of the three pleasures, the most pleasant is [583] that of the part of the soul with which we learn,

and the one in whom that part rules has the most pleasant life. How could it be otherwise? A person with knowledge at least speaks with authority when he praises his

own life. To what life and to what pleasure does the judge give second place? Clearly, he gives it to those of a warrior and honor-lover, since they’re closer to his own than those of a

money-maker. Then the life and pleasure of a profit-lover come last, it seems. Of course they do.

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These, then, are two proofs in a row, and the just [b] person has defeated the unjust one in both. The third is dedicated in Olympic fashion to Olympian Zeus the Savior.4 Observe then that, apart from those of a knowledgeable person, the other pleasures are neither entirely true nor pure but are like a shadow-painting, as I think I’ve heard some wise person say. And yet, if this were true, it would be the greatest and most decisive of the overthrows.

It certainly would. But what exactly do you mean? [c] I’ll find out, if I ask the questions, and you answer. Ask, then. Tell me, don’t we say that pain is the opposite of pleasure? Certainly. And is there such a thing as feeling neither pleasure nor pain? There is. Isn’t it intermediate between these two, a sort of calm of the soul by comparison to them? Or don’t you

think of it that way? I do. And do you recall what sick people say when they’re ill? Which saying of theirs do you have in mind? That nothing gives more pleasure than being healthy, but that they hadn’t realized that it was most

pleasant until they fell ill. [d] I do recall that. And haven’t you also heard those who are in great pain say that nothing is more pleasant than the

cessation of their suffering? I have. And there are many similar circumstances, I suppose, in which you find people in pain praising, not

enjoyment, but the absence of pain and relief from it as most pleasant. That may be because at such times a state of calm becomes pleasant enough to content them. And when someone ceases to feel pleasure, this calm will be painful to him. [e] Probably so. Then the calm we described as being intermediate between pleasure and pain will sometimes be both. So it seems. Now, is it possible for that which is neither to become both? Not in my view. Moreover, the coming to be of either the pleasant or the painful in the soul is a sort of motion, isn’t it? Yes. And didn’t what is neither painful nor pleasant come to light just now as a calm state, intermediate [584]

between them? Yes, it did. Then, how can it be right to think that the absence of pain is pleasure or that the absence of pleasure is

pain? There’s no way it can be. Then it isn’t right. But when the calm is next to the painful it appears pleasant, and when it is next to the

pleasant it appears painful. However, there is nothing sound in these appearances as far as the truth about pleasure is concerned, only some kind of magic.

That’s what the argument suggests, at any rate. Take a look at the pleasures that don’t come out [b] of pains, so that you won’t suppose in their case also

that it is the nature of pleasure to be the cessation of pain or of pain to be the cessation of pleasure. Where am I to look? What pleasures do you mean? The pleasures of smell are especially good examples to take note of, for they suddenly become very intense

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without being preceded by pain, and when they cease they leave no pain behind. But there are plenty of other examples as well.

That’s absolutely true. Then let no one persuade us that pure pleasure is [c] relief from pain or that pure pain is relief from

pleasure. No, let’s not. However, most of the so-called pleasures that reach the soul through the body, as well as the most intense

ones, are of this form — they are some kind of relief from pain. Yes, they are. And aren’t the pleasures and pains of anticipation, which arise from the expectation of future pleasures or

pains, also of this form? They are. Do you know what kind of thing they are and what [d] they most resemble? No, what is it? Do you believe that there is an up, a down, and a middle in nature? I do. And do you think that someone who was brought from down below to the middle would have any other

belief than that he was moving upward? And if he stood in the middle and saw where he had come from, would he believe that he was anywhere other than the upper region, since he hasn’t seen the one that is truly upper?

By god, I don’t see how he could think anything else. And if he was brought back, wouldn’t he suppose that he was being brought down? And wouldn’t he [e] be

right? Of course. Then wouldn’t all this happen to him because he is inexperienced in what is really and truly up, down, and

in the middle? Clearly. Is it any surprise, then, if those who are inexperienced in the truth have unsound opinions about lots of

other things as well, or that they are so disposed to pleasure, pain, and the intermediate state that, when they descend to the painful, they believe truly and are really in pain, but that, when they ascend from the painful to the intermediate state, they firmly [585] believe that they have reached fulfillment and pleasure? They are inexperienced in pleasure and so are deceived when they compare pain to painlessness, just as they would be if they compared black to gray without having experienced white.

No, by god, I wouldn’t be surprised. In fact, I’d be very surprised if it were any other way. Think of it this way: Aren’t hunger, thirst, and the like some sort of empty states of the body? [b] They are. And aren’t ignorance and lack of sense empty states of the soul? Of course. And wouldn’t someone who partakes of nourishment or strengthens his understanding be filled? Certainly. Does the truer filling up fill you with that which is less or that which is more? Clearly, it’s with that which is more. And which kinds partake more of pure being? Kinds of filling up such as filling up with bread or drink or

delicacies or food in general? Or the kind of filling up that is with true belief, knowledge, understanding, and, in sum, with all of virtue? Judge it this way: That which is related to what is always the same, immortal, [c] and true, is itself of that kind, and comes to be in something of that kind—this is more, don’t you think, than that which is related to what is never the same and mortal, is itself of that kind, and comes to be in something of that kind?

That which is related to what is always the same is far more. And does the being of what is always the same participate more in being than in knowledge?

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Not at all. Or more than in truth? Not that either. And if less in truth, then less in being also? Necessarily. And isn’t it generally true that the kinds of filling [d] up that are concerned with the care of the body share

less in truth and being than those concerned with the care of the soul? Yes, much less. And don’t you think that the same holds of the body in comparison to the soul? Certainly. And isn’t that which is more, and is filled with things that are more, really more filled than that which is

less, and is filled with things that are less? Of course. Therefore, if being filled with what is appropriate to our nature is pleasure, that which is more filled with

things that are more enjoys more really and truly [e] a more true pleasure, while that which partakes of things that are less is less truly and surely filled and partakes of a less trustworthy and less true pleasure.

That’s absolutely inevitable. Therefore, those who have no experience of reason [586] or virtue, but are always occupied with feasts and

the like, are brought down and then back up to the middle, as it seems, and wander in this way throughout their lives, never reaching beyond this to what is truly higher up, never looking up at it or being brought up to it, and so they aren’t filled with that which really is and never taste any stable or pure pleasure. Instead, they always look down at the ground like cattle, and, with their heads bent over the dinner table, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. To outdo5 others in these things, they kick [b] and butt them with iron horns and hooves, killing each other, because their desires are insatiable. For the part that they’re trying to fill is like a vessel full of holes, and neither it nor the things they are trying to fill it with are among the things that are.

Socrates, you’ve exactly described the life of the majority of people, just like an oracle. Then isn’t it necessary for these people to live with pleasures that are mixed with pains, mere images and

shadow-paintings of true pleasures? And doesn’t the juxtaposition of these pleasures and pains make them [c] appear intense, so that they give rise to mad erotic passions in the foolish, and are fought over in just the way that Stesichorus tells us the phantom of Helen was fought over at Troy by men ignorant of the truth?6

Something like that must be what happens. And what about the spirited part? Mustn’t similar things happen to someone who satisfies it? Doesn’t his

love of honor make him envious and his love of victory make him violent, so that he pursues the satisfaction of his anger and of his desires for honors [d] and victories without calculation or understanding?

Such things must happen to him as well. Then can’t we confidently assert that those desires of even the money-loving and honor-loving parts that

follow knowledge and argument and pursue with their help those pleasures that reason approves will attain the truest pleasures possible for them, because they follow truth, and the ones that are most their own, if indeed what is best for each thing is most its [e] own?

And indeed it is best. Therefore, when the entire soul follows the philosophic part, and there is no civil war in it, each part of it

does its own work exclusively and is just, and in particular it enjoys its own pleasures, the best and truest pleasures possible for it. [587]

Absolutely. But when one of the other parts gains control, it won’t be able to secure its own pleasure and will compel

the other parts to pursue an alien and untrue pleasure. That’s right. And aren’t the parts that are most distant from philosophy and reason the ones most likely to do this sort

of compelling? They’re much more likely.

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And isn’t whatever is most distant from reason also most distant from law and order? Clearly. And didn’t the erotic and tyrannical desires emerge as most distant from these things? [b] By far. And weren’t the kingly and orderly ones least distant? Yes. Then I suppose that a tyrant will be most distant from a pleasure that is both true and his own and that a

king will be least distant. Necessarily. So a tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and a king most pleasantly. Necessarily. Do you know how much more unpleasant a tyrant’s life is than a king’s? I will if you tell me. There are, it seems, three pleasures, one genuine and two illegitimate, and a tyrant is at the extreme end of

the illegitimate ones, since he flees both law [c] and reason and lives with a bodyguard of certain slavish pleasures. But it isn’t easy, all the same, to say just how inferior he is to a king, except perhaps as follows. A tyrant is somehow third from an oligarch, for a democrat was between them.

Yes. Then, if what we said before is true, doesn’t he live with an image of pleasure that is third from an

oligarch’s with respect to truth?7 He does.

Now, an oligarch, in turn, is third from a king,8 if [d] we identify a king and an aristocrat. Yes, he’s third. So a tyrant is three times three times removed from true pleasure. Apparently so. It seems then, on the basis of the magnitude of its number, that the image of tyrannical pleasure is a plane

figure. Exactly. But then it’s clear that, by squaring and cubing it, we’ll discover how far a tyrant’s pleasure is from that of a

king. It is clear to a mathematician, at any rate. Then, turning it the other way around, if someone wants to say how far a king’s pleasure is from a tyrant’s,

[e] he’ll find, if he completes the calculation, that a king lives 729 times more pleasantly than a tyrant and that a tyrant is the same number of times more wretched.9

That’s an amazing calculation of the difference between the pleasure and pain of the two men, the just and the unjust. [588]

Yet it’s a true one, and one appropriate to human lives, if indeed days, nights, months, and years are appropriate to them.

And of course they are appropriate. Then, if a good and just person’s life is that much more pleasant than the life of a bad and unjust person,

won’t its grace, fineness, and virtue be incalculably greater? By god, it certainly will. All right, then. Since we’ve reached this point in the argument, let’s return to the first things we [b] said,

since they are what led us here. I think someone said at some point that injustice profits a completely unjust person who is believed to be just. Isn’t that so?

It certainly is. Now, let’s discuss this with him, since we’ve agreed on the respective powers that injustice and justice

have.

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How? By fashioning an image of the soul in words, so that the person who says this sort of thing will know what

he is saying. What sort of image? [c] One like those creatures that legends tell us used to come into being in ancient times, such as the

Chimera, Scylla, Cerberus,10 or any of the multitude of others in which many different kinds of things are said to have grown together naturally into one.

Yes, the legends do tell us of such things. Well, then, fashion a single kind of multicolored beast with a ring of many heads that it can grow and

change at will — some from gentle, some from savage animals. That’s work for a clever artist. However, since words [d] are more malleable than wax and the like,

consider it done. Then fashion one other kind, that of a lion, and another of a human being. But make the first much the

largest and the other second to it in size. That’s easier—the sculpting is done. Now join the three of them into one, so that they somehow grow together naturally. They’re joined. Then, fashion around them the image of one of them, that of a human being so that anyone who sees only

the outer covering and not what’s inside will [e] think it is a single creature, a human being. It’s done. Then, if someone maintains that injustice profits this human being and that doing just things brings no

advantage, let’s tell him that he is simply saying that it is beneficial for him, first, to feed the multiform beast well and make it strong, and also the lion and all that pertains to him; second, to starve and weaken the [589] human being within, so that he is dragged along wherever either of the other two leads; and, third, to leave the parts to bite and kill one another rather than accustoming them to each other and making them friendly.

Yes, that’s absolutely what someone who praises injustice is saying. But, on the other hand, wouldn’t someone who maintains that just things are profitable be saying, first,

that all our words and deeds should insure that the human being within this human being has the most control; second, that he should take care of the [b] many-headed beast as a farmer does his animals, feeding and domesticating the gentle heads and preventing the savage ones from growing; and, third, that he should make the lion’s nature his ally, care for the community of all his parts, and bring them up in such a way that they will be friends with each other and with himself?

Yes, that’s exactly what someone who praises justice is saying. From every point of view, then, anyone who praises justice speaks truly, and anyone who praises injustice

speaks falsely. Whether we look at the matter from the point of view of pleasure, good reputation, or advantage, a praiser of justice tells the truth, while [c] one who condemns it has nothing sound to say and condemns without knowing what he is condemning.

In my opinion, at least, he knows nothing about it. Then let’s persuade him gently—for he isn’t wrong of his own will — by asking him these questions.

Should we say that this is the original basis for the conventions about what is fine and what is shameful? Fine things are those that subordinate the beastlike parts of our nature to the human—or better, perhaps, to the divine; shameful ones are those that enslave [d] the gentle to the savage? Will he agree or what?

He will, if he takes my advice. In light of this argument, can it profit anyone to acquire gold unjustly if, by doing so, he enslaves the best

part of himself to the most vicious? If he got the gold by enslaving his son or daughter to savage and evil men, it wouldn’t profit him, no matter how much [e] gold he got. How, then, could he fail to be wretched if he pitilessly enslaves the most divine part of himself to the most godless and polluted one and accepts golden gifts in return for a more terrible destruction than Eriphyle’s when she took the necklace in return [590] for her husband’s soul?11

A much more terrible one, Glaucon said. I’ll answer for him. And don’t you think that licentiousness has long been condemned for just these reasons, namely, that

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because of it, that terrible, large, and multiform beast is let loose more than it should be? Clearly. And aren’t stubbornness and irritability condemned because they inharmoniously increase and [b] stretch

the lionlike and snakelike12 part? Certainly. And aren’t luxury and softness condemned because the slackening and loosening of this same part produce

cowardice in it? Of course. And aren’t flattery and slavishness condemned because they subject the spirited part to the moblike beast,

accustoming it from youth on to being insulted for the sake of the money needed to satisfy the beast’s insatiable appetites, so that it becomes an ape instead of a lion?

[c] They certainly are. Why do you think that the condition of a manual worker is despised? Or is it for any other reason than

that, when the best part is naturally weak in someone, it can’t rule the beasts within him but can only serve them and learn to flatter them?

Probably so. Therefore, to insure that someone like that is ruled by something similar to what rules the best person, we

say that he ought to be the slave of that best person who has a divine ruler within himself. It isn’t to harm [d] the slave that we say he must be ruled, which is what Thrasymachus thought to be true of all subjects, but because it is better for everyone to be ruled by divine reason, preferably within himself and his own, otherwise imposed from without, so that as far as possible all will be alike and friends, governed by the same thing.

Yes, that’s right. This is clearly the aim of the law, which is the ally of everyone. But it’s also our aim in ruling our children,

we don’t allow them to be free until we establish a constitution in them, just as in a city, and — by fostering their best part with our own — equip them with a guardian and ruler similar to our [591] own to take our place. Then, and only then, we set them free.

Clearly so. Then how can we maintain or argue, Glaucon, that injustice, licentiousness, and doing shameful things are

profitable to anyone, since, even though he may acquire more money or other sort of power from them, they make him more vicious?

There’s no way we can. Or that to do injustice without being discovered and having to pay the penalty is profitable? Doesn’t the

one who remains undiscovered become even more vicious, while the bestial part of the one who [b] is discovered is calmed and tamed and his gentle part freed, so that his entire soul settles into its best nature, acquires moderation, justice, and reason, and attains a more valuable state than that of having a fine, strong, healthy body, since the soul itself is more valuable than the body?

That’s absolutely certain. Then won’t a person of understanding direct all his efforts to attaining that state of his soul? First, [c] he’ll

value the studies that produce it and despise the others. Clearly so. Second, he won’t entrust the condition and nurture of his body to the irrational pleasure of the beast

within or turn his life in that direction, but neither will he make health his aim or assign first place to being strong, healthy, and beautiful, unless he happens to acquire moderation as a result. Rather, it’s clear that he will always cultivate the harmony of his body for the sake of the consonance in his soul. [d]

He certainly will, if indeed he’s to be truly trained in music and poetry. Will he also keep order and consonance in his acquisition of money, with that same end in view? Or, even

though he isn’t dazzled by the size of the majority into accepting their idea of blessed happiness, will he increase his wealth without limit and so have unlimited evils?

Not in my view. Rather, he’ll look to the constitution within him and guard against disturbing anything in it, either by [e]

too much money or too little. And, in this way, he’ll direct both the increase and expenditure of his wealth, as

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far as he can. That’s exactly what he’ll do. And he’ll look to the same thing where honors are concerned. He’ll willingly share in and taste those [592]

that he believes will make him better, but he’ll avoid any public or private honor that might overthrow the established condition of his soul.

If that’s his chief concern, he won’t be willing to take part in politics. Yes, by the dog, he certainly will, at least in his own kind of city. But he may not be willing to do so in his

fatherland, unless some divine good luck chances to be his. I understand. You mean that he’ll be willing to take part in the politics of the city we were founding and

describing, the one that exists in theory, for I [b] don’t think it exists anywhere on earth. But perhaps, I said, there is a model of it in heaven, for anyone who wants to look at it and to make

himself its citizen on the strength of what he sees. It makes no difference whether it is or ever will be somewhere, for he would take part in the practical affairs of that city and no other.

Probably so, he said.

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Book X

The main argument of the Republic is now complete. Hence Socrates is in a position to discuss the kind of poetry about human beings that is permitted in the kallipolis, a discussion that had to be postponed in Book III (392a–c). Given the importance Socrates attributes to music and poetry and physical training (424b–425a) and the importance of Homer and Hesiod in Greek education, the return to this topic is hardly an anticlimax. It is rather the moment at which the new philosophy-based education confronts the traditional education based on poetry.

Central to this discussion is a new account of mimēsis, or imitation, based on the metaphysical theories introduced in Books V–VII. Earlier in Book III, imitation was something a person did by impersonating a character in a poem (394d ff.); now imitation is something a poem or a painting does.

Socrates’ critique of poetry is extremely subtle. The question on which it focuses is whether what one needs to know in order to be a good poet qualifies one as a teacher of virtue. Socrates argues that it does not. An imitator, in Plato’s new technical sense, is someone whose products are third from the truth (597e), because they imitate the sorts of things the craftsman makes, which are themselves only imitations of what the philosopher-king would make (596e–597e). Hence, if poetry is third from the truth, it too will be imitative, and the poet will be an imitator. But Socrates argues that the poet is an imitator in this sense (598d–607a), and consequently he does not even have true belief about virtue. Makers have true belief through associating with users, who alone have knowledge. But imitators don’t even have the kind of insight that makers do; they have only opinion—sometimes true, sometimes false — nothing more. Hence they are not reliable teachers of virtue and, because of their disturbing influence even on good people, should not be admitted into the kallipolis. Socrates’ ban on imitative poetry is not final, however. He allows for the possibility that someone might be able to construct a defense of poetry that would change his mind (607b–608b).

Having completed his account of poetry, Socrates turns to the topic of the immortality of the soul and to the previously excluded consequences of justice and injustice (609b–612e). He argues, in part by appeal to the Myth of Er, that the good consequences of justice both in this life and in the next far outweigh those of injustice. This completes his argument that justice belongs in the best of the three classes of goods that Glaucon distinguished at the beginning of Book II, since it is choiceworthy both for its own sake and for its consequences.

*Reprinted from Plato: Republic, translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), by permission of the publisher.

1. [The Thracian goddess Bendis, whose cult had recently been introduced in the Piraeus, the harbor area near Athens. —C.D.C.R.]

2. [Glaucon and Adeimantus were Plato’s brothers. They are Socrates’ chief interlocutors after Book I.]

3. [Lysias was a well-known writer of speeches for use in legal trials. Socrates discusses a speech attributed to him in the Phaedrus. Thrasymachus was a Sophist, a paid teacher of oratory and virtue. The few fragments of his writings that survive are translated in Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977). Charmantides is otherwise unknown.]

4. [Homer, Iliad 22.60, 24.487; Odyssey 25.246, 348, 23.212.]

5. [“God ever draws together like to like” (Homer, Odyssey 17.218). See Plato, Lysis 214a–215c.]

6. [Themistocles, a fifth-century Athenian statesman, was the chief architect of the Greek victory over Persia. By building up the navy, he secured Athens’ future as a naval power and also paved the way for the increased political power of the poorer classes, from which sailors were largely drawn. Seriphus is a small island in the Cyclades.]

7. [Pindar (518–438 B.C.), a lyric poet from Boeotia, was most famous for his poems in celebration of the victors in the games, such as the Olympian and Pythian, held in various parts of Greece.]

8. [Unlike their usual equivalents “just” and “justice,” the adjective dikaios and the noun dikaiosunē are often used in a wider sense, better captured by our words “right” or “correct.” The opposite, adikia, then has the sense of general wrongdoing.]

9. [Simonides (c. 548–468 B.C.), a lyric and elegiac poet, was born in the Aegean island of Ceos.]

10. [The Greek word translated as “craft” here is technē. It has the sort of connotation for Socrates and Plato that “science” has for us. Thus fifth-century doctors tried to show that medicine is a craft, much as contemporary psychoanalysts try to convince us that psychoanalysis is a science. For further discussion see Reeve, Socrates in the Apology, 37–45.]

11. [The reference is to Odyssey 19.392–98.]

12. [If something is a knife (say) or a man, its aretē or virtue as a knife or a man is that state or property of it that makes it a good knife or a good man. See Charmides 161a8–9; Euthyphro 6d6—e1; Gorgias 506d2–4; Protagoras 332b4–6; Republic 353d9–354a2. The aretē of a knife might include having a sharp blade; the aretē of a man might include being intelligent, well-born, just, or courageous. Aretē is thus broader than our notion of moral virtue. It applies to things (such as knives) that are not moral agents. And it applies to aspects of moral agents (such as

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intelligence or family status) that are not normally considered to be moral aspects of them. For these reasons it is sometimes more appropriate to render aretē as “excellence.” But “virtue” remains the best overall translation, and once these few facts are borne in mind, it should seldom mislead.]

13. [Bias of Priene in Ionia (now the region of Turkey bordering on the eastern shore of the Aegean) and Pittacus of Mytilene (on the island of Lesbos in the eastern Aegean), both sixth century B.C., were two of the legendary seven sages of Greece.]

14. [Periander was tyrant of the city of Corinth (650–570 B.C.). Perdiccas is probably Perdiccas II, king of Macedon (c. 450–413 B.C.), who is also mentioned in the Gorgias 471a—e. Xerxes was the king of Persia who invaded Greece in the second Persian war (begun in 480 B.C.). Ismenias is mentioned in the Meno 89e. All four are either notorious tyrants or men famous for their wealth.]

15. [The Greek word eirōneia, unlike its usual translation “irony,” is correctly applied only to someone who intends to deceive. Thus Thrasymachus is not simply accusing Socrates of saying one thing while meaning another; he is accusing him of trying to deceive those present. See G. Vlastos, “Socratic Irony,” Classical Quarterly 37 (1987): 79–96.]

16. [Pancration was a mixture of boxing and wrestling combined with kicking and strangling. Biting and gouging weer forbidden, but pretty well everything else, including breaking and dislocating limbs, was permitted.]

17. [Sight is the virtue or excellence of the eyes (see 335b n.12). Without it, the eyes cannot achieve what is advantageous to them, namely, sight. So eyes need some further virtue to seek and provide what is advantageous to them. But Socrates assumes throughout Book I that virtues are crafts (see 332d). Hence he can conclude that the eyes need a further craft to achieve what is advantageous to them.]

18. [Outdoing (pleonektein) is an important notion in the remainder of the Republic. It is connected to pleonexia, which is what one succumbs to when one always wants to outdo everyone else by getting and having more and more. Pleonexia is, or is the cause of, injustice (359c), since always wanting to outdo others leads one to try to get what belongs to them, what isn’t one’s own. It is contrasted with doing or having one’s own, which is, or is the cause of, justice (434a, 441e).]

19. [The temples acted as public treasuries, so that a temple robber is the equivalent of a present-day bank robber.]

20. [See 341e-342e.]

21. [Pleon echein. See 344a n.18.]

22. [Socrates’ point may seem obscure, but what he has in mind is explained at 350a. All expert musicians try to get the same thing, perfect harmony, so they tighten and loosen their strings to exactly the same degree, namely, the one that will produce the right pitch. In the same way, all doctors who are masters of medicine prescribe the same diet for people with the same diseases, namely, the one that will best restore them to health.]

23. [See 347e.]

24. [See 335b n.12.]

1. [Pleonexian. See 344a n.18.]

2. [In Seven Against Thebes, 592–94, it is said of Amphiaraus that “he did not wish to be believed to be the best but to be it.” The passage continues with the words Glaucon quotes at 362a–b.]

3. [Pleonektein. See 344a n.18.]

4. [See Homer, Odyssey 16.97–98.]

5. [The two quotations which follow are from Hesiod, Works and Days 332–33, and Homer, Odyssey 19.109.]

6. [Musaeus was a legendary poet closely associated with the mystery religion of Orphism.]

7. [Works and Days 287–89, with minor alterations.]

8. [Iliad 9.497–501, with minor alterations.]

9. [It is not clear whether Orpheus was a real person or a mythical figure. His fame in Greek myth rests on the poems in which the doctrines of the Orphic religion are set forth. These are discussed in W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985). Musaeus was a mythical singer closely related to Orpheus. Selene is the Moon.]

10. [The quotation is attributed to Simonides, whom Polemarchus cites in Book I.]

11. [Archilochus of Paros (c. 756–716 B.C.) was an iambic and elegiac poet who composed a famous fable about the fox and the hedgehog.]

12. [Pleonektountes. See 344a n.18.]

13. [Notice that a city (polis) is a collection of people, not a collection of buildings.]

14. [It seems likely that a sexual pun is intended since myrtle (murton) and acorn (phēgos) are common slang terms for the female and male genitalia, respectively.]

15. [The word philosophos is used here in its general sense to refer to intellectual curiosity or wanting to know things without ulterior motives. Plato is not suggesting (below) that pedigree dogs have the traits that he will attribute to full–blown philosophers in Books V–VII.]

1. [The Greek term is sōphrosunē. It has a very wide meaning: self-control, good sense, reasonableness, temperance, and (in some contexts) chastity. Someone who keeps his head under pressure or temptation possesses sōphrosunē.]

2. [Plato is here laying the foundations for his rejection of the principle, espoused by Socrates in many earlier dialogues, that weakness of will is

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impossible.]

3. [Leontius’ desire to look at the corpses is sexual in nature, for a fragment of contemporary comedy tells us that Leontius was known for his love of boys as pale as corpses.]

4. [Odyssey 20.27.]

5. [See 432c–433b.]

1. [See 435d.]

2. [Throughout, Socrates is punning on the word tokos, which means either a child or the interest on capital.]

3. [The “being” of something is sometimes taken to refer to what we call its essence. Socrates would then be saying that the essence of the fineness present in many things is the form of the fine.]

4. [The play may be on the similarity of sound between ouranou (“of heaven”) and horatou (“of the visible”). But it is more likely that Socrates is referring to the fact that ouranou seems to contain the word nou, the genitive case of nous (“understanding”), and relative of noētou (“of the intelligible”). Hence, if he said that the sun was sovereign of heaven, he might be taken to suggest in sophistical fashion that it was sovereign of the intelligible and that there was no real difference between the good and the sun.]

5. [The line is illustrated below:]

1. [Reading parionta autous nomizein onomazein. I.e., they would think that the name “human being” applied to the shadow of a statue of a human being.]

2. [Odyssey 11.489–90. The shade of the dead Achilles speaks these words to Odysseus, who is visiting Hades. Plato is, therefore, likening the cave dwellers to the dead.]

3. [A place where good people are said to live in eternal happiness, normally after death.]

4. [That is, the practical life of ruling the city and the theoretical life of studying the good itself.]

1. [Athens had nothing corresponding to our public prosecutors. By and large, private citizens prosecuted one another. By the middle of the fifth century, some people began to make a profession of prosecuting others for financial, political, or personal reasons. These people were called sycophants. A vivid sense of their power and importance is conveyed in L. B. Carter, The Quiet Athenian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).]

2. [See 571c–d.]

3. [This probably refers to the way in which plays were judged at festivals.]

4. [The first toast at a banquet was to the Olympian Zeus, the third to Zeus the Savior. By combining the two aspects of Zeus in a single form of address, Plato seems to be emphasizing the importance of this final proof.]

5. [Pleonexias. See 344a n.18.]

6. [According to the story, Stesichorus wrote a poem defaming Helen and was punished by being struck with blindness. His sight was restored. when he added a verse to the poem in which he claimed that it was a phantom of Helen and not Helen herself who was at Troy. See Phaedrus 243a.]

7. [Third because the Greeks always counted the first as well as the last member of a series, e.g., the day after tomorrow was the third day.]

8. [Because the timocrat is between them.]

9. [Socrates’ mathematics is difficult to follow. He seems to have something like this in mind. The tyrant’s image of pleasure is two- dimensional, whereas the true pleasure of the philosopher is three-dimensional. Hence, if a one-unit square represents the degree of closeness to true pleasure of an image nine times removed from it, true pleasure should be represented by a nine-unit cube. It follows that the king lives 729 times more pleasantly than the tyrant. However, in order to reach the number 729, which seems to have been significant to Pythagoras and his followers (there were, allegedly, 729 days and nights in the year, and 729 months in the “great year” recognized by the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus), Socrates has made two fast moves. First, he has illegitimately capitalized on the Greek manner of counting series in order to count the oligarch twice, once as the last term in his first series (tyrant, democrat, oligarch) and again as the first term in his second series (oligarth,

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timocrat, king). Second, he has multiplied the number of times the tyrant is removed from the oligarch by the number of times the oligarch is removed from the king, when he should have added them. The tyrant is therefore only five times removed from the king and lives only 125 times less pleasantly!]

10. [The Chimera was “lion in the front, serpent in the back, and she-goat in the middle” (Iliad 6.181). Scylla had six heads, each with three rows of teeth, and twelve feet (see Odyssey 12.85 ff., 245 ff.). Cerberus was a huge dog guarding the entrance to Hades; he had three heads and a serpent’s tail.]

11. [Eriphyle was bribed by Polynices to persuade her husband, Amphiaraus, to take part in an attack on Thebes. He was killed, and she was murdered by her son in revenge. See Odyssey 11.326–27; Pindar, Nemean 9.37 ff.]

12. [The snakelike part hasn’t been previously mentioned, although it may be included in “all that pertains to” the lion (588e). It symbolizes some of the meaner components of the spirited part, such as irritability, which it would be unnatural to attribute to the noble lion.]

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Aristotle

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), born in the Ionian colony of Stagira in northern Greece, was the son of a physician to the Macedonian ruler. At eighteen he entered Plato’s Academy in Athens, where he remained for two decades until Plato’s death. He then taught outside Athens for a dozen years, possibly including three as tutor to the young prince who later became known as Alexander the Great. In 335 Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his own school, the Lyceum, where he did his most productive research. On the death of Alexander in 323, an outbreak of anti-Macedonian feeling swept Athens, and Aristotle withdrew to the city of Calcis, “lest,” he reportedly said, “the Athenians should sin twice against philosophy.”

A distinguished historian of philosophy once referred to Aristotle as “the greatest mind produced by the Greeks”; even those who might not share this judgment would agree that his intellectual achievements were of enormous magnitude. Virtually singlehanded, he founded the study of logic. His philosophical treatises on metaphysics, ethics, politics, and aesthetics remain more than two thousand years later among the most profound works ever written on these subjects. His scientific studies produced groundbreaking results in biology, psychology, zoology, meteorology, and astronomy. Indeed, his later influence was so profound that during the Middle Ages he was often referred to simply as “the Philosopher.”

In his On Interpretation, Aristotle explores the varieties of propositions and their possible oppositions. The much-discussed ninth chapter considers the status of statements about future actions. When one person claims that a sea battle will occur tomorrow but another denies this claim, is either claim correct prior to tomorrow? If so, do all events occur by necessity?

As becomes clear in the Categories, a treatise on the structure of language with implications about the nature of reality, Aristotle rejected Plato’s Theory of Forms, arguing that universals have no subsistence apart from particulars. For example, humanity or redness do not exist independently but only as common elements in specific substances. Thus, whereas Plato viewed knowledge as an a priori inquiry into Ideas, for Aristotle the acquisition of understanding involved an empirical investigation of essential structures shared by individual entities.

The Posterior Analytics contains Aristotle’s account of the nature of scientific knowledge. His model is geometry, in which theorems are deduced from axioms, although in his own scientific work he realized the importance of empirical research. Nevertheless, his analysis of the logic of science contains numerous points of interest about such matters as definition, argument, and explanation.

He considered every substance a compound of form and matter, a position he maintained in his Metaphysics, so named since it came after the Physics in a first-century-B.C. edition of his works. In this treatise, after reviewing the opinions of his predecessors, he went on to investigate the study of “being qua being,” what is true of all things that exist. He maintained that each particular is an embodied essence, a thing with an intelligible structure.

As regards the nature of persons, Aristotle rejected Plato’s view of the soul as separate from the body, arguing in On the Soul that the soul is the body in action, just as sight is the activity of the eye. The soul, therefore, cannot exist apart from the body, for the processes of being, sensing, and knowing require an organism that lives, senses, and knows.

In the Physics, a study of the concepts used in physical science, Aristotle identified four causes or modes of explanation. These have come to be known as the material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause. In the case of a building, for example, its material cause may be bricks and mortar, its formal cause the architectural blueprints, its efficient cause the builders, and its final cause the providing of shelter. Aristotle stressed the importance of final causes in understanding the world, for in his view nature is teleological, exhibiting purposeful processes.

As to Aristotle’s views on the purpose of human life, these are to be found in his Nicomachean Ethics. This work (named after Aristotle’s son Nicomachus) is universally considered one of the great books of moral philosophy. It ranges from detailed analyses of such concepts as choosing, deliberating, and wishing, to a vision of the highest happiness as a life devoted to the exercise of pure reason. The book possesses some organizational difficulties; like other of Aristotle’s treatises, it may consist partly of texts of his lectures as preserved in his students’ notes. However, unity is provided by central themes, among which are the commitment to viewing the good as the fulfillment of human nature, the emphasis on a close relationship

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between ethics and the interests of society, and the need to distinguish moral from intellectual virtue. This latter distinction provides Aristotle with an answer to the question, raised at the opening of Plato’s

Meno, as to the origin of virtue. According to Aristotle, moral virtue, which we might call “goodness of character,” is formed by habit. One becomes good by doing good. Repeated acts of justice and self-control result in a just, self-controlled person who not only performs just and self-controlled actions but does so from a fixed character. Intellectual virtue, on the other hand, which we might refer to as “wisdom,” is acquired by teaching and requires foresight and sophisticated intelligence.

In opposition to the Socratic doctrine that a person who knows the good will necessarily do the good, Aristotle insists on our acknowledging the phenomenon of moral weakness: the situation, so easy to recognize and yet so difficult to explain, in which individuals act contrary to what they believe to be for the best. Typically, he emphasizes that a theory which denies the existence of moral weakness is at variance with observed facts.

• • •

A comprehensive guide to Aristotle’s thought is Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Detailed analyses of each of Aristotle’s major works are provided in the standard commentary by W. D. Ross, Aristotle: A Complete Exposition of His Works and Thought (1923; rpt. Cleveland, Ohio: Meridian Books, 1959). For a provocative account of Aristotle’s views on propositions about future choices, see Richard Taylor, “The Problem of Future Contingencies,” The Philosophical Review 66 (1957): 1–28. An incisive discussion of the Physics is Sarah Waterlow, Nature, Change and Agency in Aristotle’s Physics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). Detailed studies of Aristotle’s ethics include Richard Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989); C. D. C. Reeve, The Practices of Reason: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); and Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Useful articles on the Ethics are collected in Nancy Sherman, ed., Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999).

Steven M. Cahn

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Categories*

[la1] If things have only a name in common and the account of the essence corresponding to the name is different for each, they are called homonymous. Both man and the painted animal, for instance, are animals [homonymously]; for these have only a name in common and the account corresponding to the name is different. For if someone says what being an animal [5] is for each of them, he will give a different account for each.

If things have the name in common and also have the same account of the essence corresponding to the name, they are called synonymous. Both man and ox, for instance, are animals synonymously, since each is called animal, by a common name, and the account of the essence is the same. For if someone [10] gives an account of each, saying what being an animal is for each of them, he will give the same account.

Things that are called what they are by having a name from something with a different inflexion are called paronymous; for example, the grammarian is [15] so called from grammar, and the brave person from bravery.

Among things said, some involve combination, while others are without combination. Things involving combination are, e.g., man runs, man wins; things without combination are, e.g., man, ox, run, wins.

[20] Among beings some are said of a subject but are not in any subject; man, e.g., is said of a subject, an individual man, but is not in any subject. Some are in a subject, but are not said of any subject. (By ‘in a subject’ I mean what belongs in something, not as [25] a part, and cannot exist separately from what it is in.) An individual [instance of] grammatical knowledge, for example, is in a subject, the soul, but is not said of any subject; and an individual [instance of] white is in a subject, the body (for all color is in body), but is not said of any subject. Some things are both said of a subject and in a subject; knowledge, e.g., is in a [lb] subject, the soul, and is said of a subject, grammatical knowledge. Some things are neither in a subject nor said of a subject. This is true, for instance, of an individual man or horse; for nothing of this sort is [5] either in a subject or said of a subject.

Things that are individual and numerically one are, without exception, not said of any subject; but nothing prevents some of them from being in a subject; for an individual [instance of] grammatical knowledge is one of the things in a subject.

Whenever one thing is predicated of another as of a [10] subject, everything said of what is predicated is also said of the subject. Man, e.g., is predicated of an individual man, and animal of man; so animal will also be predicated of an individual man; for an individual [15] man is both man and animal.

Genera which are different and not subordinate to one another have differentiae that are different in species — e.g., the differentiae of animal and of knowledge. For footed, winged, aquatic, and biped are differentiae of animal, but none of them is a differentia of knowledge; for one sort of knowledge is not differentiated [20] from another by being biped. But if one genus is subordinate to another, nothing prevents them from having the same differentiae; for the higher genera are predicated of those below them, so that the subject will also have all the differentiae of the thing predicated.

Of things said without combination, each signifies [25] either substance or quantity or quality or relative or where or when or being in a position or having or acting on or being affected. To speak in outline, examples of substance are man, horse; of quantity: two feet long, three feet long; of quality: white, grammatical; of

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relative: double, half, larger; of where: in [2a] the Lyceum, in the market place; of when: yesterday, last year; of being in a position: is lying; is sitting; of having: has shoes on, has armor on; of acting on: cutting, burning; of being affected: being cut, being burnt.

[5] None of the things just mentioned is said all by itself in any affirmation; an affirmation results from the combination of these things with one another. For every affirmation seems to be either true or false, [10] whereas nothing said without combination — e.g. man, white, runs, wins — is either true or false.

What is called substance most fully, primarily, and most of all, is what is neither said of any subject nor in any subject—e.g., an individual man or horse. The [15] species in which the things primarily called substances belong are called secondary substances, and so are their genera. An individual man, e.g., belongs in the species, man, and animal is the genus of the species; these things, then, e.g. man and animal, are called secondary substances.

It is evident from what has been said that if something [20] is said of a subject, then both its name and its account must be predicated of the subject. For instance, man is said of a subject, an individual man, and the name is predicated (since you will predicate man of an individual man); moreover, the account [25] of man will also be predicated of an individual man (since an individual man is also a man). And so both the name and the account will be predicated of the subject.

On the other hand, if something is in a subject, in most cases neither its name nor its account is predicated of the subject. In some cases, however, though [30] nothing prevents the name from being predicated of the subject, the account still cannot be predicated. White, e.g., is in a subject, body, and is predicated of body (for body is said to be white); but the account of white will never be predicated of body.

[35] All other things are either said of the primary substances as subjects, or are in them as subjects. This is evident if we examine particular cases. Animal, e.g., is predicated of man, and so also of an individual man; for if it is not predicated of any individual man, neither [2b] is it predicated of man at all. Again, colour is in body, and so also in an individual body; for if it is not in any of the particular bodies, neither is it in body at all.

Hence all the other things are either said of the primary substances as subjects, or are in them as [5] subjects. If, then, the primary substances did not exist, neither could any of the other things exist. For all the other things are either said of these as subjects or are in these as subjects, so that if the primary substances did not exist, neither could any of the other things exist.

Among secondary substances, the species is more a substance than the genus, since it is nearer to the primary substance; for if someone says what the primary substance is, it will be more informative and [10] more appropriate if he mentions the species than if he mentions the genus. It will be more informative, for instance, to say that an individual man is a man than to say that he is an animal, since man is more distinctive of an individual man, while animal is more common; and it will be more informative to say that an individual tree is a tree than that it is a plant.

Further, the primary substances are subjects for all [15] the other things, and all the other things are predicated of them or are in them; and this is why they, most of all, are called substances. Butas the primary substances are related to other things, so also is the species related to the genus; for the species is a subject for the genus, [20] since the genera are predicated of the species, whereas the species are not reciprocally predicated of the genera. And so for this reason too the species is more a substance than the genus.

Among species themselves, however—those that are not genera—one is no more a substance than another; for it is no more appropriate to say that an individual man is a man than it is to say that an [25] individual horse is a horse. And similarly, among primary substances one is no more a substance than another; for an individual man is no more a substance than an individual ox is.

It is not surprising that, after the primary substances, only their species and genera are said to be secondary [30] substances; for they are the only things predicated that reveal the primary substance. For if one says what an individual man is, it will be appropriate to mention the species or the genus, though it will be more informative to mention man than animal. But it would [35] be inappropriate to mention anything else — e.g. white or runs or any other such thing. Hence it is not surprising that species and genera are the only other things said to be substances.

Further, it is because the primary substances are subjects for everything else that they are said to be [3a] substances most fully. But as the primary substances are related to everything else, so also are the species and

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genera of primary substances related to all the other things; for all the other things are predicated of them. For you will call an individual man grammatical, [5] and hence you will call both man and animal grammatical; and the same is true in the other cases.

A feature common to every substance is not being in a subject; for a primary substance is neither said of [10] nor in a subject. In this same way, it is evident that neither are secondary substances in a subject; for man is said of a subject — an individual man — but is not in a subject, since man is not in an individual man. Similarly, animal is said of a subject—an individual [15] man — but animal is not in an individual man.

Further, while things in a subject may sometimes have their name predicated of the subject, their account can never be predicated of it. Secondary substances, on the other hand, have both their account and their name predicated of the subject; for you will [20] predicate both the account of man and the account of animal, of an individual man. Hence no substance is in a subject.

This, however, is not distinctive of substance; the differentia is not in a subject either. For footed and biped are said of a subject—man—but are not in a [25] subject, since neither footed nor biped is in man. Again, the account of the differentia is predicated of whatever subject the differentia is said of; if footed is said of man, e.g., the account of footed will also be predicated of man, since man is footed.

We need not be worried that we will ever be compelled [30] to say that the parts of substances, being in a subject (the whole substance), are not substances. For when we spoke of things in a subject, we did not mean things belonging in something as parts.

It is a feature of substances and differentiae that everything called from them is so called synonymously. [35] For all the predications from these are predicated either of the individuals or of the species. (For there is no predication from a primary substance— since it is not said of any subject— and among secondary substances the species is predicated of an individual, and the genus is predicated both of the species and of an individual. Similarly, differentiae are also [3b] predicated both of the species and of the individuals.) Now the primary substances receive the account both of the species and of the genera, and the species receives the account of the genus; for whatever is said of what is predicated will also be said of the subject. [5] Similarly, both the species and the individuals receive the account of the differentiae; and we saw that synonymous things are those that both have the name in common and also have the same account. Hence everything called from substances and differentiae is so called synonymously.

Every substance seems to signify a this. In the case [10] of primary substances, it is indisputably true that each of them signifies a this; for what is revealed is an individual and numerically one. In the case of secondary substances, however, it appears from the character of the name that they also signify a this, whenever one speaks of man or animal; but this is not true. Rather, [15] each signifies a quality; for the subject is not one, as the primary substance is, but man and animal are said of many things. But it does not simply signify a quality as white does; for white signifies nothing other than quality, whereas the species and the genus demarcate [20] the quality of substance — for they signify a substance of a certain quality. One demarcates a wider area with the genus than with the species; for in speaking of animal one encompasses a wider area than in speaking of man.

It is also a feature of substances that nothing is contrary to them. For what could be contrary to a [25] primary substance? Nothing is contrary, for instance, to an individual man; nor is anything contrary to man or animal. This is not distinctive of substance, however, but is also true of many other things — e.g., of quantity, since nothing is contrary to two feet long, [30] nor to ten, nor to anything else of this kind. One might say that many is contrary to few, or large to small; but no definite quantity is contrary to any other.

Substance does not seem to admit of more or less. By this I do not mean that one substance is no more a substance than another—for we have said that it is; [35] rather, I mean that no substance is said to be more or less what it is. For example, if this substance is a man, it will not be more or less a man either than itself or than another. For one man is no more a man than another, in the way that one white thing is whiter than another, or one beautiful thing is more beautiful [4a] than another. In some cases a thing is called more or less something than itself—for example, the body which is white is said to be more white now than it was before, and the body which is hot is said to be [5] more or less hot [than it was]. But substance is not spoken of in this way; for a man is not said to be more a man now than before, nor is this said of any other substance. Thus substance does not admit of more or less.

[10] It seems most distinctive of substance that numerically one and the same thing is able to receive contraries. In no other case could one cite something numerically one that is able to receive contraries. For example, the color that is numerically one and the [15] same will not be pale and dark; nor will the action which is numerically one and the same be bad and good; and the same is true of anything else that is not a

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substance. But a substance that is numerically one and the same is able to receive contraries. An individual man, for instance, being one and the same, [20] becomes at one time pale, at another time dark, and hot and cold, and bad and good; nothing of the sort appears in any other case.

Someone might object, however, that statements and beliefs are like this, since the same statement [25] seems to be both true and false. If, e.g., the statement that someone is seated is true, when he has stood up this same statement will be false. The same is true of belief; for if someone were to believe truly that someone is seated, he will believe falsely if he has the same belief about him when he has stood up.

But even if one were to accept this, even so the way in which these receive contraries is different. For in the case of substances, a thing is able to receive [30] contraries by itself changing; for it changed when it became cold from hot (since it altered), or dark from pale, or good from bad, and similarly in the other cases it is able to receive contraries by itself changing. Statements and beliefs, on the other hand, themselves [35] remain completely unmoved in every way; it is because the object [they are about] is moved that the contrary comes to be about them. For the statement that someone is seated remains the same, but it comes [4b] to be true at one time, and false at another time, when the object has been moved. The same is true of belief. Hence at least the way in which substance is able to receive contraries—by a change in itself— is distinctive of it, if indeed one were to concede that [5] beliefs and statements are also able to receive contraries.

This, however, is not true. For it is not because they themselves receive something that a statement and a belief are said to be able to receive contraries, but because something else has been affected. For it is because the object is or is not some way that the [10] statement is said to be true or false—not because the statement itself is able to receive contraries; for, without exception, no statement or belief is moved by anything. And so, since nothing comes to be in them, they are not able to receive contraries. But substance is said to be able to receive contraries, because it receives them itself. For it receives sickness and health, or paleness and darkness; and because it [15] itself receives each thing of this sort, it is said to be able to receive contraries.

Hence it is distinctive of substance that numerically one and the same thing is able to receive contraries. So much, then, about substance.

*Reprinted from Aristotle, Selections, translated and edited by Terence Irwin and Gail Fine (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995), by permission of the publisher. The use of brackets within the text indicates insertions not found in the manuscript.

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On Interpretation*

[16a] We must first establish what names and verbs are, then what negations, affirmations, statements, and sentences are.

Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the [5] soul, and written marks are symbols of spoken sounds; and just as written marks are not the same for everyone, neither are spoken sounds. But the primary things that these signify (the affections in the soul) are the same for everyone, and what these affections are likenesses of (actual things) are also the same for everyone. We have discussed these questions in On the Soul; they belong to another inquiry.

[10] Some thoughts in the soul are neither true nor false, while others must be one or the other; the same is true of spoken sounds. For falsity and truth involve combination and division. Names and verbs by themselves, [15] when nothing is added (for instance, ‘man’ and ‘pale’) are like thoughts without combination and separation, since they are not yet either true or false. A sign of this is the fact that ‘goatstag’ signifies something but is not yet true or false unless ‘is’ or ‘is not’ is added, either without qualification or with reference to time.

[20] A name is a spoken sound that is significant by convention, without time, of which no part is significant in separation. For in ‘Grancourt,’ the ‘court’ does not signify anything in itself, as it does in the phrase ‘a grand court.’ But complex names are not the same [25] as simple ones; for in simple names the part is not at all significant, whereas in complex names the part has some force but does not signify anything in separation— for instance, ‘fact’ in ‘artifact.’ I say ‘by convention’ because nothing is a name by nature; something is a name only if it becomes a symbol. For even inarticulate noises—of beasts, for example—reveal something, but they are not names.

‘Not-man’ is not a name, nor is any established [30] name rightly applied to it, since neither is it a sentence or a negation. Let us call it an indefinite name.

‘Philo’s,’ ‘to-Philo,’ and the like are not names but [16b] inflections of names. The same account applies to them as to names, except that a name with ‘is’ or ‘was’ or ‘will be’ added is always true or false, whereas an inflection with them added is neither true nor false. For example, in ‘Philo’s is’ or ‘Philo’s is not’ nothing is yet either true or false. [5]

A verb is [a spoken sound] of which no part signifies separately, and which additionally signifies time; it is a sign of things said of something else. By ‘additionally signifies time,’ I mean that, for instance, ‘recovery’ is a name but ‘recovers’ is a verb; for it additionally signifies something’s holding now. And it is always a [10] sign of something’s holding, that is to say, of something’s holding of a subject.

I do not call ‘does not recover’ and ‘does not ail’ verbs; for, although they additionally signify time and always hold of something, there is a difference for which there is no established name. Let us call them indefinite verbs, since they hold of anything whether [15] it is or is not.

Similarly, ‘recovered’ and ‘will-recover’ are not verbs, but inflections of verbs. They differ from verbs because verbs additionally signify the present time, whereas inflections of verbs signify times outside the present.

A verb said just by itself is a name and signifies [20] something, since the speaker fixes his thought and the hearer pauses; but it does not yet signify whether something is or is not. For ‘being’ or ‘not being’ is not a sign of an object (not even if you say ‘what is’ without addition); for by itself it is nothing, but it [25] additionally

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signifies some combination, which cannot be thought of without the components.

A sentence is a significant spoken sound, of which some part is significant in separation as an expression, not as an affirmation. I mean that ‘animal,’ for instance, signifies something, but not that it is or is [30] not (but if something is added, there will be an affirmation or negation), whereas the single syllables of ‘animal’ signify nothing. Nor is the ‘ice’ in ‘mice’ significant; here it is only a spoken sound. In the case of double names, as was said, a part signifies, but not by itself.

[17a] Every sentence is significant, not because it is a [naturally suitable] instrument but, as we said, by convention. But not every sentence is a statement; only those sentences that are true or false are statements. Not every sentence is true or false; a prayer, for instance, is a sentence but it is neither true nor false. Let us set aside these other cases, since inquiry into them is more appropriate for rhetoric or poetics; our present study concerns affirmations.

[17a38] Some things are universals, others are particulars. By [40] ‘universal’ I mean what is naturally predicated of [17b] more than one thing; by ‘particular,’ what is not. For example, man is a universal, and Callias is a particular.

Necessarily, then, when one says that something does or does not hold of something, one sometimes says this of a universal, sometimes of a particular. Now if one states universally of a universal that something does or does not hold, there will be [5] contrary statements. (By ‘stating universally of a universal,’ I mean, for instance, ‘Every man is pale,’ ‘No man is pale.’) But when one states something of a universal, but not universally, the statements are not contrary, though contrary things may be revealed. (By ‘stating of a universal but not universally, [10] ‘I mean, for instance, ‘A man is pale, ‘A man is not pale.’ For although man is a universal, it is not used universally in the statement; for ‘every’ does not signify the universal, but rather signifies that it is used universally.)

In the case of what is predicated, it is not true to predicate a universal universally; for there will be [15] no affirmation in which the universal is predicated universally of what is predicated, as in, for instance, ‘Every man is every animal.’

I call an affirmation and a negation contradictory opposites when what one signifies universally the other signifies not universally—for instance, ‘Every man is pale’ and ‘Not every man is pale,’ or ‘No man is pale’ and ‘Some man is pale.’ But the universal [20] affirmation and the universal negation — for instance, ‘Every man is just’ and ‘No man is just’ — are contrary opposites. That is why they cannot both be true at the same time, but their [contradictory] opposites may both be true about the same thing—for instance, ‘Not [25] every man is pale’ and ‘Some man is pale.’

Of contradictory universal statements about a universal, one or the other must be true or false; similarly if they are about particulars—for instance, ‘Socrates is pale’ and ‘Socrates is not pale.’ But if they are about universals, but are not universal [statements], it is not always the case that one is true, the other [30] false. For it is true to say at the same time that a man is pale and that a man is not pale, and that a man is handsome and that a man is not handsome; for if ugly, then not handsome. And if something is becoming F, it is also not F. This might seem strange at first sight, since ‘A man is not pale’ might [35] appear to signify at the same time that no man is pale; but it does not signify the same, nor does it necessarily hold at the same time.

It is clear that a single affirmation has a single negation. For the negation must deny the same thing [40] that the affirmation affirms, and deny it of the same [18a] [subject]—either of a particular or of a universal, either universally or not universally, as, for instance, in ‘Socrates is pale’ and ‘Socrates is not pale.’ (But if something else is denied, or the same thing is denied of a different [subject], that will not be the opposite statement but a different one.) The opposite of ‘Every [5] man is pale’ is ‘Not every man is pale’; of ‘Some man is pale,’ ‘No man is pale’; of ‘A man is pale,’ ‘A man is not pale.’

We have explained, then, that a single affirmation has a single negation as its contradictory opposite, [10] and which these are; that contrary statements are different, and which these are; and that not all contradictory pairs are true or false, and why and when they are true or false.

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[18a28] In the case of what is and what has been, then, it is [30] necessary that the affirmation or negation be true or false. And in the case of universal statements about universals, it is always [necessary] for one to be true and the other false; and the same is true in the case of particulars, as we have said. But in the case of universals not spoken of universally, this is not necessary; we have also discussed this. But in the case of particulars that are going to be, it is not the same.

For if every affirmation or negation is true or false, [35] then it is also necessary that everything either is the case or is not the case. And so if someone says that something will be and another denies the same thing, clearly it is necessary for one of them to speak truly, if every affirmation is true or false. For both will not be the case at the same time in such cases.

[18b] For if it is true to say that something is pale or not pale, it is necessary for it to be pale or not pale; and if it is pale or not pale, it was true to affirm or deny this. And if it is not the case, one speaks falsely; and if one speaks falsely, it is not the case. Hence it is necessary for the affirmation or the negation to be true or false.

[5] Therefore nothing either is or happens by chance or as chance has it; nor will it be nor not be [thus]. Rather, everything [happens] from necessity and not as chance has it, since either the affirmer or the denier speaks truly. For otherwise, it might equally well happen or not happen; for what happens as chance has it neither is nor will be any more this way than that.

[10] Further, if something is pale now, it was true to say previously that it would be pale, so that it was always true to say of any thing that has happened that it would be. But if it was always true to say that it was or would be, it could not not be, or not be going to be. But if something cannot not happen, it is impossible for it not to happen; and what cannot [15] not happen necessarily happens. Everything, then, that will be will be necessarily. Therefore, nothing will be as chance has it or by chance; for if it is by chance it is not from necessity.

But it is not possible to say that neither is true — that, for example, it neither will be nor will not be. For, first, [if this is possible, then] though the affirmation is false, the negation is not true; and though the negation is false, it turns out [on this view] that the [20] affirmation is not true.

Moreover, if it is true to say that it is pale and dark, both must be the case; and if [both] will be the case tomorrow, [both] must be the case tomorrow. But if it neither will nor will not be tomorrow, even so, the sea battle, for instance, will not happen as chance [25] has it; for in this case, the sea battle would have to neither happen nor not happen.

These and others like them are the absurd consequences if in every affirmation and negation (either about universals spoken of universally or about particulars) it is necessary that one of the opposites be true and the other false, and nothing happens as [30] chance has it, but all things are and happen from necessity. Hence there would be no need to deliberate or to take trouble, thinking that if we do this, that will be, and if we do not, it will not be; for it might well be that ten thousand years ago one person said [35] that this would be and another denied it, so that whichever it was true to affirm at that time will be so from necessity.

Nor does it make a difference whether or not anyone made the contradictory statements; for clearly things are thus even if someone did not affirm it and another deny it. For it is not because of the affirming or denying that it will be or will not be the case, nor is this any more so for ten thousand years ago than [19a] for any other time.

Hence if in the whole of time things were such that one or the other statement was true, it was necessary for this to happen, and each thing that happened was always such as to happen from necessity. For if someone has said truly that something [5] will happen, it cannot not happen; and it was always true to say of something that has happened that it would be.

But surely this is impossible. For we see that both deliberation and action originate things that will be; and, in general, we see in things that are not always in actuality that there is the possibility both of being [10] and of not being; in these cases both being and not being, and hence both happening and not happening, are possible.

We find that this is clearly true of many things. It is possible, for instance, for this cloak to be cut up, though [in fact] it will not be cut up but will wear out first instead. Similarly, its not being cut up is also [15] possible; for its wearing out first would not have been the case unless its not being cut up were possible. Hence the same is true for other things that happen, since this sort of possibility is ascribed to many of them.

Evidently, then, not everything is or happens from [20] necessity. Rather, some things happen as chance has it, and the affirmation is no more true than the negation. In other cases, one alternative [happens] more

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than the other and happens usually, but it is still possible for the other to happen and for the first not to happen.

It is necessary for what is, whenever it is, to be, and for what is not, whenever it is not, not to be. But [25] not everything that is necessarily is; and not everything that is not necessarily is not. For everything’s being from necessity when it is is not the same as everything’s being from necessity without qualification; and the same is true of what is not.

The same argument also applies to contradictories. It is necessary for everything either to be or not to be, and indeed to be going to be or not be going to be. But one cannot divide [the contradictories] and [30] say that one or the other is necessary. I mean that, for instance, it is necessary for there to be or not to be a sea battle tomorrow, but it is not necessary for a sea battle to happen tomorrow, nor is it [necessary] for one not to happen. It is necessary, however, for it either to happen or not to happen.

And so, since the truth of statements corresponds to how things are, it is clear that, for however many [35] things are as chance has it and are such as to admit contraries, it is necessary for the same to be true of the contradictories. This is just what happens with things that neither always are nor always are not. For in these cases it is necessary for one of the contradictories to be true and the other false. It is not, however, [necessary] for this or that one [more than the other one to be true or false]. Rather, [it is true or false] as chance has it; or [in the case of things that happen usually] one is more true than the other, but not thereby true or false [without qualification].

[19b] Clearly, then, it is not necessary that of every affirmation and negation of opposites, one is true and one false. For what holds for things that are [always] does not also hold for things that are not [always] but are capable of being and of not being; in these cases it is as we have said.

Now that we have determined these points, we should [21a34] consider the relation between negations and affirmations [35] of possible to be and not possible to be, and of admitting of being and not admitting of being, and about what is impossible and what is necessary. For these questions raise some puzzles.

For suppose that complexes are contradictories if they are ordered in accordance with being and not [21b] being. For instance, the negation of being a man is not being a man rather than being a not-man, and the negation of being a pale man is not being a pale man, rather than being a not-pale man. For [otherwise] if either the affirmation or the negation [of a given predicate] is true of everything, then it will be [5] true to say that a log is a not-pale man. If this is true, then it follows that in cases where being is not added, what is said instead of being will have the same effect. For instance, the negation of ‘a man walks’ is not ‘a not-man walks,’ but ‘a man does not walk’; for there is no difference between saying that a man walks and [10] saying that a man is walking.

And so, if this is true in every case, then it also follows that the negation of possible to be is possible not to be, rather than not possible to be. On the other hand, it seems that whatever is possible to be is also possible not to be; for whatever can be cut up or can walk can also not walk and not be cut up. The reason for this is that whatever can do these things does not [15] always actually do them, so that the negation will also belong to it; for what can walk can also not walk, and what can be seen can also not be seen. But it is impossible for opposite assertions to be true of the same subject. Hence this [ — possible not to be —] is not the negation [of possible to be]. For it follows [20] from what we have said that either the same thing is both said and negated of the same subject at the same time, or affirmation and negation do not result from the addition of being and not being.

If, then, the first alternative is impossible, the second is to be chosen; hence the negation of possible to be is not possible to be. The same argument also applies to admitting of being; for the negation of this [25] is not admitting of being. And this is also true in the same way in the other cases — for instance, necessary and impossible. In the previous cases being and not being were additions, and the subjects were pale and [30] man, whereas in this case being counts as a subject, while possible and admitting of being are additions that determine possibility and impossibility in the case of being, just as in the previous cases being or not being determined truth.

[35] The negation of possible not to be is not possible not to be. That is why the [statements] ‘it is possible to be’ and ‘it is possible not to be’ might actually seem to follow from each other. For whatever can be can also not be; for these statements do not contradict [22a] each other. But possible to be and not possible to be never hold at the same time, since they are opposites. Likewise, possible not to be and not possible not to be never hold at the same time. In the same way, the [5] negation of necessary to be is not necessary not to be, but not necessary

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to be; and the negation of necessary not to be is not necessary not to be. Again, the negation of impossible to be is not impossible not to be, but not impossible to be; and the negation of impossible not to be is not impossible not to be. And in general, as [10] we have said, one must count being and not being as the subjects, and attach these [qualifications] to being and not being to produce affirmation and negation. And one must suppose the opposite expressions to be these: possible and not possible, admitting and not admitting, impossible and not impossible, necessary and not necessary, true and not true.

[15] On this basis one thing follows from another in a reasonable way. Admitting of being follows from possible to be, and the latter follows reciprocally from the former. Moreover, both not impossible to be and not necessary to be follow from possible to be. Both not [20] necessary not to be and not impossible not to be follow from possible not to be and admitting of not being. Necessary not to be and impossible to be follow from not possible to be and not admitting of being. Necessary to be and impossible not to be follow from not possible not to be and from not admitting of not being. What we are saying may be studied in the following table:

A B

[25] 1. possible to be not possible to be

2. admitting of being not admitting of being

3. not impossible to be impossible to be

4. not necessary to be necessary not to be

C D

1. possible not to be not possible not to be

2. admitting of not being not admitting of not being [30]

3. not impossible not to be impossible not to be

4. not necessary not to be necessary to be Impossible and not impossible follow from admitting and possible, and from not admitting and not possible,

contradictorily, but conversely. For the negation [35] of impossible follows from possible to be, and the affirmation from the negation, i.e., impossible to be from not possible to be — for impossible to be is an affirmation, whereas not impossible is a negation.

But we must see what is true in the case of necessary. It is evident, then, that the same does not apply here, but rather the contraries follow, whereas the contradictories [22b] are separated. For not necessary to be is not the negation of necessary not to be, since both of these admit of being true of the same thing—for what is necessary not to be is not necessary to be.

But perhaps this arrangement of the negations of [10] necessary is impossible; for what is necessary to be is also possible to be. Otherwise the negation will follow, since it is necessary either to affirm or deny it, so that if it is not possible to be, it is impossible to be; but then what is necessary to be will turn out to be impossible to be, which is absurd. And yet, not impossible to be [15] follows from possible to be, and not necessary to be follows from not impossible to be, so that what is necessary to be turns out to be not necessary to be, which is absurd. And yet, neither necessary to be nor necessary not to be follows from possible to be; for in this case [— possible to be—], both [being and not being] admit of happening, whereas, whenever one [20] [of necessary and not necessary] is true, [the conjunction of] those others [— possible to be and possible not to be—] will no longer be true. For something is possible to be and not to be at the same time, but if it is necessary for it to be or not to be, it will not be possible to be both.

The remaining option, then, is that not necessary not to be follows from possible to be; for not necessary not to be is also true of what is necessary to be. For this also turns out to be the contradictory to what follows from not possible to be; for impossible to be [25] and necessary not to be follow from not possible to be, and the negation of necessary not to be is not necessary not to be. These contradictories, then, also follow in the way described, and nothing impossible results if they are arranged this way.

[b3] The reason these do not follow in the same way [5] as the others is that impossible has the same force as necessary, when it is applied in the contrary way. For if something is impossible to be, then it is necessary —

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not necessary to be, but necessary not to be; and if something is impossible not to be, then it is necessary to be. And so if those follow from possible and not possible in the same way, then these follow in a contrary way, since necessary and impossible signify the [10] same, except that, as we said, they are applied conversely.

[b29] One might be puzzled about whether possible to be follows from necessary to be. For if it does not follow, then its contradictory— not possible to be— will follow; and if one says that this is not the contradictory, then one must say that possible not to be is the contradictory; and both of these are false of what is necessary to be. And yet, on the other hand, it seems that whatever can be cut up can also not be [35] cut up, and that whatever can be can also not be, so that what is necessary to be will turn out to admit of not being, which is false.

It is evident, then, that not everything that can be or can walk can also be the opposite, and that there are cases in which this [presence of both opposites] is not true. This is true first of all in the case of things with nonrational potentialities; fire, for instance, has [23a] the potentiality to heat, and has a nonrational potentiality. Now in the case of potentialities involving reason, the same potentiality is for more than one thing, and indeed for contraries. This is not true, however, in the case of all nonrational potentialities, but, as we said, fire cannot both heat and not heat. Nor is it true in the case of things that are always in actuality; but some things, even insofar as they have nonrational [5] potentialities, are at the same time capable of producing opposites. Our remark, however, was meant to make it clear that not every potentiality—not even among potentialities of the same kind—is for opposites.

Now some potentialities are homonymous, since things are said to be potentially something in more than one way. In one case [x is said to have a potentiality for F] because it is true [that x is F], in that it is actually [F]; for instance, something is said to have a potentiality for walking because it is walking, and in general something is said to have a potentiality [10] because it is already actualizing the potentiality it is said to have. In another case [x is said to have a potentiality for F] because it might actualize [the potentiality]; for instance, something is said to have a potentiality for walking because it might walk. This second sort of potentiality applies only to things that can be moved; the first sort also applies to immovable things. In both cases it is true to say, both of what is [15] now walking and in actuality and of what might walk, that [if it has the potentiality to walk or be], it is not impossible for it to walk or be. It is not true, then, to ascribe the second sort of potentiality to what is necessary without qualification, but it is true to ascribe the first sort to it.

And so, since the universal follows from the partial, possible to be—though not every sort—follows from necessary to be. And presumably in fact what is necessary and what is not necessary are the principles of everything’s being or not being, and the other cases [20] should be considered as following from these.

It is evident from what has been said, then, that what is necessarily also is in actuality, so that if everlasting things are prior, actuality is also prior to potentiality. Moreover, some things — the primary substances—are actualities without potentiality, while other things have potentiality; these latter are prior in nature [to the potentiality] but posterior in time. Other things are never actualities but are merely potentialities.

225

Posterior Analytics*

226

BOOK I

[71a] All teaching and all intellectual learning result from previous cognition. This is clear if we examine all the cases; for this is how the mathematical sciences [5] and all crafts arise. This is also true of both deductive and inductive arguments, since they both succeed in teaching because they rely on previous cognition: deductive arguments begin with premisses we are assumed to understand, and inductive arguments prove the universal by relying on the fact that the particular is already clear. Rhetorical arguments also [10] persuade in the same way, since they rely either on examples (and hence on induction) or on argumentations (and hence on deduction).

Previous cognition is needed in two ways. In some cases we must presuppose that something is (for example, that it is true that everything is either asserted or denied truly [of a given subject]). In other cases we must comprehend what the thing spoken of is (for [15] example, that a triangle signifies this); and in other cases we must do both (for example, we must both comprehend what a unit signifies and presuppose that there is such a thing). For something different is needed to make each of these things clear to us.

We may also recognize that q by having previously recognized that p and acquiring recognition of q at the same time [as we acquire recognition of r]. This is how, for instance, we acquire recognition of the cases that fall under the universal of which we have cognition; for we previously knew that, say, every [20] triangle has angles equal to two right angles, but we recognize that this figure in the semicircle is a triangle at the same time as we perform the induction [showing that this figure has two right angles]. For in some cases we learn in this way, (rather than recognizing the last term through the middle); this is true when we reach particulars, i.e., things not said of any subject.

Before we perform the induction or the deduction, [25] we should presumably be said to know in one way but not in another. For if we did not know without qualification whether [a given triangle] is, how could we know without qualification that it has two right angles? But clearly we know it insofar as we know it universally, but we do not know it without qualification. Otherwise we will face the puzzle in the Meno, since we will turn out to learn either nothing or else [30] nothing but what we [already] know.

For we should not agree with some people’s attempted solution to this puzzle. Do you or do you not know that every pair is even? When you say you do, they produce a pair that you did not think existed and hence did not think was even. They solve this puzzle by saying that one does not know that every pair is even, but rather one knows that what one knows to be a pair is even. In fact, however, [contrary to this solution], one knows that of which one has [71b] grasped and still possesses the demonstration, and the demonstration one has grasped is not about whatever one knows to be a triangle or a number, but about every number or triangle without qualification; for [in a demonstration] a premiss is not taken to say that what you know to be a triangle or rectangle is so and so, but, on the contrary, it is taken to apply to every case.

But, I think, it is quite possible for us to know in one way what we are learning, while being ignorant of it in another way. For what is absurd is not that we [already] know in some way the very thing we are learning; the absurdity arises only if we already know it to the precise extent and in the precise way in which we are learning it.

We think we know a thing without qualification, and not in the sophistic, coincidental way, whenever we [10] think we recognize the explanation because of which the thing is [so], and recognize both that it is the explanation of that thing and that it does not admit of being otherwise. Clearly, then, knowing is something of this sort; for both those who lack knowledge and those who have it think they are in this condition, [15] but those who have the knowledge are really in it. So whatever is known without qualification cannot be otherwise.

We shall say later whether there is also some other way of knowing; but we certainly say that we know through demonstration. By ‘demonstration’ I mean a deduction expressing knowledge; by ‘expressing knowledge’ I mean that having the deduction constitutes having knowledge.

[20] If, then, knowing is the sort of thing we assumed it is, demonstrative knowledge must also be derived from things that are true, primary, immediate, better known than, prior to, and explanatory of the conclusion;

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for this will also ensure that the principles are proper to what is being proved. For these conditions are not necessary for a deduction, but they are necessary for a demonstration, since without them a deduction [25] will not produce knowledge.

[The conclusions] must be true, then, because we cannot know what is not [true] (for example, that the diagonal is commensurate). They must be derived from [premisses] that are primary and indemonstrable, because we will have no knowledge unless we have a demonstration of these [premisses]; for to have non- coincidental knowledge of something demonstrable is to have a demonstration of it.

[30] They must be explanatory, better known, and prior. They must be explanatory, because we know something whenever we know its explanation. They must be prior if they are indeed explanatory. And they must be previously cognized not only in the sense that we comprehend them, but also in the sense that we know that they are [true]. Things are prior and better known in two ways; for what is prior by [72a] nature is not the same as what is prior to us, nor is what is better known [by nature] the same as what is better known to us. By ‘what is prior and better known to us’ I mean what is closer to perception, and by ‘what is prior and better known without qualification’ I mean what is further from perception. What is most universal is furthest from perception, [5] and particulars are closest to it; particular and universal are opposite to each other.

Derivation from primary things is derivation from proper principles. (I mean the same by ‘primary things’ as I mean by ‘principles’.) A principle of demonstration is an immediate premiss, and a premiss is immediate if no others are prior to it. A premiss is one or the other part of a contradiction, and it says one thing of one thing. It is dialectical if it takes [10] either part indifferently, demonstrative if it determinately takes one part because it is true. A contradiction is an opposition which, in itself, has nothing in the middle. The part of the contradiction that asserts something of something is an affirmation, and the part that denies something of something is a denial.

By ‘thesis’ I mean an immediate principle of deduction [15] that cannot be proved, but is not needed if one is to learn anything at all. By ‘axiom’ I mean a principle one needs in order to learn anything at all; for there are some things of this sort, and it is especially these to which we usually apply the name.

If a thesis asserts one or the other part of a contradiction — for example, that something is or that something [20] is not — it is an assumption; otherwise it is a definition. For a definition is a thesis (since the arithmetician, for example, lays it down that a unit is what is indivisible in quantity), but it is not an assumption (since what it is to be a unit and that a unit is are not the same).

Since our conviction and knowledge about a thing [25] must be based on our having the sort of deduction we call a demonstration, and since we have this sort of deduction when its premisses obtain, not only must we have previous cognition about all or some of the primary things, but we must also know them better. For if x makes y F, x is more F than y; if, for instance, [30] we love y because of x, x is loved more than y. Hence if the primary things produce knowledge and conviction, we must have more knowledge and conviction about them, since they also produce it about subordinate things.

Now if we know q, we cannot have greater conviction about p than about q unless we either know p or are in some condition better than knowledge about p. This will result, however, unless previous knowledge [35] [of the principles] is the basis of conviction produced by demonstration; for we must have greater conviction about all or some of the principles than about the conclusion.

If we are to have knowledge through demonstration, then not only must we know the principles better and have greater conviction about them than about [72b] what is proved, but we must also not find anything more convincing or better known that is opposed to the principles and allows us to deduce a mistaken conclusion contrary [to the correct one]. For no one who has knowledge without qualification can be persuaded out of it.

[5] Some people think that because [knowledge through demonstration] requires knowledge of the primary things, there is no knowledge; others think that there is knowledge, and that everything [knowable] is demonstrable. Neither of these views is either true or necessary.

The first party — those who assume that there is no knowledge at all — claim that we face an infinite regress. They assume that we cannot know posterior things because of prior things, if there are no primary things. Their assumption is correct, since it is impossible to go through an infinite series. If, on the other hand, the regress stops, and there are principles, these are, in their view, unrecognizable, since these principles cannot be demonstrated, and, in these people’s view, demonstration is the only way of knowing. But if we cannot know the primary things, then neither can we know without qualification or fully the things [15]

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derived from them; we can know them only conditionally, on the assumption that we can know the primary things.

The other party agree that knowledge results only from demonstration, but they claim that it is possible to demonstrate everything, since they take circular and reciprocal demonstration to be possible.

We reply that not all knowledge is demonstrative, [20] and in fact knowledge of the immediate premisses is indemonstrable. Indeed, it is evident that this must be so; for if we must know the prior things (i.e., those from which the demonstration is derived), and if eventually the regress stops, these immediate premisses must be indemonstrable. Besides this, we also say that there is not only knowledge but also some origin of knowledge, which gives us cognition of the definitions.

[25] Unqualified demonstration clearly cannot be circular, if it must be derived from what is prior and better known. For the same things cannot be both prior and posterior to the same things at the same time, except in different ways (so that, for example, some things are prior relative to us, and others are prior without qualification — this is the way induction makes something known). If this is so, our definition of unqualified [30] knowledge will be faulty, and there will be two sorts of knowledge; or [rather] perhaps the second sort of demonstration is not unqualified demonstration, since it is derived from what is [merely] better known to us.

Those who allow circular demonstration must concede not only the previous point, but also that they are simply saying that something is if it is. On these terms it is easy to prove anything. This is clear if we [35] consider three terms—for it does not matter whether we say the demonstration turns back through many or few terms, or through few or two. For suppose that if A is, necessarily B is, and that if B is, necessarily C is; it follows that if A is, C will be. Suppose, then, that if A is, then B necessarily is, and if B is, A is [73a] (since this is what circular argument is), and let A be C. In that case, to say that if B is, A is is to say that [if B is,] C is; this [is to say] that if A is, C is. But since C is the same as A, it follows that those who allow circular demonstration simply say that if [5] A is, then A is. On these terms it is easy to prove anything.

But not even this is possible, except for things that are reciprocally predicated, such as distinctive properties. If, then, one thing is laid down, we have proved that it is never necessary for anything else to be the case. (By ‘one thing’ I mean that neither one term nor one thesis is enough; two theses are the fewest [10] [needed for a demonstration], since they are also the fewest needed for a deduction.) If, then, A follows from B and C, and these follow from each other and from A, then in this way it is possible to prove all the postulates from each other in the first figure, as we proved in the discussion of deduction. We also proved [15] that in the other figures, the result is either no deduction or none relevant to the things assumed. But it is not at all possible to give a circular proof of things that are not reciprocally predicated. And so, since there are few things that are reciprocally predicated in demonstrations, it is clearly empty and impossible to say that demonstration is reciprocal and that for this reason everything is demonstrable. [20]

Since what is known without qualification cannot be otherwise, what is known by demonstrative knowledge will be necessary. Demonstrative knowledge is what we have by having a demonstration; hence a demonstration is a deduction from things that are necessary. [25] We must, then, find from what and from what sorts of things demonstrations are derived. Let us first determine what we mean by ‘[belonging] in every case,’ ‘in its own right,’ and ‘universal.’

By ‘[belonging] in every case’ I mean what belongs not [merely] in some cases, or at some times, as [30] opposed to others. If, for example, animal belongs to every man, it follows that if it is true to say that this is a man, it is also true to say that he is an animal, and that if he is a man now, he is also an animal now. The same applies if it is true to say that there is a point in every line. A sign of this is the fact that when we are asked whether something belongs in every case, we advance objections by asking whether it fails to belong either in some cases or at some times.

A belongs to B in its own right in the following cases:

(a) [35] A belongs to B in what B is, as, for example, line belongs to triangle, and point to line; for here the essence of B is composed of A, and A is present in the account that says what B is.

(b) A belongs to B, and B itself is present in the account revealing what A is. In this way straight and curved, for instance, belong to line, while [40] odd and even, prime and compound, equilateral [73b] and oblong, belong in this way to number. In all these cases either line or number is present in the account saying what [straight or odd, for example,] is. Similarly in other cases, this is what I mean by saying that A belongs to B in its own [5] right. What belongs in neither of these ways I call coincidental — as, for instance, musical

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or pale belongs to animal. (c) A is not said of something else B that is the subject of A. A walker or a pale thing, for example, is a walker

or a pale thing by being something else; but a substance — i.e., whatever signifies a this — is not what it is by being something else. I say, then, that what is not said of a subject is [a thing] in its own right, whereas what is said of a subject [10] is a coincident.

(d) Moreover, in another way, if A belongs to B because of B itself, then A belongs to B in its own right; if A belongs to B, but not because of B itself, then A is coincidental to B. If, for example, lightning flashed while you were walking, that was coincidental; for the lightning was not caused by your walking but, as we say, was a coincidence. If, however, A belongs to B because of B itself, then it belongs to B in its own right. If, for example, an animal was killed in being sacrificed, the killing belongs to the sacrificing in its own right, [15] since the animal was killed because it was sacrificed, and it was not a coincidence that the animal was killed in being sacrificed.

Hence in the case of unqualified objects of knowledge, whenever A is said to belong to B in its own right, either because B is present in A and A is predicated of B, or because A is present in B, then A belongs to B because of B itself and necessarily. [It belongs necessarily] either because it is impossible for A not to belong to B or because it is impossible for neither A nor its opposite (for example, straight [20] and crooked, or odd and even) to belong to B (for example, a line or a number). For a contrary is either a privation or a contradiction in the same genus; even, for example, is what is not odd among numbers, insofar as this follows. Hence, if it is necessary either to affirm or to deny, then what belongs to a subject in its own right necessarily belongs to that subject. [25]

Let this, then, be our definition of what belongs in every case and of what belongs to something in its own right.

By ‘universal’ I mean what belongs to its subject in every case and in its own right, and insofar as it is itself. It is evident, then, that what is universal belongs to things necessarily. What belongs to the subject in its own right is the same as what belongs to it insofar as it is itself. A point and straightness, for instance, belong to a line in its own right, since they [30] belong to a line insofar as it is a line. Similarly, two right angles belong to a triangle insofar as it is a triangle, since a triangle is equal in its own right to two right angles.

A universal belongs [to a species] whenever it is proved of an instance that is random and primary. Having two right angles, for instance, is not universal to figure; for though you may prove that some figure [35] has two right angles, you cannot prove it of any random figure, nor do you use any random figure in proving it, since a quadrilateral is a figure but does not have angles equal to two right angles. Again, a random isosceles triangle has angles equal to two right angles, but it is not the primary case, since the triangle is prior. If, then, a random triangle is the [40] primary case that is proved to have two right angles, or whatever it is, then that property belongs universally [74a] to this case primarily, and the demonstration holds universally of this case in its own right. It holds of the other cases in a way, but not in their own right; it does not even hold universally of the isosceles triangle, but more widely.

230

BOOK II

[93a] We must consider over again what is right and what is wrong in what has been said, and what a definition is, and whether or not there is any sort of demonstration of what something is.

Now, we say that knowing what a thing is is the same as knowing the explanation of whether it is. [5] The argument for this is that there is some explanation [of whether a thing is] and this is either the same [as what the thing is] or something else, and if it is something else, then it is either demonstrable or indemonstrable. If, then, it is something else and is demonstrable, the explanation must be a middle term, and must be proved in the first figure, since what is being proved is universal and affirmative.

[10] One type of proof, then, would be the one examined just now — proving what something is through something else. For in proofs of what a thing is it is necessary for the middle term to be what [the thing] is, and in proofs of distinctive properties it is necessary for the middle term to be a distinctive property. Hence in one case you will, and in another case you will not, prove the essence of the same object. Now this [15] type of proof, as has been said before, is not a demonstration, but a logical deduction of what something is.

Let us say, then, starting again from the beginning, how a demonstration is possible. In some cases we seek the reason for something when we have already grasped the fact, and in other cases they both become clear at the same time; but it is never possible to recognize the reason before the fact. It is clear, then, that in the same way we cannot recognize the essence of a thing without knowing that the thing is; for it is [20] impossible to know what a thing is if we do not know whether the thing is.

Our grasp of whether a thing is is in some cases [merely] coincidental, while in other cases we grasp whether a thing is by grasping some aspect of the thing itself. We may grasp, for instance, whether thunder is, by grasping that it is some sort of noise in the clouds; whether an eclipse is, by grasping that it is some sort of deprivation of light; whether a man is, by grasping that he is some sort of animal; and whether a soul is, by grasping that it initiates its own motion.

In cases where we know [only] coincidentally that [25] a thing is, we necessarily have no grasp of what the thing is, since we do not even know that the thing is; to inquire into what a thing is when we have not grasped that the thing is is to inquire into nothing. But in the cases where we do grasp some [aspect of the thing itself], it is easier [to inquire into what the thing is]. And so we acquire knowledge of what the thing is to the extent that we know that the thing is.

As a case where we grasp some aspect of what a thing is, let us take first of all the following: Let A [30] be an eclipse, C the moon, and B blocking by the earth. Then to inquire into whether it is eclipsed or not is to inquire into whether B is or not. This question is just the same as the question whether there is an account of [A]; and if there is an account of [A], we also say that [A] is. Or perhaps we ask which of two contradictories — for example, the triangle’s having or not having two right angles — satisfies the account. [35]

When we find [the account], we know both the fact and the reason at the same time, if [we reach the fact] through immediate [premisses]; if [the premisses are not immediate], then we know the fact, but not the reason. For instance, let C be the moon, A an eclipse, and B the inability to cast a shadow at the full moon when there is nothing apparent between us and it. Suppose, then, that B (inability to cast a [93b] shadow when there is nothing between us and it) belongs to C, and that A (being eclipsed) belongs to B. In that case it is clear that the moon has been eclipsed, but it is not thereby clear why it has been eclipsed; we know that there is an eclipse, but we do not know what it is.

If it is clear that A belongs to C, then [to inquire [5] into] why it belongs is to inquire into what B is — whether it is the blocking [by the earth] or the rotation of the moon or its extinguishing. And this is the account of one extreme term — in this case the account of A, since an eclipse is a blocking by the earth.

[Or take another example:] What is thunder? Extinguishing of fire in a cloud. Why does it thunder? Because the fire is extinguished in the cloud. Let C [10] be a cloud, A thunder, B extinguishing of fire. Then B belongs to C, a cloud (since the fire is extinguished in it), and A, the noise, belongs to B; and in fact B is the account of A, the first extreme term. And if there is a further middle term [explaining] B, this [15] will be found from the remaining accounts [of A].

We have said, then, how one grasps the what-it-is, and how it comes to be recognized. And so it turns out that though the what-it-is is neither deduced nor demonstrated, still it is made clear through deduction and

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demonstration. Hence, in the case where the explanation of a thing is something other than the thing, a demonstration is required for recognition of what the thing is, even though there is no demonstration [20] of what the thing is, as we also said in setting out the puzzles.

Some things have something else as their explanation, while other things do not; and so it is clear that in some cases the what-it-is is immediate and a principle. In these cases we must assume (or make evident in some other way) both that it is and what it is—as the [25] students of arithmetic do, since they assume both what the unit is and that it is. In the other cases— those that have a middle term, and where something else is the explanation of their essence—it is possible, as we said, to make clear what something is through demonstration, even though the what-it-is is not demonstrated.

Since a definition is said to be an account of the [30] what-it-is, it is evident that one type will be an account of what a name or some other name-like account signifies — for example, what triangle signifies. When we have grasped that [a thing] is [this], we inquire into why it is; but it is difficult to grasp in this way [why a thing is], given that we do not know that the thing is. The reason for this difficulty has been mentioned before: [if we know only what a thing’s name signifies], we do not even know whether or not the thing is, unless [we know this] coincidentally. (An account is unified in either of two ways — either by connection, like the Iliad, or by revealing one [property] of one [subject] non-coincidentally.)

This, then, is one definition of definition; another sort of definition is an account revealing why something is. Hence the first type of definition signifies but does not prove, whereas the second type will [94a] clearly be a sort of demonstration of what something is, but differently arranged—for saying why it thunders is different from saying what thunder is. We will answer the first question by saying ‘Because fire is extinguished in the clouds’. And what is thunder? A [5] noise of fire being extinguished in the clouds. These are two different statements, then, of the same account; the first is a continuous demonstration, the second a definition. Moreover, a definition of thunder is noise in the clouds, which is the conclusion of a demonstration of what it is. In contrast to this, the definition of something immediate is an indemonstrable positing of what it is.

One sort of definition, then, is an indemonstrable [10] account of the what-it-is; a second is a deduction of the what-it-is, differing in arrangement from a demonstration; and a third is the conclusion of a demonstration of the what-it-is.

What we have said, then, has made it evident, first, in what way the what-it-is is demonstrable and in [15] what way it is not, and what things are demonstrable and what things are not; secondly, in how many ways a definition is spoken of, in what way it proves the what-it-is and in what way it does not, and what things have definitions and what things do not; and, thirdly, how definition is related to demonstration, and in what way there can be both definition and demonstration of the same thing and in what way there cannot.

It is evident, then, what deduction and demonstration [99b] are and how they come about; the same holds for demonstrative knowledge, since it is the same [as demonstration]. But how do we come to recognize principles, and what state recognizes them? This will be clear from the following argument, if we first state the puzzles.

[20] We said before that we cannot know through demonstration without recognizing the first, immediate principles. But one might be puzzled about whether cognition of the immediate principles is or is not the same [as knowledge of truths derived from them]; whether there is knowledge of each, or knowledge of [25] one but something else of the other; and whether the states are acquired rather than [innately] present in us without our noticing them.

It would be absurd if we had the principles [innately]; for then we would possess cognition that is more exact than demonstration, but without noticing it. If, on the other hand, we acquire the principles and do not previously possess them, how could we recognize and learn them from no prior knowledge? [30] That is impossible, as we also said in the case of demonstration. Evidently, then, we can neither possess the principles [innately] nor acquire them if we are ignorant and possess no state [of knowledge]. Hence we must have some [suitable] potentiality, but not one that is at a level of exactness superior to that of the knowledge we acquire.

[35] All animals evidently have [such a potentiality], since they have the innate discriminative potentiality

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called perception. Some animals that have perception (though not all of them) also retain [in memory] what they perceive; those that do not retain it have no cognition outside perception (either none at all or none about what is not retained), but those that do [100a] retain it keep what they have perceived in their souls even after they have perceived. When this has happened many times a [further] difference arises: in some, but not all, cases, a rational account arises from the retention of perceptions.

From perception, then, as we say, memory arises, [5] and from repeated memory of the same thing experience arises; for a number of memories make up one experience. From experience, or [rather] from the whole universal that has settled in the soul — the one apart from the many, whatever is present as one and the same in all of them—arises a principle of craft (if it is about what comes to be) or of science (if it is about what is).

Hence the relevant states are not [innate] in us in [10] any determinate character and do not arise from states that have a better grasp on cognition; rather, they arise from perception. It is like what happens in a battle when there is a retreat: first one soldier makes a stand, then a second, then another, until they reach a starting point. The soul’s nature gives it a potentiality to be affected in this way.

Let us state again, then, what we stated, but not [15] perspicuously, before. When one of the undifferentiated things makes a stand, that is the first universal in the soul; for though one perceives the particular, perception is of the universal — of man, for instance, [100b] not of Callias the man. Again, in these [universals something else] makes a stand, until what has no parts and is universal makes a stand — first, for example, a certain sort of animal makes a stand, until animal does, and in this [universal] something else makes a stand in the same way. Clearly, then, we must recognize the first things by induction; for that is also how [5] perception produces the universal in us.

Among our intellectual states that grasp the truth, some—knowledge and understanding—are always true, whereas others—for example, belief and reasoning—admit of being false; and understanding is the only sort of state that is more exact than knowledge. Since the principles of demonstration are better known [than the conclusions derived from them], and since all knowledge requires an account, it follows [10] that we can have no knowledge of the principles. Since only understanding can be truer than knowledge, we must have understanding of the principles.

The same conclusion follows from the further point that since the principle of a demonstration is not a demonstration, the principle of knowledge is not knowledge. If, then, the only sort of state besides knowledge that is [always] true is understanding, understanding [15] must be the principle of knowledge. The principle, then, will grasp the principle, and, similarly, all knowledge will grasp its object.

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Physics*

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BOOK I

[184a] In every line of inquiry into something that has principles or causes or elements, we achieve knowledge — that is, scientific knowledge — by cognizing them; for we think we cognize a thing when we know its primary causes and primary principles, all the way to its elements. [15] Clearly, then, it is also true in the science of nature that our first task is to determine the principles.

The natural path is to start from what is better known and more perspicuous to us, and to advance to what is more perspicuous and better known by nature; for what is better known to us is not the same as what is better known without qualification. We must advance in this way, then, from what is less [20] perspicuous by nature but more perspicuous to us, to what is more perspicuous and better known by nature.

The things that, most of all, are initially clear and perspicuous to us are inarticulate wholes; later, as we articulate them, the elements and principles come to be known from them. We must, then, advance from universals to particulars; for the whole is better [25] known in perception, and the universal is a sort of [184b] whole, since it includes many things as parts. The same is true, in a way, of names in relation to their accounts. For a name — for instance, ‘circle’ — signifies a sort of whole and signifies indefinitely, whereas the definition [of a circle] articulates it by stating the particular [properties]. Again, children begin by calling all men ‘father’ and all women ‘mother’; only later do they distinguish different men and different women.

[30] Let us, then, give our own account of coming to be, in the following way. And first let us deal with all of coming to be; for the natural procedure is to speak first about what is common to every case, and then to study what is special to each case.

When we say that something comes to be one thing from being another and different thing, we are speaking about either simple or compound things. What I mean is this: It is possible that a man comes to be musical, that the not-musical thing comes to [35] be musical, and that the not-musical man comes to [190a] be a musical man. By ‘simple thing coming to be [F]’ I mean the man and the not-musical thing; and by ‘simple thing that comes into being’ I mean the musical thing. By ‘compound’ I mean both the thing that comes into being and what comes to be that thing, whenever we say that the not-musical man comes to be a musical man. [5]

In one type of case we say not only that something comes to be F, but also that it comes to be F from being G; for instance, [the man not only comes to be musical, but also comes to be] musical from being not-musical. But we do not say this for all [properties]; for [the man] did not come to be musical from being a man, but rather the man came to be musical.

When something comes to be F (in the sense in which we say a simple thing comes to be [something]), in some cases it remains when it comes to [10] be F, and in other cases it does not remain. The man, for instance, remains a man and is still a man when he comes to be musical, whereas the not-musical or unmusical thing, either simple or compound, does not remain.

Now that we have made these distinctions, here is something we can grasp from every case of coming to be, if we look at them all in the way described. In [15] every case there must be some subject that comes to be [something]; even if it is one in number, it is not one in form, since being a man is not the same as being an unmusical thing. (By ‘in form’ I mean the same as ‘in account’.) One thing [that comes to be] remains, and one does not remain. The thing that is not opposite remains, since the man remains; but the [20] not-musical thing, or the unmusical thing, does not remain. Nor does the thing compounded from both (for instance, the unmusical man) remain.

We say that something comes to be F from being G, but not that the G comes to be F, more often in cases where G does not remain; for instance, we say that [a man] comes to be musical from being unmusical, but not that [the unmusical comes to be musical] from a man. Still, sometimes we speak [25] in the same way in cases where G remains; we say, for instance, that a statue comes to be from bronze, but not that the bronze comes to be a statue. If, however, something comes to be F from being G, where G is opposite to F and G does not remain, we speak in both ways, saying both that something comes to be F from being G and that the G comes to be F; for it is true both that the man comes to be musical from being unmusical and that the

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unmusical one comes to be musical. That is why we also say the same about the compound: we say [30] both that the musical man comes to be musical from being an unmusical man and that the unmusical man comes to be musical.

Things are said to come to be in many ways, and some things are said not to come to be, but to come to be something; only substances are said to come to be without qualification. In the other cases it is evident that there must be some subject that comes to be [something]; for in fact, when [something] comes [35] to be of some quantity or quality, or relative to another, or somewhere, something is the subject [underlying the change], because a substance is the only [190b] thing that is never said of any other subject, whereas everything else is said of a substance.

However, substances — the things that are without qualification — also come to be from some subject. This will become evident if we examine it. For in every case there is something that is a subject from which the thing that comes to be comes to be, as [5] plants and animals come to be from seed.

Some of the things that come to be without qualification do so by change of figure (for instance, a statue); some by addition (for instance, growing things); some by subtraction (for instance, Hermes from the stone); some by composition (for instance, a house); some by alteration (for instance, things changing in accordance with their matter). It is evident that everything that comes to be in this way comes to be from a subject. [10]

And so it is clear from what has been said that in every case, what comes to be is composite: there is something that comes into being and something that comes to be this. And this latter thing is of two sorts: either the subject or the opposite. I mean, for instance, that the unmusical is opposite, and the man is subject; and that the lack of figure, shape, and order is the [15] opposite, and the bronze, stone, or gold is the subject.

Suppose, then, that there are indeed causes and principles of natural things, from which they primarily are and have come to be—not come to be coincidentally, but come to be what each thing is called in accordance with its essence. It evidently follows that everything comes to be from the subject and the [20] shape. For in a way the musical man is composed from man and musical, since you will analyze him into their accounts. It is clear, then, that whatever comes to be does so from these things.

The subject is one in number but two in form. Man, gold, and matter in general, is countable, since [25] it is a this more [than the privation is], and what comes to be comes to be from it not coincidentally. The privation—the contrariety—is a coincident. The form is one—for instance, structure, musicality, or anything else predicated in this way.

Hence we should say that in one way there are two principles, and that in another way there are three. [30] In one way they are contraries—if, for instance, one were to speak of the musical and the unmusical, or the hot and the cold, or the ordered and the disordered. But in another way they are not contraries, since contraries cannot be affected by each other. This [puzzle about how becoming is possible] is also solved by the fact that the subject is something different, since it is not a contrary. [35]

Hence, in a way the principles are no more numerous than the contraries, but, one might say, they are two in number. On the other hand, because they differ in being, they are not two in every way, but [191a] three; for being man is different from being unmusical, and being shapeless is different from being bronze.

We have said, then, how many principles are relevant to the coming to be of natural things, and we have described the different ways they should be counted. And it is clear that some subject must underlie [5] the contraries, and that there must be two contraries. In another way, however, there need not be two; for just one of the contraries is enough, by its absence or presence, to produce the thing.

The nature that is subject is knowable by analogy. For as bronze is to a statue, or wood is to a bed, or [10] as the shapeless before it acquires a shape is to anything else that has a shape, so the nature that is subject is to a substance, a this, and a being.

This, then, is one principle; it is not one or a being in the way a this is. Another principle is the one specified by the account, and a third is the contrary of this, the privation. The way in which these are [15] two, and the way in which they are more than two, has been stated above.

First, then, it was said that only the contraries were principles. Later we added that something further is needed as subject and that there must be three principles. And from what we have said now it is evident how the contraries differ, how the principles are related to one another, and what the subject is. [20] It is not yet clear, however, whether the form or the subject is substance. Still, it is clear that there are three principles, and in what way there are three, and what sorts of things they are. This, then, should allow us to observe how many principles there are, and what they are.

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This is also the only solution to the puzzle raised by the earlier philosophers, as we shall now explain. [25] Those who were the first to search for the truth philosophically and for the nature of beings were diverted and, so to speak, pushed off the track by inexperience. They say that nothing that is either comes to be or perishes. For, they say, what comes to be must come to be either from what is or from what is not, and coming to be is impossible in both cases; for what is cannot come to be (since it already is), while nothing can come to be from what is not (since there must be some subject). And then, having reached this result, they make things worse by going on to say that there is no plurality, but only being itself.

They accepted this belief for the reason mentioned. [30] We reply as follows: The claim that something comes to be from what is or from what is not, or that what is or what is not acts on something or is acted on or comes to be anything whatever, is in one way no different from the claim that, for instance, a doctor [191b] acts on something or is acted on, or is or comes to be something from being a doctor. We say this about a doctor in two ways; and so, clearly, we also speak in two ways when we say that something is or comes to be something from what is, and that what is is acting on something or being acted on.

Now a doctor builds a house, not insofar as he is a doctor, but insofar as he is a housebuilder; and he [5] becomes pale, not insofar as he is a doctor, but insofar as he is dark. But he practices medicine, or loses his medical knowledge, insofar as he is a doctor. We speak in the fullest sense of a doctor acting on something or being acted on, or coming to be something, from being a doctor, if it is insofar as he is a doctor that he is acted on in this way or produces these things or comes to be these things. So it is also clear that coming to be from what is not signifies this: coming to be from it insofar as it is not. [10]

The early philosophers failed to draw this distinction and gave up the question. This ignorance led them into more serious ignorance — so serious that they thought nothing else [besides what already is] either is or comes to be, and so they did away with all coming to be.

We agree with them in saying that nothing comes to be without qualification from what is not, but we say that things come to be in a way—for instance, [15] coincidentally—from what is not. For something comes to be from the privation, which in itself is not and which does not belong to the thing [when it has come to be]. But this causes surprise, and it seems impossible that something should come to be in this way from what is not.

Similarly, there is no coming to be, except coincidentally, from what is, or of what is. But coincidentally what is also comes to be, in the same way as if animal came to be from animal and a certain animal from [20] a certain animal. Suppose, for instance, that a dog came to be from a horse. For the dog would come to be not only from a certain animal, but also from animal, though not insofar as it is animal (for that is already present). But if a certain [sort of] animal is to come to be, not coincidentally, it will not be from animal; and if a certain thing that is [is to come to be], it will not be from what is, nor from what is not. [25] For we have said what ‘from what is not’ signifies — i.e., insofar as it is not. Further, we are not doing away with [the principle that] everything is or is not.

This is one way [of solving this puzzle]. Another is [to note] that the same things can be spoken of in accordance with potentiality and actuality; this is discussed more exactly elsewhere.

[30] And so, as we have said, we have solved the puzzles that compelled people to do away with some of the things we have mentioned. For this is why earlier thinkers were also diverted from the road leading them to [an understanding of] coming to be, perishing, and change in general. For if they had seen this nature [of the subject], that would have cured all their ignorance.

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BOOK II

[192b] Some existing things are natural, while others are due to other causes. Those that are natural are animals [10] and their parts, plants, and the simple bodies, such as earth, fire, air and water; for we say that these things and things of this sort are natural. All these things evidently differ from those that are not naturally constituted, since each of them has within itself a [15] principle of motion and stability in place, in growth and decay, or in alteration.

In contrast to these, a bed, a cloak, or any other [artifact] — insofar as it is described as such, [i.e., as a bed, a cloak, or whatever], and to the extent that it is a product of a craft—has no innate impulse to change; but insofar as it is coincidentally made of [20] stone or earth or a mixture of these, it has an innate impulse to change, and just to that extent. This is because a nature is a type of principle and cause of motion and stability within those things to which it primarily belongs in their own right and not coincidentally. (By ‘not coincidentally’ I mean, for instance, the following: Someone who is a doctor might cause [25] himself to be healthy, but it is not insofar as he is being healed that he has the medical science; on the contrary, it is coincidental that the same person is a doctor and is being healed, and that is why the two characteristics are sometimes separated from each other.)

The same is true of everything else that is produced, since no such thing has within itself the principle of its own production. In some things (for instance, a [30] house or any other product of handicraft) the principle comes from outside, and it is within other things. In other things (those that might turn out to be coincidental causes for themselves) the principle is within them, but not in their own right.

A nature, then, is what we have said; and the things that have a nature are those that have this sort of principle. All these things are substances; for [a substance] is a sort of subject, and a nature is invariably in a subject. The things that are in accordance with [35] nature include both these and whatever belongs to them in their own right, as traveling upward belongs to fire — for this neither is nor has a nature, but is [193a] natural and in accordance with nature. We have said, then, what nature is, and what is natural and in accordance with nature.

To attempt to prove that there is such a thing as nature would be ridiculous; for it is evident that there are many things of the sort we have described. To prove what is evident from what is not evident betrays [5] an inability to discriminate what is known because of itself from what is not. (It is clearly possible to suffer from this inability: someone blind from birth might still make deductions about colors.) And so such people are bound to argue about [mere] names and to understand nothing.

Some people think that the nature and substance [10] of a natural thing is the primary constituent present in it, having no order in its own right, so that the nature of a bed, for instance, [would be] the wood, and the nature of a statue [would be] the bronze. A sign of this, according to Antiphon,1 is the fact that, if you were to bury a bed and the rotting residue were to become able to sprout, the result would be wood, not a bed. He thinks that this is because the conventional [15] arrangement, i.e., the craft [making the wood into a bed], is a [mere] coincident of the wood, whereas the substance is what remains continuously while it is affected in these ways. And if each of these things is related to something else in the same way (bronze and gold, for instance, to water; bones and wood to earth; and so on with anything else), that [20] thing is their nature and substance.

This is why some people say that fire or earth or air or water is the nature of the things that exist; some say it is some of these, others say it is all of them. For whenever any of these people supposed one, or more than one, of these things to be [the primary constituent], he takes this or these to be all the substance [25] there is, and he takes everything else to be attributes, states, and conditions of these things; and each of these is held to be everlasting, since they do not change from themselves, but the other things come to be and are destroyed an unlimited number of times.

This, then, is one way we speak of a nature: as the primary matter that is a subject for each thing that [30] has within itself a principle of motion and change. In another way the nature is the shape, i.e., the form in accordance with the account. For just as we speak of craftsmanship in what is in accordance with craft and is crafted, so also we speak of nature in what is in accordance with nature and is natural. But if something were only potentially a bed and still lacked [35] the form of a bed, we would not yet speak of craftsmanship or of a product in accordance with craft; nor would we say the corresponding thing about anything that is constituted

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naturally. For what is only potentially [193b] flesh or bone does not have its nature, and is not naturally flesh or bone, until it acquires the form in accordance with the account by which we define flesh or bone and say what it is. In another way, then, the nature is the shape and form of things that have within themselves a principle of motion; this form is [5] not separable except in account. (What is composed of form and matter — for instance, a man — is not a nature, but is natural.)

Indeed, the form is the nature more than the matter is. For something is called [flesh, bone, and so on] when it is actually so, more than when it is only potentially so. Further, a man comes to be from a man, but not a bed from a bed. In fact that is why some say that the nature of the bed is not the shape [10] but the wood, because if it were to sprout the result would be wood, not a bed. If this shows that the wood is the nature, then the shape is also the nature, since a man comes to be from a man. Further, nature, as applied to coming to be, is really a road towards nature; it is not like medical treatment, which is a road not towards medical science, but towards health. [15] For medical treatment necessarily proceeds from medical science, not towards medical science. But nature [as coming to be] is not related to nature in this way; rather, what is growing, insofar as it is growing, proceeds from something towards something [else]. What is it, then, that grows? Not what it is growing from, but what it is growing into. Therefore, the shape is the nature.

Shape and nature are spoken of in two ways; for the privation is also form in a way. We must consider [20] later whether or not there is a privation and a contrary in unqualified coming to be.

Since we have distinguished the different ways we speak of nature, we should next consider how the mathematician differs from the student of nature; for natural bodies certainly have surfaces, solids, lengths, and points, which are what the mathematician studies. [25] We should also consider whether astronomy is different from or a part of the study of nature; for it would be absurd if a student of nature ought to know what the sun or moon is but need not know any of their coincidents in their own right—especially since it is evident that students of nature also discuss the shape of the sun and moon, and specifically whether [30] or not the earth and heaven are spherical.

These things are certainly the concern of both the mathematician and the student of nature. But the mathematician is not concerned with them insofar as each is the limit of a natural body, and he does not study the coincidents of a natural body insofar as they belong to a natural body. That is why he also separates these coincidents; for they are separable in thought from motion, and his separating them makes [35] no difference and results in no falsehood.

Those who say there are Ideas do not notice that they do this too; for they separate natural objects, though these are less separable than mathematical [194a] objects. This would be clear if one tried to state the formulae of both natural and mathematical objects— of the things themselves and of their coincidents. For odd and even, straight and curved, and also number, line, and point do not involve motion, whereas flesh, [5] bones, and man do—we speak of them as we speak of the snub nose, not as we speak of the curved.

This is also clear from the parts of mathematics that are more related to the study of nature—for instance, optics, harmonics, and astronomy. These [10] are in a way the reverse of geometry; for geometry investigates natural lines, but not insofar as they are natural, whereas optics investigates mathematical lines, but insofar as they are natural, not insofar as they are mathematical.

Since we speak of nature in two ways — both as form and as matter — we should study it as though we were investigating what snubness is, and so we should study natural objects neither independently [15] of their matter nor [simply] insofar as they have matter. For indeed, since there are these two types of nature, there might be a puzzle about which one the student of nature should study. Perhaps the compound of the two? If so, then also each of them. Then is it the same or a different discipline that knows each one of them?

If we judge by the early thinkers, the student of [20] nature would seem to study [only] matter, since Empedocles2 and Democritus3 touched only slightly on form and essence. Craft, however, imitates nature, and the same science knows both the form and the matter up to a point. The doctor, for instance, knows health, and also the bile and phlegm in which health [is realized]; similarly, the housebuilder knows both [25] the form of the house and that its matter is bricks and wood; and the same is true in the other cases. The science of nature, therefore, must also know both types of nature.

Moreover the same discipline studies both what something is for—i.e., the end—and whatever is for the end. Nature is an end and what something is for; [30] for whenever a continuous motion has some end this sort of terminus is also what the motion is for. That is why it was ludicrous for the poet to say ‘He has reached

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the end he was born for’; it was ludicrous because by ‘end’ we mean not every terminus but only the best one. For crafts produce their matter (some by producing it without qualification, others by making it suitable

for their work); and we use all [matter] as being for [35] our sake, since we are also an end in a way. (For what something is for is of two sorts, as we said in On Philosophy.)

There are two crafts that control the matter and [194b] involve knowledge: the craft that uses [the matter] and the craft that directs this productive craft. Hence the using craft also directs in a way, but with the difference that the directing craft knows the form, whereas the productive craft knows the matter. For [5] instance, the pilot knows what sort of form the rudder has, and he prescribes [how to produce it], whereas the boatbuilder knows what sort of wood and what sorts of motions are needed to make it. With products of a craft, then, we produce the matter for the sake of the product; with natural things, the matter is already present.

Further, matter is relative; for there is one [sort of] matter for one form, and another for another. How much, then, must the student of nature know [10] about form and what-it-is? Perhaps as much as

the doctor knows about sinews, or the smith about bronze — enough to know what something is for. And he must confine himself to things that are separable in form but are in matter—for a man is born from a man and the sun. But it is a task for first philosophy [15] to determine what is separable and what the separable is like.

Now that we have determined these points, we should consider how many and what sorts of causes there are. For our inquiry aims at knowledge; and we think we know something only when we find the reason why it is so, i.e., when we find its primary cause. [20] Clearly, then, we must also find the reason why in the case of coming to be, perishing, and every sort of natural change, so that when we know their principles we can try to refer whatever we are searching for to these principles.

In one way, then, that from which, as a [constituent] present in it, a thing comes to be is said to be that thing’s cause—for instance, the bronze and silver, [25] and their genera, are causes of the statue and the bowl.

In another way, the form—i.e., the pattern—is a cause. The form is the account (and the genera of the account) of the essence (for instance, the cause of an octave is the ratio two to one, and in general number), and the parts that are in the account.

Further, the source of the primary principle of change or stability is a cause. For instance, the adviser [30] is a cause [of the action], and a father is a cause of his child; and in general the producer is a cause of the product, and the initiator of the change is a cause of what is changed.

Further, something’s end — i.e., what it is for — is its cause, as health is of walking. For why does he [35] walk? We say, ‘To be healthy’; and in saying this we think we have provided the cause. The same is true of all the intermediate steps that are for the end, where something else has initiated the motion, as, [195a] for example, slimming, purging, drugs, or instruments are for health; all of these are for the end, though they differ in that some are activities, while others are instruments.

We may take these, then, to be the ways we speak of causes. [5] Since causes are spoken of in many ways, there are many non-coincidental causes of the same thing.

Both the sculpting craft and the bronze, for instance, are causes of the statue, not insofar as it is something else, but insofar as it is a statue. But they are not causes in the same way: the bronze is a cause as matter, the sculpting craft as the source of the motion. Some things are causes of each other: hard work, for instance, is the cause of fitness, and fitness of [10] hard work. But they are not causes in the same way: fitness is what the hard work is for, whereas hard work is the principle of motion. Further, the same thing is the cause of contraries; for sometimes if a thing’s presence causes F, that thing is also, by its absence, taken to cause the contrary of F, so that, for instance, if a pilot’s presence would have caused the safety of a ship, we take his absence to have [15] caused the shipwreck.

All the causes just mentioned are of four especially evident types: (1) Letters are the cause of syllables, matter of artifacts, fire and such things of bodies, parts of the whole, and the assumptions of the conclusion, as that out of which. In each of these [20] cases one thing — for instance, the parts — is cause as subject, while (2) the other thing — the whole, the composition, and the form—is cause as essence. (3) The seed, the doctor, the adviser and, in general, the producer, are all sources of the principle of change or stability. (4) In other cases, one thing is a cause of other things by being the end and the good. For what the other things are for is taken to [25] be the best and their end—it does not matter [for present purposes] whether we call it the good or the apparent good. These, then, are the number of kinds of causes there are.

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Although there are many types of causes, they are fewer when they are arranged under heads. For causes are spoken of in many ways, and even among causes of the same type, some are prior and others posterior. For example, the cause of health is a doctor and [30] [speaking more generally] a craftsman, and the cause of an octave is the double and [speaking more generally] number; in every case the inclusive causes are posterior to the particular.

Further, some things and their genera are coincidental causes. Polycleitus4 and the sculptor, for instance, are causes of the statue in different ways, because being Polycleitus is coincidental to the sculptor. [35] What includes the coincident is also a cause—if, for example, the man or, quite generally, the animal is a cause of the statue. Some coincidental causes are [195b] more remote or more proximate than others; if, for instance, the pale man or the musician were said to be the cause of the statue [it would be a more remote cause than Polycleitus is].

We may speak of any [moving] cause, whether proper or coincidental, either as having a potentiality or as actualizing it; for instance, we may say either that [5] the housebuilder, or that the housebuilder actually building, is causing the house to be built.

Similar things may also be said about the things of which the causes are causes. For example, we may speak of the cause of this statue, or of a statue, or of an image in general; or of this bronze, or of bronze, or of matter in general. The same is true of coincidents. We may speak in this same way of combinations [10]—of Polycleitus the sculptor, for instance, instead of Polycleitus or a sculptor.

Still, all these ways amount to six, each spoken of in two ways. For there is (l) the particular and (2) the genus, and (3) the coincident and (4) the genus of the coincident; and these may be spoken of either [15] (5) in combination or (6) simply. Each of these may be either active or potential. The difference is the following. Active and particular causes exist and cease to exist simultaneously with the things they cause, so that, for instance, this one practicing medicine exists simultaneously with this one being made healthy, [20] and in the same way this one housebuilding exists simultaneously with this thing being built into a house. But this is not true of every cause that is potential; for the house and the housebuilder do not perish simultaneously.

Here as elsewhere, we must always seek the most precise cause. A man, for example, is building because he is a builder, and he is a builder insofar as he has the building craft; his building craft, then, is [25] the prior cause, and the same is true in all cases. Further, we must seek genera as causes of genera, and particulars as causes of particulars; a sculptor, for instance, is the cause of a statue, but this sculptor of this statue. And we must seek a potentiality as the cause of a potential effect, and something actualizing a potentiality as the cause of an actual effect.

This, then, is an adequate determination of the number of causes, and of the ways in which they are causes.

[30] Luck and chance are also said to be causes, and many things are said to be and to come to be because of them. We must, then, investigate how luck and chance are included in the causes we have mentioned, whether luck is or is not the same as chance, [35] and, in general, what they are.

Some people even wonder whether luck and [196a] chance exist. For they say that nothing results from luck; rather, everything that is said to result from chance or luck has some definite cause. If, for instance, as a result of luck someone comes to the market place and finds the person he wanted to meet but did not expect, they say the cause is his wanting [5] to go to market. Similarly, for every other supposed result of luck, they say it is possible to find some cause other than luck. For if there were such a thing as luck, it would appear truly strange and puzzling that none of the early philosophers who discussed the [10] causes of coming to be and perishing ever determined anything about luck; in fact it would seem that they also thought that nothing results from luck. But this too is surprising; for surely many things come to be and exist as a result of luck and chance. Though people know perfectly well that everything that comes to be can be referred to some cause, as the old argument doing away with luck says, everyone nonetheless [15] says that some of these things result from luck and that others do not.

That is why the early philosophers should have mentioned luck in some way or other. But they certainly did not think luck was among the causes they recognized — for instance, love or strife or mind or fire or anything else of that sort. In either case, then, it is strange, whether they supposed there was no such thing as luck, or supposed there was such a thing but omitted to discuss it. It is especially strange considering [20] that they sometimes appeal to luck. Empedocles, for example, appeals to luck when he says that air is separated out

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on top, not always but as luck has it; at least, he says in his cosmogony that ‘it happened to run that way at that time, but often otherwise’. And he says that most of the parts of animals result from luck.

Other people make chance the cause of our heaven [25] and of all worlds. For they say that the vortex, and the motion that dispersed and established everything in its present order, resulted from chance. And this is certainly quite amazing. For animals and plants, they say, neither are nor come to be from luck, but [30] rather nature or mind or something of that sort is the cause, since it is not just any old thing that comes to be from a given type of seed, but an olive-tree comes from one type, and a man from another; and yet they say that the heaven and the most divine of visible things result from chance and have no cause of the sort that animals and plants have. [35]

If this is so, it deserves attention, and something might well have been said about it. For in addition [196b] to the other strange aspects of what they say, it is even stranger to say all this when they see that nothing in the heavens results from chance, whereas many things happen as a result of luck to things whose existence is not itself a result of luck. Surely the contrary would [5] have been likely.

Other people5 suppose that luck is a cause, but they take it to be divine and superhuman, and therefore obscure to the human mind.

And so we must consider chance and luck, and determine what each is, and whether they are the same or different, and see how they fit into the causes we have distinguished.

[10] First, then, we see that some things always, others usually, come about in the same way. Evidently neither luck nor anything that results from luck is said to be the cause of either of these things — either of what is of necessity and always or of what is usually. But since besides these there is a third sort of event [15] which everyone says results from luck, it is evident that there is such a thing as luck and chance; for we know that this third sort of event results from luck and that the results of luck are of this sort.

Further, some events are for something and others are not. Among the former, some are in accordance with a decision while others are not, but both sorts [20] are for something. And so it is clear that even among events that are neither necessary nor usual there are some that admit of being for something. (Events that are for something include both the actions that result from thought and also the results of nature.) This, then, is the sort of event that we regard as a result of luck, whenever an event of that sort comes about coincidentally. For just as some things are something [25] in their own right, and others are something coincidentally, so also it is possible for a cause to be of either sort. For example, the cause of a house is, in its own right, the housebuilder, but coincidentally the pale or musical thing. Hence the cause in its own right is determinate, but the coincidental cause is indeterminate, since one thing might have an unlimited number of coincidents.

[30] As has been said, then, whenever this [coincidental causation] occurs among events of the sort that are for something the events [that have these coincidental causes] are said to result from chance and luck. The difference between chance and luck will be determined later; we may take it as evident for the moment that both are found among events of the sort that are for something.

For instance, A would have come when B was collecting subscriptions, in order to recover the debt from B, if A had known [B would be there]. In fact, [35] however, A did not come in order to do this; it was a coincidence that A came [when B happened to be there], and so met B in order to collect the debt— [197a] given that A neither usually nor of necessity frequents the place [for that purpose]. The end — collecting the debt — is not a cause [of A’s action] in A, but it is the sort of thing that one decides to do and that results from thought. And in this case A’s coming is said to result from luck; but if A always or usually frequented the place because he had decided to and for the purpose of collecting the debt, then [A’s being there [5] when B was there] would not result from luck.

Clearly, then, luck is a coincidental cause found among events of the sort that are for something, and specifically among those of the sort that are in accordance with a decision. Hence thought (since decision requires thought) and luck concern the same things.

Now the causes whose results might be matters of luck are bound to be indeterminate. That is why luck also seems to be something indeterminate and [10] obscure to human beings, and why, in one way, it might seem that nothing results from luck. For, as we might reasonably expect, all these claims are correct. For in one way things do result from luck, since they are coincidental results and luck is a coincidental cause. But luck is not the unqualified [and hence non-coincidental] cause of anything. The [unqualified] cause of a house, for instance, is a housebuilder, and the coincidental cause a fluteplayer; and the [15] man’s coming and

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collecting the debt, without having come to collect it, has an indefinite number of coincidental causes—he might have come because he wished to see someone, or was going to court or to the theatre.

It is also correct to say that luck is contrary to reason. For rational judgment tells us what is always or usually the case, whereas luck is found in events [20] that happen neither always nor usually. And so, since causes of this sort are indeterminate, luck is also indeterminate.

Still, in some cases one might be puzzled about whether just any old thing might be a cause of a lucky outcome. Surely the wind or the sun’s warmth, but not someone’s haircut, might be the cause of his health; for some coincidental causes are closer than others to what they cause.

Luck is called good when something good results, [25] bad when something bad results; it is called good and bad fortune when the results are large. That is why someone who just misses great evil or good as well [as someone who has it is] fortunate or unfortunate; for we think of him as already having [the great evil or good], since the near miss seems [30] to us to be no distance. Further, it is reasonable that good fortune is unstable; for luck is unstable, since no result of luck can be either always or usually the case.

As we have said, then, both luck and chance are coincidental causes, found in events of the sort [35] that are neither without exception nor usual, and specifically in events of this sort that might be for something.

Chance is not the same as luck, since it extends more widely; for results of luck also result from [197b] chance, but not all results of chance result from luck. For luck and its results are found in things that are capable of being fortunate and in general capable of action, and that is why luck must concern what is achievable by action. A sign of this is the fact that good fortune seems to be the same or nearly [5] the same as being happy, and being happy is a sort of action, since it is doing well in action. Hence what cannot act cannot do anything by luck either. Hence neither inanimate things nor beasts nor children do anything by luck, because they are incapable of decision. Nor do they have good or bad fortune, [10] except by a [mere] similarity — as Protarchus6 said that the stones from which altars are made are fortunate, because they are honored, while their fellows are trodden underfoot. Still, even these things are affected by the results of luck in a way, whenever an agent affects them by some lucky action; but otherwise they are not.

Chance, on the other hand, applies both to animals [15] other than man and to many inanimate things. We say, for instance, that the horse came by chance, since it was saved because it came but did not come in order to be saved. And the tripod fell by chance, because it did not fall in order to be sat on, although it was left standing in order to be sat on.

Hence it is evident that among types of events that are for something (speaking without qualification), we say that a particular event of such a type results from chance if it has an external cause and [20] the actual result is not what it is for; and we say that it results from luck if it results from chance and is an event of the sort that is decided on by an agent who is capable of decision. A sign of this is the fact that we say an event is pointless if it [is of the sort that] is for some result but [in this case] that result is not what it is for. If, for instance, walking is for evacuating the bowels, but when he walked on this occasion it was not [for that reason], then we say that he walked pointlessly and that his [25] walking is pointless. We assume that an event is pointless if it is naturally for something else, but does not succeed in [being for] what it is naturally for. For if someone said that his washing himself was pointless because the sun was not eclipsed, he would be ridiculous, since washing is not for producing eclipses. So also, then, an event happens by chance (as the name suggests) whenever it is pointless. For the stone did not fall in order to hit [30] someone; it fell by chance, because it might have fallen because someone threw it to hit someone.

The separation of chance from luck is sharpest in natural events. For if an event is contrary to nature, we regard it as a result of chance, not of luck. But [35] even this is different from [other cases of chance; the other cases] have an external cause, but [events contrary to nature] have an internal cause.

We have said, then, what chance and luck are and [198a] how they differ. Each of them falls under the sort of cause that is the source of the principle of motion. For in every case they are either among natural causes or among those resulting from thought, and the number [5] of these is indeterminate.

Chance and luck are causes of events [of the sort] that mind or nature might have caused, in cases where [particular] events [of this sort] have some coincidental cause. Now nothing coincidental is prior to anything that is in its own right; hence clearly no coincidental cause is prior to something that is a cause in its own right. Chance and luck are therefore posterior [10] to mind and nature. And so however true it might be that chance is the cause of the heavens, still it is necessary for mind and nature to be prior causes of this universe

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and of many other things.

It is clear, then, that there are causes, and that there are as many different types as we say there are; for [15] the reason why something is so includes all these different types [of causes]. For we refer the ultimate reason why (1) in the case of unmoved things, to the what-it-is (for instance, in mathematics; for there we refer ultimately to the definition of straight or commensurate or something else), or (2) to what first initiated the motion (for instance, why did they go [20] to war? — because the other side raided them), or (3) to what it is for (for instance, in order to set themselves up as rulers), or (4) in the case of things that come to be, to the matter.

It is evident, then, that these are the causes and that this is their number. Since there are four of them, the student of nature ought to know them all; and in order to give the sort of reason that is appropriate for the study of nature, he must trace it back to all the causes—to the matter, the form, what initiated the motion, and what something is for. The last three [25] often amount to one; for what something is and what it is for are one, and the first source of the motion is the same in species as these, since a man generates a man; and the same is true generally of things that initiate motion by being in motion.

Things that initiate motion without being in motion are outside the scope of the study of nature. For although they initiate motion, they do not do so by having motion or a principle of motion within themselves, but they are unmoved. Hence there are three [30] inquiries: one about what is unmoved, one about what is in motion but imperishable, and one about what is perishable.

And so the reason why is given by referring to the matter, to the what-it-is, and to what first initiated the motion. For in cases of coming to be, this is the normal way of examining the causes — by asking what [35] comes to be after what, and what first acted or was acted on, and so on in order in every case.

Two sorts of principles initiate motion naturally. [198b] One of these principles is not itself natural, since it has no principle of motion within itself; this is true of whatever initiates motion without itself being in motion — for instance, what is entirely without motion (i.e., the first of all beings) and also the what-it-is (i.e., the form), since this is the end and what something is for. And so, since natural processes are for something, this cause too must be known.

[5] The reason why should be stated in all these ways. For instance, (1) this necessarily results from that (either without exception or usually); (2) if this is to be (as the conclusion from the premisses); (3) that this is the essence; and (4) because it is better thus— not unqualifiedly better, but better in relation to the essence of a given thing.

We must first say why nature is among the causes [10] that are for something, and then how necessity applies to natural things. For everyone refers things to necessity, saying that since the hot, the cold, and each element have a certain nature, certain other things are and come to be of necessity. For if they mention [15] any cause other than necessity (as one thinker7 mentions love or strife, and another8 mentions mind), they just touch on it, then let it go.

A puzzle now arises: why not suppose that nature acts not for something or because it is better, but of necessity? Zeus’s rain does not fall in order to make the grain grow, but of necessity. For it is necessary that what has been drawn up is cooled, and that what has been cooled and become water comes down, [20] and it is coincidental that this makes the grain grow. Similarly, if someone’s grain is spoiled on the threshing floor, it does not rain in order to spoil the grain, and the spoilage is coincidental.

Why not suppose, then, that the same is true of the parts of natural organisms? On this view, it is of necessity that, for example, the front teeth grow sharp [25] and well adapted for biting, and the back ones broad and useful for chewing food; this [useful] result was coincidental, not what they were for. The same will be true of all the other parts that seem to be for something. On this view, then, whenever all the parts came about coincidentally as though they were for something, these animals survived, since their constitution, [30] though coming about by chance, made them suitable [for survival]. Other animals, however, were differently constituted and so were destroyed; indeed they are still being destroyed, as Empedocles says of the man- headed calves.

This argument, then, and others like it, might puzzle someone. In fact, however, it is impossible for things to be like this. For these [teeth and other parts] [35] and all natural things come to be as they do either always

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or usually, whereas no result of luck or chance [199a] comes to be either always or usually. (For we do not regard frequent winter rain or a summer heat wave, but only summer rain or a winter heat wave, as a result of luck or coincidence.) If, then, these seem either to be coincidental results or to be for something, [5] and they cannot be coincidental or chance results, they are for something. Now surely all such things are natural, as even those making these claims [about necessity] would agree. We find, then, among things that come to be and are by nature, things that are for something.

Further, whenever [some sequence of actions] has an end, the whole sequence of earlier and later actions is directed towards the end. Surely what is true of [10] action is also true of nature, and what is true of nature is true of each action, if nothing prevents it. Now actions are for something; therefore, natural sequences are for something. For example, if a house came to be naturally, it would come to be just as it actually does by craft, and if natural things came to [15] be not only naturally but also by craft, they would come to be just as they do naturally; one thing, then, is what the other is for. In general, craft either completes the work that nature is unable to complete or imitates nature. If, then, the products of a craft are for something, clearly the products of nature are also for something; for there is the same relation of later stages to earlier in productions of a craft and in productions of nature.

[20] This is most evident in the case of animals other than man, since they use neither craft nor inquiry nor deliberation in producing things — indeed this is why some people are puzzled about whether spiders, ants, and other such things operate by understanding or in some other way. If we advance little by little along the same lines, it is evident that even [25] in plants things come to be that promote the end— leaves, for instance, grow for the protection of the fruit. If, then, a swallow makes its nest and a spider its web both naturally and for some end, and if plants grow leaves for the sake of the fruit, and send roots down rather than up for the sake of nourishment, it evidently follows that this sort of [30] cause is among things that come to be and are by nature. And since nature is of two sorts, nature as matter and nature as form, and the form is the end, and since everything else is for the end, the form must be what things are for.

Errors occur even in productions of craft; grammarians, for instance, have written incorrectly, and doctors have given the wrong medicine. Clearly, then, [35] errors are also possible in productions of nature. [199b]

In some productions by crafts, the correct action is for something, and in cases of error the attempt is for something but misses the mark. The same will be true, then, of natural things; freaks will be errors, missing what they are for. Hence in the original formations [5] of things, a defective principle would also have brought the [man-headed] calves into being, if they were unable to reach any definite term and end—just as, in the actual state of things, [freaks] come to be when the seed is defective. Further, it is necessary for the seed to come into being first, and not the animal straightaway; in fact the ‘all-natured first’ was seed.

Further, in plants as well as in animals things happen [10] for something, though in a less articulate way. Then what about plants? Did olive-headed vines keep coming into being, as he says [man-headed] calves did? Surely not—that is absurd—but surely they would have to have come into being, if the animals did.

Further, [on Empedocles’ view] coming to be would also have to be merely a matter of chance among seeds. But whoever says this does away entirely with nature and natural things. For things are natural [15] when they are moved continuously from some principle in themselves and so arrive at some end. From each principle comes, not the same thing in each case, but not just any old thing either; in every case it proceeds to the same [end], if nothing prevents it.

Now certainly both the end that a process is for and the process that is for this end might also result from luck. We say, for instance, that a friend in a [20] foreign country came by luck and paid the ransom and then went away, when he did the action as though he had come in order to do it, though in fact that was not what he came to do. This end is achieved coincidentally, since (as we said before) luck is one of the coincidental causes. But whenever the end results always or usually, it is neither coincidental [25] nor a result of luck. And in natural things that is how it is in every case, unless something prevents it.

Besides, it is strange for people to think there is no end unless they see an agent initiating the motion by deliberation. Even crafts do not deliberate. Moreover, if the shipbuilding craft were in the wood, it would produce a ship in the same way that nature [30] would. And so if what something is for is present in craft, it is also present in nature. This is clearest when a doctor applies medical treatment to himself—that is what nature is like.

It is evident, then, that nature is a cause, and in fact the sort of cause that is for something.

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Is the necessity present [in nature only] conditional, [35] or is it also unqualified? [200a] The sort of necessity that is ascribed nowadays to things that come to be is the sort there would be

if someone supposed that a wall came into being of necessity. On this view, heavy things naturally move downwards, and light things upwards, and that is why the stones and the foundations are below, while the earth is above because of its lightness, and the [5] wooden logs are on the very top because they are lightest of all.

Nonetheless, though the wall certainly requires these things, it did not come to be because of them (except insofar as they are its material cause), but in order to give shelter and protection.

The same is true in all other cases that are for something: although they require things that have a necessary nature, they do not come to be because of these things (except insofar as they are the material [10] cause), but for some end. For instance, why does a saw have such and such features? In order to perform this function, and for this end. But this end cannot come to be unless the saw is made of iron; and so it is necessary for it to be made of iron if there is to be a saw performing its function. What is necessary, then, is conditional, but not [necessary] as an end; for necessity is in the matter, whereas the end is in [15] the form.

Necessity is found both in mathematics and in things that come to be naturally, and to some extent the two cases are similar. For instance, since the straight is what it is, it is necessary for a triangle to have angles equal to two right angles. It is not because the triangle has angles equal to two right angles that the straight is what it is; but if the triangle does not have angles equal to two right angles, the straight will not be what it is either.

The reverse is true in the case of things that come to be for an end: if the end is or will be, then the [20] previous things are or will be too. Just as, in the mathematical case, if the conclusion [about the triangle] is false, the principle [about the straight] will not be true either, so also in nature if the [materials] do not exist, the end that the process is for will not come about either. For the end is also a principle; it is a principle not of the action, but of the reasoning. (In the mathematical case [also] the principle is the principle of the reasoning, since in this case there is no action.)

And so, if there is to be a house, it is necessary for these things to come to be or to be present; and in [25] general, the matter that is for something must exist (for example, bricks and stones if there is to be a house). The end, however, does not exist because of these things, except insofar as they are the material cause, nor will it come about because of them; still, in general, the end (the house or the saw) requires them (the stones or the iron). Similarly, in the mathematical case the principles require the triangle to [30] have two right angles.

Evidently, then, necessity in natural things belongs to the material cause and to the motions of matter. The student of nature should mention both causes, but more especially what something is for, since this is the cause of the matter, whereas the matter is not the cause of the end. The end is what something is for, and the principle comes from the definition and [35] the form.

The same is true in productions of craft. For instance, [200b] since a house is this sort of thing, these things must come to be and be present of necessity; and since health is this, these things must come to be and be present of necessity. In the same way, if a man is this, these things must come to be and be present of necessity; and if these, then these.

But presumably necessity is present in the form as well [as in the matter]. Suppose, for instance, that [5] we define the function of sawing as a certain sort of cutting; this sort of cutting requires a saw with teeth of a certain sort, and these require a saw made of iron. For the form, as well as the matter, has parts in it as matter of the form.

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BOOK III

[200b] Since nature is a principle of motion and change, and since our line of inquiry is about nature, we must find out what motion is; for if we do not know what [15] it is, neither can we know what nature is. Once we have determined what motion is, we should try the same approach to the things that come next in order.

Motion seems to be continuous, and the first thing discerned in the continuous is the infinite. That is why those who define the continuous often turn out to be relying on the account of the infinite as well, [20] since they assume that what is infinitely divisible is continuous. Moreover, it seems impossible for there to be motion without place, void, and time.

It is clear, then, both because of these [connections] and because these things are common to everything and universal, that we should undertake a discussion of each of them, since the study of special [25] topics comes after the study of common topics; and first, as we said, we should discuss motion.

Some things are only in actuality, and others are in potentiality and in actuality—thises, or quantities, or qualities, or one of the other predications of being. Among relatives, some are spoken of with reference [30] to excess and deficiency, and others with reference to acting and being affected, and in general with reference to initiating motion and to being moved— for what initiates motion initiates it in what is moved, and what is moved is moved by what initiates motion.

There is no motion apart from things [that are moved]. For what changes always does so either in substance or in quantity or in quality or in place, and [35] we claim that there is nothing that is common and [201a] applies to all of these — i.e., is neither a this nor a quantity nor a quality nor any of the other things predicated. Hence there is no motion or change of anything apart from the things mentioned, since there is nothing apart from these things.

Each of these things belongs to everything in [one of] two ways. This is true, for instance, of the this, [5] which in some cases is form and in other cases privation; of quality, which in some cases is pale and in other cases dark; and of quantity, which in some cases is complete and in other cases incomplete. It is true in the same way of local motion, which in some cases is upward and in other cases is downward, or [in other words] where some things are light and others heavy. Hence there are as many kinds of motion and change as there are of being.

In each kind of thing we distinguish what is actually [10] F from what is potentially F. Hence the actuality of what is F potentially, insofar as it is F potentially, is motion. The actuality of the alterable, for instance, insofar as it is alterable, is alteration; the actuality of what is capable of growing or its opposite, decaying (since there is no name that covers both), is growing or decaying; the actuality of what is capable of coming to be or perishing is coming to be or perishing; the [15] actuality of what is capable of local movement is local movement. That this is what motion is is clear from the following. Whenever the buildable, insofar as we say it is buildable, is in actuality, it is being built, and this is building. The same applies to learning, curing, rolling, jumping, ripening, and ageing.

In some cases, the same things are both in potentiality [20] and in actuality, though not at the same time or in the same way, but rather they are, for instance, actually hot and potentially cold. It follows that many things will both act on and be affected by each other, since everything of this sort will be capable both of acting and of being affected. Hence what naturally initiates motion is also moveable; for everything of this sort initiates motion by itself being moved. Hence [25] some people even believe that whatever initiates motion is itself moved. The truth about this, however, will be clear from other considerations; for in fact there is something that initiates motion without being moveable. In any case, the actuality of what is potentially F, whenever, being in actuality, it is active— not insofar as it is itself, but insofar as it is moveable— is motion.

By ‘insofar as’ I mean the following: Though bronze is potentially a statue, it is not the actuality of bronze, [30] insofar as it is bronze, that is motion. For being bronze is not the same as being potentially something; for if they were the same without qualification, i.e., in definition, the actuality of bronze insofar as it is bronze would be motion, but in fact, as we have said, they are not the same. This point is clear in the case [35] of contraries. For being potentially healthy is not the same as being potentially ill; if they were the same, [201b] then being ill and being healthy would also be the same. Rather, the subject (whether it is moisture or blood) that is healthy and ill [at different times] is one and the same. The two potentialities, therefore, [of F insofar as it is F, and of F insofar as it is moveable] are not the same, just as color and the visible are not [5] the same;

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and so it is evident that the actuality of what is potentially F, insofar as it is potentially F, is motion. It is clear, then, that this actuality is motion, and that something is in fact in motion just when the

actuality is this one, and neither earlier nor later. For it is possible for something — for instance, the buildable — to be at one time actual and at another not, and the actuality of the buildable, insofar as it [10] is buildable, is building. For the actuality is either the [process of] building or the house; but when the house exists, it is no longer buildable, whereas what is being built is something buildable; necessarily, then, the actuality is [the process of] building. Now, building is a type of motion; moreover, the same [15] account will also fit the other cases of motion.

That this account is correct is clear both from what other people say about motion and from the fact that it is not easy to define it in any other way. For motion and change cannot be assigned to any other genus, [20] as is clear if we examine what some people assign them to. They assert that motion is difference, or inequality, or what is not; but none of these — different things or unequal things or things that are not — is necessarily in motion, and change is no more into these or from these than it is from their opposites. The reason why they assign motion to these genera [25] is that motion seems to be something indefinite, and the principles in the second column are indefinite because they are privative; for none of them is a this, or of any quality, or any of the other predications. The reason why motion seems to be indefinite is that it cannot be assigned either to the potentiality or to [30] the actuality of beings. For neither what potentially has a given quantity nor what actually has it is necessarily in motion. Moreover, motion seems to be some sort of actuality, but an incomplete one; this is because the potential, of which motion is an actuality, is incomplete. This, then, is why it is difficult to grasp what motion is; for it has to be assigned either to [35] privation or to potentiality or to unqualified actuality, but none of these appears possible.

The remaining option, then, is the way [of understanding [202a] motion] that we have described: to say that it is a sort of actuality, and, in fact, the sort we have mentioned, which is difficult to notice but possible to be.

As we have said, everything that initiates motion is also moved, provided that it has a potentiality to be moved and that its lack of motion is rest (for, in [5] the case of things that undergo motion, lack of motion is rest). For to act on this sort of thing [i.e., something moveable], insofar as it is of this sort, is just what it is to move it. [The agent] does this by contact, so that it is itself acted on at the same time. That is why motion is the actuality of the moveable insofar as it is moveable; this comes about by contact with the mover, so that [the mover] is also acted on at the same time. In each case the mover will bring some form — either a this or of this quality or of this quantity [10]—that will be the principle and cause of motion whenever the mover initiates motion; for instance, an actual man makes something else actually a man from being potentially a man.

It is also evident how to answer the puzzle, by saying that the motion is in the thing moved. For it is the actuality of the thing moved, brought about by the agency of the mover. The actuality of the mover is [15] not different from this; for there must be an actuality of both mover and thing moved, since the mover is an initiator of motion by its potentiality, and it initiates motion by its actuality, but it is the thing moved that it brings to actuality. And so both mover and moved have one actuality, in the way in which the same interval is the interval from one to two and the interval from two to one, and [the same road] is the uphill and the downhill [road]. For these things are one, [20] but their account is not one; and the same applies to the mover and the thing moved.

This, however, raises a logical puzzle. For presumably there must be some actuality of the agent and of what is acted on. The former actuality is acting on something, and the latter actuality is being acted on; and the achievement and end of the former is an action, and of the latter a way of being acted on. Both [25] of these actualities, then, are motions; if, then, they are different, what are they in?

Either both are in the thing that is affected and moved, or else the acting is in the agent and the being acted on is in the thing acted on. (If this being acted on is [also] to be called acting, then acting will be homonymous.) But now, if this is so, then the motion will be in the mover, since the same account [30] applies to the mover and to the thing moved [as applies to the agent and to the thing acted on]. And so either the mover will be moved or it will have motion and yet not be moved.

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Suppose that, on the contrary, both the acting and the being acted on are in the thing that is moved and acted on, and that both teaching and learning, being two [motions], are in the learner. In that case, first of all, the actuality of a given [subject] will not be in that [subject]. Secondly, it is absurd that [the thing acted on] should undergo two motions at the same [35] time. For what will be the two alterations of one [subject] into one form? That is impossible.

Suppose, then, that the actuality [of the mover and [202b] the thing moved] are one. But it is unreasonable for two things that are different in form to have one and the same actuality. Moreover if [the processes of] teaching and learning, or [the processes of] acting and being acted on, are the same, then to teach will be the same as to learn, and to act will be the same as to be acted on, so that it will be necessary for the [5] one teaching to be learning [everything that he is teaching], and for the agent to be acted on [by its own action].

Perhaps, however, it is not absurd for the actuality of one thing to be in another thing; for teaching is the actuality of what is capable of teaching, but in some subject [acted on]. It is not cut off, but is the actuality of this [agent] in this [thing acted on]. And perhaps it is not impossible for two things to have one and the same actuality — not in such a way that the actuality is one in being, but in the way in which [10] the potential is related to the actual.

Nor is it necessary for the one teaching to be learning, even if acting and being acted on are the same, given that they are not the same in such a way that one and the same account states the essence of both, as it does for cape and cloak; rather, they are the same in the way in which the road from Thebes to Athens is the same as the road from Athens to Thebes, [15] as has been said before. For if things are [merely] the same in some way, it does not follow that all the same things belong to them; this follows only if their being is the same.

Moreover, even if [the process of] teaching is the same thing as learning, it does not follow that to teach is the same as to learn, just as, even if there is one interval between the two things separated by it, it does not follow that to be separated by the interval from here to there is one and the same as to be separated by the interval from there to here. And, to speak generally, [the process of teaching] is not the same thing in the full sense as learning, nor is acting [20] the same [in the full sense] as being acted on. What is one is the motion to which both the properties [of being a teaching and being a learning] belong. For being the actuality of this [subject] in that one is different in account from being the actuality of that [subject] by the agency of this one.

We have said, then, what motion is, both in general and in particular cases. For it is clear how each species of it will be defined. Alteration, for instance, will be [25] the actuality of the alterable insofar as it is alterable. To make it still better known: [Motion will be] the actuality of what has the potentiality for acting and being acted on, insofar as it has that potentiality. This is true without qualification, and again in particular cases— for instance in building or healing. The same account will be given of each of the other types of motion.

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BOOK VIII

Since motion must be everlasting and must never [258b] fail, there must be some everlasting first mover, one or more than one. The question whether each of the unmoved movers is everlasting is irrelevant to this argument; but it will be clear in the following way that there must be something that is itself unmoved and outside all change, either unqualified or coincidental, [15] but initiates motion in something else.

Let us suppose, then, if you like, that in the case of some things it is possible for them to be at one time and not to be at another without any coming to be or perishing—for if something has no parts, but it is at one time and is not at another time, perhaps it is necessary for it to be at one time and not to be [20] at another without changing. Let us also suppose that, among the principles that are unmoved but initiate motion, it is possible for some to be at one time and not to be at another time.

Still, this is not possible for every principle of that sort; for it is clear that there is something that causes the self-movers to be at one time and not to be at [25] another time. For every self-mover necessarily has some magnitude, if nothing that lacks parts is moved; but from what we have said it is not necessary for every mover to have magnitude. Hence the cause explaining why some things come to be and other things perish, and in a continuous sequence, cannot be any of the things that are unmoved but do not always exist; nor can some things be the cause of some [parts of the sequence] and other things the [30] cause of other [parts]; for neither any one of them nor all of them together is the cause explaining why the sequence is everlasting and continuous. For the sequence is everlasting and necessary, whereas all these movers are infinitely many and they do not all exist at the same time.

It is clear, then, that however many unmoved movers [259a] and self-movers perish and are succeeded by others, so that one unmoved mover moves one thing and another moves another, still there is something that embraces them all and is apart from each of them, which is the cause explaining why some exist and [5] some do not exist, and why the change is continuous. This is the cause of motion in these [other movers], and these are the cause of motion in the other things.

If, then, motion is everlasting, the first mover is also everlasting, if there is just one; and if there are many, there are many everlasting movers. But we must suppose there is one rather than many, and a finite rather than an infinite number. For in every case where the results [of either assumption] are the same, we should assume a finite number [of causes]; [10] for among natural things what is finite and better must exist rather [than its opposite] if this is possible. And one mover is sufficient; it will be first and everlasting among the unmoved things, and the principle of [15] motion for the other things.

1. [Antiphon (c. 479–411 B.C.) was an Athenian orator.— S.M.C.]

2. [Regarding Empedocles, see Plato’s Meno, n.6.]

3. [Democritus (c. 460—c. 370 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher who held that all things were composed of unchangeable atoms.]

4. [Polycleitus was a fifth-century-B.C. Greek sculptor.]

5. [The reference is to Democritus.]

6. [Protarchus was a student of Gorgias, regarding whom see Plato’s Meno, n.2.]

7. [The reference is to Empedocles.]

8. [The reference is to Anaxagoras, regarding whom see Plato’s Apology, n.7.]

250

On the Soul*

251

BOOK I

1 [402a] We suppose that knowing is fine and honorable, and that one type of knowing is finer and more honorable than another either because it is more exact or because it is concerned with better and more wonderful things. On both grounds, we might reasonably place [5] inquiry into the soul in the first rank. Moreover, knowledge of it seems to make an important contribution to [knowledge of] the truth as a whole, and especially to the [knowledge of] nature, since the soul is a sort of principle of animals. We seek to study and know the nature and essence of the soul, and then all of its coincidental properties; some of these seem to be distinctive attributes of the soul, while others also [10] seem to belong to animals because they have souls. And yet it is altogether in every way a most difficult task to reach any conviction about the soul. For, as in many other areas of study, we are seeking the essence and the what-it-is; and so someone might perhaps think some single line of inquiry is appropriate for every case where we want to know the [15] substance — just as demonstration suits all coincidental properties that are distinctive of a given subject. On this view, then, we should seek this single line of inquiry. If, however, no single line of inquiry is suitable for the what-it-is, our task turns out to be still more difficult, since in that case we must discover how to study each area. But even if it is evident [20] whether demonstration or division or some further line of inquiry is the right one, the question of where to begin our investigation causes many puzzles and confusions; for different things—for instance, numbers and surfaces—have different principles.

First of all, presumably, we must determine the soul’s genus and what it is. Is it, in other words, a this and a substance, or a quality, or a quantity, or something in one of the other predications that we [25] have distinguished? Further, is it something potential or is it more of an actuality? That makes quite a bit [402b] of difference. We should also examine whether it is divisible into parts or has no parts. Do all souls belong to the same species or not? If not, do they differ in species, or in genus? As things are, those who discuss and inquire into the soul would seem to examine only the human soul. Nor should we forget to ask [5] whether there is just one account of the soul, as there is of animal, or a different account for each type of soul—for instance, of horse, dog, man, god—so that the universal animal either is nothing or else is posterior to these. The same will apply to any other common thing predicated.

Further, if there are not many types of soul, but [one type of soul with many] parts, must we begin [10] by inquiring into the whole soul, or by inquiring into the parts? It is also difficult to determine which parts differ in nature from each other and whether we should begin by inquiring into the parts or for their functions. Should we, for instance, begin with understanding, perceiving, and so on, or with the part that understands and the part that perceives? And if we should begin with the functions, we might be puzzled [15] anew about whether we should investigate the corresponding objects before the functions — the object of perception, for instance, before perceiving, and the object of understanding before understanding.

It would indeed seem useful to know the what-it-is, in order to study the causes of the coincidental properties of substances. In mathematics, for instance, it is useful to know what straight and curved are or what a line and a surface are, in order to notice how [20] many right angles the angles of a triangle are equal to. Conversely, however, the [knowledge of the] coincidental properties also is also very important for knowing the what-it-is. For we can state the essence best once we can describe how all or most of the coincidental properties appear to be; for since the [25] [403a] what-it-is is the principle of all demonstration, a definition will clearly be dialectical and empty unless it results in knowledge, or at least in ready conjecture, about the coincidental properties.

A further puzzle arises about whether all the affections of the soul also belong to what has the soul or there is also some affection that is distinctive of [5] the soul itself. We must find the answer, but it is not easy.

In most cases (for instance, being angry or confident, having an appetite, or perceiving in general), it appears that without the body the soul neither is affected nor acts. Understanding, more than the other affections, would seem to be distinctive of the soul; but if it is also some sort of appearance or requires [10] appearance, then understanding also requires a body. And so if some function or affection of the soul is distinctive of it, then the soul would be separable; but if not, then it would not be separable. Similarly, the straight, insofar as it is straight, has many coincidental properties — for instance, that it touches a bronze sphere at a point— but if it is separated, it will [15] not touch the sphere in this way; for it is inseparable, given that in every case it requires some body.

In fact, all the affections of the soul—emotion, gentleness, fear, pity, confidence, and, further, joy, loving,

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and hating—would seem to require a body, since whenever we have them the body is affected in some way. An indication of this is the fact that [20] sometimes, though something severe and obvious affects us, we are not provoked or frightened; and sometimes we are moved by something small and faint, if the body is swelling and in the condition that accompanies anger. It is still more evident that sometimes, though nothing frightening is happening, people are affected just as a frightened person is.

[25] If this is so, then clearly affections are forms that involve matter. Hence the formulae will be, for instance: ‘Being angry is a certain motion of this sort of body or part or capacity by this agency for this end.’ Hence study of the soul — either every sort or this sort—turns out to be a task for the student of nature.

The student of nature and the dialectician would give different definitions of each of these affections — [30] of anger, for instance. The dialectician would define it as a desire to inflict pain in return for pain, or something of that sort, whereas the student of nature would define it as a boiling of the blood and of the hot [element] around the heart. The student of nature [403b] describes the matter, whereas the dialectician describes the form and the account: for desire, for instance, is the form of the thing, but its existence requires this sort of matter. Similarly, the account of a house is of this sort—that it is a shelter preventing destruction by wind, rain, or heat; someone else will [5] say that it is stones, bricks, and timber; and someone else will say that it is the form in these [stones, for instance], for the sake of this end. Who, then, is the [real] student of nature—the one who is concerned with the matter but is ignorant of the account, or the one who is concerned only with the account? Or is the [real] student of nature more properly the one who mentions both form and matter? If so, then what is each of the first two?

Perhaps in fact there is no one who is concerned [10] with the inseparable affections of matter but not concerned with them insofar as they are separable. Rather, the student of nature is concerned with all the actions and affections of this sort of body and this sort of matter; what is not of this sort concerns someone else, perhaps a craftsman (for instance, a carpenter or a doctor). Inseparable affections, insofar as they [15] are not affections of this sort of body but [are considered] by abstraction, concern the mathematician; insofar as they are separated, they concern first philosophy.

We should return to where our discussion began. We were saying, then, that the affections of the soul (for instance, emotion and fear) are, insofar as they are affections of the soul, inseparable (unlike surface and line) from the natural matter of animals.

253

BOOK II

So much for the views on the soul that our predecessors [412a3] have handed down. Let us now return and make a new start, trying to determine what the soul is and [5] what account of it best applies to all souls in common.

We say, then, that one kind of being is substance. One sort of substance is matter, which is not a this in its own right; another sort is shape or form, which makes [matter] a this; and the third sort is the compound of matter and form. Matter is potentiality, and [10] form is actuality; actuality is either, for instance, [the state of] knowing or [the activity of] attending [to what one knows].

What seem to be substances most of all are bodies, and especially natural bodies, since these are the sources of the others. Some natural bodies are alive and some are not — by ‘life’ I mean self-nourishment, [15] growth, and decay.

It follows that every living natural body is a substance and, [more precisely,] substance as compound. But since every such body is also this sort of body — i.e., the sort that is alive—the soul cannot be a body, since the body [is substance] as subject and matter and is not said [20] of a subject. The soul, then, must be substance as the form of a natural body that is potentially alive. Now, substance is actuality; hence the soul will be the actuality of this specific sort of body.

Actuality is spoken of in two ways — one corresponding to [the state of] knowing and the other to attending to [what one knows]. Evidently, then, the soul is the same sort of actuality that knowing is. For both being asleep and being awake require the [25] presence of the soul; being awake corresponds to attending and being asleep to the state of inactive knowing. Moreover, in the same subject the state of knowing precedes the activity. Hence the soul is the first actuality of a natural body that is potentially alive.

[412b] The sort of natural body that is potentially alive is an organic one. The parts of plants are also organs, though altogether simple ones; the leaf, for instance, is a shelter for the shell, and the shell for the fruit, and similarly the roots correspond to a mouth, since both draw in food. And so, if we must give an account [5] common to every sort of soul, we will say that the soul is the first actuality of a natural organic body.

Hence we need not ask whether the soul and body are one, any more than we need to ask this about the wax and the seal or, in general, about the matter and the thing of which it is the matter. For while one and being are spoken of in several ways, the actuality [and what it actualizes] are fully one.

[10] We have said in general, then, that the soul is substance that corresponds to the account; and this [sort of substance] is the essence of this sort of body. Suppose some instrument—an axe, for instance— were a natural body; then being an axe would be its substance, and its soul would also be this [i.e., being an axe]; and if this substance were separated from it, it would no longer be an axe, except homonymously. [15] In fact, however, it is an axe; for the soul is not the essence and form of this sort of body but of the specific sort of natural body that has in itself a principle of motion and rest.

We must also study this point by applying it to the parts [of living things]. If the eye, for instance, were an animal, sight would be its soul. For sight is the eye’s substance that corresponds to the account, while [20] the eye is the matter of sight; if an eye loses its sight, it is no longer an eye, except homonymously, as a stone eye or a painted eye is. We must apply this point about the part to the whole living body; for what holds for the relation of part [of the faculty of perception] to part [of the body] holds equally for the relation of the whole faculty of perception to the whole perceptive body, insofar as it is perceptive. The [25] sort of body that is potentially alive is not the one that has lost its soul but the one that has it; and the seed or the fruit is potentially this sort of body.

Being awake, then, is a [second] actuality, corresponding to cutting or seeing. The soul is [a first] actuality, corresponding to [the faculty of] sight and [413a] to the potentiality of the instrument [to cut]; and the body is potentially this. And as an eye is the pupil plus sight, so an animal is soul plus body.

It is clear, then, that the soul is not separable from the body. At least, some parts of it are not, if it is divisible into parts; for the actuality of some [parts of [5] the soul] is [the actuality] of the parts [of the body] themselves. Still, some [parts of the soul] might well not be actualities of any body and might therefore be separable. Moreover, it is still unclear whether the soul is the actuality of the body in the way a sailor is of a

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ship. Let this, then, be our outline definition and sketch [10] of the soul.

Since what is perspicuous and better known from the point of view of reason emerges from what is less perspicuous but more evident, we must start again and apply this approach to the soul. For the defining account must not confine itself, as most definitions do, to showing the fact; it must also contain and [15] indicate its cause. The accounts that are customarily stated in formulae are like conclusions, so that if we ask, for instance, what squaring is, we are told that it is making an equilateral rectangle equal to an oblong rectangle. This sort of formula is an account of the conclusion, whereas the one that defines squaring as [20] the finding of the mean states the cause of the fact.

To begin our inquiry, then, we say that living is what distinguishes things with souls from things without souls. Living is spoken of in several ways — for instance, understanding, perception, locomotion, and [25] rest, and also the motion involved in nourishment, and decay and growth. And so whatever has even one of these is said to be alive.

This is why all plants as well [as animals] seem to be alive, since they evidently have an internal potentiality and principle through which they both grow and decay in contrary directions. For they grow up and down and in all directions alike, not just up [30] rather than down; they are continually nourished, and they stay alive as long as they can absorb nourishment. This [sort of life] can be separated from the others, but in mortal things the others cannot be separated from it. This is evident in the case of plants, since they have no other potentiality of the soul.

[413b] This principle, then, is what makes something alive. What makes something an animal is primarily perception; for whatever has perception, even without motion or locomotion, is said to be an animal, not simply to be alive. Touch is the primary type of [5] perception belonging to all animals, and it can be separated from the other senses, just as the nutritive [potentiality] can be separated from touch and the other senses.

The part of the soul that belongs to plants as well as to animals is called nutritive; and all animals evidently [10] have the sense of touch. Later we will state the explanation of each of these facts. For now let us confine ourselves to saying that the soul is the principle of the [potentialities] we have mentioned — for nutrition, perception, understanding, and motion—and is defined by them.

Is each of these a soul or a part of a soul? And if [15] a part, is it the sort that is separable only in account, or is it also separable in place? In some cases the answer is easily seen, but some parts raise a puzzle. For some plants are evidently still alive when they are cut [from one plant] and are separated from each other; for, we assume, the soul in each plant is actually one but potentially more than one. And we see that the same is also true of other differentiae of the soul. [20] [This is clear] in the case of insects that are cut in two. For each part has both perception and locomotion; if it has perception, then it also has appearance and desire. For if it has perception, then it has pain and pleasure, and if it has these, then it necessarily also has appetite.

So far, however, nothing is evident about understanding [25] and the potentiality for theoretical study. It would seem to be a different kind of soul, and the only part that can be separated, in the way in which the everlasting can be separated from the perishable.

It evidently follows, however, that the other parts of the soul are not separable, as some say they are. But they evidently differ in account; for perceiving [30] is different from believing, and hence being the perceptive part is different from being the believing part, and so on for each of the other parts mentioned.

Further, animals are differentiated by the fact that some of them have all of these parts, some have some of them, and some have only one; we should [414a] investigate the reason for this later. Practically the same is true of the senses; some animals have all of them, some have some of them, and some have only the most necessary one, touch.

When we say we live and perceive by something, [5] we speak in two ways, just as we do when we say we know by something. For we say we know either by knowledge or by the soul, since we say we know by each of these; and similarly, we are healthy in one way by health, in another way by some part or the whole of the body. In these cases, knowledge or health is a sort of shape and form, i.e., an account and a sort of actuality of what is receptive of knowledge or [10] health; for the actuality of the agent seems to occur in the thing that is acted on and suitably disposed.

Now the soul is that by which we primarily live, perceive, and think, and so it will be an account and a

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form, not matter and subject. For substance, as we said, [15] is spoken of in three ways, as form, matter, and the compound of both; of these, matter is potentiality, form actuality. Since, therefore, the compound of body and soul is ensouled, body is not the actuality of soul, but the soul is the actuality of some sort of body.

This vindicates the view of those who think that the soul is not a body but requires a body; for it is [20] not a body, but it belongs to a body, and for that reason it is present in a body, and in this sort of body. Our predecessors were wrong, then, in trying to fit the soul into a body without further determining the proper sort of body, even though it appears that not [25] just any old thing receives any old thing. Our view, however, is quite reasonable, since a thing’s actuality naturally comes to be in what has the potentiality for it, i.e., in the proper matter.

It is evident from this, then, that the soul is a certain sort of actuality and form of what has the potentiality to be of this sort.

As we said, some things have all the potentialities of [30] the soul that were previously mentioned, while other things have some of these potentialities, and others have only one. The potentialities we mentioned were those for nutrition, perception, desire, locomotion, and understanding. Now, plants have only the nutritive [414b] part. Other things have the nutritive part and also the perceptive part, and if they have the perceptive part, they also have the desiring part. For desire includes appetite, emotion, and wish; but all animals have at least the sense of touch, and whatever has [5] any perception has pleasure and pain and finds things pleasant or painful. Whatever finds things pleasant and painful also has appetite, since appetite is desire for what is pleasant.

Further, animals have the perception of nourishment; for touch is perception of nourishment, since all living things are nourished by things that are dry and wet and hot and cold, and touch is the perception of these. Animals are nourished by other objects of [10] perception only coincidentally, since neither sound nor color nor smell contributes anything to nourishment, and flavor is an object of touch. Now, hunger and thirst are appetites for the dry and hot, and the wet and cold, respectively, while flavor is a sort of pleasant relish belonging to these.

We must make these points clear later on. For now [15] let us confine ourselves to saying that living things that have touch also have desire. Whether they all have appearance is not clear, and must be considered later.

Besides these parts, some things have the locomotive part. Other — human beings, for instance, and any thinking being that is different from, or superior to, a human being—also have the thinking part and intellect.

Clearly, then, soul will have one single account in [20] the same way that figure has; for just as figure is nothing besides the triangle and the figures that follow in order, so equally the soul is nothing besides those [potentialities] we have mentioned. Still, in the case of figures we can find a common account that fits all of them and is distinctive of none; the same is true for the souls we have mentioned. It is ridiculous, [25] then, in these and other such cases, to seek a common account that is not distinctive of any being and does not fit the proper and indivisible species, if we neglect this [distinctive] account. Hence we must ask what the [32] soul of each particular [kind of thing] —for instance, a plant, a human being, or a beast—is. [33]

What is true of the soul is similar to what is true of figure; for in both cases the earlier is invariably [38] present potentially in its successor—for instance, the triangle in the square, and the nutritive in the perceptive. We must consider why they are in this order. [415a] For the perceptive part requires the nutritive, but in plants the nutritive is separated from the perceptive. Again, each of the other senses requires touch, whereas touch is found without the other senses, since [5] many animals lack sight, hearing, and smell. Among things that perceive, some but not all have the locomotive part. Finally and most rarely, some have reasoning and understanding. For perishable things that have reasoning also have all the other parts of the soul; but not all of those that have each of the other [10] parts also have reasoning—on the contrary, some animals lack appearance, while some live by appearance alone. Theoretical intellect requires a different account.

Clearly, then, the account of each of these parts of the soul is also the most proper account of [each type of] soul.

If we are to investigate these [parts of the soul] we must find what each of them is and then inquire into [15] the next questions and those that follow. And if we ought to say what, for instance, the understanding or the perceptive or the nutritive part is, we should first say what it is to understand or perceive, since actualities and

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actions are prior in account to potentialities. [20] If this is so, and if in addition the objects corresponding to the actualities are prior to them and so must be studied first, then we must, for the same reason, begin by determining the objects corresponding to nutrition, sense, and understanding. And so we should first discuss nourishment and generation; for the nutritive soul belongs to other living things as well as [25] [to plants], and it is the first and most widely shared potentiality of the soul, the one that makes all living things alive.

Its functions are generation and the use of nourishment. For the most natural of all functions for a living thing, if it is complete and not defective and does not come to be by chance, is to produce another thing of the same sort as itself (an animal, if it is an animal, and a plant, if it is a plant), in order to share [415b] as far as it can in the everlasting and divine. For this is the end they all strive for, and for its sake they do every action that accords with nature. (What something is for is of two types — the goal and the beneficiary.) These living things cannot share in the everlasting and divine by continuously existing, since no perishable thing can remain numerically one and [5] the same; hence they share in it as far as they can, to different degrees, and what remains is not the [parent] itself, but something else of the same sort as [the parent]—something that is specifically, not numerically, one with [the parent].

The soul is the cause and principle of the living body. Now, causes are spoken of in many ways, and [10] the soul is a cause in three of the ways distinguished — as the source of motion, as what something is for, and as the substance of ensouled bodies.

It is clearly the cause as substance; for a thing’s substance is the cause of its being, and the being of living things is their living, the cause and principle of which is soul. Moreover, the actuality is the form of what is potentiality.

[15] The soul is evidently also a cause by being what something is for. For just as productive thought aims at something, so does nature, and what it aims at is its end. In living things the natural end is the soul; for all natural bodies, of plants no less than of animals, [20] are organs of the soul, since they are for the sake of the soul. (The end for the sake of which is of two types, either the goal or the beneficiary.)

Moreover, the soul is also the source of locomotion, though not all living things have this potentiality. Alteration and growth also depend on the soul; for [25] perception seems to be some kind of alteration, and nothing that lacks a soul perceives. The same applies to growth and decay; for nothing either decays or grows naturally without being nourished, and nothing that has no share of life is nourished.

Empedocles is wrong when he adds that plants grow by putting down roots because earth naturally [416a] moves downwards, and that plants grow by extending upwards because fire naturally moves upwards. His conception of up and down is wrong. For up and down are not the same for each particular [sort of] thing as they are for the universe as a whole; in fact, [5] if we ought to call organs the same or different in accordance with their functions, a plant’s roots correspond to an animal’s head. Besides, what is it that holds the fire and earth together when they are moving in contrary directions? For they will be torn apart unless something prevents it; whatever prevents it will be the soul, the cause of growing and being nourished.

Some think the nature of fire is the unqualified [10] cause of nourishment and growth, since it is the only body that is evidently nourished and grows, and hence one might suppose that it also performs this function in both plants and animals. In fact, however, fire is a sort of joint cause, but not the unqualified cause; [15] it is the soul, rather than fire, that is the unqualified cause. For while fire grows without limit, as long as there is fuel, the size and growth of everything naturally constituted has a limit and form, which are characteristic of soul, not of fire — i.e., of the form rather than of the matter.

Since one and the same potentiality of the soul is both nutritive and generative, we must first determine [20] the facts about nutrition; for this is the function that distinguishes the nutritive potentiality from others.

Contrary seems to nourish contrary, not in every case, but only when they not only come to be but also grow from each other; for many things come to be from each other (healthy from sick, for instance) [25] without gaining any quantity. And not even those contraries that grow seem to nourish each other in the same way; water, for instance, nourishes fire, but fire does not nourish water. It seems to be true, then, of the simple bodies more than of other things, that one thing nourishes and the other is nourished.

A puzzle arises: while some say that like nourishes [30] like, just as (they say) like grows by like, others, as we have said, hold the opposite view, that contrary nourishes contrary; for, they say, like is unaffected by like, but nourishment changes and is digested, and everything changes into its opposite or into the intermediate [35]. Moreover, nourishment is affected by the thing nourished, whereas the thing nourished is unaffected [416b] by the nourishment — just as the matter is affected by the carpenter, who is unaffected by it and merely changes from inactivity to activity.

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It matters for this question whether nourishment [5] is the first or last thing added. Perhaps it is both, if undigested nourishment is added first, and digested nourishment last. If so, then it would be possible to speak of nourishment in both ways; for in so far as nourishment is undigested, contrary nourishes contrary, and in so far as it has been digested, like nourishes like. Evidently, then, each view is in a way both correct and incorrect.

Since nothing is nourished except what has a share [10] of life, the ensouled body, in so far as it is ensouled, is what is nourished. Nourishment, therefore, is also relative, not coincidentally, to an ensouled thing. However, nourishing something is not the same as making it grow; for an ensouled thing is caused to grow in so far as it has some quantity, but it is nourished in so far as it is a this and a substance. For [15] it preserves its substance and exists as long as it is nourished; and what it generates is not itself, but something else of the same sort—for its own substance already exists, and a thing does not generate, but preserves, itself.

Hence this sort of principle in the soul is a potentiality of the sort that preserves the ensouled thing, in so far as it is ensouled, and nourishment equips it for its actuality; and so if it has been deprived of [23] nourishment it cannot exist. Further, since a thing’s end rightly determines what we should call it, and in this case the end is the generation of another thing [25] of the same sort, this first soul will be the generative soul, generating another thing of the same sort.

We must distinguish three things — what is nourished, what it is nourished by, and what nourishes. What nourishes is this first soul, what is nourished is the ensouled body, and what it is nourished by is the nourishment. What the soul nourishes by is of two types—just as what we steer by is both the hand and the rudder: The first both initiates motion and undergoes it, and the second simply undergoes it. Since all nourishment must be digestible and the hot element produces digestion, every ensouled thing contains heat.

This, then, is an outline of what nutrition is; we [30] should describe it more clearly later in the discussions proper to it.

Now that we have determined this, let us discuss perception in general. Perception occurs in being moved and affected, as we have said, since it seems to be a type of alteration. Some also say that like is [35] affected by like; we have said in our general discussion [417a] of acting and being affected how this is or is not possible.

A puzzle arises about why we do not perceive the senses themselves, and about why they do not produce perception without external objects, despite the presence of fire, earth, and the other elements, whose [5] intrinsic or coincidental properties are the things that are perceived. Clearly, then, the perceptive part is [what it is] by merely potential, not actual, [perceiving], and so it does not perceive [without an external object] — just as what is combustible is not burnt all by itself without something to burn it, since otherwise it would burn itself with no need of actual fire.

We speak of perceiving in two ways; for we say that [10] something sees or hears both in the case of something that has the potentiality for seeing or hearing, even though it is asleep at the time, and in the case of something that is actually seeing or hearing at the time. It follows that perception is also spoken of in two ways, as potential and as actual, and in the same way both what is potentially perceived and what is actually perceived are called objects of perception.

First, then, let us speak as though the actuality [15] were the same as being affected and moved—for motion is in fact a sort of actuality, though an incomplete one, as we have said elsewhere. Now, everything is affected and moved by an agent that has the relevant property in actuality, so that in a way like is affected by like, and in a way unlike by unlike—for what is [20] being affected is unlike the agent, but when it has been affected it is like the agent.

We must also distinguish types of potentiality and actuality, since just now we were speaking of them without qualification. One way in which someone might know is the way we have in mind in saying that a man knows because man is a kind of thing [25] that knows and has knowledge; another way is the way we have in mind in saying that someone who has grammatical knowledge knows. These knowers have different sorts of potentiality—the first has a potentiality because he has the right sort of genus and matter, whereas the second has a potentiality because he has the potentiality to attend to something when he wishes, if nothing external prevents it. A third sort [of knower] is someone who is attending to something at the time, actualizing his knowledge [30] and fully knowing (for instance) this A. In the first and second case we pass from potentially to actually knowing; but in the first case we do so by being altered through learning, and by frequent changes from the contrary state, while in the second case—where we [417b] pass from having arithmetical or grammatical knowledge without actualizing it, to actualizing it—we do so in another way.

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Further, there is not just one way of being affected. On the contrary, one way of being affected is a destruction of contrary by contrary, while the other way is more properly preservation, not destruction, of a potential F by an actual F, when the potential F is [5] [not contrary, but] like the actual F, in the way that a potentiality is like its actuality. For the second case— where the possessor of knowledge comes to attend to what he knows—either is not a case of alteration at all (since the addition leads to [the knowledge] itself and to the actuality) or is a different kind of alteration. That is why we should not say that the intelligent subject is altered in exercising his intelligence, just as we should not say that the builder is altered in [actually] building.

[10] First, then, when an understanding and intelligent subject is led from potentiality to actuality, we should not call this teaching but give it some other name. Again, if a subject with potential knowledge learns and acquires knowledge from a teacher with actual knowledge, then we should say either, as we said, that this is not a case of being affected, or that there [15] are two ways of being altered, one of which is a change into a condition of deprivation, and the other of which is a change into possession of a state and into [the fulfillment of the subject’s] nature.

In the perceiver, the first change is produced by its parent; and at birth it possesses perception corresponding to [the second type of] knowledge. We speak of actual perceiving in a way that corresponds to attending, except that the visible, audible, and other [20] perceptible objects that produce the actuality are external. This is because actual perception is of particulars, while knowledge is of universals, which are, in a way, in the soul itself; hence it is up to us to think whenever we want to, but it is not up to us to perceive [25] whenever we want to, since perception requires the presence of its object. The same is true for the types of knowledge that are about perceptible things, and for the same reason—namely that perceptible things are particulars and external.

There may be an opportunity to explain these points more perspicuously another time, but for the [30] moment let us be content with the distinctions we have made. There are different types of potentiality: One is what is meant in saying that a child is potentially a general. A second is what is meant in attributing the potentiality to someone of the right age, and [this second type] applies to the perceptive part. Since [418a] the difference between these cases has no name, though our distinctions have shown that they are different, and in what ways, we have to use ‘being affected’ and ‘being altered’ as though they were the strictly correct names.

The perceiver is potentially what the perceptible object actually is already, as we have said. When it [5] is being affected, then, it is unlike the object; but when it has been affected it has been made like the object and has acquired its quality.

We should first discuss the objects of perception, taking each sense in turn. An object of perception is spoken of in three ways: Two types are perceived intrinsically, and one coincidentally. One type of intrinsic [10] object is proper to each sense, and the other type of intrinsic object is common to all the senses.

By ‘proper object’ I mean the one that cannot be perceived by another sense and about which we cannot be deceived. Sight, for instance, is of color; hearing of sound; taste of flavor; and touch has a number of different objects. At any rate, each sense discriminates [15] among its proper objects, and a sense is not deceived about whether, for instance, something is a color or a sound, but can be deceived about whether or where the colored or sounding thing is. These objects, then, are said to be proper to each sense.

Motion, rest, number, shape, and size are the common objects, since they are not proper to any one sense, but are common to them all — a certain sort [20] of motion, for instance, is perceptible by both touch and sight.

Something is said to be coincidentally perceptible if, for instance, the pale [thing] is the son of Diares. For we perceive the son of Diares coincidentally, since he coincides with the pale thing we perceive, and hence we are not affected at all by the perceptible object in so far as it is [the son of Diares].

Among the intrinsic objects of perception, the [25] proper objects are most properly perceptible, and the essence of each sense is by nature relative to these… .

[423b27] … The objects of touch are the differentiae of body in so far as it is body, i.e., those that distinguish the elements — hot, cold, dry, and wet; we have discussed [30] these earlier in what we said about the elements. Their tactile sense-organ, the primary seat of the sense called touch, is the part that has these qualities potentially. [424a] For perceiving is a way of being affected; hence the agent causes the thing that is

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affected, which potentially has the quality that the agent has, to have that quality actually. Hence we do not perceive anything that is as dry or wet, or hard or soft, [as the organ,] but only the

excesses in either direction, because the sense is a [5] sort of intermediate condition between the contraries in objects of perception. And that is why a sense discriminates among its objects; for what is intermediate discriminates, since in relation to each extreme it becomes the other extreme. And just as what is going to perceive both pale and dark must be actually neither pale nor dark but potentially both, and similarly [10] in the other cases, so also in the case of touch, [what is going to perceive the contraries] must be neither hot nor cold.

Further, just as we found that sight in a way perceives both the visible and the invisible, and similarly the other senses perceive the opposites, so also touch perceives the tangible and the intangible. What is intangible is either something that either has altogether very few of the differentiating properties of tangibles—air, for instance—or has an excess of tangible qualities — for instance, things that destroy the [15] sense.

We have spoken in outline, then, of the senses, one by one.

A general point to be grasped is that each sense receives the perceptible forms without the matter. Wax, for instance, receives the design on a signet-ring without the iron or gold; it acquires the design in the [20] gold or bronze, but not insofar as the design is gold or bronze. Similarly, each sense is affected by the thing that has color or flavor or sound, but not insofar as it is said to be that thing [for instance, a horse], but insofar as it has a given quality [for instance, color] and in accordance with the form [of the sense].

The primary sense-organ is the seat of this sort of [25] potentiality. Hence the organ and the capacity are one, but their being is different. For though [the sense-organ] that perceives is of some magnitude, being perceptive is not, and [so] the sense is not something with magnitude but is a [specific sort of] form and potentiality of the organ.

It is also evident from this why excesses in objects of perception destroy the sense-organs. For if the motion [30] is too strong for the sense-organ, then the form, i.e., the sense, is destroyed, just as the harmony and tension are destroyed if the strings of an instrument are struck heavily.

This also makes it evident why plants do not perceive, even though they have one part of soul, and are affected in some ways by objects of touch, since they are chilled and heated. The reason is that they [424b] lack a [suitable] intermediate condition and a principle suitable for receiving the form of perceptible things; instead, they are affected [by the form] with the matter.

A puzzle arises about whether something that cannot smell can be at all affected by odor, or something [5] that cannot see can be affected by color, and so on for the other cases. If the object of smell is odor, then anything produced by odor must be [the act of] smelling; hence nothing that is incapable of smelling anything can be affected by odor (the same applies to the other cases), and any such thing must be affected in so far as it is a perceiver. A further argument [10] makes the same conclusion clear. For a body is affected neither by light and darkness nor by sound nor by odor, but only by their subject, as, for instance, the air that comes with the thunder splits the log.

On the other hand, tangible [qualities] and flavors affect bodies; otherwise, what would affect and alter soulless things? Then will the other objects of perception also affect bodies? Perhaps not every body is [15] liable to be affected by odor and sound, and those that are affected are indefinite and impermanent — air, for instance, since it acquires an odor as though affected in some way.

Then what is there to smelling, besides being affected? Perhaps smelling is [not only being affected, but] also perceiving, while air that is affected [by odor], by contrast, soon becomes an object of perception [not a perceiver].

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[425b12] Since we perceive that we are seeing and hearing, it must be either sight or a different sense by which we perceive that we are seeing. [In the second case] the same sense will perceive both sight and the color that is the [external] subject, so that either there will be two senses perceiving the same thing, or else the sense [15] will perceive itself. Again, if the sense that perceives sight is different [from sight itself], then either it will go on without limit or there will be some sense that perceives itself, so that one ought to make this claim about the first sense.

Still, a puzzle arises. If perceiving by sight is seeing and if what we see is color or something colored, then if we are seeing, the first case of seeing will be colored.

[20] It is evident, then, that perceiving by sight is not just one thing; for indeed, whenever we are not seeing, we discriminate light and darkness, but not in the same way. Moreover what sees is in fact colored in a way; for a sense-organ receives the object of perception without its matter. That is why, even when the objects of perception have gone away, perceptions [25] and appearances are still present in the sense-organs.

The actuality of the object of perception and of the sense are one and the same, but their being is not the same. I mean, for instance, that the actual sound and the actual hearing [are one and the same]; for it is possible to have [the sense of] hearing without [30] [actually] hearing, and what has sound is not always making a sound. But whenever what has the potentiality to hear is actually hearing, and what has the potentiality to sound is sounding, then actual hearing and actual sounding occur at the same time, so that we would say that one thing is a case of hearing and the [426a] other a case of sounding.

If, then, the motion and the action are in the thing affected, both the sounding and the actual hearing must be in the [sense] that has the potentiality. For the actuality of what acts on something and initiates motion in it comes to be in the thing affected—that [5] is why what initiates motion need not be set in motion itself. Now, the actuality of what has the potentiality to sound is sound or sounding, while the actuality of what has a potentiality for hearing is hearing or listening for hearing is of two sorts, and so is sound.

The same account applies to the other senses and their objects. For just as both acting on something [10] and being affected are in the thing affected, not in the thing acting on it, so also both the actuality of the object of perception and the actuality of the perceiver are in the perceiver. In some cases, however, the two actualities have different names, as sounding and hearing have, while in other cases one of them has no name; for the actuality of sight is called seeing, whereas the actuality of color has [15] no name, and the actuality of what has the potentiality to taste is called tasting, whereas the actuality of flavor has no name.

And since the actuality of the object of perception and of what has the potentiality of perceiving are one, but their being is different, it follows that hearing and sounding (spoken of in this way), flavor and tasting, and so on, must all perish or remain in being at the same time. But this is not necessary for the things said to have the relevant potentiality.

In fact the earlier naturalists were wrong on this [20] point, in supposing that nothing was pale or dark without sight, and that there was no flavor without taste. For in a way they were correct, but in a way incorrect. For perception and its object are spoken of in two ways, as potential and as actual; in the case [25] [of the actuality] what they say is correct, but in the case [of the potentiality] it is not. They, however, spoke without qualification about things that are not spoken of without qualification… .

[428a1] … If appearance is that in virtue of which some object appears to us, in contrast to what is so called metaphorically, then is it one of those potentialities or states in virtue of which we discriminate and attain [5] truth or falsity? These are perception, belief, knowledge, and understanding.

It is clear as follows that appearance is not the same as perception. For perception is either a potentiality, such as sight, or an actuality, such as seeing; but we have appearances when we have neither of these — in dreams, for instance. Moreover, perception is present in every [animal], but appearance is not. If they [10] were the same in actuality, then it would be possible for all beasts to have appearance, whereas in fact it does not seem possible [for all]; ants or bees, for instance, and grubs [do not have it]. Further, perceptions are

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always true, whereas most appearances are false. Again, whenever we are actually perceiving accurately, we do not say that this appears to us [to be] a man; we are more inclined to say [that something [15] appears to be so] in cases where we do not see clearly whether something is true or false. Further, as we were saying before, sights appear to us even when we have our eyes closed.

The remaining question is whether appearance is [20] belief; for belief may also be either true or false. Belief, however, implies conviction — since one cannot believe things if one does not find them convincing— whereas no beasts have conviction, though many have appearance. Further, belief implies conviction, conviction implies being persuaded, and persuasion implies reason, whereas no beasts have reason, though some have appearance.

[25] It is evident, then, that appearance is neither belief that involves perception, nor belief that is produced through perception, nor a combination of belief and perception. This is so both for the reasons given and also because [on this view] belief will not be about anything other than the thing, if there is one, that is the object of perception.

I mean, for instance, that the combination of a belief about the pale and a perception of the pale will turn out to be appearance; for surely it will not [30] be the combination of a belief about the good and a perception of the pale — for appearance will be having [428b] a belief non-coincidentally about the very thing one perceives. In fact, however, we sometimes have false appearances about the same things at the same time as we have a true supposition about them, as when, for instance, the sun appears a foot across, even though we are convinced that it is bigger than the inhabited world.

It turns out, then, [on the view being considered] [5] that either we have lost the true belief we had, even though the thing still exists and we have neither forgotten our belief nor been persuaded to change it, or else, if we still have the true belief, the same belief must at the same time be both true and false. But in fact it could have become false only if the thing changed without our noticing it. It follows, then, that appearance cannot be any of these things, nor a product of them.

It is possible, however, when one thing has been [10] set in motion, for a second thing to be set in motion by the first. Moreover, appearance seems to be a sort of motion, to involve perception, to be present in things that have perception, and to be about the objects of perception. Now, it is also possible for motion to result from actual perception, and this motion must be similar to the perception.

Hence this motion cannot occur without perception [15] or in things that do not have perception. Things that have appearance act and are affected in many ways in accordance with it, and it can be either true or false … .

Now we must consider the part by which the soul [429a10] has knowledge and intelligence, and ask whether it is separable, or it is not separable in magnitude but only in account; and what its differentia is, and how understanding comes about.

Now, if understanding is like perceiving, it consists either in being affected by the object of intellect or in something else of the same sort. Hence the intellect [15] must be unaffected, but receptive of the form; it must have the quality [of the object] potentially, not actually; and it must be related to its object as the perceiving part is related to the objects of perception.

Hence the intellect, since it understands all things, must be unmixed, in order, as Anaxagoras says, to [20] ‘master’ them (i.e., to know them); for the intrusion of any foreign thing would hinder and obstruct it. And so it has no nature except this — that it is potential. Hence the part of the soul called intellect (by which I mean that by which the soul thinks and supposes) is not actually, before it understands, any of the things [25] there are. It is also unreasonable, then, for intellect to be mixed with the body, since it would then acquire some quality (for instance, hot or cold) or even, like the perceiving part, have some organ, whereas in fact it has none.

And so those who say that the soul is a place of forms are right, except that it is the intellectual soul, not the whole soul, which is — potentially, not actually—the forms.

[30] The condition of the sense-organ and of the faculty of perception makes it evident that the perceiving part and the intellectual part are unaffected in different [429b] ways. For after a sense perceives something very perceptible, it cannot perceive; after hearing very loud sounds, for instance, it cannot hear sound, and after seeing vivid colors or smelling strong odors, it cannot see or smell. But whenever intellect understands something that is very intelligible, it understands [5] more, not less, about inferior objects; for intellect is

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separable, whereas the perceiving part requires a body. When the intellect becomes each thing [that it understands], as it does when someone is said to have

actual knowledge (this comes about whenever someone is able to actualize his knowledge through himself), even then it is still potential in a way, though not in the same way as before it learnt or discovered; and then it is capable of understanding itself.

[10] Magnitude is different from being magnitude and water from being water; and the same applies in many other cases too, though not in all, since in some cases the thing is the same as its being. It follows that to discriminate being flesh we use something different, or something in a different state, from what we use in discriminating flesh; for flesh requires matter, and, [15] like the snub, it is this [form] in this [matter]. Hence to discriminate the hot and the cold and the things of which flesh is some sort of form, we use the perceptive part; but to discriminate being flesh, we use something else that is either separable [from body] or related to it as a formerly bent line is related to the straight line it has become.

Further, if we turn to things whose being depends on abstraction, the straight is similar to the snub, since it requires something continuous. But if being [20] straight is different from the straight, then so is the essence of straight (duality, let us say) different from the straight, and therefore to discriminate it we use something different, or something in a different state. In general, then, the [separability] of intellect corresponds to the way in which objects are separable from matter.

A puzzle arises. If intellect is simple and unaffected, having, as Anaxagoras says, nothing in common with anything, then how can it understand, if understanding [25] consists in being affected? For it seems that two things must have something in common if one is to affect the other. Again, is intellect itself an object of intellect? For if nothing other [than itself] makes it an object of intellect, and if all objects of intellect are one in species, then the other objects of intellect will also be intellect; alternatively, it will need something mixed into it, to make it an object of intellect in the same way as the other objects of intellect are. [30]

On the other hand, our previous discussion of ways of being affected because of something in common has shown that the intellect is in a way potentially the objects of intellect, but before it understands them, it is none of them actually. Its potentiality is that of a [430a] writing tablet with nothing actually written on it— which is also true of intellect.

Further, intellect itself is an object of intellect in the same way as its objects are. For in the case of things without matter, the understanding part and its object are one, since actual knowledge and its object [5] are the same. (We should investigate why it is not [engaged in the activity of] understanding all the time.) In things that have matter, each object of intellect is potentially present; hence intellect will not be in them (since it is a potentiality for being such things without their matter), but it will be an object of intellect.

In the whole of nature each kind of thing has something [10] as its matter, which is potentially all the things in the kind, and something else as the cause and producer, which produces them all — for instance, the craft in relation to its matter. These differences, then, must also be found in the soul. One sort of intellect [15] corresponds to matter, since it becomes all things. Another sort corresponds to the producer by producing all things in the way that a state, such as light, produces things — for in a way light makes potential colors into actual colors. This second sort of intellect is separable, unaffected, and unmixed, since its essence is actuality.

For in every case the producer is more valuable than the thing affected, and the principle is more [20] valuable than the matter. Actual knowledge is the same as its object; potential knowledge is temporally prior in an individual [knower], but in general it is not even temporally prior. But [productive intellect] does not understand at one time and not at another.

Only when it has been separated is it precisely what it is, all by itself. And this alone is immortal and everlasting. But [when it is separated] we do not remember, because this [productive intellect] is [25] unaffected, whereas the intellect that is affected is perishable. And without this [productive intellect] nothing understands… .

[433a9] There are apparently two parts that move us — both [10] intellect and desire, if we take appearance to be a kind of understanding. For many people follow their appearances against their knowledge, and the other animals have appearance but lack understanding and reasoning. Both intellect and desire, then, move us from place to place. This is the intellect that reasons [15] for some goal and is concerned with action; its

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[concern with an] end distinguishes it from theoretical intellect. All desire also aims at some goal; for the object of desire is the starting point of intellect concerned with action, and the last stage [of our reasoning] is the starting point of action.

Hence it is reasonable to regard these two things — desire, and thought concerned with action—as the movers. For the object of desire moves us, and thought [20] moves us because its starting point is the object of desire. Moreover, whenever appearance moves us, it requires desire.

And so there is one mover, the desiring part. For if there were two—intellect and desire—they would move us insofar as they had a common form. In fact, however, intellect evidently does not move anything without desire, since wish is desire, and any motion in accordance with reasoning is in accordance with wish; desire, on the other hand, also moves us against [25] reasoning, since appetite is a kind of desire. Now, intellect is always correct, but desire and appearance may be either correct or incorrect. Hence in every case the mover is the object of desire, but the object of desire is either the good or the apparent good— not every sort of good, but the good that is achievable in action. What is achievable in action admits of [30] being otherwise.

Evidently, then, the potentiality of the soul that moves us is the one called desire. People who divide [433b] the soul into parts, if they divide it into separate parts corresponding to the different potentialities, will find very many of them—the nutritive, perceptive, intellectual, and deliberative parts, and, moreover, the desiring part; for the difference between these parts is wider than the one between the appetitive and emotional parts.

Desires that are contrary to each other arise, however, [5] when reason and appetite are contrary, which happens in subjects that perceive time. For intellect urges us to draw back because of what is to come, while appetite [urges us on] because of what is present; for the pleasant thing that is present appears both unqualifiedly pleasant and unqualifiedly good, [10] because we do not see what is to come.

Hence the mover is one in species—the desiring part, in so far as it is desiring. Indeed, the first mover of all is the object of desire, since it moves us without being moved, by being present to understanding or appearance. But the movers are numerically more than one.

We must distinguish three things—the mover, its instrument, and the subject moved. There are two types of movers: the unmoved mover and the moved [15] mover. The unmoved mover is the good achievable in action, and the moved mover is the desiring part; for the thing that is moved is moved insofar as it desires, and desire, insofar as it is actual, is a sort of motion. The thing moved is the animal. When we reach the instrument by which desire moves, we reach something bodily, and so we should study it when [20] we study the functions common to soul and body.

To summarize for the present: What moves something as an instrument is found where the same thing is both the starting point and the last stage. In the hinge-joint, for instance, the convex is last, and hence at rest, while the concave is the starting point, and [25] hence is moved. These are different in account, though they are spatially inseparable. For since everything is moved by pushing and pulling, something must remain at rest, as in a circle, and the motion must originate from this.

In general, then, as we have said, an animal moves itself in so far as it has desire. For desire it needs appearance; and appearance is either rational appearance [30] or the perceptual appearance that other animals share [with human beings].

We should also consider what it is that moves incomplete [434a] animals, whose only form of perception is touch. Can they have appearance and appetite, or not? For they evidently have pleasure and pain; if they have these, they must have appetite. But how could they have appearance? Well, perhaps, just as they are [5] moved indeterminately, so also they have appearance and appetite, but have them indeterminately.

Now, the other animals as well [as man] also have perceptual appearance, as we have said, but [only] reasoning animals have deliberative appearance. For when we come to the question whether one is to do this or that, we come to a task for reasoning. And [in this case] one must measure by one [standard], since one pursues the greater [good]. And so one is able [10] to make one object of appearance out of many. And this is why [non-rational animals] do not seem to have belief; it is because they lack the [appearance] resulting from reasoning.

That is why desire lacks the deliberative part. And sometimes one desire overcomes and moves another, while sometimes the second overcomes and moves the first, like one sphere moving another, whenever

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incontinence occurs. By nature the [desire] that is [15] superior is dominant in every case and moves [the agent], and so it turns out that three motions are initiated [in the agent]. The part that has knowledge stays at rest and is not moved.

Now, one sort of supposition and statement is universal, while another is about what is particular; for the first says that this sort of agent ought to do this sort of thing, and the second says that this is this sort of thing and I am this sort of agent. Hence the second [20] belief, not the universal belief, initiates motion; or [rather] both initiate motion, but the first does so by being more at rest, in contrast to the second.

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Metaphysics*

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BOOK I

[980a21] All human beings by nature desire to know. A sign of this is our liking for the senses; for even apart from their usefulness we like them for themselves — especially the sense of sight, since we choose seeing above practically all the others, not only as an aid to action, but also when we have no intention of acting. [25] The reason is that sight, more than any of the other senses, gives us knowledge of things and clarifies many differences between them.

Animals possess sense-perception by nature at birth. In some but not all of these, perception results in [980b] memory, making them more intelligent and better at learning than those that cannot remember. Some animals that cannot hear sounds (for instance, bees and similar kinds of animal) are intelligent but do [25] not learn; those that both perceive sounds and have memory also learn.

Non-human animals live by appearances and memories but have little share in experience, whereas human beings also live by craft and reasoning. In human beings experience results from memory, since [981a] many memories of the same thing result in the capacity for a single experience. Experience seems to be quite like science and craft, and indeed human beings attain science and craft through experience; for, as [5] Polus1 correctly says, experience has produced craft, but inexperience only luck.

A craft arises when many thoughts that arise from experience result in one universal judgment about similar things. For the judgment that in this illness this treatment benefited Callias, Socrates, and others, in many particular cases, is characteristic of experience, but the judgment that it benefited everyone of [10] a certain sort (marked out by a single kind) suffering from a certain disease (for instance, phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fever) is characteristic of craft.

For practical purposes, experience seems no worse than craft; indeed we even see that experienced people are actually more successful than those who have a rational account but lack experience. The reason [15] is that experience is cognition of particulars, whereas craft is cognition of universals. Moreover, each action and event concerns a particular; in medical treatment, for instance, we do not heal man (except coincidentally) but Callias or Socrates or some other individual [20] who is coincidentally a man. If, then, someone has a rational account but lacks experience, and recognizes the universal but not the particular falling under it, he will often give the wrong treatment, since treatment is applied to the particular.

Nonetheless, we attribute knowing and comprehending [25] to craft more than to experience, and we judge that craftsmen are wiser than experienced people, on the assumption that in every case knowledge, rather than experience, implies wisdom. This is because craftsmen know the cause, but [merely] experienced people do not; for experienced people know the fact that something is so but not the reason why it is so, whereas craftsmen recognize the reason why, i.e., the cause. [30]

That is why we believe that the master craftsmen in a given craft are more honorable, know more, and are wiser than the manual craftsmen, because they [981b] know the causes of what is produced. The manual craftsmen, we think, are like inanimate things that produce without knowing what they produce, in the way that, for instance, fire burns; the latter produce their products by a natural tendency, while the manual craftsmen produce theirs because of habit. We assume, then, that some craftsmen are wiser than others not because they are better in practice, but [5] because they have a rational account and recognize the causes.

And in general, a sign that distinguishes those who know from those who do not is their ability to teach. Hence we think craft, rather than experience, is [10] knowledge, since craftsmen can teach, while merely experienced people cannot.

Further, we do not think any of the senses is wisdom, even though they are the most authoritative ways of recognizing particulars. They do not tell us why anything is so; for instance, they do not tell us why fire is hot, but only that it is hot.

It is not surprising, then, that in the earliest times [15] anyone who discovered any craft that went beyond the perceptions common to all was admired not only because he discovered something useful, but also for being a wise person, superior to others. Later on, as more crafts were discovered — some related to necessities, others to [leisure-time] pursuits — those who discovered these latter crafts were in every case judged [20] to be wiser than the others, because their sciences did not aim at practical utility. Hence, finally, after all these crafts had been established, the sciences that aim neither at pleasure nor at necessities were discovered,

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initially in the places where people had leisure. This is why mathematical crafts arose first in [25] Egypt; for there the priestly class were allowed to be at leisure.

The difference between craft and science and other similar sorts of things has been discussed in the Ethics. The point of our present discussion is to show that in everyone’s judgment any discipline deserving the name of wisdom must describe the first causes, [30] i.e., the principles. And so, as we said earlier, the experienced person seems to be wiser than those who have just any old perception; the craftsman seems to [982a] be wiser than those with nothing more than experience; the master craftsman wiser than the manual craftsman; and the purely theoretical sciences wiser than the productive sciences. It is clear, then, that wisdom is knowledge of certain sorts of principles and causes.

[5] Since this is the science we are looking for, we should consider what sorts of causes and principles wisdom is the science of. Perhaps this will become clearer if we consider our judgments about the wise person. First, we judge that he has knowledge about all things as far as possible, without, however, having it about [10] each particular [kind of thing]. Next, the one who is capable of knowing difficult things, i.e., things not easily known by human beings, is the wise person; for sense-perception is common to everyone, and that is why it is easy and not characteristic of wisdom. Further, someone is wiser in a given science if he is more exact, and a better teacher of the causes. Again, [15] if one of two sciences is choiceworthy for itself— [purely] for the sake of knowing it—and the other is choiceworthy [only] for the sake of its results, the first has a better claim to be wisdom than the second. Moreover, the superior science has a better claim than the subordinate science; for the wise person must give orders, not take them, and those who are [20] less wise must follow his orders, not he theirs. These, then, are our judgments about wisdom and wise people.

Of these features, we judge that knowledge about everything necessarily belongs to the one who has the best claim to universal science; for he in a way knows everything that is a subject for a science. These most universal things are also just about the most difficult for human beings to know, since they are furthest from perceptions. Further, the most exact [25] sciences are those that, more than the others, study the first things; for the sciences that are derived from fewer principles—for instance, arithmetic—are more exact than those— for instance, geometry—that require further principles. Moreover, the science that studies the causes is more of a teacher, since teachers are those who state something’s causes. Besides, [30] knowledge and science for their own sake are most characteristic of the science of the most appropriate object of knowledge. For one who chooses knowledge for its own sake will choose above all the science that [982b] is a science to the highest degree. This science is the science of the most appropriate objects of knowledge; these objects are the first things, i.e., the causes, since we know the subordinate things because of these and from these, not the other way round. Further, the most superior science—the one that is superior to [5] any subordinate science— is the one that knows the end for which a given thing should be done; this end is something’s good, and in general the end is what is best in every sort of nature.

From everything that has been said, then, we find that the name under discussion, [i.e., ‘wisdom’], applies to the same science; for we find that wisdom [10] must study the first principles and causes, and the good, the end, is one of the causes.

The fact that this science is not productive is also clearer from those who first engaged in philosophy. For human beings originally began philosophy, as they do now, because of wonder, at first because they wondered at the strange things in front of them, and later because, advancing little by little, they found [15] greater things puzzling — what happens to the moon, the sun and the stars, how the universe comes to be. Someone who wonders and is puzzled thinks he is ignorant (this is why the myth-lover is also a philosopher [20] in a way, since myth is composed of wonders); since, then, they engaged in philosophy to escape ignorance, they were evidently pursuing scientific knowledge [simply] for the sake of knowing, not for any further use.

What actually happened is evidence for this view. For it was only when practically everything required for necessities and for ease and [leisure-time] pursuits was supplied that they began to seek this sort of understanding; [25] clearly, then, we do not seek it for some further use. Just as we describe a free person as one who exists for his own sake and not for someone else’s, so we also describe this as the only free science, since it is the only one that exists for its own sake.

Hence the possession of this science might justifiably [30] be thought to be beyond human capacity. For in many ways human nature is in slavery, so that, as Simonides says, ‘the god alone would have this privilege,’ and it is unfitting for human beings to transgress their own level in their search for the science.2 If there actually is something in what the poets [983a] say, and the divine nature is spiteful, divine spite would be

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likely in this case, and all those who go too far would suffer misfortunes. The divine nature, however, cannot be spiteful; as the proverb says, ‘Poets tell many lies.’

Nor ought we to take any science to be more honorable [5] than this one, since the most divine science is also the most honorable, and this science that we are describing is the most divine. It alone is most divine in two ways: for the divine science [may be understood] as (i) the one that a god more than anyone else would be expected to have, or as (ii) the science of divine things. Only this science [of first causes] satisfies both conditions [for being divine]. For (i) the god seems to be among the causes of all things, and to be some sort of principle, and (ii) this is the sort of science that the god, alone or more than anyone [10] else, would be expected to have. Hence all the other sciences are more necessary than this one, but none is better.

However, the possession of this science must in a way leave us in a condition contrary to the one we were in when we began our search. For, as we said, everyone begins from wonder that something is the way it is, as they wonder at toys that move spontaneously, [15] or the turnings of the sun, or the incommensurability of the diagonal (for people who have not yet studied the cause are filled with wonder that there is something that is not measured by the smallest length). But we must end up in the contrary and (according to the proverb) the better state, the one that people achieve by learning [the cause] in these [20] other cases as well—for nothing would be more amazing to a geometer than if the diagonal turned out to be commensurable.

We have described, then, the nature of the science we are seeking, and the goal that our search and our whole line of inquiry must reach.

It is evident, then, that we must acquire knowledge of the original causes, since we say we know a thing [25] whenever we think we recognize its primary cause. Causes are spoken of in four ways. One of these, we say, is the being and essence; for the reason why is traced back ultimately to the account, and the primary reason why is the cause and principle. Another is the matter and subject. A third is the source of the [30] principle of motion. The fourth is what something is for, i.e., the good—the opposite to the third cause, since it is the end of all coming to be and motion.

We have studied these causes adequately in our [983b] work on nature. Still, let us also enlist those who previously took up the investigation of beings and pursued philosophical study about the truth; for it is clear that they also mention causes and principles of some sort. A discussion of their views, then, will advance [5] our present line of inquiry; for either we shall find some other kind of cause or we shall be more convinced about those we have just mentioned.

Most of the first philosophers, then, thought that the only principles of all things were material. For, they say, there is some [subject] that all beings come from, the first thing they come to be from and the [10] last thing they perish into, the substance remaining throughout but changing in respect of its attributes. This, they say, is the element and the principle of beings. And for this reason they think that nothing either comes to be or is destroyed, on the assumption that this nature [that is the subject] persists in every change, just as we say that Socrates does not come to be without qualification when he comes to be good [15] or musical, and that he is not destroyed when he loses these states (because the subject, Socrates himself, remains) — so also they say that nothing else either comes to be or perishes without qualification (for there must be some nature, either one or more than one, that persists while everything else comes to be from it).

But they do not all agree about the number or type of this material principle. Thales,3 the originator of [20] this sort of philosophy, says it is water (that is why he also declared that the earth rests on water). Presumably he reached this judgment from seeing that what nourishes all things is wet and that the hot itself comes from the wet and is kept alive by it (and what all [25] things come to be from is there principle). He also reached this judgment because he thought that the seeds of all things have a wet nature (and water is the principle of the nature of wet things).

Some people think that even those who first gave accounts of the gods in very ancient times, long before the present, accepted this judgment about nature. For [30] the ancients made Oceanus and Tethys the parents of coming to be and described the oath of the gods as water, which they called Styx; for what is oldest is most honored, and what is most honored is the oath. [984a] It is perhaps unclear whether this belief about nature is in fact old or even ancient, but at any rate this is what Thales is said to have declared about the first cause. (No one would think of including Hippon4 among these philosophers, given the triviality of his thought.) [5]

Anaximenes5 and Diogenes6 take air to be both prior to water and also the primary principle of all the simple bodies, while Hippasus of Metapontium7 and Heraclitus of Ephesus8 say this about fire. Empedocles9

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takes the four bodies to be principles, adding earth as a fourth to the ones mentioned. These, he says, always remain and do not come to be, except [10] insofar as they come to be more or fewer, being combined into one and dispersed from one into many.

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae,10 who was older than Empedocles but wrote later, says that the principles are unlimited; for he says that practically all the uniform things (for instance, water or fire) come to be and are destroyed only in the ways we have mentioned, by [15] being combined and dispersed; they do not come to be or get destroyed in any other way, but always remain.

If one went by these views, one might judge that the material cause is the only sort of cause. But as people thus advanced, reality itself showed them the way and compelled them to search. For however true [20] it might be that all coming to be and perishing is from one (or more than one) thing, still, why does this happen, and what is the cause? For certainly the subject does not produce change in itself. I mean, for instance, neither the wood nor the bronze causes itself to change, nor does the wood itself produce a [25] bed, or the bronze a statue, but something else causes the change. And to search for this is (in our view) to search for the second principle — the source of the principle of motion.

Those who were the very first to undertake this line of inquiry into nature, who said that the subject is one, were quite satisfied with this. But at least some [30] of those who said that the subject is one, as though defeated by this search [for an explanation of change], said that the one, i.e., nature as a whole, is immobile, not only as regards coming to be and perishing (that was an old belief agreed on by all), but also as regards every other sort of change. This view is distinctive [984b] of them.

Of those who said that the universe is one element, none managed to notice this [second] cause, unless Parmenides11 did; he noticed it only insofar as he [5] posited not only one cause, but also in a way two causes. Indeed those who recognize more than one element — for instance, hot and cold, or fire and earth—make it easier to state [the cause that initiates motion], since they regard fire as having a nature that initiates motion, and water, earth, and other such things as having natures contrary to this.

After these sorts of principles were proposed by these people, other people found them inadequate to generate the nature of beings; once again, as we said, it was as though the truth itself compelled them, [10] and so they began to search for the next sort of principle. For presumably it is unlikely that fire or earth or anything else of that sort would cause some things to be in a good and fine state and would cause other things to come to be in that state, and unlikely that people would think so; still, it was unsatisfactory to [15] entrust so great a result to chance and luck. And so when one of them said that mind is present (in nature just as in animals) as the cause of the world order and of all its arrangement, he seemed like a sober person, and his predecessors seemed like babblers in comparison. We know that Anaxagoras evidently [20] made a start on giving such accounts, but an earlier statement of them is ascribed to Hermotimus of Clazomenae.12 Those who held this view posited a principle of beings that is at once both the cause of things turning out well and the sort of cause that is the source of motion for beings.

One might suspect that the first to search for this sort of cause was Hesiod13 and anyone else who counted desire or appetite among beings as a principle, as [25] Parmenides, for instance, also did. For he too, in describing the coming to be of the whole universe, says: ‘Desire was the first of all the gods she devised.’ And Hesiod says: ‘Before everything else that came to be, there was chaos, and then the broad-fronted earth, and desire, preeminent among all the immortals.’ He assumes that there must be some cause [30] among beings to initiate motion in things and to bring them together. Let us leave it till later to determine which of these people was the first [to discover this sort of cause].

Moreover, the contraries of good things (i.e., disorder and ugliness no less than order and beauty) were also apparent in nature, and bad things were apparently [985a] more numerous than good things, and base things more numerous than beautiful things. For this reason someone else introduced love and strife so that each of them would be the cause of one of these two sorts of things. For if we follow Empedocles’ argument, and do not confine ourselves to his mumbling way of expressing it, but attend to what he has [5] in mind, we will find that love is the cause of good things, and strife of bad. And so, if one were to claim that in a way Empedocles said — indeed was the first to say—that the good and the bad are principles, one would perhaps be right, if the cause of all goods is the good itself. [10]

These people, then, as we say, evidently made this much progress in fastening on two of the four causes that we distinguished in our work on nature—the matter and the principle of motion. But they did so dimly

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and not at all perspicuously. They were like unskilled boxers in fights, who, in the course of moving around, often land good punches, but are not [15] guided by knowledge; in the same way these thinkers would seem not to know what they are saying, since they evidently make practically no use of these causes, except to a slight degree.

Anaxagoras, for instance, uses mind as an ad hoc device [20] for the production of the universe; it is when he is puzzled about the cause of something’s being necessarily as it is that he drags in mind, but in other cases he recognizes anything but mind as the cause of things that come to be. Empedocles, admittedly, uses these causes more than Anaxagoras does, but he too still makes insufficient use of them, and he does not succeed [25] in using them consistently. At any rate, he often makes love draw things apart, and strife draw them together. For whenever strife scatters the universe into its elements, all the fire is gathered into one, and so is each of the other elements; and whenever love brings things back together again into one, the parts from each element are necessarily scattered again.

[30] Empedocles, then, went beyond his predecessors. He was the first to distinguish this cause and to introduce it; he did not take the principle of motion to be one, but assumed different and contrary principles. Moreover, he was the first to say that there are four material elements. In fact, though, he does not use [985b] all four, but treats them as two, treating fire in its own right as one nature, and its opposites — earth, air, and water— as together constituting another; this may be gathered from studying his poems. As we say, then, this is how many principles he recognized, and this is what he said about them.

[5] Leucippus14 and his colleague Democritus,15 on the other hand, say that the elements are the full and the empty, and that, of these, the full and solid is what is, and the empty is what is not. That is why they also say that what is no more of a being than what is not, because body is no more of a being than [10] the empty is. They take these to be the material causes of beings.

Those who take the substance that is the subject to be one explain how everything else comes to be by referring to the ways in which the subject is affected, taking the rare and the dense to be the principle of the ways it is affected. In the same way, Leucippus and Democritus take the differentiae to be the causes of the other things. They say, however, that there are three of these differentiae—shape, order, and position. For they say that what is is differentiated only [15] by rhythm, touching, and turning. Of these rhythm is shape, touching is order, and turning is position; for A differs from N in shape. AN from NA in order, [20] and Z from N in position. Like the other people, however, they were too lazy to take up the question about motion and to ask from what source and in what way it arises in beings.

This, then, would seem to be the extent, as we say, of the earlier thinkers’ search for these two causes.

Plato’s work came after the philosophical views we [987a29] have mentioned; it agreed with them in most ways, but it also had distinctive features setting it apart [30] from the philosophy of the Italians. For in his youth Plato first became familiar with Cratylus16 and with the Heraclitean beliefs that all perceptible things are always flowing and that there is no knowledge of them; he held these views later too. Socrates, on [987b] the other hand, was concerned with ethics and not at all with nature as a whole; he was seeking the universal in ethics and was the first to turn his thought to definitions. Plato agreed with Socrates, [5] but because of his Heraclitean views he took these definitions to apply not to perceptible things but to other things; for, he thought, the common formula could not be of any of the perceptible things, since they are always changing. Beings of this sort [that definitions are of], then, he called Ideas, and he said that perceptible things are apart from these, and are all called after them, since the things with the same names as the Forms are what they are by participation in them. [10]

In speaking of ‘participation’ he changed only the name; for the Pythagoreans17 say that things are what they are by imitating numbers, and Plato (changing the name) said they are what they are by participating [in Forms]. But they left it to others to investigate what it is to participate in or to imitate Forms.

[15] Further, he says that, apart from perceptible things and Forms, there are also mathematical objects in between. These differ from perceptible things in being everlasting and immobile; they differ from Forms in that there are many of the same kind, whereas there is only one Form for each kind of thing.

Since the Forms are the causes of other things, he thought that their elements are the elements of all beings. The great and the small, then, as matter, and [20] the one, as substance, are principles; for Forms come from these, by participating in the one. And yet he said, agreeing with the Pythagoreans, that the one is substance, and that it is not said to be one by being [25] something else. He also agreed with them in saying

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that numbers are the causes of the being of other things; but in positing a duality instead of treating the indeterminate as one, and in taking the great and small to constitute the indeterminate, he held a distinctive view of his own. Moreover, in his view numbers exist apart from perceptible things; whereas the Pythagoreans take the objects themselves to be numbers, and do not place mathematical objects between perceptible things and Forms.

[30] His claim that the one and numbers exist apart from the other objects (in contrast to the Pythagorean view) and his introduction of the Forms were the result of his investigation of arguments; for none of his predecessors engaged in dialectic. He made the other nature [besides the One] a duality because he thought that numbers (except the primes) could be [988a] neatly produced from the duality, as though from something malleable.

What actually happens, though, is the contrary of this, and it is implausible to think it would happen in the way they [the Platonists] say. For in their view many things are made out of the matter, but the Form generates only once; in fact, however, only one table is apparently made out of one [bit of] matter, whereas the agent who applies the form, though he is one, [5] makes many tables. Similarly, in the case of male and female, the female is impregnated from one copulation, whereas the male impregnates many females. And yet these things are imitations of those principles [that they believe in].

This, then, was what Plato determined about the questions we are investigating. It is evident from what has been said that he used only two causes, the cause involving the what-it-is and the material cause; for [10] the Forms are causes of the what-it-is of the other things, and the one is the cause of the what-it-is of Forms. The nature of the matter that is the subject for the Forms (in the case of perceptible things) and for the one (in the case of Forms) is also evident: it is the duality, the great and the small. Further, he has assigned the cause of good and bad to the elements, one to each, as we say some earlier philosophers, [15] such as Empedocles and Anaxagoras, also sought to do.

… As for those who posited Ideas, the first objection [990a34] is that in seeking to grasp the causes of the beings in this world, they introduced different things, equal [990b] in number to them. It is as though someone wanted to count things and thought he could not do it if there were fewer of them, but could do it if he added more. For the Forms they resorted to in their [5] search for the causes of things in this world are practically equal in number to — or at any rate are no fewer than — the things in this world. For take each [kind of] thing that has a one over many, both substances and non-substances, both things in this world and everlasting things; in each case there is some [one over many] that has the same name [as the many].

Further, none of the proofs we offer to show that there are Forms appears to succeed; for some of them are invalid, while some also yield Forms of [10] things that we think have no Forms. For the arguments from the sciences yield Forms of all the things of which there are sciences; the one over many yields Forms even of negations; and the argument [15] from thinking about something that has perished yields Forms of things that perish, since there is an appearance of these. Further, among the more accurate arguments, some produce Ideas of relatives, whereas we deny that these are a kind of things that are in their own right; others introduce the Third Man.

And in general the arguments for Forms undermine the existence of things that matter more to us than the existence of the Ideas does. For they imply [20] that number, not duality, is first and that what is relative is prior to what is in its own right, and they lead to all the other [unacceptable] conclusions that some people have been led to believe by following the beliefs about the Ideas, even though these beliefs conflict with their own principles.

Further, the reasoning that leads us to say that there are Ideas also yields Forms of many other things as [25] well as of substances. For a thought is one not only in the case of substances but also in other cases; there are sciences of other things as well as of substance; and thousands of other such difficulties arise.

On the other hand, it is necessary, and follows from the beliefs about Forms, that if things can participate in Forms, only substances can have Ideas; [30] for a thing does not participate in a Form coincidentally, but insofar as it is not said of a subject. (If, for instance, something participates in the Double itself, it also participates in the Everlasting, but coincidentally, since it is coincidental that the Double is everlasting.) Hence the Forms will be substances. [991a] But the same things signify substances among the Forms as in this world — otherwise what will the claim that there is something apart from these things, the one over many, amount to? And if the Idea and the things participating in it have the same form, they will have something in common—for why should [what it is to be] two be one and the same [5] thing in all the

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perishable twos and in all of the many everlasting twos, but not one and the same thing in the Two itself and in some particular two? But if they do not have the same form, they will be [merely] homonymous; it will be like calling both Callias and a wooden [statue] a man, when one has observed no common [nature] that they share.

One might be especially puzzled about what on earth Forms contribute to perceptible things, either to those that are everlasting or to those that come to [10] be and perish; for they cause neither motion nor any change in them. Nor do they contribute to knowledge of other things, since they are not their substance— if they were, they would be in the other things. Nor [15] do they contribute to the being of other things, since Forms are not present in the things that participate in them. For if they were present, they might perhaps be thought to be causes, as white is if it is mixed in a white object. This argument was first stated by Anaxagoras and then by Eudoxus18 and certain others. It is easily upset, since it is easy to collect many impossible consequences that challenge such a belief. [20]

Nor can the other things be from Forms in any of the ways things are normally said to be from something. And to say that Forms are patterns and that other things participate in them is empty talk, mere poetic metaphors. For what is it that looks to the Ideas when it produces things? And it is possible for one thing to be, or to come to be, like another without being copied from it, so that whether or not Socrates [25] exists someone like Socrates might come to be; and clearly the same would be true even if Socrates were everlasting. Further, there will be many patterns of the same thing, hence many Forms; the Forms of man, for instance, will be Animal and Biped as well as Man-itself. Further, the Forms will be patterns not [30] only of perceptible things, but also of themselves— the genus, for instance, of its species—so that the same thing will be both pattern and copy. [991b]

Further, it would seem impossible for a substance to be separate from what it is the substance of. How, then, if the Ideas are the substances of things, could they be separate from them?

According to the Phaedo, the Forms are the causes both of being and of coming to be. But what participates [5] in the Forms does not come to be, even if the Forms exist, unless something initiates the motion. And in addition to these [natural things], many things—for instance, a house or a ring—which in our view have no Forms, come to be. Hence it is clearly also possible for the [natural] things to be and to come to be because of causes of the sort just mentioned.

Further, if the Forms are numbers, how can they [10] be causes? Is it because beings are other numbers, so that one number, for instance, is man, another is Socrates, and another is Callias? If so, why are one lot of numbers causes of the other lot? It makes no difference if the Forms are everlasting and the other things are not. But if it is because things in this world — for instance, a harmony—are ratios of numbers, it is clear that the things of which they are ratios are some one [kind of] thing. But if there is this one thing, i.e., the matter, then evidently the numbers themselves will [15] also be ratios of one thing to another. If, for instance, Callias is a numerical ratio of fire, earth, water, and air, then his Idea will also be the number of certain other subjects. And Man-itself, even if it is in some way numerical, will nonetheless be a numerical ratio of certain [20] things, not [properly] a number. This argument, then, does not show that any Idea is a number.

[992b18] … In general, it is impossible to find the elements of beings without distinguishing the ways they are spoken of, since in fact beings are spoken of in many [20] ways. It is especially impossible to find them if we search in this way for the sorts of elements that compose beings. For what elements compose acting or being affected or the straight? Presumably these cannot be found; at most the elements of substances can be found. Hence it is incorrect either to seek the elements of all beings or to think one has found them.

And how could one even learn the elements of all [25] things? For clearly one cannot begin with previous cognition. If, for instance, we are learning geometry, we may have previous knowledge of other things [outside geometry], but we have no previous cognition about the subject matter of the science we are to learn about; the same is true in other cases. Hence if there is some science of all things, such as some [30] say there is, we could not have previous cognition of anything before we learn this science. And yet all learning, either through demonstration or through definitions, relies on previous cognition of either all or some things; for one must previously know the elements of the definition, and they must be well known; the same is true for learning through induction. [993a] Then is this science actually innate? If so, it is remarkable that we manage not to notice that we possess the supreme science.

Further, how is one to acquire recognition of the elements, and how is this knowledge to be made clear? For there is a puzzle here too, since our answers [5] might be disputed, as in the case of certain syllables; for some say that ZA is from S, D, and A, while others say it is a different sound, and none of the well-known ones.

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Further, how could one recognize perceptible things without perception? And yet one would have to, if the elements composing all things are indeed the same, as complex sounds are [composed of] their [10] proper elements.

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BOOK IV

There is a science that studies being insofar as it is [1003a21] being, and also the properties of being in its own right. It is not the same as any of the so-called special sciences. For none of them considers being quite generally, insofar as it is being; rather, each of them cuts off some part of being and studies the relevant [25] coincident of that part, as, for instance, the mathematical sciences do.

Since we are seeking the principles, i.e., the highest causes, clearly they must be the causes of the nature of some subject as it is in its own right. If, then, those who were seeking the elements of beings were also seeking these highest principles, the elements must [30] also be the elements of being not coincidentally, but insofar as it is being. That is why we also ought to find the first causes of being insofar as it is being.

Being is spoken of in many ways, but always with reference to one thing — i.e., to some one nature — and not homonymously. Everything healthy, for instance, [35] is spoken of with reference to health—one thing because it preserves health, another because it produces health, another because it indicates health, another because it can receive health. Similarly, the [1003b] medical is spoken of with reference to medical science; for one thing is called medical because it has the medical science, another because it is naturally suited to medical science, another because it is the function of medical science, and we shall find other things spoken of in ways similar to these.

Similarly, then, being is spoken of in many ways, [5] but in all cases it is spoken of with reference to one principle. For some things are called beings because they are substances, others because they are attributes of substance, others because they are a road to substance, or because they are perishings or privations or qualities of substance, or productive or generative of substance or of things spoken of with reference to it, or because they are negations of one of these or [10] of substance. This is why we also say that not being is—i.e., is not being.

A single science studies all healthy things, and the same applies in the other cases. For it is not only things that are spoken of in accordance with one [common property] that are studied by a single science; the same is true of things that are spoken of with reference to one nature, since these things are [15] also, in a way, spoken of in accordance with one [common property]. Clearly, then, it is also the task of a single science to study beings insofar as they are beings.

In every case the dominant concern of a science is with its primary object, the one on which the others depend and because of which they are spoken of as they are. If, then, this primary object is substance, the philosopher must grasp the principles and causes of substances.

[1004a2] There are as many parts of philosophy as there are [types of] substances, and so there must be a first philosophy, and a second philosophy following it; for [5] being is divided immediately into genera, which is why the sciences will also conform to these. For the philosopher is spoken of in the same way as the mathematician is; for mathematical science also has parts, and in mathematics there is a first and a second science and others succeeding in order.

[1003b19] For every single genus there is a single [sort of] [20] perception and a single science; there is, for instance, a single grammatical science, and it studies all the [types of] sounds. Hence it is also the task of a science that is one in genus to study all the species of being insofar as it is being; it is the task of the species of that science to study the species [of being].

Being and unity are the same and a single nature, since they imply each other, as principle and cause do, though they are not one and the same in the [25] sense of being revealed by the same account (though indeed it does not matter if we take them to have the same account; that would be even more suitable for our purpose). For one man is the same as a man, and moreover a man who is is the same as a man, and ‘he is a man and a man who is’ reveals nothing different by the repetition in what is said, since clearly a man and a man who is are separated neither in [30] coming to be nor in perishing. The same also applies to unity. It is evident, then, that in these cases the addition [of ‘one’] reveals the same thing [as ‘is’ reveals], and that unity is nothing different from being. Moreover, the substance of a thing is non-coincidentally one thing; and similarly it is essentially some being.

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It follows that there are as many species of being as of unity. Hence it is a task for a science that is the [35] same in genus to study the what-it-is about these species — for instance, about same, similar and other such things. Practically all the contraries are referred [1004a] to this principle; our study of these in the Selection of Contraries will suffice.

It is the task of one science to study opposites, and [10] plurality is the opposite of unity. It is also the task of one science to study negation and privation, since in both cases we study the one thing of which it is the negation or the privation. For either we say without qualification that something does not belong to the subject, or we say that it does not belong to some genus of the subject. In the latter case a differentia is added besides what is in the negation — for the [15] negation is the absence of that property, but the privation also involves some nature that is the subject of which the privation is said.

And so it is also the task of the science we have mentioned to know about the contraries of the things we have mentioned—different, unlike, unequal, and everything else that is spoken of either with respect to these or with respect to plurality and unity. Contrariety [20] is also one of these; for it is a type of difference, and difference is a type of otherness. And so, since unity is spoken of in many ways, these will also be spoken of in many ways; but still it is the task of a single science to know them all. For the mere fact that things are spoken of in many ways does not imply that they cannot be studied by one and the same science; different sciences are required only if it is true both that the things have no one [common property] and that their accounts are not referred to [25] one thing.

Since in each case everything is referred to the primary thing (for instance, everything that is called one is referred to the primary unity), this is also what we ought to say about same, different, and contraries. And so we should first distinguish how many ways each thing is spoken of, and then show how each of the things we have distinguished is spoken of with reference to the primary thing in each predication; for some things will be spoken of as they are because [30] they have that primary thing, others because they produce it, others in other such ways.

Evidently, then, it is the task of a single science to take account both of these things and of substance (this was one of the questions that raised puzzles), [1004b] and it is the philosopher’s task to be able to study all [these] things. For if this is not his task, who will consider whether Socrates is the same as seated Socrates, or whether one thing has [just] one contrary, or what contrariety is, or how many ways it is spoken of? And the same is true for other questions of that sort.

[5] We have found, then, that these are attributes of unity insofar as it is unity, and of being insofar as it is being; each is an attribute of unity and being in their own right, not insofar as they are numbers or lines or fire. Hence it is clearly the task of that science [of being] to know both what being and unity are, and also their coincidents. The mistake of those who currently consider these questions is not that they fail to practise philosophy but that, although substance is prior, they comprehend nothing about it.

There are attributes distinctive of number insofar [10] as it is number (for instance, oddness and evenness, commensurability and inequality, being more and being less), and these belong to numbers both in their own right and in relation to one another. Likewise there are other attributes distinctive of the solid, both moved and unmoved, and [of the moved], both [15] weightless and having weight. In the same way, then, there are also some attributes distinctive of being in so far as it is being, and it is the philosopher’s task to investigate the truth about these.

Here is a sign [to show that it is his task]. Dialecticians and Sophists assume the same guise as the philosopher. For sophistic has the appearance of wisdom, [20] though nothing more, and dialecticians practise dialectic about all things; being is common to all things, and clearly they practice dialectic about all things because all things are proper to philosophy. For sophistic and dialectic treat the same genus as philosophy, but philosophy differs from dialectic in the type of power it has, and it differs from sophistic [25] in its decision about how to live. Dialectic tests in the area where philosophy achieves knowledge, while sophistic has the appearance [of knowledge], but not the reality.

Further, one column of contraries is privation, and all contraries are referred to being and not being, and to unity and plurality — for instance, stability belongs [30] to unity, motion to plurality. And practically everyone agrees that beings and substance are composed of contraries. At any rate, they all say that the principles are contrary; for some say that they are the odd and even, some that they are the hot and cold, some that they are the determinate and indeterminate, others that they are love and strife. All the other contraries are also evidently referred to unity and plurality (let us assume this referral), and the principles recognized [1005a] by others fall completely under unity and plurality as their genera.

This also makes it evident, then, that it is the task of a single science to study being insofar as it is being;

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for all things are either contraries or composed of contraries, and unity and plurality are principles of the contraries. Unity and plurality belong to one science, [5] whether or not they are spoken of as having one [common property] (and presumably in fact they are not). Even if unity is indeed spoken of in many ways, still the nonprimary unities will be spoken of with reference to the primary unity; the same applies to the contraries. This is true even if being or unity is neither universal and the same over them all nor separable; and presumably it is neither of these, but [10] rather some [beings and unities] are spoken of with reference to one thing, and others in succession. That is why it is not the geometer’s task to study what a contrary is or what completeness is, or to study unity, or being, or same, or different, but only to study them on the basis of an assumption.

Clearly, then, it is the task of a single science to study both being insofar as it is being and also the things that belong to it insofar as it is being. And clearly the same science studies not only substances [15] but also their attributes—both those we have mentioned and also prior and posterior, genus and species, whole and part, and the other things of this sort.

We ought to say whether it is the task of one and the same science or of different sciences to study both the axioms (as they are called in mathematics) and [20] substance. Evidently it is also the task of one and the same science—the philosopher’s—to examine these, since these belong to all beings and are not distinctive of one genus in separation from the others.

Every scientist uses the axioms because they belong to being insofar as it is being, and each genus is a being. But each uses them to the extent he needs [25] them, and that is however far the genus about which he presents his demonstrations extends. Clearly, then, the axioms belong to all things insofar as they are beings (for this is what all things have in common); and so it is also the task of the one who knows being insofar as it is being to study the axioms.

This is why none of those who investigate a special area — for instance, a geometer or an arithmetician — [30] undertakes to say anything about whether or not the axioms are true. The ones who did so were some of the students of nature; and it is not surprising that they did this, since they were the only ones who thought they were examining the whole of nature and examining being. In fact, however, there is someone still higher than the student of nature, since [35] nature is only one kind of being; and so investigating these axioms will also be a task of this universal scientist, [1005b] the one who studies primary substance. The study of nature is also a type of wisdom, but not the primary type.

Now, some of those who argue about when a conclusion should properly be accepted as true object that one should not accept [principles that have not been demonstrated]. They do this because they lack education in analytics; for someone who comes [to [5] the science of being] must already know about analytics and not ask about it when he studies [the science of being].

Clearly, then, study of the principles of deductions is also a task for the philosopher — i.e., for the one who studies the nature of all substance. Whoever has the best claim to knowledge of a given genus ought [10] to be able to state the firmest principles of his subject matter; hence whoever has the best claim to knowledge of beings insofar as they are beings should be able to state the firmest principles of all things — and this person is the philosopher.

The firmest principle of all is one about which it is impossible to be mistaken. For this sort of principle must be known best (for what we make mistakes about is invariably what we do not know), and it cannot be [15] an assumption. For a principle that we must already possess in order to understand anything at all about beings is not an assumption; and what we must know in order to know anything at all is a principle we must already possess. Clearly, then, this sort of principle is the firmest of all.

Let us next say what this principle is: that it is impossible for the same thing both to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in [20] the same respect (and let us assume we have drawn all the further distinctions that might be drawn to meet logical complaints). This, then, is the firmest principle of all, since it has the distinguishing feature previously mentioned.

For it is impossible for anyone to suppose that the same thing is and is not, though some people take [25] Heraclitus to say this; for what one says need not be what one supposes to be true. For it is impossible for contraries to belong at the same time to the same thing (and let us assume that the customary further distinctions are added to this statement). But what is contrary to a belief is the belief in its contradictory. Hence evidently it is impossible for the same person at the same time to suppose that the same thing is [30] and is not, since someone who makes this mistake would have contrary beliefs at the same time. This is why

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all those who demonstrate refer back to this belief as ultimate; for this is by nature the principle of all the other axioms as well.

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BOOK VII

Being is spoken of in many ways, which we distinguished [1028a10] previously in the work on how many ways things are spoken of. For one [type of being] signifies what-it-is and a this; another signifies quality, or quantity, or any of the other things predicated in this way. But while being is spoken of in this many ways, it is evident that among these the primary being is the what-it-is, which signifies substance. For whenever [15] we say what quality this has, we call it good or bad, not six feet long or a man, whereas whenever we say what it is, we call it a man or a god, not pale or hot or six feet long; and the other things are called beings by belonging to this type of being—some as quantities, some as qualities, some as affections, some in some other such way. [20]

That is why someone might actually be puzzled about whether walking, flourishing, or sitting signifies a being, for none of these is in its own right nor is any of them capable of being separated from substance, but it is more true that the walking or sitting or flourishing thing is a being (if indeed it is a being). [25] This latter type of thing is apparently more of a being because it has some definite subject — the substance and the particular — which is discerned in such a predication; for this subject is implied in speaking of the good or sitting thing. Clearly, then, it is because [30] of substance that each of those other things is also a being, so that what is in the primary way—what is not something, but is without qualification a being — is substance.

Now the primary is so spoken of in many ways, but still, substance is primary in every way: in nature, in account, and in knowledge. For none of the other things predicated is separable, but only substance. Substance is also primary in account, since its account [35] is necessarily present in the account of each thing. Moreover, we think we know a thing most of all whenever we know what, for instance, man or fire is, [1028b] rather than when we know its quality or quantity or place; for indeed we know each of these only when we know what the quantity or the quality is.

Indeed, the old question — always pursued from long ago till now, and always raising puzzles — ‘What [5] is being?’ is just the question ‘What is substance?’. For it is substance that some say is one and others say is more than one, some saying that it is limited in number, others that it is unlimited. And so we too must make it our main, our primary, indeed (we may say) our only, task to study what it is that is in this way.

[10] The most evident examples of substances seem to be bodies. That is why we say that animals and plants and their parts are substances, and also natural bodies, such as fire, water, earth, and all such things, and whatever is either a part of these or composed of all or some of them—for instance, the universe and its parts, the stars, moon, and sun. But we ought to [15] consider: Are these the only substances there are, or are there also others? Or are only some of these things substances, or some of these and also some other things? Or are none of these things substances, but only some other things?

Some people think that the limits of a body—for instance, a surface, a line, a point, and a unit—are substances, and are so to a higher degree than a body and a solid. Further, some think there are no substances apart from perceptible things, while to others it seems that there are also everlasting substances, which are more numerous and are beings to a higher degree. Plato, for example, thinks that Forms and mathematicals are two [types of] substances, and [20] that the substance of perceptible bodies is a third [type]. Speusippus posits even more substances, beginning with the one, and posits a principle for each [type of] substance—one for numbers, another for magnitudes, and then another for soul; and in this way he multiplies the [types of] substances. Some say that Forms and numbers have the same nature, and [25] that everything else comes after them—lines, planes, and everything else, extending to the substance of the universe and to perceptible things.

We must consider, then, which of these views are correct or incorrect; what substances there are; whether or not there are any substances apart from perceptible substances, and in what way these perceptible substances are [substances]; and whether or not [30] there is any separable substance apart from perceptible ones, and, if there is, why there is, and in what way it is [substance]. But before doing this, we must first sketch what substance is.

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Substance is spoken of, if not in several ways, at any rate in four main cases. For the essence, the universal [35] and the genus seem to be the substance of a given thing, and the fourth of these cases is the subject.

Now, the subject is that of which the other things are said, but which is not itself in turn said of any other thing, hence we must first determine what it [1029a] is, since the primary subject seems to be substance most of all.

What is spoken of in this way [as the primary subject] is in one way the matter, in another way the form, and in a third way the thing composed of these. (By the matter I mean, for example, the bronze; by the form I mean the figure and character; and by the [5] thing composed of them I mean the statue, i.e., the compound.) And so if the form is prior to the matter, and more of a being, it will also, by the same argument, be prior to the thing composed of both.

We have now said in outline, then, what substance is: it is what is not said of a subject but has the other things said of it.

However, we must not confine ourselves to this answer. For it is inadequate: for, first, it is itself unclear; [10] and further, the matter turns out to be substance. For if the matter is not substance, it is hard to see what other substance there is; for when all the other things are removed, nothing [but the matter] evidently remains. For the other things are affections, products, and potentialities of bodies; and length, [15] breadth, and depth are kinds of quantities but not substances (for quantity is not substance), but the primary [subject] to which these belong is more of a substance than they are. But when length, breadth, and depth are abstracted, we see that nothing is left, except whatever is determined by these. And so, if we examine it in this way, the matter necessarily appears as the only substance.

[20] By matter I mean what is spoken of in its own right neither as being something, nor as having some quantity, nor as having any of the other things by which being is determined. For there is something of which each of these is predicated, something whose being is different from that of each of the things predicated; for the other things are predicated of the substance, and the substance is predicated of the matter. And so the last thing is in its own right neither something nor of some quantity nor any other [of the [25] things mentioned]; nor is it [in its own right] the negations of these, since what we have said implies that the negations as well [as the positive properties] belong to it [only] coincidentally.

And so, if we study it from this point of view, the result is that the matter is substance, but that is impossible. For being separable and being a this seem to belong to substance most of all; that is why the form and the [compound] of both [matter and form] [30] would seem to be substance more than the matter is. And so the substance composed of both — I mean composed of the matter and the form — should be set aside, since it is posterior to the other two, and clear. The matter is also evident in a way. We must, then, consider the third type of substance, since it is the most puzzling.

[1029b] Since some of the perceptible substances are agreed to be substances, we should begin our search with these.

Since we began by distinguishing the things by which we define substance and since essence seems to be one of these, we ought to study it. For it is useful to advance toward what is better known, since this is how anyone succeeds in learning, by advancing through what is less well known, by nature to what [5] is better known. In questions about action, our task is to advance from what is good to ourselves, and so to make what is good without reservation good to ourselves; in the same way, then, we should advance from what is better known to ourselves, and so make what is well known by nature well known to ourselves. Admittedly, what is well known and known first to any given type of person is only slightly known and [10] has little or no hold on being; still, we must begin from what is poorly known but known by us and try to come to know what is known without reservation, by advancing, as has been said, through the very things that are known to us.

First let us make some logical remarks about it. The essence of a thing is what the thing is said to be in its own right. For being you is not the same as [15] being a musician, since you are not a musician in your own right; hence your essence is what you are in your own right.

Nor indeed is your essence all of what you are in your own right. For a thing’s essence is not what belongs to it in its own right in the way that pale belongs in its own right to a surface; for being a surface is not the same as being pale. But neither is a thing’s essence the same as the combination of the thing and what belongs in its own right to it—for instance, being a pale surface, since here surface is added. It follows that the account of a thing’s essence [20] is the account that describes but does not mention the thing; and so if being a pale

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surface is the same as being a smooth surface, being pale and being smooth are one and the same. There are composites [not only among substances but] also in the other predications, since each of these

(for instance, quality, quantity, when, where, and motion) has a subject; hence we should ask whether [25] there is an account of the essence of each of these composites, and whether an essence belongs to them—to a pale man, for instance—as well as to substances. Let us, then, call this composite ‘cloak.’ What is being a cloak?

One might object, however, that a cloak is not spoken of in its own right either. [We reply:] There are two ways in which we speak of what is not in its own right: one way is from addition, the other is not. [30] In the first case, something is said [not to be in its own right] because the thing to be defined is added to something else — if, for instance, one gave the account of pale man as a definition of pale. In the second case, something is said not to be in its own right because something else is added to it—if, for instance, ‘cloak’ signified a pale man, but one were [1030a] to define cloak as pale. A pale man, then, is pale, but is not what being pale is.

But is being a cloak an essence at all? Perhaps not. For an essence is what something essentially is, but whenever one thing is said of another, the composite [5] of the two is not essentially a this; the pale man, for instance, is not essentially a this, since only a substance is a this. Hence the things that have an essence are those whose account is a definition. But the mere fact that a name and an account signify the same thing does not imply that the account is a definition. If it did, then all accounts would be formulae (since for every account, we can find a name that signifies [10] the same); so that even the Iliad would be a definition. Rather, an account is a definition [only] if it is of some primary thing; primary things are those that are spoken of in a way that does not consist in one thing’s being said of another. Hence essence will belong only to species of a genus and to nothing else, since [only] these seem to be spoken of in a way that does not consist in one thing’s participating in another, or in one thing’s being an attribute or coincident of another. [15] Admittedly, everything else [besides members of a species], if it has a name, will also have an account saying what it signifies (i.e., that this belongs to this) or, instead of an unqualified account, a more exact one; but nothing else will have a definition or essence.

Perhaps, however, definitions, like what-it-is, are spoken of in several ways. For in fact what-it-is in one [20] way signifies substance and a this, and in another way signifies each of the things predicated — quantity, quality, and all the rest. For just as being belongs to them all—not in the same way, but to substance primarily and to the other things derivatively—so also the what-it-is belongs without qualification to substance and derivatively to the other things. For we might ask what a quality is, so that quality is also a [25] what-it-is, though not without qualification; just as some people say, speaking logically, that not-being is (not that it is without qualification, but that it is not-being), so also we say what a quality is.

We must certainly consider what ought to be said about a particular question, but we must consider no less how things really are. That is why, in this case, since what is said is evident [we must consider how things are]. We find that essence, like what-it-is, belongs [30] primarily and without qualification to substance, and derivatively to the other things, where it will be the essence of quality or quantity, not the essence without qualification. For we must say that these [nonsubstances] are beings either homonymously or by addition and substraction, as we say that what is not known is known [not to be known]. The right answer is that they are beings neither homonymously nor in the same way. What is medical, for [35] instance, is spoken of with reference to one and the same thing, not by being one and the same thing, but not homonymously either — for a body, a procedure, [1030b] and an instrument are called medical neither homonymously nor by having one [nature], but with reference to one thing. The same applies to beings.

It does not matter which alternative we accept: in [5] either case substances evidently have a definition and essence of the primary type, i.e., a definition and essence without qualification. Certainly other beings also have definitions and essences, but not primarily. For if we accept this view of definition, not every name that signifies the same as an account will necessarily have a definition corresponding to it; rather, in order to be a definition, the account must be of the right type, namely an account of something that is one—and something that is one not merely by continuity (like the Iliad, or like things that are tied together) but that is one in one of the ways in which [10] one is spoken of. Now, one is spoken of in the same ways as being, and one type of being signifies a this, another quantity, another quality. That is why there will also be an account and a definition of the pale man, but not in the way that there is of pale and of the substance.

We should investigate whether a thing is the same [1031a15] as or different from its essence. For this is useful for our investigation of substance; for a thing seems to be nothing other than its own substance, and

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something’s substance is said to be its essence. In the case of things spoken of coincidentally, a [20] thing might seem to be different from its essence; a

pale man, for instance, is different from being a pale man. For if it is the same, then being a man is the same as being a pale man; for, they say, a man is the same as a pale man, so that being a pale man is the same as being a man.

[25] Perhaps, however, it is not necessary for things to be the same if one is a coincident of the other, since the extreme terms are not the same in the same way. But presumably it might seem to follow that the extremes, the coincidental things, turn out to be the same — for instance, being pale and being musical. In fact, however, it seems not to follow.

But is it necessary for things spoken of in their own right to be the same as their essences? For instance, [30] what about substances of the sort some say Ideas are, ones that have no other substances or natures prior to them? If that the good itself [the Idea] is different from the essence of good, and the animal itself from the essence of animal, and the being itself from the [1031b] essence of being, then there will be further substances, natures, and Ideas apart from those mentioned, and these will be prior substances and substances to a higher degree, if essence is substance.

If, then, [the Ideas and the essences] are severed from each other, it follows that [the Ideas] will not [5] be known and that [the essences] will not be beings. (By ‘severed’ I mean that the essence of good does not belong to the good itself, and being good does not belong to the essence of good.) For we know a thing whenever we know its essence. Further, what applies to good applies equally to the other essences, so that if the essence of good is not good, then neither will the essence of being be, nor the essence of one be one. But since all essences alike either are or are [10] not, it follows that, if not even the essence of being is a being, none of the other essences is a being either. Moreover, if the essence of good does not belong to a given thing, that thing is not good.

The good, then, is necessarily one with the essence of good, and the fine with the essence of fine. The same applies to all the primary things, those spoken of in their own right, not insofar as they belong to something else. For if this is true [i.e., that something is a primary being], it already implies [that the primary being is identical to its essence], even if it is not a [15] Form — though presumably [the conclusion] is all the more [necessary] if the thing is a Form.

Further, if the Ideas are what some people say they are, then clearly the subject will not be substance. For Ideas must be substances, but not by [being predicated] of a subject, since [if they were predicated of a subject], they would exist [only] by being participated in.

From these arguments, then, we find that a thing itself and its essence are noncoincidentally one and the same, and that knowing a thing is knowing its [20] essence; and so even isolating the Forms shows that a thing and its essence must be some one thing.

But because what is spoken of coincidentally— for instance, the musical or the pale — signifies two things, it is not true to say that it is the same as its essence. For the pale signifies both the subject of [25] which pale is a coincident and the coincident, and so in a way it is the same as its essence, and in a way it is not the same—for [the pale] is not the same as man or as pale man, but it is the same as the attribute.

We can also see that it is absurd [for something not to be the same as its essence], if we give a name to each essence; for apart from that essence there will be another essence as well—for instance, another essence [30] will be the essence of the essence of horse. But why not let some things be essences at once, going no further, since essence is substance? Moreover, not only is [a [1032a] thing] one [with its essence], but their account is also the same; for one and being one are noncoincidentally one. Moreover, if there is another essence, the essences will go on to infinity; for one thing will be the essence of the one, and another will be the one, so that the same [5] argument will also apply in their case.

Clearly, then, in the case of the primary things, those spoken of in their own right, a thing and its essence are one and the same. And it is evident that the sophistical refutations aimed against this position are all resolved in the same way as is the puzzle of whether Socrates and being Socrates are the same; for there is no difference in the premisses from which one would ask the questions or in the premisses from which one would find a solution. [10]

We have said, then, in what way something’s essence is the same as the thing, and in what way it is not.

Among things that come to be, some come to be by nature, some by craft, and some by chance, but they all

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come to be by some agent and from something, and come to be something. (By ‘comes to be something’ [15] I mean something in any of the predications; for things come to be either this or of some quantity or quality or somewhere.) Things that have natural comings to be are those whose coming to be is from nature. What they come to be from is what we call matter; the agent is something that is by nature; and the something they come to be is a man or a plant or anything [20] of the sort we say are substances most of all.

Everything that comes to be by nature or craft has matter; for these things can both be and not be, and what has this potentiality is a thing’s matter.

In general, both what something comes to be from and what it becomes is a nature; for what comes to be has a nature — a plant or an animal, for instance. Moreover, the agent is the nature that is spoken of with reference to form, and this nature is the same in form [as the nature of what comes to be], but it [25] is in another [particular], since a man generates a man. Things that come to be because of nature, then, come to be in this way.

The other comings to be are called productions; these are all from either craft or potentiality or thought. Some productions also come to be from [30] chance or luck, similarly to the way in which things come about from chance or luck among things that come to be from nature; for in the latter case too the same things that [usually] come to be from a seed also [sometimes] come to be without any seed. We must investigate these cases later.

Things that come to be from craft are those whose [1032b] form is in the soul. (By ‘form’ I mean a thing’s essence and primary substance.) For even contraries have the same form in a way, since the substance of a privation is the substance opposed to it, so that health, for [5] instance, is the substance of disease because disease results from the absence of health; and health is the account in the soul and the knowledge.

What is healthy comes into being when the producer has had the following sort of thought: since health is this, then if something is to be healthy, it must have this (for instance, a uniform condition of the body), and if it is to have this, it must have heat. This is how he thinks at each stage, until he leads the process back to the last thing, which is what he can produce [10] himself; and then the motion from here on toward health is called a production. And so it turns out that in a way health comes to be from health, and a house from a house—the one that has matter from the one without matter. For the medical or housebuilding [knowledge] is the form of health or house, and substance without matter is what I call the essence.

One sort of coming to be and motion is called [15] thinking, another production. Thinking is the motion that proceeds from the principle, i.e., the form; and production is the motion that proceeds from the last stage of thinking. Each of the other things — those in between—comes to be in the same way. I mean, for instance, that if this [body] is to be healthy, its bodily condition must be made uniform. What, then, is it to be made uniform? This. [The body] will have this [20] if it is warmed. What is it to be warmed? This. But this is potentially present. And now he has reached what is up to himself.

If the motion toward health comes from craft, the producer that is its principle is the form in the soul; if it comes from chance, it comes from whatever is the principle of the production if the producer exercises a [25] craft. In medical treatment, for instance, the principle is presumably from warming, which the doctor produces by rubbing; heat in the body, then, either is a part of health or is followed, directly or in several stages, by something that is part of health. This last thing producing the part [of health] is in a way itself also a part of health, just as the last thing (for instance, stones) is a part of the house, and part of the product in other cases. Hence, as is said, nothing can come to [30] be unless something is previously present. Evidently, [1033a] then, some part will have to be present; for the matter is a part, since it is present in the product, and it comes to be the product.

But is [the matter] also one of the things in the account? We speak in both ways when we say what bronze circles are. For we speak of the matter when we say that the circle is bronze, and of the form when we say that it is this sort of shape; shape is the genus into which it is primarily placed. The bronze circle, then, has the matter in its account. [5]

Some things that come to be from matter, once they have come to be, are called not that, but of-that; the statue, for instance, is called of-stone, not stone, and similarly the healthy man is not called that from which he has come to be. The reason for this is that a thing comes to be from its privation, or from its subject which we call the matter. For instance, the [10] man as well as the sick one comes to be healthy, but he is said to have come to be from the privation rather than the subject, so that he is said to have become healthy from having been sick, rather than from having been a man; that is why the healthy one is said to be a man, not to be sick, and the man is said to be healthy, [not sick]. But in cases where the privation — the privation of some definite shape in bronze, [15] for instance, or of a house in bricks and timbers — is unclear and nameless, the

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product seems to come to be from this [matter], as in the first case [the man became healthy] from having been sick.

That is why, just as in the first case the product is not called by the name of that [privation] from which it came to be, so also in the second case the statue is not called wood, but rather the name is varied and the statue is called of-wood, not wood, or of-bronze, not bronze, or of-stone, not stone, and the house is [20] of- bricks, not bricks. For if we look at it closely, we would not say without qualification, in this case any more than in the other, that a statue comes to be from wood, or a house from bricks; for that from which something comes to be must change and not remain when the thing comes to be. This, then, is why we speak in this way.

What comes to be, then, does so by some agent (i.e., [25] the source of the principle of the coming to be) and from something (not the privation but the matter; we have now determined the sense in which we say this) and becomes something (a sphere or a circle or whatever else it may be). And just as [the producer] [30] does not produce the subject — the bronze — neither does he produce the sphere, unless he does so coincidentally, because he produces the bronze sphere and it is a sphere; for to produce a this is to produce a this from a subject in general.

Let me explain. To make the bronze round is not to produce the round or the sphere, but to produce one thing, this form, in another thing; for if someone [1033b] produces the form, he must produce it from another thing, since another thing must have been the subject. For instance, he produces the bronze sphere, and this is so because he produces this, which is a sphere, from this subject, which is bronze; and if he also produces this form itself, i.e., sphere, clearly he will [5] produce it in the same way, and then comings into being will go back to infinity.

Evidently, then, the form (or whatever the shape in the perceptible thing ought to be called) and the essence (i.e., what comes to be in something else by the agency of craft, nature, or potentiality) does not come into being and there is no coming to be of it. But the producer does make a bronze sphere to be; for he produces it from bronze and sphere—he produces this [10] form in this subject, and the product is a bronze sphere.

If the essence of sphere in general is to have a coming to be, this essence will be something from something; for in each case what is coming to be must be divisible into this (i.e., matter) and this (i.e., form). Now, if the sphere is the figure whose circumference is everywhere equidistant from the center, [15] one aspect of it is the matter that the product is in, the other is the form in that matter, and the whole thing—the bronze sphere, for instance—is what has come to be. It is evident, then, that what is called substance as form does not come to be, but the compound substance, which is called substance insofar as it is substance as form, does come to be. It is also evident that matter is present in everything that comes to be, and that one aspect of the product is this matter and the other is this form. [20]

Is there, then, some sphere apart from these [perceptible ones], or a house apart from bricks? If there were, then surely there could never have been any coming to be of any this. Rather, [sphere, for instance,] signifies this sort of thing; it is not a this and something definite. On the contrary, one produces or generates this sort of thing from this [matter], and when it has been generated, it is this thing of this sort. This whole thing — for instance, Callias or Socrates — [25] corresponds to this bronze sphere, while man and animal correspond to bronze sphere in general.

It is evident, then, that the forms, construed as some people habitually construe them, as things apart from particulars, are useless as causes, at any rate of comings to be and of substances; this role, at any rate, is no reason for these forms to be substances in their own right. [30]

In some cases, generator and generated are evidently also of the same sort, but they are not the same thing —they are one in form, not one in number. This is true of natural things (for instance, a man generates a man), except in cases where something contrary to nature comes about, so that a horse, for instance, generates a mule. And even in these cases something similar is true; for the nearest genus, whatever [1034a] is common to horse and ass, has no name, but is presumably both, as a mule is.

Evidently, then, there is no need to set up a form as a pattern. For if we sought such forms anywhere, it would be in natural generation, since natural things are substances most of all; but in fact the generator [5] is sufficient to produce the thing and to be the cause of the form in the matter. And the whole — this sort of form in this flesh and bones — is Callias or Socrates; and they differ because of matter, since their matter is different, but they are the same in form, since the form is indivisible.

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A puzzle might arise about why some things — for [10] instance, health—come to be both by craft and also from chance, while others—for instance, houses— do not. The reason is as follows. The matter that is the principle of production and coming to be from craft, and that has some part of the product present in it, in some cases can be moved by its own agency, and in other cases cannot. In some cases of the first sort, the matter can be moved [by its own agency] in a particular way [required for a certain kind of product], [15] and in other such cases it cannot; for many things are capable of being moved by their own agency, but not in a particular way (for instance, dancing). Hence things with matter of this second sort—stones, for instance — cannot be moved in a particular way except by something else, but in another way they can be moved by their own agency. That is why in some cases the result requires a craftsman, but in other cases it does not; in these cases the movers will be [20] agents that have no craft but can themselves be moved, either by other agents that have no craft or from a part [of the eventual product].

It is also clear from what we have said that in a way every [product of craft] comes to be, just as natural things do, from something with the same name (for instance, a house from a house, insofar as it is produced by mind, since the craft [of building] is the [25] form), or from a part with the same name, or from something that has a part [of the product]. This is true if it does not come to be coincidentally; for the first cause in its own right of the production is a part of the product. Heat in the motion, for example, produces heat in the body, and this heat is either health or a part of it or is followed by a part of health or by health itself; that is why it is also said to produce [health], because it produces that on which health follows and in which it coincides. [30]

And so, just as in deductions, substance is the principle of everything; for deductions begin from what-it- is, and comings to be are from this too.

Naturally constituted things are similar to the products of craft. For the seed produces in the same way as the efforts of craft do; for it has the form potentially, [1034b] and in a way the parent providing the seed has the same name as the offspring. For one must not expect all offspring to come to be in the way a man comes to be from a man—even here, indeed, a female comes to be from a male. The offspring has the same name if it is not defective; hence a mule’s parent is not a mule [since mules are defective].

Things that come to be by chance (just as in the [5] case of crafts) are those whose matter can on some occasions also be moved by its own agency with the motion that the seed [usually] initiates in it; unless this is true of the matter, things cannot come to be except from the parents.

Our argument not only shows that form cannot come to be in the case of substance, but it also applies equally to all the primary [genera] —to quantity, quality, and the other predications. For it is the bronze [10] sphere, not sphere or bronze, that comes to be, and the same applies to bronze, if it comes to be; for in every case the matter and the form must previously exist. This is true both for what-it-is and also for quality, quantity, and each of the other predications; for what comes to be is not a quality, but wood of some quality, and not a quantity, but wood or animal of [15] some quantity.

However, a distinctive feature of substance may be noticed from these cases, that it must be produced by another actual substance preceding it (for instance, by an animal, if an animal comes to be), whereas a quality or quantity needs only a potential quality or quantity to precede it.

A definition is an account, and every account has [1034b] parts; and a part of the account corresponds to a part of the thing defined in the way in the whole account corresponds to the whole thing. Hence a puzzle arises about whether or not the account of the parts must be present in the account of the whole. For in some cases the accounts of the parts evidently are present and in some cases they evidently are not; [25] the account of a circle, for instance, does not include that of the segments, but the account of a syllable includes that of the letters, even though the circle is divided into its segments just as the syllable is divided into its letters.

Moreover, if a part is prior to a whole, and an acute angle is part of a right angle, and a finger of an animal, [30] then an acute angle would be prior to a right angle, and a finger to a man. In fact, however, the whole seems to be prior, since the account of the part refers to the whole, and the whole is prior by being independent.

Alternatively, perhaps a part is spoken of in many ways, and a quantitative measure is only one type of part; leaving this type aside, we should examine the parts that compose substance.

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[1035a] If, then, there is matter, form, and the compound of these, and matter, form, and the compound of them are all substance, then it follows that in one way matter is also called a part of something, but in another way it is not, and in this second way only the components of the account of the form are parts. For example, flesh is not a part of concavity (since [5] it is the matter in which concavity comes to be), but it is a part of snubness. Again, bronze is a part of the compound statue, but not a part of the statue spoken of as form. For it is the form of the statue — i.e., the statue insofar as it has form — and never the material aspect in its own right, that should be spoken of as the statue.

This is why the account of a circle does not include [10] that of the segments, whereas the account of a syllable does include that of the letters; for the letters are not matter, but parts of the account of the form, while the segments are parts as matter in which the form comes to be. Still, the segments are nearer to the form than bronze is to the circle in the cases where circularity comes to be in bronze.

[15] In a way, however, not every sort of letters—for instance, those in wax or those in air—will be included in the account of the syllable; for these also [like the bronze in the circle] are a part of the syllable as its perceptible matter. For if a line is divided and perishes into halves, or a man into bones, sinews, and bits of flesh, it does not follow that these compose the whole as parts of the substance, but [20] only that they compose it as its matter. They are parts of the compound, but when we come to the form, which is what the account is of, they are not parts of it; that is why they are not included in accounts either.

Hence the account of some things will include that of these material parts, but the account of other things, if it is not of something combined with matter, must not include it. For this reason, the principles composing a given thing are, in some but not all cases, the material parts into which it perishes. [25]

If, then, something—for instance, the snub or the bronze circle—is form and matter combined, then it perishes into these [material parts], and matter is a part of it. But if something is without matter, not combined with it, so that its account is only of the form, then it does not perish—either not at all, or at least not in this way. Hence these [30] [material parts] are parts and principles of things combined with matter, but neither parts nor principles of the form.

That is why the clay statue perishes into clay, the ball into bronze, and Callias into flesh and bones. Moreover, the circle perishes into its segments, because one type of circle is combined with matter; for [1035b] the circle spoken of without qualification and the particular circle are called circles homonymously, because the particular has no distinctive name.

We have now given the true answer, but let us take up the question again, and state the answer more perspicuously. Parts of the account — i.e., the things [5] into which the account is divided—are, either all or some of them, prior to the whole. The account of the right angle, by contrast, does not include that of the acute angle, but, on the contrary, that of the acute angle includes that of the right angle; for we use the right angle in defining the acute, which is [defined as] less than a right angle. This is also the relation of the circle to a semicircle, since the semicircle is [10] defined by the circle. Similarly, a finger is defined by reference to the whole, since this sort of part of a man is a finger.

And so all the material parts—i.e., those into which the whole is divided as its matter—are posterior to it, but the parts that are parts of the account and of the substance corresponding to the account are, either all or some of them, prior to the whole.

[15] Now, an animal’s soul — the substance of what is ensouled — is the substance corresponding to the account; it is the form and essence of the right sort of body. At any rate, a proper definition of each part requires reference to its function, and this function requires perception. Hence the parts of the soul, either all or some of them, are prior to the compound animal, and the same is true in the case of the particular.

[20] The body and its parts are posterior to this substance [i.e., the soul], and its parts are the matter into which the compound, but not this substance, is divided. In a way they are prior to the compound, but in a way they are not, since they cannot exist when they are separated; for a finger is not an animal’s finger in all [25] conditions — on the contrary, a dead finger is only homonymously a finger. Some of them are simultaneous, if they are the controlling parts, those on which the account and the substance primarily depend — the heart or the brain, for instance (for it does not matter which of the two it is).

Now, man or horse or anything else that applies in this way to particulars, but universally, is not a substance, but a sort of compound of this account and [30] this matter as universal. When we come to particulars, Socrates is composed of ultimate matter, and the same is true in the other cases.

A part may be either of the form (by ‘form’ I mean the essence), or of the compound of the form and the matter, or of the matter itself. But only parts of the form are parts of the account, and the account [1036a] is

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of the universal; for being circle is the same as circle, and being soul is the same as soul. But a compound such as this particular circle, either a perceptible (for instance, bronze or wooden) compound or an intelligible (for instance, mathematical) [5] compound, has no definition, but we know it with the help of thought or perception. When it has departed from actual thought or perception, it is unclear whether or not it exists; but still, we always speak of it and know it by means of the universal account, whereas the matter is unknowable in its own right.

[10] One sort of matter is perceptible, another intelligible. Examples of perceptible matter are, for instance, bronze and wood, and all matter that is capable of motion; intelligible matter is the matter present in perceptible things (as, for instance, mathematical objects are present in them), but not insofar as they are perceptible.

We have now stated the facts about whole and part and about prior and posterior. If someone asks whether the right angle, or circle, or animal is prior [15] to the parts composing it, i.e., the parts into which it is divided, or whether, alternatively, the parts are prior to the whole, we must answer that neither is true without qualification.

For suppose first that the soul is the animal, or rather the ensouled thing, or that a thing’s soul is the thing itself, that being circle is the circle, and that being right angle, i.e., the essence of the right angle, is the right angle. In that case, we should say that [the particular compound]—both the bronze right angle including [perceptible] matter and the right angle in particular lines—is posterior to the things [20] in the account and to one sort of right angle, and that the right angle without matter is posterior to the things in its account, but prior to the parts in the particular. We should [add these conditions and] not give an unqualified answer. Suppose, alternatively, that the soul is not the animal but different from it. In this case too we should say that some things are [25] [prior] and some are not, as we have said.

Not surprisingly, a further puzzle arises: What sorts of parts are parts of the form, and what sorts are parts of the combined thing, not of the form? If this is not clear, we cannot define anything; for definition is of the universal and of the form. If, then, it is not evident which sorts of parts count as matter and which do not, it will not be evident what an account is either. [30]

In cases where something evidently occurs in different kinds of things, as a circle, for instance, is found in bronze, stone, and wood, it seems clear that the bronze or stone (for instance) is not part of the substance of a circle, because a circle is [also found] separated from it. Even if it is not seen to be separated, [35] the case may still be similar to those just mentioned. [1036b] This would be true if, for example, all the circles that were seen were bronze; for it would still be true that the bronze is not part of the form [of circle], even though it is hard to remove the bronze in thought. Now the form of man, for instance, always appears [5] in flesh and bones, and in parts of this sort. Does it follow that these are also parts of the form and the account? Perhaps not; perhaps they are only matter, and we are incapable of separating them from the form because it does not also occur in other [sorts of material parts].

Since this sort of thing seems to be possible, but it is unclear when [it is possible], some people are puzzled even when they come to a circle or a triangle. They suppose that it is not suitably defined by lines [10] and by the continuous, and that we speak of these in the same way as we were speaking of the flesh and bones of a man, or the bronze or stone of a statue. Hence they reduce everything to numbers, and say that the account of the line is the account of the two.

Those talk about the Ideas are also affected by this puzzle. Some of them say that the dyad is line-itself; [15] others say that it is the form of line since, they say, in some cases — for instance, dyad and the form of dyad — the form is the same as the thing whose form it is, but in the case of the line it is not. The result is that there is one form for many things whose form appears different (this was also the result of the Pythagorean view); and then it is possible to make this [20] form the one form of all things, and to make nothing else a form. On this argument, however, all things will be one.

We have said, then, that questions about definitions raise a puzzle, and why they raise it. That is why this reduction of everything [to numbers and Forms] and the abstracting of matter goes too far; for presumably some things are [essentially] this form in this matter, [25] or these material parts with this form. And Socrates the Younger was wrong in his habitual comparison of an animal [and its parts with circle and bronze]. For his comparison leads us away from the truth; it makes us suppose that a man can exist without his parts, as a circle can exist without bronze. But in fact the two cases are not similar; for an animal is a perceiver, and cannot be defined without reference to motion, and therefore to parts in the right condition. [30] For a hand is not a

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part of a man in just any condition, but only when it is capable of fulfilling its function, and hence only when it is ensouled—when it is not ensouled, it is not a part [of a man].

But in the case of mathematical objects, why are accounts [of parts], of semicircles, for instance, not part of accounts [of wholes], of circles, for instance? For these are not perceptible. Perhaps, however, this [35] makes no difference; for some non-perceptible things have matter too, and in fact everything that is not an [1037a] essence and form itself in its own right, but a this, has some sort of matter. Hence these semicircles will not be parts of the universal circle, but they will be parts of particular circles, as we said before; for one sort of matter is perceptible, one sort intelligible. [5]

It is also clear that the soul is the primary substance, the body is matter, and man or animal is composed of the two as universal. As for Socrates or Coriscus, if [Socrates’] soul is also Socrates, he is spoken of in two ways; for some speak of him as soul, some as the compound. But if he is without qualification this soul and this body, then what was said about the universal [10] also applies to the particular.

We must postpone an investigation of whether there is another sort of matter apart from the matter of these [perceptible] substances, and whether we must search for some other sort of substance—for instance, numbers or something of the sort. For we also have this in view in trying to determine [the answers to questions] about perceptible substances as well [as non-perceptible substances], since in a way the study of nature, i.e., second philosophy, has the [15] task of studying perceptible substances. For the student of nature must know not only about matter but also, and even more, about the substance corresponding to the account.

We must also postpone an investigation of the way in which the things in the account are parts of the definition, and of why the definition is one account. For it is clear that the thing defined is one. But what [20] makes it one, given that it has parts?

We have said generally, then, about all cases, what the essence is; in what way it is itself in its own right; why in some cases the account of the essence includes the parts of the thing defined and in some cases it does not; and that in the account of substance the parts that are matter will not be present, because [25] they are parts of the compound substance, not of the substance corresponding to the account.

The compound substance has an account in one way, but in another way it has none. Taken together with matter, it has no account, since that is indefinable; but it has an account corresponding to the primary substance, so that the account of man, for instance, is the account of soul. For [the primary] [30] substance is the form present in the thing, and the compound substance is spoken of as composed of the form and the matter. Concavity, for instance, [is a form of this sort]; for snub nose and snubness are composed of concavity and nose (for nose will be present twice in these). And the compound substance (for instance snub nose or Callias) will also have matter in it.

[1037b] We have also said that in some cases, as in the case of primary substances, a thing and its essence are the same; curvature, for instance, is the same as being curvature, if curvature is primary. (By ‘primary substance’ I mean the substance that is so called not because x is in y and y is the subject of x by being the matter of x.) But if a thing is [a substance] by [5] being matter or by being combined with matter, it is not the same as its essence. Nor, however, are they one [only] coincidentally, as Socrates and the musical are; for these are the same [only] coincidentally.

[1038b] Since we are investigating substance, let us return to it again. Just as the subject and the essence are said to be substance, so too is the universal. We have discussed the first two of these, namely essence and [5] subject; we have seen that something is a subject in one of two ways, either by being a this (as an animal is the subject for its attributes) or as matter is the subject for the actuality. But some also think that the universal is a cause and principle more than anything else is; that is why we should also discuss the universal.

For it would seem impossible for anything spoken of universally to be substance. For, first, the substance [10] of a thing is the substance that is distinctive of it, which does not belong to anything else, whereas the universal is common; for what is called universal is what naturally belongs to more than one thing. Then which thing’s substance will the universal be? For it must be the substance either of all or of none of them. It cannot be the substance of all; but if it is the substance of one of them, then the others will be this one too, since things that have one substance [15] also have one essence and are themselves one.

Further, what is called substance is what is not said of a subject, whereas every universal is said of a subject. Now, suppose someone says: ‘Admittedly, a universal cannot belong to something as its essence. Still, it is

present in the essence, as animal is present in man and horse.’ Surely it is clear that it will be some account of

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[the essence it is present in]. It does not matter even if it is not an account of everything in the substance; for this [universal] will still be the [20] substance of something, as man is of the man in which it is present. And so the result will be the same once again; for [the universal]—for instance, animal — will be the substance of whatever it is present in by being its distinctive property.

Further, it is both impossible and absurd for a this and substance, if it is composite, to be composed not [25] from substances and not from a this, but from a sort of thing; for it will follow that a nonsubstance, a sort of thing, will be prior to substance, to a this. But that is impossible; for attributes cannot be prior to substance, either in account or in time or in knowledge—for if they were, they would also be separable.

Moreover, a substance will be present in [the substance] Socrates, so that [the universal] will be the [30] substance of two things.

In general, if a man and things spoken of in this way are substances, it follows that nothing in their account is the substance of any of them or exists separately from them or in anything else. I mean, for instance, that there is no animal, or anything else mentioned in the accounts, apart from the particular animals.

If we study them in this way, then, it is evident [35] that nothing that belongs universally is a substance and that what is predicated in common signifies this [1039a] sort of thing, not a this. If it is a this, then many [difficulties] result, including the Third Man.

Further, our conclusion can also be made clear from the following points. Substance cannot be composed of substances that are actually present in it; for things that are actually two in this way are never [5] actually one, but if they are potentially two they are [actually] one. A double line, for instance, is composed of halves that are [only] potentially two things; for the actuality separates them. And so if substance is one, it will not be composed of substances that are actually present in it. Democritus is right about actuality, when he says that one cannot come to be [10] from two, or two from one; he says this because he regards the indivisible magnitudes as the substances. Clearly, then, the same will apply in the case of number if, as some say, number is a combination of units; for either the pair is not one or else a unit is not actually in it.

[15] This conclusion, however, raises a puzzle. For if no substance can be composed of universals (because a universal signifies this sort of thing, not a this) and if no substance can be composed of substances actually present in it, then it follows that every substance will be incomposite, so that none will have any account. And yet, it seems to everyone, and we [20] have said much earlier, that substances alone, or most of all, have formulae, whereas now they too turn out not to have them. And so either nothing will have a definition or else in a way things will have definitions, and in a way they will not. What this means will be clearer from what follows.

[25] It is also evident from this what results for those who both say that the Ideas are separate substances and also, at the same time, take a Form to be composed of genus and differentiae. For if there are Forms, and if animal is in man and horse, then it is either numerically one and the same in both or numerically different in each. (For clearly it is one in account; a [30] statement of the account will state the same thing in each case.) If, then, there is some man himself in his own right that is a this and separated, each of his components — for instance, animal and biped — must also signify a this and be separable and a substance; and so this is also true of animal.

If the animal in horse is one and the same as the animal in man, as you are one and the same as [1039b] yourself, then how will this one thing that is in separate things be one, and why will this animal not be separate from itself as well?

Further, if it is to participate in two-footed and many-footed, then something impossible follows; for contraries will belong simultaneously to it, though it is one and a this. But if it is not to participate in [5] them, what is meant by saying that animal is two-footed or footed? Presumably [we might be told] they are combined and in contact or mixed; but all such answers are absurd.

Suppose, alternatively, that animal is different in each [species]; then there will be practically an unlimited number of things whose substance is animal, since man is noncoincidentally composed of animal.

Further, animal itself will be many things. For the [10] animal in each [species] is substance, because [the species] is not called [animal] by reference to anything else—if it were, then that other thing would be a component of man and would be its genus.

Further, all the elements composing man will be Ideas; but nothing will be the Idea of one thing and the

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substance of another (for that would be impossible). Hence animal itself will be each one of the animals in the different [species of] animals.

Further, what is that [animal in each species] composed of, and how will it be composed of animal [15] itself? Or how can the animal [in each species], whose substance is this animal itself, be something apart from animal itself?

Further, in the case of perceptible things, these and even more absurd results follow. If, then, this cannot be how things are, clearly there are no Forms of perceptible things in the way some say there are.

We have found that the compound and the form are [20] different sorts of substance; I mean that the first sort of substance is substance by being the form, combined with matter, and the second sort is the form, without qualification. Now, all the substances spoken of as compounds perish, since all of them also come to be; but the form does not perish in such a way that it is ever [in the process of] perishing, since neither is it ever [in the process of] coming to be. For it is [25] the essence of this house, not the essence of house, that is [in the process of] coming to be, whereas forms are and are not without [any process of] coming to be and perishing, since we have shown that no one generates or produces them.

For this reason there is neither definition nor demonstration about particular perceptible substances, because they have matter whose nature admits of both being and not being; that is why all [perceptible] [30] particulars are perishable.

Now, demonstrations and definitions that express knowledge, are of necessary things. And just as knowledge cannot be knowledge at one time and ignorance at another, but what admits of such variation is belief, so also neither demonstration nor definition admits [1040a] of such variation; belief is what is concerned with what admits of being otherwise. It clearly follows that there will be neither definition nor demonstration of these [particular perceptible things]. For whenever perishing things pass from perception, they are unclear to those with knowledge, and though the accounts still remain in the souls of those with knowledge, [5] there will be neither definition nor demonstration [about perceptible things]. That is why, whenever anyone who looks for a formula is defining a particular, he ought to realize that the definition can in every case be undermined, since particulars cannot be defined.

Nor, indeed, can Ideas be defined. For Ideas are [10] particulars, they say, and separable. But accounts must be composed of names, and the definer will not make a [new] name (since it would be unknown); yet each of the established names is common to all [the particulars of a given kind], and so they must also belong to something else [as well as to a given particular]. If, for instance, someone defines you, he will say you are a thin or pale animal, or something else that belongs to something else as well as to you.

Someone might say: ‘Even though each name [in [15] the definition] belongs separately to many things, still it is possible that all together belong only to this.’ We should answer, first, that biped animal, for instance, belongs both to animal and to biped — indeed, this must be so with everlasting things, since they are prior to and parts of the composite thing. Moreover, they are also separable if man is separable; for either none [20] of the three is separable or both animal and biped are. And so if none of them is separable, the genus will not exist apart from the species; but if the genus is separable, so is the differentia. Moreover, [animal and biped] are prior in being [to biped animal], and therefore they are not destroyed when it is.

Further, if Ideas are composed of Ideas (for the things they are composed of are less composite), then the components of the Idea—for instance, animal and biped—will also have to be predicated of many [25] things. If they are not, how will they be known? For there will be an Idea which cannot be predicated of more than one thing. But that does not seem to be so; on the contrary, every Idea can, it seems, be participated in.

As has been said, then, we fail to notice that everlasting things [that are particulars] are indefinable. This is especially true in the case of those that are unique — for instance, the sun and the moon. For sometimes people not only go wrong by adding the sorts of things [30] (for instance, going around the earth, or being hidden at night) that can be removed from the sun without its ceasing to be the sun. (For [this sort of definition implies that] if it stops going around or shows at night, it will no longer be the sun; but that is absurd, since the sun signifies a certain substance.) They also [sometimes go wrong by mentioning only the features] that can be found in something else as well. If, for instance, something else of this sort comes to be, then clearly [according to the alleged definition], it will also have to be the sun, and in that case the [1040b] account will be common [to the two]. But in fact the sun is a particular, as Cleon and Socrates are.

[These objections show why Ideas are indefinable.] For why does none of those [who believe in Ideas]

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present a formula of any Idea? If they tried to do so, the truth of what we have just said would become clear.

It is evident that even among the substances that are [5] generally recognized to be such, most are potentialities. These include the parts of animals (for none of them is separated [as long as they remain parts of animals]; whenever they are separated, they all exist as matter), and also earth, fire, and air. For none of these is one, but each is a sort of heap, until they are worked up and some one thing comes to be from them. [10]

One would be most inclined to suppose that the parts of ensouled things that are closely [associated with] the soul are beings both in actuality and in potentiality; for they have principles of motion from some source in their joints, which is why some animals keep on living when they are divided. But nonetheless, all these things exist [only] in potentiality. [15] They exist as long as they are one and continuous by nature, rather than by force or by growing together (that sort of thing is a deformity).

Now, one is spoken of in the same ways as being is; and the substance of one thing is one, and things whose substance is numerically one are numerically one. Evidently, then, neither one nor being can be the substance of things, just as being an element or being a principle cannot [be the substance of things]; [20] rather, we ask ‘What then is the principle?’, so that we may refer [the thing] to something better known. Among these things, then, being and one are substance to a higher degree than principle, element, and cause are; but even being and one are not substance, since nothing else common is substance either. For substance belongs only to itself and to what [25] has it, the thing whose substance it is. Moreover, one thing would not be in many places at once, but what is common exists in many places at once. Hence clearly no universal is found separately apart from particulars.

But those who say there are Forms are right in one way, in separating them, if they are indeed substances; but in another way they are wrong, because they say [30] that the one over many is a Form. The reason is that they cannot describe these imperishable substances apart from particular and perceptible substances, and so they make them the same in kind as perishable things (since these are the substances we know); they speak of man itself and horse itself, adding to perceptibles the word ‘itself.’

[1041a] And yet even if we had not seen the stars, nonetheless, I think, they would have been everlasting substances apart from those we know; and so, as things are, it is equally true that even if we do not know what nonperceptible substances there are, there must presumably be some.

It is clear, then, that nothing said universally is a substance, and that no substance is composed of substances. [5]

But let us make a sort of new beginning, and say over again what, and what sort of thing, substance should be said to be; for presumably our answer will also make things clear about the substance that is separated from perceptible substances. Since, then, substance is some sort of principle and cause, we should [10] proceed from here.

In every case, we search for the reason why by asking why one thing belongs to another. For if we ask why a musical man is a musical man, either we are searching for what we have mentioned — for instance, why the man is musical — or else we are searching for something else. Now, to ask why something [15] is itself is to search for nothing. For that [it is so] and its being so—I mean, for instance, that the moon is eclipsed—must be clear already; and the answer ‘because it is itself’ is one account and one cause applying to every case, to why a man is a man or a musician a musician. Perhaps, however, someone might answer ‘because each thing is indivisible from itself, since this is what it is to be one.’ But this is a short answer common to all cases. [20]

We might, however, ask why a man is this sort of animal. Here, then, we are clearly not asking why something that is a man is a man. We are asking, then, why one thing belongs to another; that it does belong must already be clear, since otherwise we are searching for nothing. For instance, when we ask why it thunders, we are asking why there is a noise in the [25] clouds; here we ask why one thing belongs to another. Similarly, we ask why these things—for instance, bricks and stones—are a house.

Evidently, then, we are searching for the cause; and this is the essence, to speak from a logical point of view. In some cases—for instance, presumably, a house or a bed—the cause is the what something is for; sometimes it is what first initiated the motion, [30] since this is also a cause. We search for the latter type of cause in the case of coming to be and perishing; in the case of being as well [as in the case of coming to be] we

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search for the former type of cause. What we are searching for is most easily overlooked when one thing is not said of another (as when we

ask, for instance, what a man is), because we speak [1041b] without qualification and do not specify that we are asking why these things are this thing. Instead of speaking without qualification, we must articulate our question before we search, since otherwise we will not have distinguished a genuine search from a search for nothing. Since we must take it as given that the [5] subject exists, clearly we search for why the matter is something. We ask, for instance, ‘Why are these things a house?’ Because the essence of house belongs to them. Similarly, a man is this, or rather is this body having this. Hence we search for the cause on account of which the matter is something, i.e., for the form; and this cause is the substance.

Evidently, then, there is neither searching nor [10] teaching about incomposite things; the approach to them is different from searching.

Now, a composite is composed of something in such a way that the whole thing is one, not as a heap is, but as a syllable is. A syllable is not the same as its letters — for instance, B and A are not the same thing as BA, nor is flesh fire and earth. For when the [15] components are dispersed, the flesh or syllable no longer exists, though the letters or the fire and earth still do. Hence the syllable is something, and not only the vowel and the consonant but some further thing; and similarly, flesh is not only fire and earth, or the hot and cold, but some further thing.

[20] Now suppose that this further thing must be either an element or composed of elements. If it is an element, there will be the same argument over again; for flesh will be composed of this [new element], plus fire and earth, plus some further thing, so that it will go on without limit. If the further thing is composed of an element, it is clearly not composed of just one (otherwise it would itself be this one), but of more [25] than one; and then we will repeat the same argument about it as about flesh or a syllable.

It would seem, however, that this further thing is something, and not an element, and that it is the cause of one thing’s being flesh and another thing’s being a syllable, and similarly in the other cases.

Now this is the substance of a given thing; for this is the primary cause of the thing’s being [what it is]. Some things are not substances, but the things that [30] are substances are naturally constituted; hence this nature—the one that is not an element but a principle — will apparently be substance. An element is what is present in something as the matter into which the thing is divided—for instance, the A and the B in the syllable.

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BOOK VIII

[1042a3 We] must, then, draw the conclusions from what has been said, gather together the main points, and so complete the discussion. Here, then, is what we [5] have said:

(1) We are searching for the causes, principles, and elements of substances. (2) Some substances are agreed by everyone to be substances, while some people have held distinctive

views of their own about some other things [that they count as substances]. The agreed substances are the natural ones — for instance, fire, earth, water, air, and the other simple bodies, then plants and their parts, [10] animals and their parts, and, finally, the heaven and its parts. In some people’s distinctive views, Forms and mathematical objects are substances.

(3) Some arguments imply that the essence is substance, others that the subject is substance. Other arguments imply that the genus is substance more than the species are, and that the universal is substance more than the particulars are. The Ideas are [15] closely related to the universal and the genus, since the same argument makes all of them seem to be substances.

(4) Since the essence is substance and a definition is an account of the essence, we have discussed definition and what is in its own right.

(5) Since a definition is an account and an account has parts, we also had to consider what a part is, to [20] see what sorts of parts are parts of the substance, and what sorts are not, and whether the same parts [that are parts of the substance] are also parts of the definition.

(6) Further, neither the universal nor the genus is substance. (7) We should examine Ideas and mathematical objects later, since some say that these are substances apart

from perceptible substances. For now, let us proceed with a discussion of the agreed substances; these are the perceptible ones, and [25]

all perceptible substances have matter. The subject is substance. In one way, matter [is a subject]. (By ‘matter’ I mean what is potentially but not

actually a this.) In another way, the account and the form, which, being a this, is separable in account, [is a subject]. The third [sort of subject] is the composite [30] of these two. Only it comes to be and perishes, and it is separable without qualification; for among substances that correspond to the account some are [separable without qualification] and some are not.

Now, clearly matter as well [as form and compound] is substance; for in all changes between opposites there is some subject for the change. Changes in place, for instance, have a subject that is here at one time, elsewhere at another time; those involving [35] growth have one that is this size at one time, smaller or bigger at another time; changes involving alteration have one that is, [for instance,] healthy at one time, sick at another time. Similarly, changes involving [1042b] substance have a subject that is at one time in [process of] coming to be, at another time in [process of] perishing, and at one time is the sort of subject that is a this and at another time is the sort of subject that corresponds to a privation.

Coming to be and perishing imply all the other [5] sorts of change, but one or two of the other sorts do not imply this sort. For if something has matter for change in place, it need not also have matter for coming to be and perishing. The difference between unqualified and qualified coming to be has been described in the works on nature.

The substance that is subject and matter is agreed; [10] this is the substance that is something potentially. It remains, then, to describe the substance of perceptible things that is actuality.

Democritus would seem to think that there are three differentiae; in his view, the body that is the subject — the matter — is one and the same, but [perceptible things] differ either by ‘balance’, i.e., figure, [15] or by ‘turning’, i.e., position, or by ‘contact’, i.e., arrangement. It is evident, however, that there are many differentiae. For things are differentiated by the way their matter is combined (blended together, for instance, as honey-water is); or tied together (for instance, a bundle); or glued (for instance, a book); or nailed (for instance, a box); or by more than one of these; or by having a specific position (a threshold or [20] a lintel, for

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instance, since their differentia is being in a certain position); or by a specific time (for instance, dinner and breakfast); or by a specific place (for instance, the winds); or by having different perceptible attributes (for instance, hardness or softness, thickness or thinness, dryness or wetness), either some or all [25] of them, and, in general, by excess or deficiency [of them].

Clearly, then, ‘is’ is also said in just as many ways. Something is a threshold, for instance, because it has this position, and its being a threshold signifies its having this position; and similarly, being ice signifies [water’s] having solidified in this way. The being of some things will be defined by all of these things — [30] by some things being mixed, some blended, some bound together, some solidified, and some (a hand or foot, for instance) having the other differentiae.

We must grasp, then, what kinds of differentiae there are, since they will be the principles of [a thing’s] being [what it is]. For instance, things differentiated by more and less, or thick and thin, or by other such things, are all differentiated by excess and deficiency; [35] things differentiated by shape, or by roughness and smoothness, are all differentiated by straight and bent; and the being of other things will be being mixed, [1043a] and their not being will be the opposite.

It is evident from what we have said, then, that if substance is the cause of a thing’s being, we should seek the cause of the being of each of these things in these [differentiae]. Although none of them is substance even when combined [with matter], still it is in each case analogous to substance; and just as in [5] substances what is predicated of the matter is the actuality itself, so also in other definitions what is predicated is what is closest to being the actuality. If, for instance, we have to define a threshold, we will say it is wood or stone in this position; we will define a house as bricks and timber in this position (or in some cases we mention the end as well). If we have to define ice, we will say it is water frozen or solidified [10] in this way; we will say harmony is this sort of blending of high and low; and the same is true in the other cases.

It is evident from this that each different sort of matter has a different actuality and account. For in some cases the actuality is the composition, in some it is the mixture, and in others one of the other things we have mentioned.

That is why some people who offer definitions say [15] what a house is by saying it is stones, bricks, and timber; in saying this, they speak of what is potentially a house, since these things are matter. Others say that a house is a container sheltering possessions and [living] bodies (or add something else of that sort); in saying this, they speak of the actuality. Others combine the matter and the actuality; in doing this, they speak of the third sort of substance, which is composed of the first two. For the account giving the differentiae would seem to be the account of the form [20] and the actuality, and the one giving the constituents present in the house would seem to be more an account of the matter. The same is true of the sorts of formulae that Archytas19 used to accept; for these are accounts of the composite. What, for instance, is calm weather? Quiet in a large expanse of air; for air is the matter, and quiet is the actuality of the substance. [25] What is calm? Smoothness of sea; the material subject is the sea, and the actuality and form is the smoothness.

It is evident from what we have said, then, both what perceptible substance is and what sort of being it has; for one sort is substance as matter, another is substance as form and actuality, and the third is the substance that is composed of these.

[1045a7] Let us now return to the puzzle we mentioned about definitions and about numbers, namely about the cause of their being one. If something has several [10] parts, but all together it is not a sort of heap, but, on the contrary, the whole is something apart from the parts, then there is a cause of its being one, since, even among bodies, in some cases the cause of being one is contact, and in others it is viscosity or some other such attribute.

A definition is an account that is one, not by being tied together (like the Iliad), but by being of one thing. What, then, is it that makes man one? Why is [15] he one, and not more than one — animal and two-footed, for instance — especially if, as some say, there is some animal itself and two-footed itself? For why is man not these things themselves? If so, men will exist by participating, not in one thing (man), but in [20] two (animal and two-footed); and in general, man would be more than one (animal and two-footed) and not one.

Now, it is evident that it is impossible to explain and solve the puzzle if one continues to define and to speak as they normally do. But if, as we say, one thing is matter and another is form, and the one is [something] potentially, the other actually, then what [25] we are searching for no longer seems to be a puzzle. For this puzzle is the same as the question whether the round bronze is the formula of cloak. [If it is,]

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then this name [‘cloak’] is a sign of the account, and so what we are searching for is what causes the round and the bronze to be one. There no longer appears to be a puzzle, then, because one of them is the matter, and the other is the form.

[30] What, then, causes something that is potentially to be actually? That is to say, what is the cause apart from the agent that produced it (in the case of things that come to be)? There is no cause other than [the fact that] the potential sphere is an actual sphere; this is the essence of both [the potential and the actual sphere].

Some matter is intelligible, some perceptible; and in every account one part is the matter, one the actuality. [35]

If something has neither intelligible nor perceptible matter, it is thereby essentially one thing, just as [1045b] it is also essentially a being—a this, a quality, a quantity; this is why neither being nor one is present in definitions. Moreover, the essence of these things is thereby one thing, just as it is also a being. Hence none of these things has any other cause than being [5] one or being a being; for each is some being and some one [thing] immediately [by its own nature], not by being in the genus of being or of one, and not in such a way that [being and one] are separable apart from particulars.

This puzzle leads some to speak of participating and to be puzzled about its cause and about what it is. Others speak of communion: Lycophron, for [10] instance, says that knowledge is a communion of knowing and the soul. Others say that life is a compounding or tying together of the soul with the body. But the same thing can be said about all these attempts. For according to them being healthy, for instance, will also be a communion or tying together or compounding of soul and health; and the bronze’s being a triangle will be a compounding [15] of bronze and triangle; and something’s being pale will be a compounding of surface and paleness. The reason they say these things is that they are searching for an account that makes potentiality and actuality one, and [in doing so] they are searching for the differentia.

In fact, however, as we have said, the ultimate matter and the form are one and the same; the matter [is something] potentially, and the form [is that thing] actually. Hence [to search for what causes them to be one] is like searching for the cause of one and of [20] being one. For each thing [that has matter and form] is some one thing; and what is potentially and what is actually are in a way one. And so nothing else causes [them to be one], unless something has initiated the motion from potentiality to actuality. Anything that lacks matter is without qualification some one thing essentially.

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BOOK XII

[1071b3] Since we have found that there are three types of substance, two of them natural and one unmoved, we must discuss the third kind, to show that there [5] must be an everlasting unmoved substance. For substances are the primary beings, and if all substances are perishable, then everything is perishable. But motion cannot come to be or perish (since it has always been), nor can time (since there cannot be a before and an after if there is no time). Motion is also continuous, [10] then, in the same way that time is, since time is either the same as motion or an attribute of it. But the only continuous motion is local motion — specifically, circular motion.

Now if there is something that is capable of initiating motion or of acting, but it does not actually do so, there will be no motion; for what has a potentiality need not actualize it. It will be no use, then, to assume [15] everlasting substances, as believers in Forms do, unless these include some principle capable of initiating change. And even this, or some other type of substance besides the Forms, is not sufficient; for if it does not actualize its potentiality, there will be no motion. Nor yet is it sufficient if it actualizes its potentiality, but its essence is potentiality; for there will be no everlasting motion, since what has a potentiality [20] need not actualize it. There must, then, be a principle of the sort whose essence is actuality. Further, these substances must be without matter; for they must be everlasting if anything else is to be everlasting, and hence they must be actuality.

Now a puzzle arises. For it seems that whatever actualizes a potentiality must have it, but not everything that has a potentiality also actualizes it; and so [25] potentiality is prior. But now, if this is so, nothing that exists will exist, since things can have the potentiality to exist without actualizing it. And yet, if those who have written about the gods are right to generate everything from night, or if the natural philosophers are right to say that ‘all things were together’, the same impossibility results. For how will things be moved if there is no cause [initiating motion] in actuality? For surely matter will not initiate motion [30] in itself, but carpentry, [for instance, must initiate the motion]; nor will the menstrual fluid or the earth initiate motion in themselves, but the semen and the seeds [must initiate the motion].

Hence some people — Leucippus and Plato, for instance—believe in everlasting actuality; for they say that there is always motion. But they do not say why there is this motion, or what kind of motion it is, and neither do they state the cause of something’s being moved in this way or that. For nothing is moved at [35] random, but in every case there must be some [cause]—as in fact things are moved in one way by nature and in another by force or by the agency of mind or something else. Further, what sort of motion is primary? For that makes an enormous difference. Nor can Plato say that the principle is of the sort [1072a] that he sometimes thinks it is—what initiates its own motion. For he also says that the soul is later [than motion] and comes into being at the same time as the universe.

The view that potentiality is prior to actuality is in a way correct and in a way incorrect—we have explained how this is so. The priority of actuality is [5] attested by Anaxagoras (since mind is actuality), and by Empedocles (who makes love and strife prior), and by those who say that there is always motion, as Leucippus does. And so chaos or night did not exist for an infinite time, but the same things have always existed (either in a cycle or in some other way), if actuality is prior to potentiality.

If, then, the same things always exist in a cycle, [10] something must always remain actually operating in the same way. And if there is to be coming to be and perishing, then there must be something else that always actually operates, in one way at one time and in another way at another time. This [second mover], then, must actually operate in one way because of itself and in another way because of something else, and hence either because of some third mover or because of the first mover. Hence it must be because of the first mover; for [otherwise] the first mover will [15] cause the motion of both the second and the third. Then surely it is better if the first mover is the cause. For we have seen that it is the cause of what is always the same, and a second mover is the cause of what is different at different times. Clearly both together cause this everlasting succession. Then surely this is also how the motions occur. Why, then, do we need to search for any other principles?

Since it is possible for things to be as we have said they [20] are, and since the only alternative is for

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everything to come to be from night and from all things being together and from what is not, this may be taken as the solution of the puzzles. There is something, then, that is always being moved in a ceaseless motion, and this motion is circular (this is clear not only from argument but also from what actually happens); and so the first heaven is everlasting. Hence there is also something that initiates motion. And since whatever both is moved and initiates motion is an intermediary, [25] there is something that initiates motion without being moved, something that is everlasting and a substance and actuality.

This is how an object of understanding or desire initiates motion; it initiates motion without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of understanding are the same. For what appears fine is the object of appetite, and what is fine is the primary object of wish; and we desire something because it seems [fine], rather than its seeming [fine] because [30] we desire it—for understanding is the principle.

Understanding is moved by its object, and the first column [of opposites] is what is understood in its own right. In this column substance is primary; and the primary substance is the substance that is simple and actually operating. (Being one and being simple are not the same; for being one signifies a measure, while being simple signifies that something is itself in a [35] particular condition.) Further, what is fine and what is choiceworthy for itself are in the same column; [1072b] and what is primary is in every case either the best or what is analogous to the best.

Division shows that what something is for is among the things that are unmoved. For it is either the end for some [beneficiary] or the end [aimed at] in some [process]; the first of these is moved, and the second is unmoved. The [end] initiates motion by being an object of love, and it initiates motion in the other things by [something else’s] being moved. [5] If, then, something is moved, it can be otherwise. And so, if something’s actuality is the primary type of local motion, it follows that insofar as it is in motion, in this respect it admits of being otherwise, in place if not in substance. But since there is something that initiates motion without itself being moved, and this is actually operating, it cannot be otherwise in any respect at all. For local motion is the primary type of motion, and the primary type of local motion is circular motion; and this is the sort of motion that [10] the primary mover initiates. Hence the primary mover exists necessarily; and insofar as it exists necessarily, its being is fine, and insofar as its being is fine, it is a principle. For what is necessary is spoken of in a number of ways — as what is forced because it is contrary to the subject’s impulse, as that without which the good cannot be, and as what cannot be otherwise but is necessary without qualification.

This, then, is the sort of principle on which the heaven and nature depend. Its way of life has the [15] same character as our own way of life at its best has for a short time. For the primary mover is always in this state [of complete actuality], whereas we cannot always be in it; for its actuality is also pleasure (that is why being awake, perceiving, and thinking are pleasantest, while expectations and memories are pleasant because of these).

Understanding in its own right is of what is best in its own right, and the highest degree of understanding is of what is best to the highest degree in its own right. And understanding understands itself by sharing [20] the character of the object of understanding; for it becomes an object of understanding by being in contact with and by understanding its object, so that understanding and its object are the same. For understanding is what is capable of receiving the object of understanding and the essence, and it is actually understanding when it possesses its object; and so it is this [actual understanding and possession] rather than [the potentiality to receive the object] that seems to be the divine aspect of understanding, and its actual attention to the object of understanding is pleasantest and best.

If, then, the god is always in the good state that [25] we are in sometimes, that deserves wonder; if he is in a better state, that deserves still more wonder. And that is indeed the state he is in. Further, life belongs to the god. For the actuality of understanding is life, and the god is that actuality; and his actuality in its own right is the best and everlasting life. We say, then, that the god is the best and everlasting living being, so that continuous and everlasting life and duration belong to the god; for that is what the god is.

[30] Some, however, suppose, as the Pythagoreans and Speusippus20 do, that what is finest and best is not present in the principle, claiming that the principles of plants and animals are their causes, whereas what is fine and complete is found in what results from [35] these. Their view is mistaken. For the seed comes from other [principles] that are prior and complete; [1073a] and what is primary is not the seed, but the complete [organism]; for instance, one would say that the man is prior to the seed (not the man who comes into being from the seed, but another one, from whom the seed comes).

It is evident from what has been said, then, that there is an everlasting, unmoved substance that is separated from perceptible things. It has also been [5] proved that this substance cannot have any magnitude, but must be without parts and indivisible; for it initiates motion for an infinite time, but nothing finite has

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infinite potentiality. And since every magnitude is either infinite or finite, [the primary mover] cannot have a finite magnitude, and it cannot have [10] an infinite magnitude, because there is no infinite magnitude at all. Besides, it has also been proved that this substance is not affected or altered, since all other motions depend on local motion. It is clear, then, why these things are so.

1. [Polus, who lived in the fifth century B.C., was a student of the Sophist Gorgias, regarding whom see Plato’s Meno, n.2. — S.M.C.]

2. [Regarding Simonides, see Plato’s Republic, Bk. I, n.9.]

3. [Thales of Miletus (c. 636–c. 546 B.C.), the earliest Pre-Socratic philosopher, maintained that everything in nature is composed of water.]

4. [Hippon was a philosopher of nature who lived during the fifth century B.C.]

5. [Anaximenes was a sixth-century-B.C. Pre-Socratic philosopher who maintained that air was the basic element of nature.]

6. [Diogenes was a fifth-century-B.C. philosopher who revived the teaching of Anaximenes.]

7. [Hippasus was an early Pythagorean, one of the followers of Pythagoras, the sixth-century-B.C. philosopher who founded a religious order that believed in reincarnation and considered numbers the essence of the world.]

8. Heraclitus (c. 535–c. 475 B.C.) was an influential Pre-Socratic philosopher who viewed the world-order as a continuous flux and considered any claim to permanence an illusion of the human senses.]

9. [Regarding Empedocles, see Plato’s Meno, n.6.]

10. [Regarding Anaxagoras, see Plato’s Phaedo, n.12.]

11. [Parmenides, who lived in the late sixth century B.C. and at least half of the fifth century, was an influential Pre-Socratic philosopher who viewed the world-order as composed of being itself and considered any claim to change an illusion of the human senses.]

12. [No other information is known about Hermotimus.]

13. [Hesiod was an eighth-century-B.C. Greek poet whose works are a rich source of mythology.]

14. [Leucippus was a fifth-century-B.C. philosopher who developed the theory that the world is composed of solid, invisible atoms.]

15. [Regarding Democritus, see Aristotle’s Physics, n.3.]

16. [Cratylus, a young contemporary of Socrates, carried the teachings of Heraclitus to their extreme, maintaining that not only can you not step twice in the same river, you cannot step in the same river even once, since the river is changing as you step.]

17. [Regarding the Pythagoreans, see n.7.]

18. [Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 408–c. 355 B.C.) was a Greek astronomer, mathematician, and physician.]

19. [Archytas of Tarentum, a friend of Plato, was a mathematician, philosopher, and enlightened political leader.]

20. [Speusippus, disciple and nephew of Plato, was the philosopher who succeeded Plato as head of his Academy.]

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Nicomachean Ethics*

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BOOK I

1 [1094a] Every craft and every line of inquiry, and likewise every action and decision, seems to seek some good; that is why some people were right to describe the good as what everything seeks. But the ends [that [5] are sought] appear to differ; some are activities, and others are products apart from the activities. Wherever there are ends apart from the actions, the products are by nature better than the activities.

Since there are many actions, crafts, and sciences, the ends turn out to be many as well; for health is the end of medicine, a boat of boat building, victory of generalship, and wealth of household management. [10] But some of these pursuits are subordinate to some one capacity; for instance, bridle making and every other science producing equipment for horses are subordinate to horsemanship, while this and every action in warfare are, in turn, subordinate to generalship, and in the same way other pursuits are subordinate to further ones. In all such cases, then, the ends [15] of the ruling sciences are more choiceworthy than all the ends subordinate to them, since the lower ends are also pursued for the sake of the higher. Here it does not matter whether the ends of the actions are the activities themselves, or something apart from them, as in the sciences we have mentioned.

2 Suppose, then, that the things achievable by action have some end that we wish for because of itself, [20] and because of which we wish for the other things, and that we do not choose everything because of something else — for if we do, it will go on without limit, so that desire will prove to be empty and futile. Clearly, this end will be the good, that is to say, the best good.

Then does knowledge of this good carry great weight for [our] way of life, and would it make us better able, like archers who have a target to aim at, to hit the right mark? If so, we should try to grasp, in [25] outline at any rate, what the good is, and which is its proper science or capacity.

It seems proper to the most controlling science— the highest ruling science. And this appears characteristic of political science. For it is the one that prescribes which of the sciences ought to be studied in cities, and which ones each class in the city should [1094b] learn, and how far; indeed we see that even the most honored capacities—generalship, household management, and rhetoric, for instance—are subordinate to it. And since it uses the other sciences concerned with action, and moreover legislates what [5] must be done and what avoided, its end will include the ends of the other sciences, and so this will be the human good. For even if the good is the same for a city as for an individual, still the good of the city is apparently a greater and more complete good to acquire and preserve. For while it is satisfactory to acquire and preserve the good even for an individual, it is finer [10] and more divine to acquire and preserve it for a people and for cities. And so, since our line of inquiry seeks these [goods, for an individual and for a community], it is a sort of political science.

3 Our discussion will be adequate if we make things perspicuous enough to accord with the subject matter; for we would not seek the same degree of exactness in all sorts of arguments alike, and more than in the products of different crafts. Now, fine and just things, [15] which political science examines, differ and vary so much as to seem to rest on convention only, not on nature. But [this is not a good reason, since] goods also vary in the same way, because they result in harm to many people — for some have been destroyed because [20] of their wealth, others because of their bravery. And so, since this is our subject and these are our premises, we shall be satisfied to indicate the truth roughly and in outline; since our subject and our premises are things that hold good usually [but not universally], we shall be satisfied to draw conclusions of the same sort.

Each of our claims, then, ought to be accepted in the same way [as claiming to hold good usually]. For [25] the educated person seeks exactness in each area to the extent that the nature of the subject allows; for apparently it is just as mistaken to demand demonstrations from a rhetorician as to accept [merely] persuasive arguments from a mathematician. Further, each [1095a] person judges rightly what he knows, and is a good judge about that; hence the good judge in a given area is the person educated in that area, and the unqualifiedly good judge is the person educated in every area.

This is why a youth is not a suitable student of political science; for he lacks experience of the actions in

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life, which are the subject and premises of our arguments. Moreover, since he tends to follow his feelings, [5] his study will be futile and useless; for the end [of political science] is action, not knowledge. It does not matter whether he is young in years or immature in character, since the deficiency does not depend on age, but results from following his feelings in his life and in a given pursuit; for an immature person, like an incontinent person, gets no benefit from his [10] knowledge. But for those who accord with reason in forming their desires and in their actions, knowledge of political science will be of great benefit.

These are the preliminary points about the student, about the way our claims are to be accepted, and about what we propose to do.

4 Let us, then, begin again. Since every sort of knowledge [15] and decision pursues some good, what is the good that we say political science seeks? What, [in other words,] is the highest of all the goods achievable in action?

As far as its name goes, most people virtually agree; for both the many and the cultivated call it happiness, and they suppose that living well and doing well are the same as being happy. But they disagree about [20] what happiness is, and the many do not give the same answer as the wise.

For the many think it is something obvious and evident—for instance, pleasure, wealth, or honor. Some take it to be one thing, others another. Indeed, the same person often changes his mind; for when he has fallen ill, he thinks happiness is health, and when he has fallen into poverty, he thinks it is wealth. And when they are conscious of their own ignorance, they admire anyone who speaks of something grand and [25] above their heads. [Among the wise,] however, some used to think that besides these many goods there is some other good that exists in its own right and that causes all these goods to be goods.

Presumably, then, it is rather futile to examine all these beliefs, and it is enough to examine those that [30] are most current or seem to have some argument for them.

We must notice, however, the difference between arguments from principles and arguments toward principles. For indeed Plato was right to be puzzled about this, when he used to ask if [the argument] set out from the principles or led toward them — just [1095b] as on a race course the path may go from the starting line to the far end, or back again. For we should certainly begin from things known, but things are known in two ways; for some are known to us, some known without qualification. Presumably, then, we ought to begin from things known to us.

That is why we need to have been brought up in [5] fine habits if we are to be adequate students of fine and just things, and of political questions generally. For we begin from the [belief] that [something is true]; if this is apparent enough to us, we can begin without also [knowing] why [it is true]. Someone who is well brought up has the beginnings, or can easily acquire them. Someone who neither has them nor can acquire them should listen to Hesiod:1 ‘He who [10] grasps everything himself is best of all; he is noble also who listens to one who has spoken well; but he who neither grasps it himself nor takes to heart what he hears from another is a useless man.’

5 But let us begin again from the point from which we digressed. For, it would seem, people quite reasonably reach their conception of the good, i.e., of happiness, [15] from the lives [they lead]; for there are roughly three most favored lives: the lives of gratification, of political activity, and third, of study.

The many, the most vulgar, would seem to conceive the good and happiness as pleasure, and hence they also like the life of gratification. In this [20] they appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life for grazing animals. Still, they have some argument in their defense, since many in positions of power feel as Sardanapallus2 felt, [and also choose this life].

The cultivated people, those active [in politics], conceive the good as honor, since this is more or less the end [normally pursued] in the political life. This, however, appears to be too superficial to be [25] what we are seeking; for it seems to depend more on those who honor than on the one honored, whereas we intuitively believe that the good is something of our own and hard to take from us. Further, it would seem, they pursue honor to convince themselves that they are good; at any rate, they seek to be honored by prudent people, among people who know them, and [30] for virtue. It is clear, then, that—in their view at any rate—virtue is superior [to honor].

Perhaps, indeed, one might conceive virtue more than honor to be the end of the political life. However,

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this also is apparently too incomplete [to be the good]. For it seems possible for someone to [1096a] possess virtue but be asleep or inactive throughout his life, and, moreover, to suffer the worst evils and misfortunes. If this is the sort of life he leads, no one would count him happy, except to defend a philosopher’s paradox. Enough about this, since it has been adequately discussed in the popular works as well.

[5] The third life is the life of study, which we shall examine in what follows. The moneymaker’s life is in a way forced on him [not chosen for itself]; and clearly wealth is not the good

we are seeking, since it is [merely] useful, [choiceworthy only] for some other end. Hence one would be more inclined to suppose that [any of] the goods mentioned earlier is the end, since they are liked for themselves. But apparently they are not [the end] either; and many arguments have been [10] presented against them. Let us, then, dismiss them.

6 Presumably, though, we had better examine the universal good, and puzzle out what is meant in speaking of it. This sort of inquiry is, to be sure, unwelcome to us, because those who introduced the Forms were friends of ours; still, it presumably seems [15] better, indeed only right, to destroy even what is close to us if that is the way to preserve truth. We must especially do this as philosophers, [lovers of wisdom]; for though we love both the truth and our friends, reverence is due to the truth first.

Those who introduced this view did not mean to produce an Idea for any [series] in which they spoke of prior and posterior [members]; that was why they did not mean to establish an Idea [of number] for [the series of] numbers. But the good is spoken of both in [20] what-it-is [that is, substance], and in quality and relative; and what exists in its own right, that is, substance, is by nature prior to the relative, since a relative would seem to be an appendage and coincident of being. And so there is no common Idea over these.

Further, good is spoken of in as many ways as being [is spoken of]: in what-it-is, as god and mind; in quality, as the virtues; in quantity, as the measured [25] amount; in relative, as the useful; in time, as the opportune moment; in place, as the [right] situation; and so on. Hence it is clear that the good cannot be some common and single universal; for if it were, it would be spoken of in only one [of the types of] predication, not in them all.

Further, if a number of things have a single Idea, [30] there is also a single science of them; hence [if there were an Idea of good] there would also be some single science of all goods. but, in fact, there are many sciences even of the goods under one [type of] predication; for the science of the opportune moment, for instance, in war is generalship, in disease medicine. And similarly the science of the measured amount in food is medicine, in exertion gymnastics. [Hence there is no singles science of the good, and so no Idea.]

One might be puzzled about what [the believers [1096b] in Ideas] really mean in speaking of the So-and- So Itself, since Man Itself and man have one and the same account of man; for insofar as each is man, they will not differ at all. If that is so, then [Good Itself and good have the same account of good]; hence they also will not differ at all insofar as each is good, [hence there is no point in appealing to Good Itself].

Moreover, Good Itself will be no more of a good [5] by being eternal; for a white thing is no whiter if it lasts a long time than if it lasts a day.

The Pythagoreans3 would seem to have a more plausible view about the good, since they place the One in the column of goods. Indeed, Speusippus4 seems to have followed them. But let us leave this for another discussion.

A dispute emerges, however, about what we have [10] said, because the arguments [in favor of the Idea] are not concerned with every sort of good. Good pursued and liked in their own right are spoken of as one species of goods, whereas those that in some way tend to produce or preserve these goods, or to prevent their contraries, are spoken of as goods because of these and in a different way. Clearly, then, goods are spoken of in two ways, and some are goods in their own right, [15] and others goods because of these. Let us, then, separate the goods in their own right from the [merely] useful goods, and consider whether goods in their own right correspond to a single Idea.

But what sorts of goods may we take to be goods in their own right? Are they the goods that are pursued even on their own—for instance, prudence, seeing, some types of pleasures, and honors? For even if we also pursue these because of something else, we may [20] nonetheless take them to be goods in their own right. Alternatively, is nothing except the Idea good in its own right, so that the Form will be futile? But if these other things are also goods in their own right, then, [if there is an Idea of good,] the same account of good will have to turn up in all of them, just as the same account of whiteness turns up in snow and in chalk. In

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fact, however, honor, prudence, and pleasure have [25] different and dissimilar accounts, precisely insofar as they are goods. Hence the good is not something common corresponding to a single Idea.

But how, then, is good spoken of? For it is not like homonyms resulting from chance. Is it spoken of from the fact that goods derive from one thing or all contribute to one thing? Or is it spoken of more by analogy? For as sight is to body, so understanding is to soul, and so on for other cases.

Presumably, though, we should leave these questions [30] for now, since their exact treatment is more appropriate for another [branch of] of philosophy. And the same is true about the Idea. For even if there is some one good predicated in common, or some separable good, itself in its own right, clearly that is not the sort of good a human being can achieve in action or possess; but that is the sort we are looking [35] for now.

Perhaps, however, someone might think it is better to get to know the Idea with a view to the goods that [1097a] we can possess and achieve in action; for [one might suppose that] if we have this as a sort of pattern, we shall also know better about the goods that are goods for us, and if we know about them, we shall hit on them. This argument certainly has some plausibility, [5] but it would seem to clash with the sciences. For each of these, though it aims at some good and seeks to supply what is lacking, leaves out knowledge of the Idea; but if the Idea were such an important aid, surely it would not be reasonable for all craftsmen to know nothing about it and not even to look for it.

Moreover, it is a puzzle to know what the weaver or carpenter will gain for his own craft from knowing [10] this Good Itself, or how anyone will be better at medicine or generalship from having gazed on the Idea Itself. For what the doctor appears to consider is not even health [universally, let alone good universally], but human health, and presumably the health of this human being even more, since he treats one particular patient at a time.

So much, then, for these questions.

7 But let us return once again to the good we are [15] looking for, and consider just what it could be. For it is apparently one thing in one action or craft, and another thing in another; for it is one thing in medicine, another in generalship, and so on for the rest. What, then, is the good of each action or craft? Surely it is that for the sake of which the other things are done; in medicine this is health, in generalship [20] victory, in house-building a house, in another case something else, but in every action and decision it is the end, since it is for the sake of the end that everyone does the other actions. And so, if there is some end of everything achievable in action, the good achievable in action will be this end; if there are more ends than one, [the good achievable in action] will be these ends.

Our argument, then, has followed a different route to reach the same conclusion. But we must try [25] to make this still more perspicuous. Since there are apparently many ends, and we choose some of them (for instance, wealth, flutes, and, in general, instruments) because of something else, it is clear that not all ends are complete. But the best good is apparently something complete. And so, if only one end is complete, the good we are looking for will be this [30] end; if more ends than one are complete, it will be the most complete end of these.

We say that an end pursued in its own right is more complete than an end pursued because of something else, and that an end that is never choiceworthy because of something else is more complete than ends that are choiceworthy both in their own right and because of this end. Hence an end that is always choiceworthy in its own right, never because of something else, is complete without qualification.

Now happiness, more than anything else, seems [1097b] complete without qualification. For we always choose it because of itself, never because of something else. Honor, pleasure, understanding, and every virtue we certainly choose because of themselves, since we would choose each of them even if it had no further result; but we also choose them for the sake of happiness, [5] supposing that through them we shall be happy. Happiness, by contrast, no one ever chooses for their sake, or for the sake of anything else at all.

The same conclusion [that happiness is complete] also appears to follow from self-sufficiency. For the complete good seems to be self-sufficient. What we count as self-sufficient is not what suffices for a solitary [10] person by himself, living an isolated life, but what suffices also for parents, children, wife, and, in general, for friends and fellow citizens, since a human being is a naturally political [animal]. Here, however, we must impost some limit; for if we extend the good to parents’ parents and children’s children and to friends of friends, we shall go on without limit; but we must examine this another time.

Anyhow, we regard something as self-sufficient when all by itself it makes a life choiceworthy and [15]

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lacking nothing; and that is what we think happiness does. Moreover, we think happiness is most choiceworthy of all goods, [since] it is not counted as one good

among many. [If it were] counted as one among many, then, clearly, we think it would be more choiceworthy if the smallest of goods were added; for the good that is added becomes an extra quantity of goods, and the larger of two goods is always more choiceworthy.

Happiness, then, is apparently something [20] complete and self-sufficient, since it is the end of the things achievable in action.

But presumably the remark that the best good is happiness is apparently something [generally] agreed, and we still need a clearer statement of what the best good is. Perhaps, then, we shall find this if we first grasp the function of a human being. For just as the good, i.e., [doing] well, for a flautists, a sculptor, and [25] every craftsman, and, in general, for whatever has a function and [characteristic] action, seems to depend on its function, the same seems to be true for a human being, if a human being has some function.

Then do the carpenter and the leather worker [30] have their functions and actions, but has a human being no function? Is he by nature idle, without any function? Or, just as eye, hand, foot, and in general every [bodily] part apparently has its function, may we likewise ascribe to a human being some function apart from all of these?

What, then, could this be? For living is apparently shared with plants, but what we are looking for is the [1098a] special function of a human being; hence we should set aside the life of nutrition and growth. The life next in order is some sort of life of sense perception; but this too is apparently shared with horse, ox, and every animal.

The remaining possibility, then, is some sort of life of action of the [part of the soul] that has reason. One [part] of it has reason as obeying reason; the other has it as itself having reason and thinking. Moreover, [5] life is also spoken of in two ways [as capacity and as activity], and we must take [a human being’s special function to be] life as activity, since this seems to be called life more fully. We have found, then, that the human function is activity of the soul in accord with reason or requiring reason.

Now we say that the function of a [kind of thing] — of a harpist, for instance—is the same in kind as the function of an excellent individual of the kind — of an [10] excellent harpist, for instance. And the same is true without qualification in every case, if we add to the function the superior achievement in accord with the virtue; for the function of a harpist is to play the harp, and the function of a good harpist is to play it well. Moreover, we take the human function to be a certain kind of life, and take this life to be activity and actions of the soul that involve reason; hence the [15] function of the excellent man is to do this well and finely.

Now each function is completed well by being completed in accord with the virtue proper [to that kind of thing]. And so the human good proves to be activity of the soul in accord with virtue, and indeed with the best and most complete virtue, if there are [20] more virtues than one. Moreover, in a complete life. For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one day; nor, similarly, does one day or a short time make us blessed and happy.

This, then, is a sketch of the good; for, presumably, we must draw the outline first, and fill it in later. If the sketch is good, anyone, it seems, can advance and articulate it, and in such cases time discovers more, [25] or is a good partner in discovery. That is also how the crafts have improved, since anyone can add what is lacking [in the outline].

We must also remember our previous remarks, so that we do not look for the same degree of exactness in all areas, but the degree that accords with a given subject matter and is proper to a given line of inquiry. [30] For the carpenter’s and the geometer’s inquiries about the right angle are different also; the carpenter restricts himself to what helps his work, but the geometer inquires into what, or what sort of thing, the right angle is, since he studies the truth. We must do the same, then, in other areas too, [seeking the proper degree of exactness], so that digressions do not overwhelm our main task.

[1098b] Nor should we make the same demand for an explanation in all cases. On the contrary, in some cases it is enough to prove rightly that [something is true, without also explaining why it is true]. This is so, for instance, with principles, where the fact that [something is true] is the first thing, that is to say, the principle.

Some principles are studied by means of induction, some by means of perception, some by means of some sort of habituation, and others by other means. [5] In each case we should try to find them out by means suited to their nature, and work hard to define them rightly. For they carry great weight for what follows; for

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the principle seems to be more than half the whole, and makes evident the answer to many of our questions.

8 We should examine the principle, however, not only from the conclusion and premises [of a deduction], [10] but also from what is said about it; for all the facts harmonize with a true account, whereas the truth soon clashes with a false one.

Goods are divided, then, into three types, some called external, some goods of the soul, others goods of the body. We say that the goods of the soul are goods most fully, and more than the others, and we [15] take actions and activities of the soul to be [goods] of the soul. And so our account [of the good] is right, to judge by this belief anyhow—and it is an ancient belief, and accepted by philosophers.

Our account is also correct in saying that some sort of actions and activities are the end; for in that way the end turns out to be a good of the soul, not an external good. [20]

The belief that the happy person lives well and does well also agrees with our account, since we have virtually said that the end is a sort of living well and doing well.

Further, all the features that people look for in happiness appear to be true of the end described in our account. For to some people happiness seems to [25] be virtue; to others prudence; to others some sort of wisdom; to others again it seems to be these, or one of these, involving pleasure or requiring it to be added; others add in external prosperity as well. Some of these views are traditional, held by many, while others are held by a few men who are widely esteemed. It is reasonable for each group not to be completely wrong, but to be correct on one point at least, or even on most points.

[30] First, our account agrees with those who say happiness is virtue [in general] or some [particular] virtue; for activity in accord with virtue is proper to virtue. Presumably, though, it matters quite a bit whether we suppose that the best good consists in possessing or in using—that is to say, in a state or in an activity [that actualizes the state]. For someone may be in a state [1099a] that achieves no good—if, for instance, he is asleep or inactive in some other way—but this cannot be true of the activity; for it will necessarily act and act well. And just as Olympic prizes are not for the finest [5] and strongest, but for the contestants—since it is only these who win—the same is true in life; among the fine and good people, only those who act correctly win the prize.

Moreover, the life of these active people is also pleasant in itself. For being pleased is a condition of the soul, [and hence is included in the activity of the soul]. Further, each type of person finds pleasure in whatever he is called a lover of; a horse, for instance, [10] pleases the horse-lover, a spectacle the lover of spectacles. Similarly, what is just pleases the lover of justice, and in general what accords with virtue pleases the lover of virtue.

Now the things that please most people conflict, because they are not pleasant by nature, whereas the things that please lovers of the fine are things pleasant by nature. Actions in accord with virtue are pleasant [15] by nature, so that they both please lovers of the fine and are pleasant in their own right.

Hence these people’s life does not need pleasure to be added [to virtuous activity] as some sort of extra decoration; rather it has its pleasure within itself. For besides the reasons already given, someone who does not enjoy fine actions is not good; for no one would call a person just, for instance, if he did not enjoy doing just actions, or generous if he did not enjoy [20] generous actions, and similarly for the other virtues.

If this is so, actions in accord with the virtues are pleasant in their own right. Moreover, these actions are good and fine as well as pleasant; indeed, they are good, fine, and pleasant more than anything else is, since on this question the excellent person judges rightly, and his judgment agrees with what we have said.

Happiness, then, is best, finest, and most pleasant, [25] and the Delian inscription is wrong to distinguish these things: ‘What is most just is finest; being healthy is most beneficial; but it is most pleasant to win our heart’s desire.’ For all three features are found in the best activities, and we say happiness is these activities, or [rather] one of them, the best one.

Nonetheless, happiness evidently also needs external goods to be added, as we said, since we cannot, or cannot easily, do fine actions if we lack the resources. For, first of all, in many actions we use friends, [1099b] wealth, and political power just as we use instruments. Further, deprivation of certain [externals]— for instance, good birth, good children, beauty—mars our blessedness. For we do not altogether have the character of happiness if we look utterly repulsive or are ill-born, solitary, or childless; and we have it even less, presumably, if our children or friends are totally [5] bad, or were good but have died.

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And so, as we have said, happiness would seem to need this sort of prosperity added also. That is why some people identify happiness with good fortune, and others identify it with virtue.

9 This also leads to a puzzle: Is happiness acquired by learning, or habituation, or by some other form of [10] cultivation? Or is it the result of some divine fate, or even of fortune?

First, then, if the gods give any gift at all to human beings, it is reasonable for them to give us happiness more than any other human good, insofar as it is the best of human goods. Presumably, however, this question is more suitable for a different inquiry.

But even if it is not sent by the gods, but instead [15] results from virtue and some sort of learning or cultivation, happiness appears to be one of the most divine things, since the prize and goal of virtue appears to be the best good, something divine and blessed. Moreover [if happiness comes in this way] it will be widely shared; for anyone who is not deformed [in his capacity] for virtue will be able to achieve happiness through some sort of learning and attention. [20]

And since it is better to be happy in this way than because of fortune, it is reasonable for this to be the way [we become] happy. For whatever is natural is naturally in the finest state possible. The same is true of the products of crafts and of every other cause, especially the best cause; and it would be seriously inappropriate to entrust what is greatest and finest to fortune.

[25] The answer to our question is also evident from our account. For we have said that happiness is a certain sort of activity of the soul in accord with virtue, [and hence not a result of fortune]. Of the other goods, some are necessary conditions of happiness, while others are naturally useful and cooperative as instruments [but are not parts of it].

Further, this conclusion agrees with our opening [30] remarks. For we took the goal of political science to be the best good; and most of its attention is devoted to the character of the citizens, to make them good people who do fine actions.

It is not surprising, then, that we regard neither [1100a] ox, nor horse, nor any other kind of animal as happy; for none of them can share in this sort of activity. For the same reason a child is not happy either, since his age prevents him from doing these sorts of actions. If he is called happy, he is being congratulated [simply] because of anticipated blessedness; for, as we have [5] said, happiness requires both complete virtue and a complete life.

It needs a complete life because life includes many reversals of fortune, good and bad, and the most prosperous person may fall into a terrible disaster in old age, as the Trojan stories tell us about Priam.5 If someone has suffered those sorts of misfortunes and comes to a miserable end, no one counts him happy.

[10] Then should we count no human being happy during his lifetime, but follow Solon’s6 advice to wait to see the end? But if we agree with Solon, can someone really be happy during the time after he has died? Surely that is completely absurd, especially when we say happiness is an activity.

[15] We do not say, then, that someone is happy during the time he is dead, and Solon’s point is not this [absurd one], but rather that when a human being has died, we can safely pronounce [that he was] blessed [before he died], on the assumption that he is now finally beyond evils and misfortunes. But this claim is also disputable. For if a living person has good or evil of which he is not aware, a dead person also, it seems, has good or evil, if, for instance, he receives honors [20] or dishonors, and his children, and descendants in general, do well or suffer misfortune.

However, this conclusion also raises a puzzle. For even if someone has lived in blessedness until old age, and has died appropriately, many fluctuations of his descendants’ fortunes may still happen to him; for some may be good people and get the life they [25] deserve, while the contrary may be true of others, and clearly they may be as distantly related to their ancestor as you please. Surely, then, it would be an absurd result if the dead person’s condition changed along with the fortunes of his descendants, so that at one time he would turn out to have been happy [in his lifetime] and at another time he would turn out to have been miserable. But it would also be absurd [30] if the condition of descendants did not affect their ancestors at all or for any length of time.

But we must return to the previous puzzle, since that will perhaps also show us the answer to our present question. Let us grant that we must wait to see the end, and must then count someone blessed, not as now

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being blessed [during the time he is dead] but because he previously was blessed. Would it not be absurd, then, if, at the very time when he is happy, we refused to ascribe truly to him the happiness he has? [35] Such refusal results from reluctance to call him happy [1100b] during his lifetime, because of its ups and downs; for we suppose happiness is enduring and definitely not prone to fluctuate, but the same person’s fortunes often turn to and fro. For clearly, if we take our cue [5] from his fortunes, we shall often call him happy and then miserable again, thereby representing the happy person as a kind of chameleon, insecurely based.

But surely it is quite wrong to take our cue from someone’s fortunes. For his doing well or badly does not rest on them. A human life, as we said, needs these added, but activities in accord with [10] virtue control happiness, and the contrary activities control its contrary. Indeed, the present puzzle is further evidence for our account [of happiness]. For no human achievement has the stability of activities in accord with virtue, since these seem to be more enduring even than our knowledge of the sciences. [15] Indeed, the most honorable among the virtues themselves are more enduring than the other virtues, because blessed people devote their lives to them more fully and more continually than to anything else—for this continual activity would seem to be the reason we do not forget them.

It follows, then, that the happy person has the [stability] we are looking for and keeps the character [20] he has throughout his life. For always, or more than anything else, he will do and study the actions in accord with virtue, and will bear fortunes most finely, in every way and in all conditions appropriately, since he is truly ‘good, foursquare, and blameless.’

Many events, however, are subject to fortune; some are minor, some major. Hence, minor strokes of [25] good or ill fortune clearly will not carry any weight for his life. But many major strokes of good fortune will make it more blessed; for in themselves they naturally add adornment to it, and his use of them proves to be fine and excellent. Conversely, if he suffers many major misfortunes, they oppress and spoil his blessedness, [30] since they involve pain and impede many activities. And yet, even here what is fine shines through, whenever someone bears many severe misfortunes with good temper, not because he feels no distress, but because he is noble and magnanimous.

And since it is activities that control life, as we [35] said, no blessed person could ever become miserable, since he will never do hateful and base actions. For a [1101a] truly good and prudent person, we suppose, will bear strokes of fortune suitably, and from his resources at any time will do the finest actions, just as a good general will make the best use of his forces in war, [5] and a good shoemaker will make the finest shoe from the hides given to him, and similarly for all other craftsmen.

If this is so, the happy person could never become miserable, but neither will he be blessed if he falls into misfortunes as bad as Prima’s. Nor, however, will he be inconstant and prone to fluctuate, since [10] he will neither be easily shaken from his happiness nor shaken by just any misfortunes. He will be shaken from it, though, by many serious misfortunes, and from these a return to happiness will take no short time. At best, it will take a long and complete length of time that includes great and fine successes.

[15] Then why not say that the happy person is the one whose activities accord with complete virtue, with an adequate supply of external goods, not for just any time but for a complete life? Or should we add that he will also go on living this way and will come to an appropriate end, since the future is not apparent to us, and we take happiness to be the end, and altogether complete in every way? Given these facts [about the future and about happiness], we shall say that a [20] living person who has, and will keep, the goods we mentioned is blessed, but blessed as a human being is. So much for a determination of this question.

13 Since happiness is a certain sort of activity of the [1102a5] soul in accord with complete virtue, we must examine virtue; for that will perhaps also be a way to study happiness better. Moreover, the true politician seems to have put more effort into virtue than into anything else, since he wants to make the citizens good and [10] law-abiding. We find an example of this in the Spartan and Cretan legislators and in any others who share their concerns. Since, then, the examination of virtue is proper for political science, the inquiry clearly suits our decision at the beginning.

It is clear that the virtue we must examine is human virtue, since we are also seeking the human [15] good and human happiness. By human virtue we mean virtue of the soul, not of the body, since we also say that happiness is an activity of the soul. If this is so, it is clear that the politician must in some way know [20] about the soul, just as someone setting out to heal the eyes must know about the whole body as well. This is all the more true to the extent that political science is better and more honorable than medicine; even among doctors, the cultivated ones devote a lot of effort to finding out about the body. Hence the politician as well

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[as the student of nature] must study the soul. But he must study it for his specific purpose, far [25] enough for his inquiry [into virtue]; for a more exact treatment would presumably take more effort than his purpose requires.

[We] have discussed the soul sufficiently [for our purposes] in [our] popular works as well [as our less popular], and we should use this discussion. We have said, for instance, that one [part] of the soul is nonrational, while one has reason. Are these distinguished [30] as parts of a body and everything divisible into parts are? Or are they two [only] in definition, and inseparable by nature, as the convex and the concave are in a surface? It does not matter for present purposes.

Consider the nonrational [part]. One [part] of it, [1102b] i.e., the cause of nutrition and growth, would seem to be plantlike and shared [with all living things]; for we can ascribe this capacity of the soul to everything that is nourished, including embryos, and the same capacity to full-grown living things, since this is more reasonable that to ascribe another capacity to them.

Hence the virtue of this capacity is apparently [5] shared, not [specifically] human. For this part and this capacity more than others seem to be active in sleep, and here the good and the bad person are least distinct; hence happy people are said to be no better off than miserable people for half their lives. This lack of distinction is not surprising, since sleep is inactivity of the soul insofar as it is called excellent [10] or base, unless to some small extent some movements penetrate [to our awareness], and in this way the decent person comes to have better images [in dreams] than just any random person has. Enough about this, however, and let us leave aside the nutritive part, since by nature it has no share in human virtue.

Another nature in the soul would also seem to be [15] nonrational, though in a way it shares in reason. For in the continent and the incontinent person we praise their reason, that is to say, the [part] of the soul that has reason, because it exhorts them correctly and toward what is best; but they evidently also have in them some other [part] that is by nature something apart from reason, clashing and struggling with reason. For [20] just as paralyzed parts of a body, when we decide to move them to the right, do the contrary and move off to the left, the same is true of the soul; for incontinent people have impulses in contrary directions. In bodies, admittedly, we see the part go astray, whereas we do not see it in the soul; nonetheless, presumably, we should suppose that the soul also has something [25] apart from reason, countering and opposing reason. The [precise] way it is different does not matter.

However, this [part] as well [as the rational part] appears, as we said, to share in reason. At any rate, in the continent person it obeys reason; and in the temperate and the brave person it presumably listens still better to reason, since there it agrees with reason in everything.

The nonrational [part], then, as well [as the whole soul] apparently has two parts. For while the plantlike [30] [part] shares in reason not at all, the [part] with appetites and in general desires shares in reason in a way, insofar as it both listens to reason and obeys it. This is the way in which we are said to ‘listen to reason’ from father or friends, as opposed to the way in which [we ‘give the reason’] in mathematics. The nonrational part also [obeys and] is persuaded in some way by reason, as is shown by correction, and by every sort of [1103a] reproof and exhortation.

If, then, we ought to say that this [part] also has reason, then the [part] that has reason, as well [as the nonrational part], will have two parts. One will have reason fully, by having it within itself; the other will have reason by listening to reason as to a father.

The division between virtues accords with this [5] difference. For some virtues are called virtues of thought, others virtues of character; wisdom, comphrehension, and prudence are called virtues of thought, generosity and temperance virtues of character. For when we speak of someone’s character we do not say that he is wise or has good comprehension, but that he is gentle or temperate. And yet, we also praise the wise person for his state, and the states that [10] are praiseworthy are the ones we call virtues.

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BOOK II

1 Virtue, then, is of two sorts, virtue of thought and [15] virtue of character. Virtue of thought arises and grows mostly from teaching; that is why it needs experience and time. Virtue of character [i.e., of ēthos] results from habit [ethos]; hence its name ‘ethical,’ slightly varied from ‘ethos.’

Hence it is also clear that none of the virtues of character arises in us naturally. For if something is [20] by nature in one condition, habituation cannot bring it into another condition. A stone, for instance, by nature moves downwards, and habituation could not make it move upwards, not even if you threw it up ten thousand times to habituate it; nor could habituation make fire move downwards, or bring anything that is by nature in one condition into another condition. And so the virtues arise in us neither by nature [25] nor against nature. Rather, we are by nature able to acquire them, and we are completed through habit.

Further, if something arises in us by nature, we first have the capacity for it, and later perform the activity. [30] This is clear in the case of the senses; for we did not acquire them by frequent seeing or hearing, but we already had them when we exercised them, and did not get them by exercising them. Virtues, by contrast, we acquire, just as we acquire crafts, by having first activated them. For we learn a craft by producing the same product that we must produce when we have learned it; we become builders, for instance, by building, [1103b] and we become harpists by playing the harp. Similarly, then, we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.

What goes on in cities is also evidence for this. For [5] the legislator makes the citizens good by habituating them, and this is the wish of every legislator; if he fails to do it well he misses his goal. Correct habituation distinguishes a good political system from a bad one.

Further, the sources and means that develop each virtue also ruin it, just as they do in a craft. For playing [10] the harp makes both good and bad harpists, and it is analogous in the case of builders and all the rest; for building well makes good builders, and building badly makes bad ones. Otherwise no teacher would be needed, but everyone would be born a good or a bad craftsman.

It is the same, then, with the virtues. For what we [15] do in our dealings with other people makes some of us just, some unjust; what we do in terrifying situations, and the habits of fear or confidence that we acquire, make some of us brave and others cowardly. The same is true of situations involving appetites and anger; for one or another sort of conduct in these situations [20] makes some temperate and mild, others intemperate and irascible. To sum it up in a single account: a state [of character] results from [the repetition of] similar activities.

That is why we must perform the right activities, since differences in these imply corresponding differences in the states. It is not unimportant, then, to acquire one sort of habit or another, right from our [25] youth. On the contrary, it is very important, indeed all-important.

2 Our present discussion does not aim, as our others do, at study; for the purpose of our examination is not to know what virtue is, but to become good, since otherwise [30] the inquiry would be of no benefit to us. And so we must examine the right ways of acting; for, as we have said, the actions also control the sorts of states we acquire.

First, then, actions should accord with the correct reason. That is a common [belief], and let us assume it. We shall discuss it later, and say what the correct reason is and how it is related to the other virtues.

But let us take it as agreed in advance that every [1104a] account of the actions we must do has to be stated in outline, not exactly. As we also said at the beginning, the type of accounts we demand should accord with the subject matter; and questions about actions and expediency, like questions about health, have no fixed answers.

While this is the character of our general account, [5] the account of particular cases is still more inexact. For these fall under no craft or profession; the agents themselves must consider in each case what the opportune action is, as doctors and navigators do. The account we offer, then, in our present inquiry is [10] of this inexact sort; still, we must try to offer help.

First, then, we should observe that these sorts of states naturally tend to be ruined by excess and deficiency.

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We see this happen with strength and health—for we must use evident cases [such as these] as witnesses to things that are not evident. For both [15] excessive and deficient exercise ruin bodily strength, and, similarly, too much or too little eating or drinking ruins health, whereas the proportionate amount produces, increases, and preserves it.

The same is true, then, of temperance, bravery, and [20] the other virtues. For if, for instance, someone avoids and is afraid of everything, standing firm against nothing, he becomes cowardly; if he is afraid of nothing at all and goes to face everything, he becomes rash. Similarly, if he gratifies himself with every pleasure and abstains from none, he becomes intemperate; if he avoids them all, as boors do, he becomes some sort [25] of insensible person. Temperance and bravery, then, are ruined by excess and deficiency, but preserved by the mean.

[30] But these actions are not only the sources and causes both of the emergence and growth of virtues and of their ruin; the activities of the virtues [once we have acquired them] also consist in these same actions. For this is also true of more evident cases; strength, for instance, arises from eating a lot and from withstanding much hard labor, and it is the strong person who is most capable of these very actions. It is the same with the virtues. For abstaining from pleasures [35] makes us become temperate, and once we have [1104b] become temperate we are most capable of abstaining from pleasures. It is similar with bravery; habituation in disdain for frightening situations and in standing firm against them makes us become brave, and once we have become brave we shall be most capable of standing firm.

3 [5] But we must take someone’s pleasure or pain following on his actions to be a sign of his state. For if someone who abstains from bodily pleasures enjoys the abstinence itself, he is temperate; if he is grieved by it, he is intemperate. Again, if he stands firm against terrifying situations and enjoys it, or at least does not find it painful, he is brave; if he finds it painful, he is cowardly. For virtue of character is about pleasures and pains.

[10] For pleasure causes us to do base actions, and pain causes us to abstain from fine ones. That is why we need to have had the appropriate upbringing— right from early youth, as Plato says — to make us find enjoyment or pain in the right things; for this is the correct education.

Further, virtues are concerned with actions and [15] feelings; but every feeling and every action implies pleasure or pain; hence, for this reason too, virtue is about pleasures and pains. Corrective treatments also indicate this, since they use pleasures and pains; for correction is a form of medical treatment, and medical treatment naturally operates through contraries.

Further, as we said earlier, every state of soul is [20] naturally related to and about whatever naturally makes it better or worse; and pleasures and pains make people base, from pursuing and avoiding the wrong ones, at the wrong time, in the wrong ways, or whatever other distinctions of that sort are needed in an account. These [bad effects of pleasure and pain] are the reason why people actually define the virtues as ways of being unaffected and undisturbed [by pleasures and pains]. They are wrong, however, because [25] they speak of being unaffected without qualification, not of being unaffected in the right or wrong way, at the right or wrong time, and the added qualifications.

We assume, then, that virtue is the sort of state that does the best actions concerning pleasures and pains, and that vice is the contrary state.

The following will also make it evident that virtue [30] and vice are about the same things. For there are three objects of choice — fine, expedient, and pleasant—and three objects of avoidance—their contraries, shameful, harmful, and painful. About all these, then, the good person is correct and the bad person is in error, and especially about pleasure. For pleasure [35] is shared with animals, and implied by every object [1105a] of choice, since what is fine and what is expedient appear pleasant as well.

Further, pleasure grows up with all of us from infancy on. That is why it is hard to rub out this feeling that is dyed into our lives. We also estimate actions [as well as feelings] —some of us more, some less — by [5] pleasure and pain. For this reason, our whole discussion must be about these; for good or bad enjoyment or pain is very important for our actions.

Further, it is more difficult to fight pleasure than to fight spirit—and Heraclitus7 tells us [how difficult it is to fight spirit]. Now both craft and virtue are in [10] every case about what is more difficult, since a good result is even better when it is more difficult. Hence, for this reason also, the whole discussion, for virtue and political science alike, must consider pleasures and pains; for if we use these well, we shall be good, and if badly, bad.

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To sum up: Virtue is about pleasures and pains; [15] the actions that are its sources also increase it or, if they are done badly, ruin it; and its activity is about the same actions as those that are its sources.

4 Someone might be puzzled, however, about what we mean by saying that we become just by doing just actions and become temperate by doing temperate actions. For [one might suppose that] if we do grammatical or musical actions, we are grammarians or [20] musicians, and, similarly, if we do just or temperate actions, we are thereby just or temperate.

But surely actions are not enough, even in the case of crafts; for it is possible to produce a grammatical result by chance, or by following someone else’s instructions. To be grammarians, then, we must both produce a grammatical result and produce it grammatically [25]—that is to say, produce it in accord with the grammatical knowledge in us.

Moreover, in any case, what is true of crafts is not true of virtues. For the products of a craft determine by their own qualities whether they have been produced well; and so it suffices that they have the right qualities when they have been produced. But for actions [30] in accord with the virtues to be done temperately or justly it does not suffice that they themselves have the right qualities. Rather, the agent must also be in the right state when he does them. First, he must know [that he is doing virtuous actions]; second, he must decide on them, and decide on them for themselves; and, third, he must also do them from a firm and unchanging state.

[1105b] As conditions for having a craft, these three do not count, except for the bare knowing. As a condition for having a virtue, however, the knowing counts for nothing, or [rather] for only a little, whereas the other two conditions are very important, indeed all-important. [5] And we achieve these other two conditions by the frequent doing of just and temperate actions.

Hence actions are called just or temperate when they are the sort that a just or temperate person would do. But the just and temperate person is not the one who [merely] does these actions, but the one who also does them in the way in which just or temperate people do them.

[10] It is right, then, to say that a person comes to be just from doing just actions and temperate from doing temperate actions; for no one has the least prospect of becoming good from failing to do them.

The many, however, do not do these actions. They take refuge in arguments, thinking that they are [15] doing philosophy, and that this is the way to become excellent people. They are like a sick person who listens attentively to the doctor, but acts on none of his instructions. Such a course of treatment will not improve the state of the sick person’s body; nor will the many improve the state of their souls by this attitude to philosophy.

5 Next we must examine what virtue is. Since there are [20] three conditions arising in the soul—feelings, capacities, and states—virtue must be one of these.

By feelings I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hate, longing, jealousy, pity, and in general whatever implies pleasure or pain. By capacities I mean what we have when we are said to [25] be capable of these feelings—capable of being angry, for instance, or of being afraid or of feeling pity. By states I mean what we have when we are well or badly off in relation to feelings. If, for instance, our feeling is too intense or slack, we are badly off in relation to anger, but if it is intermediate, we are well off; the same is true in the other cases.

First, then, neither virtues nor vices are feelings. [30] For we are called excellent or base insofar as we have virtues or vices, not insofar as we have feelings. Further, we are neither praised nor blamed insofar as we have feelings; for we do not praise the angry or the frightened person, and do not blame the person who [1106a] is simply angry, but only the person who is angry in a particular way. We are praised or blamed, however, insofar as we have virtues or vices. Further, we are angry and afraid without decision; but the virtues are decisions of some kind, or [rather] require decision. [5] Besides, insofar as we have feelings, we are said to be moved; but insofar as we have virtues or vices, we are said to be in some condition rather than moved.

For these reasons the virtues are not capacities either; for we are neither called good nor called bad, nor are we praised or blamed, insofar as we are simply [10] capable of feelings. Further, while we have capacities by nature, we do not become good or bad by nature; we have discussed this before.

If, then, the virtues are neither feelings nor capacities, the remaining possibility is that they are states. And so we have said what the genus of virtue is.

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6 But we must say not only, as we already have, that it is [15] a state, but also what sort of state it is.

It should be said, then, that every virtue causes its possessors to be in a good state and to perform their functions well. The virtue of eyes, for instance, makes the eyes and their functioning excellent, because it makes us see well; and similarly, the virtue of a horse [20] makes the horse excellent, and thereby good at galloping, at carrying its rider, and at standing steady in the face of the enemy. If this is true in every case, the virtue of a human being will likewise be the state that makes a human being good and makes him perform his function well.

[25] We have already said how this will be true, and it will also be evident from our next remarks, if we consider the sort of nature that virtue has.

In everything continuous and divisible we can take more, less, and equal, and each of them either in the [30] object itself or relative to us; and the equal is some intermediate between excess and deficiency. By the intermediate in the object I mean what is equidistant from each extremity; this is one and the same for all. But relative to us the intermediate is what is neither superfluous nor deficient; this is not one, and is not the same for all.

If, for instance, ten are many and two are few, we [35] take six as intermediate in the object, since it exceeds [two] and is exceeded [by ten] by an equal amount, [four]. This is what is intermediate by numerical proportion. But that is not how we must take the [1106b] intermediate that is relative to us. For if ten pounds [of food], for instance, are a lot for someone to eat, and two pounds a little, it does not follow that the trainer will prescribe six, since this might also be either a little or a lot for the person who is to take it— for Milo8 [the athlete] a little, but for the beginner in [5] gymnastics a lot; and the same is true for running and wrestling. In this way every scientific expert avoids excess and deficiency and seeks and chooses what is intermediate—but intermediate relative to us, not in the object.

This, then, is how each science produces its product [10] well, by focusing on what is intermediate and making the product conform to that. This, indeed, is why people regularly comment on well-made products that nothing could be added or subtracted; they assume that excess or deficiency ruins a good [result], whereas the mean preserves it. Good craftsmen also, we say, focus on what is intermediate when they [15] produce their product. And since virtue, like nature, is better and more exact than any craft, it will also aim at what is intermediate.

By virtue I mean virtue of character; for this is about feelings and actions, and these admit of excess, deficiency, and an intermediate condition. We can be afraid, for instance, or be confident, or have appetites, or get angry, or feel pity, and in general have pleasure [20] or pain, both too much and too little, and in both ways not well. But having these feelings at the right times, about the right things, toward the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the intermediate and best condition, and this is proper to virtue. Similarly, actions also admit of excess, deficiency, and an intermediate condition.

Now virtue is about feelings and actions, in which [25] excess and deficiency are in error and incur blame, whereas the intermediate condition is correct and wins praise, which are both proper to virtue. Virtue, then, is a mean, insofar as it aims at what is intermediate.

Moreover, there are many ways to be in error — for [30] badness is proper to the indeterminate, as the Pythagoreans pictured it, and good to the determinate. But there is only one way to be correct. That is why error is easy and correctness is difficult, since it is easy to miss the target and difficult to hit it. And so for this reason also excess and deficiency are proper to vice, the mean to virtue; ‘for we are noble in only one way, but bad in all sorts of ways.’ [35]

Virtue, then, is a state that decides, consisting in [1107a] a mean, the mean relative to us, which is defined by reference to reason, that is to say, to the reason by reference to which the prudent person would define it. It is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency.

It is a mean for this reason also: Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because [5] they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, whereas virtue finds and chooses what is intermediate.

That is why virtue, as far as its essence and the account stating what it is are concerned, is a mean, but, as far as the best [condition] and the good [result] are concerned, it is an extremity.

Now not every action or feeling admits of the [10] mean. For the names of some automatically include baseness—for instance, spite, shamelessness, envy [among feelings], and adultery, theft, murder, among actions. For all of these and similar things are called by these names because they themselves, not their excesses or deficiencies, are base. Hence in doing [15] these things we can never be correct, but must

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invariably be in error. We cannot do them well, or not well—by committing adultery, for instance, with the right woman at the right time in the right way. On the contrary, it is true without qualification that to do any of them is to be in error.

[To think these admit of a mean], therefore, is [20] like thinking that unjust or cowardly or intemperate action also admits of a mean, an excess and a deficiency. If it did, there would be a mean of excess, a mean of deficiency, an excess of excess and a deficiency of deficiency. On the contrary, just as there is no excess or deficiency of temperance or of bravery (since the intermediate is a sort of extreme), so also there is no mean of these vicious actions either, but [25] whatever way anyone does them, he is in error. For in general there is no mean of excess or of deficiency, and no excess or deficiency of a mean.

7 However, we must not only state this general account [30] but also apply it to the particular cases. For among accounts concerning actions, though the general ones are common to more cases, the specific ones are truer, since actions are about particular cases, and our account must accord with these.

[1107b] First, then, in feelings of fear and confidence the mean is bravery. The excessively fearless person is nameless (indeed many cases are nameless), and the one who is excessively confident is rash. The one who is excessive in fear and deficient in confidence is cowardly.

[5] In pleasures and pains—though not in all types, and in pains less than in pleasures—the mean is temperance and the excess intemperance. People deficient in pleasure are not often found, which is why they also lack even a name; let us call them insensible.

[10] In giving and taking money the mean is generosity, the excess wastefulness and the deficiency ungenerosity. Here the vicious people have contrary excesses and defects; for the wasteful person is excessive in spending and deficient in taking, whereas the ungenerous person is excessive in taking and deficient [15] in spending. At the moment we are speaking in outline and summary, and that is enough; later we shall define these things more exactly.

In questions of money there are also other conditions. Another mean is magnificence; for the magnificent person differs from the generous by being concerned with large matters, while the generous person is concerned with small. The excess is ostentation [20] and vulgarity, and the deficiency is stinginess. These differ from the vices related to generosity in ways we shall describe later.

In honor and dishonor the mean is magnanimity, the excess something called a sort of vanity, [25] and the deficiency pusillanimity. And just as we said that generosity differs from magnificence in its concern with small matters, similarly there is a virtue concerned with small honors, differing in the same way from magnanimity, which is concerned with great honors. For honor can be desired either in the right way or more or less than is right. If someone desires it to excess, he is called an honor-lover, and if his desire [30] is deficient he is called indifferent to honor, but if he is intermediate he has no name. The corresponding conditions have no name either, except the condition of the honor-lover, which is called honor-loving.

This is why people at the extremes lay claim to the intermediate area. Moreover, we also sometimes call the intermediate person an honor-lover, and sometimes call him indifferent to honor; and sometimes we praise the honor-lover, sometimes the person [1108a] indifferent to honor. We will mention later the reason we do this; for the moment, let us speak of the other cases in the way we have laid down.

Anger also admits of an excess, deficiency, and [5] mean. These are all practically nameless; but since we call the intermediate person mild, let us call the mean mildness. Among the extreme people, let the excessive person be irascible, and his vice irascibility, and let the deficient person be a sort of inirascible person, and his deficiency inirascibility.

There are also three other means, somewhat similar [10] to one another, but different. For they are all concerned with common dealings in conversations and actions, but differ insofar as one is concerned with truth telling in these areas, the other two with sources of pleasure, some of which are found in amusement, and the others in daily life in general. Hence we should also discuss these states, so that we can better observe that in every case the mean is [15] praiseworthy, whereas the extremes are neither praiseworthy nor correct, but blameworthy. Most of these cases are also nameless, and we must try, as in the other cases also, to supply names ourselves, to make things clear and easy to follow.

[20] In truth-telling, then, let us call the intermediate person truthful, and the mean truthfulness; pretense that overstates will be boastfulness, and the person who has it boastful; pretense that understates will be self- deprecation, and the person who has it self-deprecating.

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In sources of pleasure in amusements let us call [25] the intermediate person witty, and the condition wit; the excess buffoonery and the person who has it a buffoon; and the deficient person a sort of boor and the state boorishness.

In the other sources of pleasure, those in daily life, let us call the person who is pleasant in the right way friendly, and the mean state friendliness. If someone goes to excess with no [ulterior] aim, he will be ingratiating; [30] if he does it for his own advantage, a flatterer. The deficient person, unpleasant in everything, will be a sort of quarrelsome and ill-tempered person.

There are also means in feelings and about feelings. Shame, for instance, is not a virtue, but the person prone to shame as well as [the virtuous people we have described] receives praise. For here also one person is called intermediate, and another—the [35] person excessively prone to shame, who is ashamed about everything—is called excessive; the person who is deficient in shame or never feels shame at all is said [1108b] to have no sense of disgrace; and the intermediate one is called prone to shame.

Proper indignation is the mean between envy and spite; these conditions are concerned with pleasure and pain at what happens to our neighbors. For the properly indignant person feels pain when someone [5] does well undeservedly; the envious person exceeds him by feeling pain when anyone does well, while the spiteful person is so deficient in feeling pain that he actually enjoys [other people’s misfortunes].

There will also be an opportunity elsewhere to speak of these. We must consider justice after these. Since it is spoken of in more than one way, we shall distinguish its two types and say how each of them is a mean. Similarly, we must also consider the virtues [10] that belong to reason.

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BOOK III

1 Virtue, then, is about feelings and actions. These [1109b30] receive praise or blame if they are voluntary, but pardon, sometimes even pity, if they are involuntary. Hence, presumably, in examining virtue we must define the voluntary and the involuntary. This is also useful to legislators, both for honors and for corrective [35] treatments.

Now it seems that things coming about by force or [1110a] because of ignorance are involuntary. What is forced has an external principle, the sort of principle in which the agent, or [rather] the victim,

contributes nothing—if, for instance, a wind or people who have him in their control were to carry him off. But what about actions done because of fear of [5] greater evils, or because of something fine? Suppose, for

instance, a tyrant tells you to do something shameful, when he has control over your parents and children, and if you do it, they will live, but if not, they will die. These cases raise dispute about whether they are voluntary or involuntary.

However, the same sort [of unwelcome choice] is found in throwing cargo overboard in storms. For no [10] one willingly throws cargo overboard, without qualification, but anyone with any sense throws it overboard to save himself and the others.

These sorts of actions, then, are mixed, but they are more like voluntary actions. For at the time they are done they are choiceworthy, and the goal of an action accords with the specific occasion; hence we should also call the action voluntary or involuntary on the occasion when he does it. Now in fact he [15] does it willingly. For in such actions he has within him the principle of moving the limbs that are the instruments [of the action]; but if the principle of the actions is in him, it is also up to him to do them or not to do them. Hence actions of this sort are voluntary, though presumably the actions without [the appropriate] qualification are involuntary, since no one would choose any such action in its own right.

For such [mixed] actions people are sometimes [20] actually praised, whenever they endure something shameful or painful as the price of great and fine results. If they do the reverse, they are blamed; for it is a base person who endures what is most shameful for nothing fine or for only some moderately fine result. In some cases there is no praise, but there is pardon, [25] whenever someone does a wrong action because of conditions of a sort that overstrain human nature, and that no one would endure.

But presumably there are some things we cannot be compelled to do. Rather than do them we should suffer the most terrible consequences and accept death; for the things that [allegedly] compelled Euripides’ Alcmaeon to kill his mother appear ridiculous.9

[30] It is sometimes difficult, however, to judge what [goods] should be chosen at the price of what [evils], and what [evils] should be endured as the price of what [goods]. It is even more difficult to abide by our judgment, since the results we expect [when we endure] are usually painful, and the actions we are compelled [to endure, when we choose] are [1110b] usually shameful. That is why those who have been compelled or not compelled receive praise or blame.

What sorts of things, then, should we say are forced? Perhaps we should say that something is forced without qualification whenever its cause is external and the agent contributes nothing. Other things are involuntary in their own right, but choiceworthy on this [5] occasion and as the price of these [goods], and their principle is in the agent. These are involuntary in their own right, but, on this occasion and as the price of these [goods], voluntary. But they are more like voluntary actions, since the actions are particulars, and [in the case of mixed actions] these particulars are voluntary. But what sort of thing should be chosen as the price of what [good] is not easy to answer, since there are many differences in particular [conditions].

[10] But what if someone says that pleasant things and fine things force us, on the ground that they are outside us and compel us? For him, then, everything must be forced, since everyone in every action aims at something fine or pleasant. Moreover, if we are forced and unwilling to act, we find it painful; but if something pleasant or fine is its cause, we do it with pleasure. It is ridiculous, then, for him to ascribe responsibility [15] to external causes, not to himself as being easily snared by such things; and ridiculous to hold himself responsible for his fine actions, but pleasant things responsible for his shameful actions.

What is forced, then, would seem to be what has its principle outside the person forced, who contributes nothing.

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Everything caused by ignorance is nonvoluntary, but what is involuntary also involves pain and regret. [20] For if someone’s action was caused by ignorance, but he now has no objection to the action, he has done it neither willingly, since he did not know what it was, nor unwillingly, since he now feels no pain. Hence, among those who act because of ignorance, the agent who now regrets his action seems to be unwilling, but the agent with no regrets may be called nonwilling, since he is another case—for, since he is different, it is better if he has his own special name.

Further, action caused by ignorance would seem [25] to be different from action done in ignorance. For if the agent is drunk or angry, his action seems to be caused by drunkenness or anger, not by ignorance, though it is done in ignorance, not in knowledge. Certainly every vicious person is ignorant of the actions he must do or avoid, and this sort of error makes people unjust, and in general bad. [30]

[This] ignorance of what is beneficial is not taken to make action involuntary. For the cause of involuntary action is not [this] ignorance in the decision, which causes vice; it is not [in other words] ignorance of the universal, since that is a cause for blame. Rather, [1111a] the cause is ignorance of the particulars which the action consists in and is concerned with, since these allow both pity and pardon. For an agent acts involuntarily if he is ignorant of one of these particulars.

Presumably, then, it is not a bad idea to define these particulars, and say what they are, and how many. They are: who is doing it; what he is doing; about what or to what he is doing it; sometimes also [5] what he is doing it with—with what instrument, for example; for what result, for example, safety; in what way, for example, gently or hard.

Now certainly someone could not be ignorant of all of these unless he were mad. Nor, clearly, could he be ignorant of who is doing it, since he could hardly be ignorant of himself. But he might be ignorant of what he is doing, as when someone says that [the secret] slipped out while he was speaking, or, as Aeschylus said about the mysteries, that he did not [10] know it was forbidden to reveal it;10 or, like the person with the catapult, that he let it go when he [only] wanted to demonstrate it. Again, he might think that his son is an enemy, as Merope did;11 or that the barbed spear has a button on it, or that the stone is pumice stone. By giving someone a drink to save his [15] life we might kill him; and wanting to touch someone, as they do in sparring, we might wound him.

Since an agent may be ignorant of any of these particular constituents of his action, someone who was ignorant of one of these seems to have acted unwillingly, especially if he was ignorant of the most important; these seem to be what he is doing, and the result for which he does it.

Hence the agent who acts involuntarily is the one [20] who acts in accord with this specific sort of ignorance, who must also feel pain and regret for his action.

Since involuntary action is either forced or caused by ignorance, voluntary action seems to be what has its principle in the agent himself, knowing the particulars that constitute the action.

[25] For, presumably, it is not right to say that action caused by spirit or appetite is involuntary. For, first of all, on this view none of the other animals will ever act voluntarily; nor will children. Next, among all the actions caused by appetite or spirit do we do none of them voluntarily? Or do we do the fine actions voluntarily and the shameful involuntarily? Surely [the second answer] is ridiculous, given that one and the same thing [i.e., appetite or spirit] causes [both fine and shameful actions]. And presumably it is also [30] absurd to say [as the first answer implies] that things we ought to desire are involuntary. Indeed, we ought both to be angry at some things and to have appetite for some things—for health and learning, for instance. Again, what is involuntary seems to be painful, whereas what accords with appetite seems to be pleasant.

Moreover, how are errors in accord with spirit any less voluntary than those in accord with rational [1111b] calculation? For both sorts of errors are to be avoided. Besides, nonrational feelings seem to be no less human than rational calculation; and so actions resulting from spirit or appetite are also proper to a human being. It is absurd, then, to regard them as involuntary.

2 Now that we have defined the voluntary and the [5] involuntary, the next task is to discuss decision; for decision seems to be most proper to virtue, and to distinguish characters from one another better than actions do.

Decision, then, is apparently voluntary, but not the same as the voluntary, which extends more widely. For children and the other animals share in voluntary action, but not in decision; and the actions we do on the

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spur of the moment are said to be voluntary, but [10] not to accord with decision. Those who say decision is appetite or spirit or wish or some sort of belief would seem to be wrong. For

decision is not shared with nonrational animals, but appetite and spirit are shared with them. Again, the incontinent person acts on appetite, not on decision, [15] but the continent person does the reverse, by acting on decision, not on appetite. Again, appetite is contrary to decision, but not to appetite. Besides, the object of appetite is what is pleasant or painful, whereas neither of these is the object of decision. And still less is spirit decision; for actions caused by spirit seem least of all to accord with decision.

But further, it is not wish either, though it is apparently [20] close to it. For we do not decide on impossible things—anyone claiming to decide on them would seem a fool; but we do wish for impossible things—for immortality, for instance — as well as possible things. Further, we wish [not only for results we can achieve], but also for results that are [possible, but] not achievable through our own agency—victory for some actor or athlete, for instance. But what we decide on is [25] never anything of that sort, but what we think would come about through our own agency. Again, we wish for the end more [than for the things that promote it], but we decide on things that promote the end. We wish, for instance, to be healthy; but we decide to do things that will make us healthy; and we wish to be happy, and say so, but we could not appropriately say [30] we decide to be happy, since in general the things we decide on would seem to be things that are up to us.

Nor is it belief. For belief seems to be about everything, no less about things that are eternal and things that are impossible [for us] than about things that are up to us. Moreover, beliefs are divided into true and false, not into good and bad, but decisions are divided into good and bad more than into true and false.

[1112a] Now presumably no one even claims that decision is the same as belief in general. But it is not the same as any kind of belief either. For our decisions to do good or bad actions, not our beliefs, form the characters we have. Again, we decide to take or avoid something good or bad. We believe what it is, whom [5] it benefits or how; but we do not exactly believe to take or avoid. Further, decision is praised more for deciding on what is right, whereas belief is praised for believing rightly. Moreover, we decide on something [even] when we know most completely that it is good; but [what] we believe [is] what we do not quite know. Again, those who make the best decisions do [10] not seem to be the same as those with the best beliefs; on the contrary, some seem to have better beliefs, but to make the wrong decisions because of vice. We may grant the decision follows or implies belief. But that is irrelevant, since it is not the question we are asking; our question is whether decision is the same as some sort of belief.

Then, what, or what sort of thing, is decision, since [15] it is none of the things mentioned? Well, apparently it is voluntary, but not everything voluntary is decided. Then perhaps what is decided is what has been previously deliberated. For decision involves reason and thought, and even the name itself would seem to indicate that [what is decided, prohaireton] is chosen [haireton] before [pro] other things.

3 Do we deliberate about everything, and is everything [20] open to deliberation? Or is there no deliberation about some things? By ‘open to deliberation,’ presumably, we should mean that someone with some sense, not some fool or madman, might deliberate about it.

Now no one deliberates about eternal things— about the universe, for instance, or about the incommensurability of the sides and the diagonal; nor about things that are in movement but always come about [25] the same way, either from necessity or by nature or by some other cause—the solstices, for instance, or the rising of the stars; nor about what happens in different ways at different times—droughts and rains, for instance; nor about what results from fortune—the finding of a treasure, for instance. For none of these [30] results could be achieved through our agency.

We deliberate about what is up to us, that is to say, about the actions we can do; and this is what is left [besides the previous cases]. For causes seem to [35] include nature, necessity, and fortune, but besides them mind and everything [operating] through [28] human agency. But we do not deliberate about all [29] human affairs; no Spartan, for instance, deliberates about how the Scythians12 might have the best political system. Rather, each group of human beings [33] deliberates about the actions that they themselves can do.

There is no deliberation about the sciences that [1112b] are exact and self-sufficient, as, for instance, about letters, since we are in no doubt about how to write them [in spelling a word]. Rather, we deliberate about what results through our agency, but in different ways on different occasions—about, for instance, [5] medicine and money making. We deliberate about navigation more than about gymnastics, to the extent that it is less exactly worked out, and similarly with other [crafts]. And we deliberate about beliefs more than about

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sciences, since we are more in doubt about them. Deliberation concerns what is usually [one way rather than another], where the outcome is unclear [10]

and the right way to act is undefined. And we enlist partners in deliberation on large issues and when we distrust our own ability to discern [the right answer].

We deliberate not about ends, but about what promotes ends. A doctor, for instance, does not deliberate about whether he will cure, or an orator about whether he will persuade, or a politician about whether he will produce good order, or any other [15] [expert] about the end [that his science aims at]. Rather, we lay down the end, and then examine the ways and means to achieve it.

If it appears that any of several [possible] means will reach it, we examine which of them will reach it most easily and most finely; and if only one [possible] means reaches it, we examine how that means will reach it, and how the means itself is reached, until we [20] come to the first cause, the last thing to be discovered. For a deliberator would seem to inquire and analyze in the way described, as though analyzing a diagram. [The comparison is apt, since], apparently, all deliberation is inquiry, though not all inquiry—in mathematics, for instance — is deliberation. And the last thing [found] in the analysis would seem to be the first that comes into being.

[25] If we encounter an impossible step—for instance, we need money but cannot raise it—we desist; but if the action appears possible, we undertake it. What is possible is what we could achieve through our agency [including what our friends could achieve for us]; for what our friends achieve is, in a way, achieved through our agency, since the principle is in us. [In crafts] we sometimes look for instruments, sometimes [30] [for the way] to use them; so also in other cases we sometimes look for the means to the end, sometimes for the proper use of the means, or for the means to that proper use.

As we have said, then, a human being would seem to be a principle of action. Deliberation is about the actions he can do, and actions are for the sake of other things; hence we deliberate about things that [1113a] promote an end, not about the end. Nor do we deliberate about particulars, about whether this is a loaf, for instance, or is cooked the right amount; for these are questions for perception, and if we keep on deliberating at each stage we shall go on without end.

What we deliberate about is the same as what we decide to do, except that by the time we decide to [5] do it, it is definite; for what we decide to do is what we have judged [to be right] as a result of deliberation. For each of us stops inquiring how to act as soon as he traces the principle to himself, and within himself to the guiding part; for this is the part that decides. This is also clear from the ancient political systems described by Homer; there the kings would first decide and then announce their decision to the people.

[10] We have found, then, that what we decide to do is whatever action, among those up to us, we deliberate about and [consequently] desire to do. Hence also decision will be deliberative desire to do an action that is up to us; for when we have judged [that it is right] as a result of deliberation, we desire to do it in accord with our wish.

We have said in outline, then, what sorts of things decision is about, and [specifically] that we decide on things that promote the end.

4 Wish, we have said, is for the end. But some think [15] that wish is for the good, others that it is for the apparent good.

For those who say the good is wished, it follows that what someone wishes if he chooses incorrectly is not wished at all. For if it is wished, then [on this view] it is good; but what he wishes is in fact bad, if it turns out that way. [Hence what he wishes is not [20] wished, which is self-contradictory.]

But for those who say the apparent good is wished, it follows that nothing is wished by nature. Rather, for each person what is wished is what seems [good to him]; but different things, and indeed contrary things, if it turns out that way, appear good to different people. [Hence contrary things will be wished and nothing will be wished by nature.]

If, then, these views do not satisfy us, should we say that, without qualification and in reality, what is wished is the good, but for each person what is wished is the apparent good? For the excellent person, then, [25] what is wished will be what is [wished] in reality, while for the base person what is wished is whatever it turns out to be [that appears good to him]. Similarly in the case of bodies, really healthy things are healthy to people in good condition, while other things are healthy to sickly people; and the same is true of what [30] is bitter, sweet, hot, heavy, and so on. For the excellent person judges each sort of thing correctly, and in each

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case what is true appears to him. For each state [of character] has its own distinctive [view of] what is fine and pleasant. Presumably, then,

the excellent person is far superior because he sees what is true in each case, being himself a sort of standard and measure. In the many, however, pleasure would seem to cause deception, since it appears good [1113b] when it is not. Certainly, they choose what is pleasant because they assume it is good, and avoid pain because they assume it is evil.

5 [5] We have founds, then, that we wish for the end, and deliberate and decide about things that promote it; hence the actions concerned with things that promote the end are in accord with decision and are voluntary. The activities of the virtues are concerned with these things [that promote the end].

Hence virtue is also up to us, and so also, in the same way, is vice. For when acting is up to us, so is not acting, and when no is up to us, so is yes. And so [10] if acting, when it is fine, is up to us, not acting, when it is shameful, is also up to us; and if not acting, when it is fine, is up to us, then acting, when it is shameful, is also up to us. But if doing, and likewise not doing, fine or shameful actions is up to us, and if, as we saw, [doing or not doing them] is [what it is] to be a good or bad person, being decent or base is up to us.

[15] The claim that ‘no one is willingly bad or unwillingly blessed’ would seem to be partly true but partly false. For while certainly no one is unwillingly blessed, vice is voluntary.

If this is not so, we must dispute what has been said, and we must deny that a human being is a principle, begetting actions as he begets children. But if [20] what we have said appears true, and we cannot refer back to other principles apart from those that are up to us, those things that have their principle in us are themselves up to us and voluntary.

There would seem to be evidence in favor of our view not only in what each of us does as a private citizen, but also in what legislators themselves do. For they impose corrective treatments and penalties on [25] anyone who does vicious actions, unless his action is forced or is caused by ignorance that he is not responsible for; and they honor anyone who does fine actions. In all this they assume that they will encourage the second sort of person, and restrain the first. But no one encourages us to do anything that is not up to us and voluntary; people assume it is pointless to persuade us not to get hot or distressed or hungry or anything else of that sort, since persuasion will not stop it happening to us.

[30] Indeed, legislators also impose corrective treatments for the ignorance itself, if the agent seems to be responsible for the ignorance. A drunk, for instance, pays a double penalty; for the principle is in him, since he controls whether he gets drunk, and his getting drunk causes his ignorance. They also impose corrective treatment on someone who [does a vicious action] in ignorance of some provision of law that he is required to know and that is not hard [to know]. [1114a] And they impose it in other cases likewise for any other ignorance that seems to be caused by the agent’s inattention; they assume it is up to him not to be ignorant, since he controls whether he pays attention.

But presumably he is the sort of person who is inattentive. Still, he is himself responsible for becoming this sort of person, because he has lived carelessly. Similarly, an individual is responsible for being [5] unjust, because he has cheated, and for being intemperate, because he has passed his time in drinking and the like; for each type of activity produces the corresponding sort of person. This is clear from those who train for any contest or action, since they continually practice the appropriate activities. [Only] a totally [10] insensible person would not know that a given type of activity is the source of the corresponding state; [Hence] if someone does what he knows will make [12] him unjust, he is willingly unjust. [13]

Further, it is unreasonable for someone doing [11, 12] injustice not to wish to be unjust, or for someone [13] doing intemperate action not to wish to be intemperate. This does not mean, however, that if he is unjust and wishes to stop, he will thereby stop and be just. [15] For neither does a sick person recover his health [simply by wishing]; nonetheless, he is sick willingly, by living incontinently and disobeying the doctors, if that was how it happened. At that time, then, he was free not to be sick, though no longer free once he has let himself go, just as it was up to someone to throw a stone, since the principle was up to him, though he can no longer take it back once he has thrown it. [20] Similarly, then, the person who is [now] unjust or intemperate was originally free not to acquire this character, so that he has it willingly, though once he has acquired the character, he is no longer free not to have it [now].

It is not only vices of the soul that are voluntary; vices of the body are also voluntary for some people, and we actually censure them. For we never censure someone if nature causes his ugliness; but if his lack of training or attention causes it, we do censure [25] him. The same is true for weakness or maiming; for

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everyone would pity someone, not reproach him, if he were blind by nature or because of a disease or a wound, but would censure him if his heavy drinking or some other form of intemperance made him blind. Hence bodily vices that are up to us are censured, [30] while those not up to us are not censured. If so, then in the other cases also the vices that are censured will be up to us.

[1114b] But someone may say that everyone aims at the apparent good, and does not control how it appears, but, on the contrary, his character controls how the end appears to him. [We reply that] if each person is in some way responsible for his own state [of character], he is also himself in some way responsible for how [the end] appears.

Suppose, on the other hand, that no one is responsible for acting badly, but one does so because one is [5] ignorant of the end, and thinks this is the way to gain what is best for oneself. In that case, one’s aiming at the end is not one’s own choice; one needs a sort of natural, inborn sense of sight, to judge finely and to choose what is really good. Whoever by nature has this sense in a fine condition has a good nature; for [, according to this view,] this sense is the greatest and [10] finest thing, given that one cannot acquire it or learn it from another, but its natural character determines [his] later condition, and when it is naturally good and fine, that is true and complete good nature. If all this is true, then, surely virtue will be no more voluntary than vice.

[15] For how the end appears is laid down, by nature or in whatever way, for the good and the bad person alike; they trace all the other things back to the end in doing whatever actions they do. Let us suppose, then, that nature does not make the end appear however it appears to each person, but something also depends on him. Alternatively, let us suppose that [how] the end [appears] is natural, but virtue is voluntary because the virtuous person does the other things [20] voluntarily. In either case, vice will be no less voluntary than virtue; for the bad person, no less than the good, is responsible for his own actions, even if not for [how] the end [appears].

Now the virtues, as we say, are voluntary. For in fact we are ourselves in a way jointly responsible for our states of character, and the sort of character we have determines the sort of end we lay down. Hence [25] the vices will also be voluntary, since the same is true of them.

We have now discussed the virtues in common. We have described their genus in outline; they are means, and they are states. Certain actions produce them, and they cause us to do these same actions in accord with the virtues themselves, in the way that correct reason prescribes. They are up to us and voluntary.

Actions and states, however, are not voluntary in [30] the same way. For we are in control of actions from the beginning to the end, when we know the particulars. [1115a] With states, however, we are in control of the beginning, but do not know, any more than with sicknesses, what the cumulative effect of particular actions will be. Nonetheless, since it was up to us to exercise a capacity either this way or another way, states are voluntary.

Let us now take up the virtues again, and discuss them one by one. Let us say what they are, what sorts [5] of thing they are concerned with, and how they are concerned with them. It will also be clear at the same time how many of them there are.

6 First let us discuss bravery. We have already made it apparent that there is a mean about feelings of fear and confidence. What we fear, clearly, is what is frightening, and such things are, speaking without qualification, bad things; hence people define fear as expectation of something bad.

Certainly we fear all bad things — for instance, bad [10] reputation, poverty, sickness, friendlessness, death — but they do not all seem to concern the brave person. For fear of some bad things, such as bad reputation, is actually right and fine, and lack of fear is shameful; for if someone fears bad reputation, he is decent and properly prone to shame, and if he has no fear of it, he has no feeling of disgrace. Some, however, call this fearless person brave, by a transference of the name; [15] for he has some similarity to the brave person, since the brave person is also a type of fearless person.

Presumably it is wrong to fear poverty or sickness or, in general, [bad things] that are not the results of vice or caused by ourselves; still, someone who is fearless about these is not thereby brave. He is also called brave by similarity; for some people who are cowardly [20] in the dangers of war are nonetheless generous, and face with confidence the [danger of] losing money.

Again, if someone is afraid of committing wanton aggression on children or women, or of being envious or anything of that sort, that does not make him cowardly. And if someone is confident when he is going to be whipped for his crimes, that does not make him brave.

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[25] Then what sorts of frightening conditions concern the brave person? Surely the most frightening; for no one stands firmer against terrifying conditions. Now death is most frightening of all, since it is a boundary, and when someone is dead nothing beyond it seems either good or bad for him any more. Still, not even death in all conditions—on the sea, for instance, or in sickness — seems to be the brave person’s concern.

[30] In what conditions, then, is death his concern? Surely in the finest conditions. Now such deaths are those in war, since they occur in the greatest and finest danger. This judgment is endorsed by the honors given in cities and by monarchs. Hence someone [35] is called fully brave if he is intrepid in facing a fine death and the immediate dangers that bring death. And this is above all true of the dangers of war.

[1115b] Certainly the brave person is also intrepid on the sea and in sickness, but not in the same way as seafarers are. For he has given up hope of safety, and objects to this sort of death [with nothing fine in it], but seafarers’ experience makes them hopeful. Moreover, [5] we act like brave men on occasions when we can use our strength, or when it is fine to be killed; and neither of these is true when we perish from shipwreck or sickness.

7 Now what is frightening is not the same for everyone. We say, however, that some things are too frightening for a human being to resist, these, then, are frightening for everyone, at least for everyone with any sense. What is frightening, but not irresistible for a human [10] being, varies in its seriousness and degree; and the same is true of what inspires confidence.

The brave person is unperturbed, as far as a human being can be. Hence, though he will fear even the sorts of things that are not irresistible, he will stand firm against them, in the right way, as reason prescribes, for the sake of the fine, since this is the end aimed at by virtue.

It is possible to be more or less afraid of these frightening things, and also possible to be afraid of what is not frightening as though it were frightening. [15] The cause of error may be fear of the wrong thing, or in the wrong way, or at the wrong time, or something of that sort; and the same is true for things that inspire confidence.

Hence whoever stands firm against the right things and fears the right things, for the right end, in the right way, at the right time, and is correspondingly confident, is the brave person; for the brave person’s actions and feelings accord with what something is worth, and follow what reason prescribes.

Every activity aims at actions in accord with the [20] state of character. Now to the brave person bravery is fine; hence the end it aims at is also fine, since each thing is defined by its end. The braver person, then, aims at the fine when he stands firm and acts in accord with bravery.

Among those who go to excess the excessively fearless [25] person has no name—we said earlier that many causes have no names. He would be some sort of madman, or incapable of feeling distress, if he feared [1115b] nothing, neither earthquake nor waves, as they say about the Celts.13

The person who is excessively confident about frightening things is rash. The rash person also seems [30] to be a boaster, and a pretender to bravery. At any rate, the attitude to frightening things that the brave person really has is the attitude that the rash person wants to appear to have; hence he imitates the brave person where he can. That is why most of them are rash cowards; for, rash though they are on these [occasions for imitation], they do not stand firm against anything frightening. Moreover, rash people are impetuous, [1116a] wishing for dangers before they arrive, but they shrink [8, 9] from them when they come. Brave people, on the contrary, are eager when in action, but keep quiet until then.

The person who is excessively afraid is the coward, [1115b] since he fears the wrong things, and in the wrong way, [5] and so on. Certainly, he is also deficient in confidence, [1116a] but his excessive pain distinguishes him more clearly. Hence, since he is afraid of everything, he is a despairing sort. The brave person, on the contrary, is hopeful, since [he is confident and] confidence is proper to a hopeful person.

[5] Hence the coward, the rash person, and the brave person are all concerned with the same things, but have different states related to them; the others are [7] excessive or defective, but the brave person has the intermediate and right state.

[10] As we have said, then, bravery is a mean about what inspires confidence and about what is frightening in the conditions we have described; it chooses and stands firm because that is fine or because anything else is shameful. Dying to avoid poverty or erotic passion or something painful is proper to a [15] coward, not to a brave person. For shirking burdens is softness, and such a person stands firm [in the face of death] to avoid an evil, not because standing firm is fine.

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8 Bravery, then, is something of this sort. But five other sorts of things are also called bravery.

The bravery of citizens comes first, since it looks most like bravery. For citizens seem to stand firm against dangers with the aim of avoiding reproaches [20] and legal penalties and of winning honors; that is why the bravest seem to be those who hold cowards in dishonor and do honor to brave people. That is how Homer also describes them when he speaks of Diomede and Hector: ‘Polydamas will be the first [25] to heap disgrace on me’, and ‘For some time Hector speaking among the Trojans will say, “The son of Tydeus fled from me.”‘14 This is the most like the [genuine] bravery described above, because it results [1116a] from a virtue; for it is caused by shame and by desire for something fine, namely honor, and by aversion from reproach, which is shameful.

[30] In this class we might also place those who are compelled by their superiors. However, they are worse to the extent that they act because of fear, not because of shame, and to avoid pain, not disgrace. For their commanders compel them, as Hector does; [35] ‘If I notice anyone shrinking back from the battle, nothing will save him from being eaten by the dogs.’ Commanders who strike any troops who give ground, [1116b] or who post them in front of ditches and suchlike, do the same things, since they all compel them. The brave person, however, must be moved by the fine, not by compulsion.

Experience about a given situation also seems to [5] be bravery; that is why Socrates actually thought that bravery is scientific knowledge. Different people have this sort [of apparent courage] in different conditions. In wartime professional soldiers have it; for there seem to be many groundless alarms in war, and the professionals are the most familiar with these. Hence they appear brave, since others do not know that the alarms are groundless. Moreover, their experience makes them most capable in attack and defense, since they are skilled in the use of their weapons, and have the best weapons for attack and defense. The [10] result is that in fighting nonprofessionals they are like armed troops against unarmed, or trained athletes against ordinary people; for in these contests also the best fighters are the strongest and physically fittest, not the bravest. [15]

Professional soldiers, however, turn out to be cowards whenever the danger overstrains them and they are inferior in numbers and equipment. For they are the first to run, whereas the citizen troops stand firm and get killed; this was what happened at the temple of Hermes.15 For the citizens find it shameful to run, and find death more choiceworthy than safety [20] at this cost. But the professionals from the start were facing the danger on the assumption of their superiority; once they learn their mistake, they run, since they are more afraid of being killed than of doing something shameful. That is not the brave person’s character.

Spirit is also counted as bravery; for those who act [25] on spirit also seem to be brave—as beasts seem to be when they attack those who have wounded them—because brave people are also full of spirit. For spirit is most eager to run and face dangers; hence Homer’s words, ‘put strength in his spirit’, ‘aroused strength and spirit’, and ‘his blood boiled’.16 All these would [30] seem to signify the arousal and the impulse of spirit.

Now brave people act because of the fine, and their spirit cooperates with them. But beasts act because of pain; for they attack only because they have been wounded or frightened (since they keep [35] away from us in a forest). They are not brave, then, since distress and spirit drives them in an impulsive rush to meet danger, foreseeing none of the terrifying prospects. For if they were brave, hungry asses [1117a] would also be brave, since they keep on feeding even if they are beaten; and adulterers also do many daring actions because of lust.

[5] Human beings as well as beasts find it painful to be angered, and pleasant to exact a penalty. But those who fight for these reasons are not brave, though they are good fighters; for they fight because of their feelings, not because of the fine nor as reason prescribes. [4] Still, they have something similar [to bravery]. The [5] [bravery] caused by spirit would seem to be the most natural sort, and to be [genuine] bravery once it has also acquired decision and the goal.

[9], [10] Hopeful people are not brave either; for their many victories over many opponents make them confident in dangers. They are somewhat similar to brave people, since both are confident. But whereas brave people are confident for the reason given earlier, the hopeful are confident because they think they are stronger and nothing could happen to them; [15] drunks do the same sort of thing, since they become hopeful. When things turn out differently from how they expected, they run away. The brave person, on the contrary, stands firm against what is and appears frightening to a human being; he does this because it is fine to stand firm and shameful to fail.

Indeed, that is why someone who is unafraid and unperturbed in emergencies seems braver than [20] [someone who is unafraid only] when he is warned in advance; for his action proceeds more from his state of

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character, because it proceeds less from preparation. For if we are warned in advance, we might decide what to do [not only because of our state of character, but] also by reason and rational calculation; but in emergencies [we must decide] in accord with our state of character.

Those who act in ignorance also appear brave, and indeed they are close to hopeful people, though [25] inferior to them insofar as they lack the self-esteem of hopeful people. That is why the hopeful stand firm for some time, whereas if ignorant people have been deceived and then realize or suspect that things are different, they run. That was what happened to the Argives when they stumbled on the Spartans and took them for Sicyonians.17

We have described, then, the character of brave people and of those who seem to be brave.

9 Bravery is about feelings of confidence and fear— not, [30] however, about both in the same way, but more about frightening things. For someone is brave if he is undisturbed and in the right state about these, more than if he is in this state about things inspiring confidence.

As we said, then, standing firm against what is painful makes us call people brave; that is why bravery is both painful and justly praised, since it is harder to stand firm against something painful than [35] to refrain from something pleasant. Nonetheless, the [1117b] end that bravery aims at seems to be pleasant, though obscured by its surroundings. This is what happens in athletic contests. For boxers find that the end they aim at, the crown and the honors, is pleasant, but, being made of flesh and blood, they find it distressing [5] and painful to take the punches and to bear all the hard work; and because there are so many of these painful things, the end, being small, appears to have nothing pleasant in it.

And so, if the same is true for bravery, the brave person will find death and wounds painful, and suffer them unwillingly, but he will endure them because that is fine or because failure is shameful. Indeed, [10] the truer it is that he has every virtue and the happier he is, the more pain he will feel at the prospect of death. For this sort of person, more than anyone, finds it worthwhile to be alive, and knows he is being deprived of the greatest goods, and this is painful. But he is no less brave for all that; presumably, indeed, he is all the braver, because he chooses what is fine in [15] war at the cost of all these goods. It is not true, then, in the case of every virtue that its active exercise is pleasant; it is pleasant only insofar as we attain the end.

But presumably it is quite possible for brave people, given the character we have described, not to be the best soldiers. Perhaps the best will be those who are less brave, but possess no other good; for they are ready to face dangers, and they sell their lives for [20] small gains.

So much for bravery. It is easy to grasp what it is, in outline at least, from what we have said.

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BOOK V

1 [1129a] The questions we must examine about justice and [5] injustice are these: What sorts of actions are they concerned with? What sort of mean is justice? What are the extremes between which justice is intermediate? Let us investigate them by the same line of inquiry as we used in the topics discussed before.

We see that the state everyone means in speaking of justice is the state that makes us just agents—[that [10] is to say,] the state that makes us do justice and wish what is just. In the same way they mean by injustice the state that makes us do injustice and wish what is unjust. That is why we also should first assume these things as an outline.

For what is true of sciences and capacities is not true of states. For while one and the same capacity or science seems to have contrary activities, a state [15] that is a contrary has no contrary activities. Health, for instance, only makes us do healthy actions, not their contraries; for we say we are walking in the way a healthy person would.

Often one of a pair of contrary states is recognized from the other contrary; and often the states are recognized from their subjects. For if, for instance, the [20] good state is evident, the bad state becomes evident too; and moreover the good state becomes evident from the things that have it, and the things from the state. For if, for instance, the good state is thickness of flesh, the bad state must be thinness of flesh, and the thing that produces the good state must be what produces thickness of flesh.

[25] If one of a pair of contraries is spoken of in more ways than one, it follows, usually, that the other is too. If, for instance, the just is spoken of in more ways than one, so is the unjust.

Now it would seem that justice and injustice are both spoken of in more ways than one, but since their homonymy is close, the difference is unnoticed, and is less clear than it is with distant homonyms where [30] the distance in appearance is wide (for instance, the bone below an animal’s neck and what we lock doors with are called keys homonymously).

Let us, then, find the number of ways an unjust person is spoken of. Both the lawless person and the overreaching and unfair person seem to be unjust; and so, clearly, both the lawful and the fair person will be just. Hence the just will be both the lawful and [1129b] what is fair, and the unjust will be both the lawless and the unfair.

Since the unjust person is an overreacher, he will be concerned with goods—not with all goods, but only with those involved in good and bad fortune, goods which are, [considered] without qualification, always good, but for this or that person not always good. Though human beings pray for these and [5] pursue them, they are wrong; the right thing is to pray that what is good without qualification will also be good for us, but to choose [only] what is good for us.

Now the unjust person [who chooses these goods] does not choose more in every case; in the case of what is bad without qualification he actually chooses less. But since what is less bad also seems to be good [10] in a way, and overreaching aims at more of what is good, he seems to be an overreacher. In fact he is unfair; for unfairness includes [all these actions], and is a common feature [of his choice of the greater good and of the lesser evil].

Since, as we saw, the lawless person is unjust and the lawful person is just, it clearly follows that whatever is lawful is in some way just; for the provisions of legislative science are lawful, and we say that each of them is just. In every matter that they deal with, the [15] laws aim either at the common benefit of all, or at the benefit of those in control, whose control rests on virtue or on some other such basis. And so in one way what we call just is whatever produces and maintains happiness and its parts for a political community.

Now the law instructs us to do the actions of a [20] brave person—for instance, not to leave the battle- line, or to flee, or to throw away our weapons; of a [25] temperate person—not to commit adultery or wanton aggression; of a mild person—not to strike or revile another; and similarly requires actions in accord with the other virtues, and prohibits actions in accord with the vices. The correctly established law does this [25] correctly, and the less carefully framed one does this worse.

This type of justice, then, is complete virtue, not complete virtue without qualification, but complete virtue in relation to another. And that is why justice often seems to be supreme among the virtues, and ‘neither the

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evening star nor the morning star is so marvellous,’18 and the proverb says, ‘And in justice all [30] virtue is summed up.’19

Moreover, justice is complete virtue to the highest degree because it is the complete exercise of complete virtue. And it is the complete exercise because the person who has justice is able to exercise virtue in relation to another, not only in what concerns himself; for many are able to exercise virtue in their own concerns, but unable in what relates to another.

[1130a] That is why Bias20 seems to have been correct in saying that ruling will reveal the man; for a ruler is automatically related to another, and in a community. That is also why justice is the only virtue that seems [5] to be another person’s good, because it is related to another; for it does what benefits another, either the ruler or the fellow member of the community.

The worst person, therefore, is the one who exercises his vice toward himself and his friends as well [as toward others]. And the best person is not the one who exercises virtue [only] toward himself, but the one who [also] exercises it in relation to another, since this is a difficult task.

[10] This type of justice, then, is the whole, not a part, of virtue, and the injustice contrary to it is the whole, not a part, of vice.

Our discussion makes clear the difference between virtue and this type of justice. For virtue is the same as justice, but what it is to be virtue is not the same as what it is to be justice. Rather, insofar as virtue is related to another, it is justice, and insofar as it is a certain sort of state without qualification, it is virtue.

2 But we are looking for the type of justice, since we [15] say there is one, that consists in a part of virtue, and correspondingly for the type of injustice that is a part of vice.

A sign that there is this type of justice and injustice is this: If someone’s activities accord with the other vices—if, for instance, cowardice made him throw away his shield, or irritability made him revile someone, or ungenerosity made him fail to help someone with money—what he does is unjust, but not overreaching. [20] But when someone acts from overreaching, in many cases his action accords with none of these vices— certainly not all of them; but it still accords with some type of wickedness, since we blame him, and [in particular] it accords with injustice. Hence there is another type of injustice that is a part of the whole, and a way of being unjust that is a part of the whole that is contrary to law.

Further, if A commits adultery for profit and makes [25] a profit, but B commits adultery because of his appetite, and spends money on it to his own loss, B seems intemperate rather than overreaching, but A seems unjust, not intemperate. Clearly, then, this is because A acts to make a profit.

Further, we can refer every other unjust action to [30] some vice—to intemperance if someone committed adultery, to cowardice if he deserted his comrade in the battle-line, to anger if he struck someone. But if he made an [unjust] profit, we can refer it to no other vice except injustice.

It is evident, then, that there is another type of injustice, special injustice, apart from injustice as a whole, and that it is synonymous with injustice as a whole, since the definition is in the same genus. [1130b] For both have their area of competence in relation to another, but special injustice is concerned with honor or wealth or safety (or whatever single name will include all these), and aims at the pleasure that results from making a profit, whereas the concern of [5] injustice as a whole is whatever concerns the excellent person.

Clearly, then, there is more than one type of justice, and there is another type besides [the type that is] the whole of virtue; but we must still grasp what it is, and what sort of thing it is.

The unjust is divided into the lawless and the [10] unfair, and the just into the lawful and the fair. The unjustice previously described, then, is concerned with the lawless. But the unfair is not the same as the lawless; it is related to it as part to whole, since whatever is unfair is lawless, but not everything lawless is unfair. Hence also the unfair type of injustice and the unfair way of being unjust are not the same as [15] the lawless type, but differ as parts from wholes. For unfair injustice is a part of the whole of injustice, and, similarly, fair justice is a part of the whole of justice. Hence we must describe special as well as general justice and injustice, and equally this way of being just or unjust.

[20] Let us, then, set aside the type of justice and injustice that accords with the whole of virtue, justice being the exercise of the whole of virtue, and injustice of the whole of vice, in relation to another. And it is evident how we must distinguish the way of being just or unjust that accords with this type of justice and injustice. For most lawful actions, we might say, are those produced by virtue as a whole; for the law prescribes

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living in accord with each virtue, and forbids living in [25] accord with each vice. Moreover, the actions producing the whole of virtue are the lawful actions that the laws prescribe for education promoting the common good. We must wait till later, however, to determine whether the education that makes an individual an unqualifiedly good man is a task for political science or for another science; for, presumably, being a good man is not the same as being every sort of good citizen.

[30] Special justice, however, and the corresponding way of being just have one species that is found in the distribution of honors or wealth or anything else that can be divided among members of a community who share in a political system; for here it is possible [1131a] for one member to have a share equal or unequal to another’s. A second species concerns rectification in transactions.

This second species has two parts, since one sort of transaction is voluntary, and one involuntary. Voluntary transactions (for instance, selling, buying, lending, [5] pledging, renting, depositing, hiring out) are so called because their principle is voluntary. Among involuntary transactions some are secret (for instance, theft, adultery, poisoning, pimping, slave-deception, murder by treachery, false witness), whereas others involve force (for instance, imprisonment, murder, plunder, mutilation, slander, insult).

7 One part of the politically just is natural, and the other [1134b] part legal. The natural has the same validity everywhere [20] alike, independent of its seeming so or not. The legal originally makes no difference [whether it is done] one way or another, but makes a difference whenever people have laid down the rule—that a mina is the price of a ransom, for instance, or that a goat rather than two sheep should be sacrificed. The legal also includes laws passed for particular cases (for instance, that sacrifices should be offered to Brasidas)21 and enactments by decree.

Now some people think everything just is merely [25] legal. For the natural is unchangeable and equally valid everywhere — fire, for instance, burns both here and in Persia—whereas they see that the just changes [from city to city].

This is not so, though in a way it is so. With us, though presumably not at all with the gods, there is [30] such a thing as the natural, but still all is changeable; despite the change there is such a thing as what is natural and what is not.

Then what sort of thing, among those that [are changeable and hence] admit of being otherwise, is natural, and what sort is not natural, but legal and conventional, if both natural and legal are changeable? It is clear in other cases also, and the same distinction [between the natural and the unchangeable] will apply; for the right hand, for instance, is naturally superior, even though it is possible for everyone [35] to become ambidextrous.

The sorts of things that are just by convention [1135a] and expediency are like measures. For measures for wine and for corn are not of equal size everywhere, but in wholesale markets they are bigger, and in retail smaller. Similarly, the things that are just by human [enactment] and not by nature differ from place to [5] place, since political systems also differ. Still, only one system is by nature the best everywhere… .

10 [1137a] The next task is to discuss how decency is related to justice and how the decent is related to the just. For on examination they appear as neither the same without qualification nor as states of different kinds. Sometimes we praise what is decent and the decent [35] person, so that even when we praise someone for [1137b] other things we transfer the term ‘decent’ and use it instead of ‘good,’ making it clear that what is more decent is better. But sometimes, when we reason about the matter, it appears absurd for what is decent to be something apart from what is just, and still praiseworthy. For [apparently] either what is just is not excellent or what is decent is not excellent, if it is [5] something other than what is just; or else, if they are both excellent, they are the same.

These, then, are roughly the claims that raise the puzzle about the decent; but they are all correct in a way, and none is contrary to any other. For the decent [10] is better than one way of being just, but it is still just, and not better than the just by being a different kind of thing. Hence the same thing is just and decent; while both are excellent, what is decent is superior.

The puzzle arises because the decent is just, but is not the legally just, but a rectification of it. This is because all law is universal, but in some areas no [15] universal rule can be correct; and so where a universal rule has to be made, but cannot be correct, the law chooses the [universal rule] that is usually [correct], well

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aware of the error being made. And the law is no less correct on this account; for the source of the error is not the law or the legislator, but the nature of the object itself, since that is what the subject matter of actions is bound to be like.

[20] And so, whenever the law makes a universal rule, but in this particular case what happens violates the [intended scope of] the universal rule, on this point the legislator falls short, and has made an error by making an unqualified rule. Then it is correct to rectify the deficiency; this is what the legislator would have said himself if he had been present there, and what he would have prescribed, had he known, in his legislation.

[25] That is why the decent is just, and better than a certain way of being just—not better than the unqualifiedly just, but better than the error that results from the omission of any qualification [in the rule]. And this is the nature of the decent—rectification of law insofar as the universality of law makes it deficient.

This is also the reason why not everything is guided by law. For on some matters legislation is impossible, and so a decree is needed. For the standard applied [30] to the indefinite is itself indefinite, as the lead standard is in Lesbian22 building, where it is not fixed, but adapts itself to the shape of the stone; similarly, a decree is adapted to fit its objects.

It is clear from this what is decent, and clear that it is just, and better than a certain way of being just. It [35] is also evident from this who the decent person is; for he is the one who decides on and does such actions, [1138a] not an exact stickler for justice in the bad way, but taking less than he might even though he has the law on his side. This is the decent person, and his state is decency; it is a sort of justice, and not some state different from it.

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BOOK VI

1 Since we have said previously that we must choose [1138b] the intermediate condition, not the excess or the deficiency, [20] and that the intermediate condition is as the correct reason says, let us now determine what it says. For in all the states of character we have mentioned, as well as in the others, there is a target that the person who has reason focuses on and so tightens or relaxes; and there is a definition of the means, which we say are between excess and deficiency because [25] they accord with the correct reason.

To say this is admittedly true, but it is not at all clear. For in other pursuits directed by a science, it is equally true that we must labor and be idle neither too much nor too little, but the intermediate amount prescribed by correct reason. But knowing only this, [30] we would be none the wiser about, for instance, the medicines to be applied to the body, if we were told we must apply the ones that medical science [35] prescribes and in the way that the medical scientist applies them.

That is why our account of the states of the soul, in the same way, must not only be true as far as it has gone, but we must also determine what the correct reason is, that is to say, what its definition is.

[35] After we divided the virtues of the soul, we said that [1139a] some are virtues of character and some of thought. And so, having finished our discussion of the virtues of character, let us now discuss the others as follows, after speaking first about the soul.

[5] Previously, then, we said there are two parts of the soul, one that has reason, and one nonrational. Now we should divide in the same way the part that has reason. Let us assume there are two parts that have reason: with one we study beings whose principles do not admit of being otherwise than they are, and with the other we study beings whose principles admit of being otherwise. For when the beings are of different [10] kinds, the parts of the soul naturally suited to each of them are also of different kinds, since the parts possess knowledge by being somehow similar and appropriate [to their objects].

Let us call one of these the scientific part, and the other the rationally calculating part; for deliberating is the same as rationally calculating, and no one deliberates about what cannot be otherwise. Hence [15] the rationally calculating part is one part of the part of the soul that has reason.

Hence we should find the best state of the scientific part and the best state of the rationally calculating part; for this state is the virtue of each of them. Now a thing’s virtue is relative to its own proper function, [and so we must consider the function of each part].

2 There are three [capacities] in the soul—sense perception, understanding, desire—that control action and truth. Of these three, sense perception is clearly not the principle of any action, since beasts [20] have perception, but no share in action.

As assertion and denial are to thought, so pursuit and avoidance are to desire. Now virtue of character is a state that decides; and decision is a deliberative desire. If, then, the decision is excellent, the reason must be true and the desire correct, so that [25] what reason asserts is what desire pursues. This, then, is thought and truth concerned with action. The thought concerned with study, not with action or production, has its good or bad state in being true or false; for truth is the function of whatever thinks. But the function of what thinks about action is truth [30] agreeing with correct desire.

The principle of an action — the source of motion, not the goal—is decision; the principle of decision is desire and goal-directed reason. That is why decision requires understanding and thought, and also a state [35] of character; for acting well or badly requires both thought and character.

Thought by itself moves nothing; what moves us is goal-directed thought concerned with action. For this [1139b] thought is also the principle of productive thought; for every producer in his production aims at some [further] goal, and the unqualified goal is not the product, which is only the [qualified] goal of some [production], and aims at some [further] goal. [An unqualified goal is] what we achieve in action, since acting well is the goal, and desire is for the goal. That is why decision is either understanding combined [5] with desire or desire combined with thought; and this is the sort of principle that a human being is.

We do not decide to do what is already past; no one decides, for instance, to have sacked Troy. For neither do we deliberate about what is past, but only about what will be and admits of being or not being; and what is

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past does not admit of not having happened. That is why Agathon is correct to say ‘Of this alone [10] even a god is deprived—to make what is all done to have never happened.’23

The function of each of the understanding parts, then, is truth. And so the virtues of each part will be the states that best direct it toward the truth.

3 Then let us begin again, and discuss these states of [15] the soul. Let us say, then, that there are five states in which the soul grasps the truth in its affirmation or denials. These are craft, scientific knowledge, prudence, wisdom, and understanding; for belief and supposition admit of being false.

What science is, is evident from the following, if we must speak exactly and not be guided by [mere] [20] similarities. For we all suppose that what we know scientifically does not even admit of being otherwise; and whenever that admits of being otherwise escapes observation, we do not notice whether it is or is not, [and hence we do not know about it]. Hence what is known scientifically is by necessity. Hence it is everlasting; for the things that are by unqualified necessity are all everlasting, and everlasting things are ingenerable and indestructible.

[25] Further, every science seems to be teachable, and what is scientifically knowable is learnable. But all teaching is from what is already known, as we also say in the Analytics; for some teaching is through induction, some by deduction, [which both require previous knowledge]. Induction [leads to] the principle, i.e., the universal, whereas deduction proceeds [30] from the universal. Hence deduction has principles from which it proceeds and which are not themselves [reached] by deduction. Hence they are [reached] by induction.

Scientific knowledge, then, is a demonstrative state, and has all the other features that in the Analytics we add to the definition. For one has scientific knowledge whenever one has the appropriate sort of [35] confidence, and knows the principles; for if one does not know them better than the conclusion, one will have scientific knowledge [only] coincidentally.

So much for a definition of scientific knowledge.

5 [1140a25] To grasp what prudence is, we should first study the sort of people we call prudent. It seems proper to a prudent person to be able to deliberate finely about things that are good and beneficial for himself, not about some restricted area — about what sorts of things promote health or strength, for instance—but about what sorts of things promote living well in general.

A sign of this is the fact that we call people prudent [30] about some [restricted area] whenever they calculate well to promote some excellent end, in an area where there is no craft. Hence where [living well] as a whole is concerned, the deliberative person will also be prudent.

Now no one deliberates about things that cannot be otherwise or about things that cannot be achieved in his action. Hence, if science involves demonstration, but there is no demonstration of anything whose [35] principles admit of being otherwise (since every such [1140b] thing itself admits of being otherwise); and if we cannot deliberate about things that are by necessity; it follows that prudence is not science nor yet craft knowledge. It is not science, because what is achievable in action admits of being otherwise; and it is not craft knowledge, because action and production belong to different kinds.

The remaining possibility, then, is that prudence is [5] a state grasping the truth, involving reason, concerned with action about things that are good or bad for a human being. For production has its end in something other than itself, but action does not, since its end is acting well itself.

That is why Pericles24 and such people are the ones whom we regard as prudent, because they are able [10] to study what is good for themselves and for human beings; we think that household managers and politicians are such people.

This is also how we come to give temperance (sōphrosunē) its name, because we think that it preserves prudence (sōzousan tēn phronēsin). It preserves the [right] sort of supposition. For the sort of supposition that is corrupted and perverted by the pleasant or painful is not every sort— not, for instance, [15] the supposition that the triangle does or does not have two right angles—but suppositions about what is achievable in action. For the principles of things achievable in action are their goal, but if someone is corrupted because of pleasure or pain, no [appropriate] principle can appear to him, and it cannot appear that this is the right goal and cause of all his choice and action; for vice corrupts the principle. And so [20] prudence must be a state grasping the

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truth, involving reason, and concerned with action about human goods. Moreover, there is virtue [or vice in the use] of craft, but not [in the use] of prudence. Further, in a craft,

someone who makes errors voluntarily is more choiceworthy; but with prudence, as with the virtues, the reverse is true. Clearly, then, prudence is a virtue, [25] not craft knowledge.

There are two parts of the soul that have reason. Prudence is a virtue of one of them, of the part that has belief; for belief is concerned, as prudence is, with what admits of being otherwise.

Moreover, it is not only a state involving reason. A sign of this is the fact that such a state can be forgotten, but prudence cannot.

6 [30] Scientific knowledge is supposition about universals, things that are by necessity. Further, everything demonstrable and every science have principles, since scientific knowledge involves reason. Hence there can be neither scientific knowledge nor craft knowledge [35] nor prudence about the principles of what is scientifically known. For what is scientifically known is demonstrable, [but the principles are not]; and craft [1141a] and prudence are about what admits of being otherwise. Nor is wisdom [exclusively] about principles; for it is proper to the wise person to have a demonstration of some things.

[The states of the soul] by which we always grasp [5] the truth and never make mistakes, about what can or cannot be otherwise, are scientific knowledge, prudence, wisdom, and understanding. But none of the first three — prudence, scientific knowledge, wisdom — is possible about principles. The remaining possibility, then, is that we have understanding about principles.

7 [10] We ascribe wisdom in crafts to the people who have the most exact expertise in the crafts. For instance, we call Pheidias a wise stoneworker and Polycleitus a wise bronze worker; and by wisdom we signify precisely virtue in a craft. But we also think some people are [15] wise in general, not wise in some [restricted] area, or in some other [specific] way (as Homer says in the Margites: ‘The gods did not make him a digger or a ploughman or wise in anything else’). Clearly, then, wisdom is the most exact [form] of scientific knowledge.

Hence the wise person must not only know what is derived from the principles of a science, but also grasp the truth about the principles. Therefore wisdom is understanding plus scientific knowledge; it is scientific knowledge of the most honorable things that has received [understanding as] its coping stone.

[20] For it would be absurd for someone to think that political science or prudence is the most excellent science; for the best thing in the universe is not a human being [and the most excellent science must be of the best things].

Moreover, if what is good and healthy for human beings and for fish is not the same, whereas what is white or straight is always the same, everyone would also say that the content of wisdom is the same in [25] every case, but the content of prudence is not. For the agent they would call prudent is the one who studies well each question about his own [good], and he is the one to whom they would entrust such questions. That is why prudence is also ascribed to some of the beasts, the ones that are evidently capable of forethought about their own life.

It is also evident that wisdom is not the same as [30] political science. For if people are to say that science about what is beneficial to themselves [as human beings] counts as wisdom, there will be many types of wisdom [corresponding to the different species of animals]. For if there is no one medical science about all beings, there is no one science about the good of all animals, but a different science about each specific good. [Hence there will be many types of wisdom, contrary to our assumption that it has always been the same content.] It does not matter if human beings are the best among the animals; for there are other beings [1141b] of a far more divine nature than human beings—most evidently, for instance, the beings composing the universe.

What we have said makes it clear that wisdom is both scientific knowledge and understanding about the things that are by nature most honorable. That is why people say that Anaxagoras25 or Thales26 or that [5] sort of person is wise, but not prudent, whenever they see that he is ignorant of what benefits himself. And so they say that what he knows is extraordinary, amazing, difficult, and divine, but useless, because it is not human goods that he looks for.

Prudence, by contrast, is about human concerns, [10] about things open to deliberation. For we say that

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deliberating well is the function of the prudent person more than anyone else; but no one deliberates about things that cannot be otherwise, or about things lacking any goal that is a good achievable in action. The unqualifiedly good deliberator is the one whose aim accords with rational calculation in pursuit of the best good for a human being that is achievable in action.

Nor is prudence about universals only. It must [15] also acquire knowledge of particulars, since it is concerned with action and action is about particulars. That is why in other areas also some people who lack knowledge but have experience are better in action than others who have knowledge. For someone who [20] knows that light meats are digestible and [hence] healthy, but not which sorts of meats are light, will not produce health; the one who knows that bird meats are light and healthy will be better at producing health. And since prudence is concerned with action, it must possess both [the universal and the particular knowledge] or the [particular] more [than the universal]. Here too, however, [as in medicine] there is a ruling [science].

8 Political science and prudence are the same state, but their being is not the same.

[25] One type of prudence about the city is the ruling part; this is legislative science. The type concerned with particulars [often] monopolizes the name ‘political science’ that [properly] applies to both types in common. This type is concerned with action and deliberation, since [it is concerned with decrees and] the decree is to be acted on as the last thing [reached in deliberation]. Hence these people are the only ones who are said to be politically active; for these are the only ones who put [political science] into practice, as hand- craftsmen put [a craft] into practice.

[30] Similarly, prudence concerned with the individual himself seems most of all to be counted as prudence; and this [type of prudence often] monopolizes the name ‘prudence’ that [properly] applies [to all types] in common. Of the other types, one is household science, another legislative, another political, one type of which is deliberative and another judicial.

In fact knowledge of what is [good] for oneself is [1142a] one species [of prudence]. But there is much difference [in opinions] about it. The one who knows about himself, and spends his time on his own concerns, seems to be prudent, while politicians seem to be too active. Hence Euripides says, ‘Surely I cannot be prudent, since I could have been inactive, [5] numbered among all the many in the army, and have had an equal share… . For those who go too far and are too active … For people seek what is good for themselves, and suppose that this [inactivity] is the right action [to achieve their good]. Hence this belief has led to the view that these are the prudent people. Presumably, however, one’s own welfare requires household management and a political system. Further, [another reason for the difference of opinion [10] is that] it is unclear, and should be examined, how one must manage one’s own affairs.

A sign of what has been said [about the unclarity of what prudence requires] is the fact that whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, [15] but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it.

Indeed [to understand the difficulty and importance of experience] we might consider why a child can become accomplished in mathematics, but not in wisdom or natural science. Surely it is because mathematical objects are reached through abstraction, whereas in these other cases the principles are reached from experience. Young people, then, [lacking experience], have no real conviction in these [20] other sciences, but only say the words, whereas the nature of mathematical objects is clear to them.

Further, [prudence is difficult because it is deliberative and deliberation may be in error about either the universal or the particular. For [we may wrongly suppose] either that all sorts of heavy water are bad or that this water is heavy.

It is apparent that prudence is not scientific knowledge; [25] for, as we said, it concerns the last thing [i.e., the particular], since this is what is achievable in action. Hence it is opposite to understanding. For understanding is about the [first] terms, [those] that have no account of them; but prudence is about the last thing, an object of perception, not of scientific knowledge. This is not the perception of special objects, but the sort by which we perceive that the last among mathematical objects is a triangle; for it will [30] stop there too. This is another species [of perception that perception of special objects]; but it is still perception more than prudence is.

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12 [1143b] One might, however, go through some puzzles about [20] what use they are. For wisdom is not concerned with any sort of coming into being, and hence will not study any source of human happiness. Admittedly, [25, 26] prudence will study this; but what do we need it for? For knowledge of what is healthy or fit (i.e., of what [27] results from the state of health, not of what produces [21] it) makes us no readier to act appropriately if we are already healthy; for having the science of medicine or gymnastics makes us no readier to act appropriately. Similarly, prudence is the science of what is just and what is fine, and what is good for a human being; but [25] this is how the good man acts; and if we are already good, knowledge of them makes us no readier to act appropriately, since virtues are states [activated in actions].

[28] If we concede that prudence is not useful for this, [30] should we say it is useful for becoming good? In that case it will be no use to those who are already excellent. Nor, however, will it be any use to those who are not. For it will not matter to them whether they have it themselves or take the advice of others who have it. The advice of others will be quite adequate for us, just as it is with health: we wish to be healthy, but still do not learn medical science.

[35] Besides, it would seem absurd for prudence, inferior as it is to wisdom, to control it [as a superior. But this will be the result], since the science that produces also rules and prescribes about its product.

We must discuss these questions; for so far we have only raised the puzzles about them. [1144a] First of all, let us state that both prudence and wisdom must be choiceworthy in themselves, even

if neither produces anything at all; for each is the virtue of one of the two [rational] parts [of the soul]. Secondly, they do produce something. Wisdom [5] produces happiness, not in the way that medical

science produces health, but in the way that health produces [health]. For since wisdom is a part of virtue as a whole, it makes us happy because it is a state that we possess and activate.

Further, we fulfill our function insofar as we have prudence and virtue of character; for virtue makes the goal correct, and prudence makes the things promoting [10] the goal [correct]. The fourth part of the soul, the nutritive part, has no such virtue [related to our function], since no action is up to it to do or not to do.

To answer the claim that prudence will make us no better at achieving fine and just actions, we must begin from a little further back [in our discussion]. We begin here: we say that some people who do just [15] actions are not yet thereby just, if, for instance, they do the actions prescribed by the laws of either unwillingly or because of ignorance or because of some other end, not because of the actions themselves, even though they do the right actions, those that the excellent person ought to do. Equally, however, it would seem to be possible for someone to do each type of action in the state that makes him a good person, that [20] is to say, because of decision and for the sake of the actions themselves.

Now virtue makes the decision correct; but the actions that are naturally to be done to fulfill the decision are the concern not of virtue, but of another capacity. We must grasp them more perspicuously before continuing our discussion.

There is a capacity, called cleverness, which is such [25] as to be able to do the actions that tend to promote whatever goal is assumed and to attain them. If, then, the goal is fine, cleverness is praiseworthy, and if the goal is base, cleverness is unscrupulousness. That is why both prudent and unscrupulous people are called clever.

Prudence is not cleverness, though it requires this capacity. [Prudence,] this eye of the soul, requires [30] virtue in order to reach its fully developed state, as we have said and as is clear. For inferences about actions have a principle, ‘Since the end and the best good is this sort of thing’ (whatever it actually is—let it be any old thing for the sake of argument). And this [best good] is apparent only to the good person; for [35] vice perverts us and produces false views about the principles of actions. Evidently, then, we cannot be [1144b] prudent without being good.

13 We must, then, also examine virtue over again. For virtue is similar [in this way] to prudence; as prudence is related to cleverness, not the same but similar, so natural virtue is related full virtue. For each of us seems to possess his type of character to [5] some extent by nature; for in fact we are just, brave, prone to temperance, or have another feature, immediately from birth. But still we look for some further condition to be full goodness, and we expect to possess these features in another way. For these natural states belong to children and to beasts as well [as to [10] adults], but without understanding they are evidently harmful. At any rate, this much would seem to be clear: Just as a heavy body moving around unable to see suffers a heavy fall

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because it has no sight, so it is with virtue. [A naturally well-endowed person without understanding will harm himself.]

But if someone acquires understanding, he improves in his actions; and the state he now has, though still similar [to the natural one], will be fully virtue. And so, just as there are two sorts of conditions, [15] cleverness and prudence, in the part of the soul that has belief, so also there are two in the part that has character, natural virtue and full virtue. And of these full virtue cannot be acquired without prudence.

That is why some say that all the virtues are [instances of] prudence, and why the inquires [20] Socrates used to undertake were in one way correct, and in another way in error. For insofar as he thought all the virtues are [instances of] prudence, he was in error; but insofar as he thought they all require prudence, what he used to say was right.

Here is a sign of this: Whenever people now define virtue, they all say what state it is and what it is related to, and then add that it is the state in accord with the correct reason. Now the correct reason is the reason in accord with prudence; it would seem, then, that [25] they all in a way intuitively believe that the state in accord with prudence is virtue.

But we must make a slight change. For it is not merely the state in accord with the correct reason, but the state involving the correct reason, that is virtue. And it is prudence that is the correct reason in this area. Socrates, then, used to think the virtues are [instances of] reason because he thought they are [30] all [instances of] knowledge, whereas we think they involve reason.

What we have said, then, makes it clear that we cannot be fully good without prudence, or prudent without virtue of character. And in this way we can also solve the dialectical argument that someone might use to show that the virtues are separated from one another. For, [it is argued], since the same person [35] is not naturally best suited for all the virtues, someone will already have one virtue before he gets another. This is indeed possible in the case of the natural virtues. It is not possible, however, in the case of the [full] virtues that someone must have to be called [1145a] good without qualification; for one has all the virtues if and only if one has prudence, which is a single state.

And it is clear that, even if prudence were useless in action, we would need it because it is the virtue of this part of the soul, and because the decision will not be correct without prudence or without virtue—[5] for [virtue] makes us achieve the end, whereas [prudence] makes us achieve the things that promote the end.

Moreover, prudence does not control wisdom or the better part of the soul, just as medical science does not control health. For medical science does not use health, but only aims to bring health into being; hence it prescribes for the sake of health, but does not [10] prescribe to health. Besides, [saying that prudence controls wisdom] would be like saying that political science rules the gods because it prescribes about everything in the city.

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BOOK VII

1 Let us now make a new start, and say that there are [15] three conditions of character to be avoided—vice, incontinence, and bestiality. The contraries of two of these are clear; we call one virtue and the other continence.

The contrary to bestiality is most suitably called [20] virtue superior to us, a heroic, indeed divine, sort of virtue. Thus Homer made Priam say that Hector was remarkably good; ‘nor did he look as though he were the child of a mortal man, but of a god.’27 And so, if, as they say, human beings become gods because of exceedingly great virtue, this is clearly the sort of state [25] that would be opposite to the bestial state. For indeed, just as a beast has neither virtue nor vice, so neither does a god, but the god’s state is more honorable than virtue, and the beast’s belongs to some kind different from vice.

Now it is rare that a divine man exists. (This is what the Spartans habitually call him; whenever they very much admire someone, they say he is a divine [30] man.) Similarly, the bestial person is also rare among human beings. He is most often found in foreigners; but some bestial features also result from diseases and deformities. We also use ‘bestial’ as a term of reproach for people whose vice exceeds the human level.

[35] We must make some remarks about this condition later. We have discussed vice earlier. We must now discuss incontinence, softness, and self-indulgence, [1145b] and also continence and resistance; for we must not suppose that continence and incontinence are concerned with the same states as virtue and vice, or that they belong to a different kind.

As in the other cases, we must set out the appearances, [5] and first of all go through the puzzles. In this way we must prove the common beliefs about these ways of being affected—ideally, all the common beliefs, but if not all, most of them, and the most important. For if the objections are solved, and the common beliefs are left, it will be an adequate proof.

Continence and resistance seem to be good and [10] praiseworthy conditions, whereas incontinence and softness seem to be base and blameworthy conditions. The continent person seems to be the same as one who abides by his rational calculation; and the incontinent person seems to be the same as one who abandons it. The incontinent person knows that his actions are base, but does them because of his feelings, whereas the continent person knows that his appetites are base, but because of reason does not follow them.

[15] People think the temperate person is continent and resistant. Some think that every continent and resistant person is temperate, while others do not. Some people say the incontinent person is intemperate and the intemperate incontinent, with no distinction; others say they are different.

Sometimes it is said that a prudent person cannot be incontinent; but sometimes it is said that some people are prudent and clever, but still incontinent.

Further, people are called incontinent about [20] spirit, honor, and gain. These, then, are the things that are said.

2 We might be puzzled about what sort of correct supposition someone has when he acts incontinently.

First of all, some say he cannot have knowledge [at the time he acts]. For it would be terrible, Socrates used to think, for knowledge to be in someone, but [25] mastered by something else, and dragged around like a slave. For Socrates used to oppose the account [of incontinence] in general, in the belief that there is no incontinence; for no one, in Socrates’ view, supposes while he acts that his action conflicts with what is best; our action conflicts with what is best only because we are ignorant [of the conflict].

This argument, then, contradicts things that appear manifestly. If ignorance causes the incontinent person to be affected as he is, we must look for the type of [30] ignorance that it turns out to be; for it is evident, at any rate, that before he is affected the person who acts incontinently does not think [he should do the action he eventually does].

Some people concede some of [Socrates’ points], but reject some of them. For they agree that nothing is superior to knowledge, but they deny the claim that no one’s action conflicts with what has seemed better to him. That is why they say that when the incontinent person is overcome by pleasure he has only [35] belief,

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not knowledge. If, however, he has belief, not knowledge, and the [1146a] supposition that resists is not strong, but only a

weak one, such as people have when they are in doubt, we will pardon failure to abide by these beliefs against strong appetites. In fact, however, we do not pardon vice or any other blameworthy condition [and incontinence is one of these].

Then is it prudence that resists, since it is the [5] strongest? This is absurd. For on this view the same person will be both prudent and incontinent; but no one would say that the prudent person is the sort to do the worst actions willingly. Besides, we have shown earlier that the prudent person acts [on his knowledge], since he is concerned with the last things, [i.e., particulars] and that he has the other virtues.

Further, if the continent person must have strong [10] and base appetites, the temperate person will not be continent nor the continent person temperate. For the temperate person is not the sort to have either excessive or base appetites; but [the continent person] must have both. For if his appetites are good, the state that prevents him from following them must be base, [15] so that not all continence is excellent. If, however, the appetites are weak and not base, continence is nothing impressive; and if they are base and weak, it is nothing great.

Further, if continence makes someone prone to abide by every belief, it is bad, if, for instance, it makes him abide by a false as well [as true] belief. And if incontinence makes someone prone to abandon [20] every belief, there will be an excellent type of incontinence. Take, for instance, Neoptolemus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes. For he is praiseworthy for his failure to abide by [his promise to tell the lies] that Odysseus had persuaded him [to tell]; [he breaks his promise] because he feels pain at lying.

Further, the sophistical argument is a puzzle. For [the Sophists] wish to refute an [opponent, by showing] that his views have paradoxical results, so that they will be clever in encounters. Hence the inference [25] that results is a puzzle; for thought is tied up, whenever it does not want to stand still, because the conclusion is displeasing, but it cannot advance, because it cannot solve the argument. A certain argument, then, concludes that foolishness combined with incontinence is virtue. For incontinence makes someone act contrary to what he supposes [is right]; [30] but since he supposes that good things are bad and that it is wrong to do them, he will do the good actions, not the bad.

Further, someone who acts to pursue what is pleasant because this is what he is persuaded and decides to do seems to be better than someone who acts not because of rational calculation, but because of incontinence. For the first person is the easier to cure, [35] because he might be persuaded to act otherwise; but the incontinent person illustrates the proverb ‘If water [1146b] chokes us, what must we drink to wash it down?’ For if he had been persuaded to do the action he does, he would have stopped when he was persuaded to act otherwise; but in fact, though already persuaded to act otherwise, he still acts [wrongly].

Further, is there incontinence and continence about everything? If so, who is simply incontinent? For no one has all the types of incontinence, but we [5] say that some people are simply incontinent.

These, then, are the sorts of puzzles that arise. We must undermine some of these claims, and leave others intact; for the solution of the puzzle is the discovery [of what we are seeking].

3 First, then, we must examine whether the incontinent has knowledge or not, and in what way he has [10] it. Second, what should we take to be the range of incontinence and continence—every pleasure and pain, or some definite subclass? Are the continent and the resistant person the same or different? Similarly we must deal with the other questions that are relevant to this study.

We begin by examining whether continence and [15] incontinence differ from other things by their range or by their attitudes. In other words, is the incontinent person incontinent because of a specific range of actions, or because of a specific attitude, or because of both? Next, is there incontinence and continence about everything, or not?

For the simply incontinent person is not incontinent about everything, but he has the same range [20] as the intemperate person. Nor is he incontinent simply by being inclined toward these things—that would make incontinence the same as intemperance. Rather, he is incontinent by being inclined toward them in this way. For the intemperate person acts on decision when he is led on, since he thinks it is right in every case to pursue the pleasant thing at hand; the incontinent person, however, thinks it is wrong to pursue this pleasant things, yet still pursues it.

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It is claimed that the incontinent person’s action [25] conflicts with the true belief, not with knowledge. But whether it is knowledge or belief that he has does not matter for this argument. For some people with belief are in no doubt, but think they have exact knowledge.

If, then, it is the weakness of their conviction that makes people with belief, not people with knowledge, act in conflict with their supposition, it follows that knowledge will [for these purposes] be no different from belief; for, as Heraclitus makes clear, some [30] people’s convictions about what they believe are no weaker than other people’s convictions about what they know.

But we speak of knowing in two ways; we ascribe it both to someone who has it without using it and to someone who is using it. Hence it will matter whether someone has the knowledge that his action is [35] wrong, without attending to his knowledge, or he both has it and attends to it. For this second case seems extraordinary, but wrong action when he does not attend to his knowledge does not seem extraordinary.

[1147a] Further, since there are two types of premises, someone’s action may well conflict with his knowledge if he has both types of premises, but uses only the universal premise and not the particular premise. For it is particulars that are achievable in action. [5] There are also different types of universal, one type referring to the agent himself, and the other referring to the object. Perhaps, for instance, someone knows that dry things benefit every human being, and that he himself is a human being, or that this sort of thing is dry; but he either does not have or does not activate the knowledge that this particular thing is of this sort. These ways [of knowing and not knowing], then, make such a remarkable difference that it seems quite intelligible [for someone acting against his knowledge] to have the one sort of knowledge, but astounding if he has the other sort.

[10] Further, human beings may have knowledge in a way different from those we have described. For we see that having without using includes different types of having; hence some people, such as those asleep or mad or drunk, both have knowledge in a [15] way and do not have it. Moreover, this is the condition of those affected by strong feelings. For spirited reactions, sexual appetites, and some conditions of this sort clearly [both disturb knowledge and] disturb the body as well, and even produce fits of madness in some people. Clearly, then [since incontinents are also affected by strong feelings], we should say that they have knowledge in a way similar to these people.

Saying the words that come from knowledge is no [20] sign [of fully having it]. For people affected in these ways even recite demonstrations and verses of Empedocles. And those who have just learned something do not yet know it, though they string the words together; for it must grow into them, and this takes time. And so we must suppose that those who are acting incontinently also say the words in the way that actors do.

[25] Further, we may also look at the cause in the following way, referring to [human] nature. For one belief is universal; the other is about particulars, and because they are particulars, perception controls them. And in the cases where these two beliefs result in one belief, it is necessary, in one case, for the soul to affirm what has been concluded, but, in the case of beliefs about production, to act at once on what [30] has been concluded. If, for instance, everything sweet must be tasted, and this, some one particular thing, is sweet, it is necessary for someone who is able and unhindered also to act on this at the same time.

Suppose, then, that someone has the universal belief hindering him from tasting; he has the second belief, that everything sweet is pleasant and this is sweet, and this belief is active; but it turns out that appetite is present in him. The belief, then, [that is [35] formed from the previous two beliefs] tells him to avoid this, but appetite leads him on, since it is capable of moving each of the [bodily] parts.

The result, then, is that in a way reason and belief [1147b] make him act incontinently. The [second] belief is contrary to the correct reason, but only coincidentally, not in its own right. For the appetite, not the belief, is contrary [in its own right to the correct reason]. That is also why beasts are not incontinent, because they [5] have no universal supposition, but [only] appearance and memory of particulars.

How is the ignorance resolved, so that the incontinent person recovers his knowledge? The same account that applies to someone drunk or asleep applies here too, and is not special to this way of being affected. We must hear it from the natural scientists.

Since the last premise is a belief about something [10] perceptible, and controls action, this is what the incontinent person does not have when he is being affected. Or [rather] the way he has it is not knowledge of it, but, as we saw, [merely] saying the words, as the drunk says the words of Empedocles.

And since the last term does not seem to be universal, or expressive of knowledge in the same way as the [15] universal term, even the result Socrates was looking for would seem to come about. For the knowledge that is present when someone is affected by incontinence, and that is dragged about because he is affected, is

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not the sort that seems to be fully knowledge, but it is only perceptual knowledge. So much, then, for knowing and not knowing, and for how it is possible to know and still to act

incontinently.

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BOOK VIII

1 After that, the next topic is friendship; for it is a virtue, [1155a] or involves virtue.

[5] Further, it is most necessary for our life. For no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods. Indeed rich people and holders of powerful positions, even more than other people, seem to need friends. For how would one benefit from such prosperity if one had no opportunity for beneficence, [10] which is most often displayed, and most highly praised, in relation to friends? And how would one guard and protect prosperity without friends, when it is all the more precarious the greater it is?

But in poverty also, and in the other misfortunes, people think friends are the only refuge. Moreover, the young need friends to keep them from error. The old need friends to care for them and support the actions that fail because of weakness. And those in their prime need friends to do fine actions; for ‘when [15] two go together …,’ they are more capable of understanding and acting.

Further, a parent would seem to have a natural friendship for a child, and a child for a parent, not [20] only among human beings but also among birds and most kinds of animals. Members of the same species, and human beings most of all, have a natural friendship for each other; that is why we praise friends of humanity. And in our travels we can see how every human being is akin and beloved to a human being.

Moreover, friendship would seem to hold cities [25] together, and legislators would seem to be more concerned about it than about justice. For concord would seem to be similar to friendship, and they aim at concord among all, while they try above all to expel civil conflict, which is enmity. Further, if people are friends, they have no need of justice, but if they are just they need friendship in addition; and the justice that is most just seems to belong to friendship.

[30] But friendship is not only necessary, but also fine. For we praise lovers of friends, and having many friends seems to be a fine thing. Moreover, people think that the same people are good and also friends.

Still, there are quite a few disputed points about friendship. For some hold it is a sort of similarity and that similar [35] people are friends. Hence the sayings, ‘similar

to similar,’ and ‘birds of a feather,’ and so on. On the other side, it is said that similar people are all like the proverbial potters, quarreling with each other.

[1155b] On these questions some people inquire at a higher level, more proper to natural science. Euripides says that when earth gets dry it longs passionately for rain, and the holy heaven when filled with rain longs passionately to fall into the earth; and Heraclitus says [5] that the opponent cooperates, the finest harmony arises from discordant elements, and all things come to be in struggle. Others, such as Empedocles,28 oppose this view, and say that similar aims for similar.

Let us, then, leave aside the puzzles proper to natural science, since they are not proper to the present examination, and let us examine the puzzles that concern human [nature], and bear on characters and [10] feelings. For instance, does friendship arise among all sorts of people, or can people not be friends if they are vicious? And is there one species of friendship, or are there more? Some people think there is only one species because friendship allows more and less. But here their confidence rests on an inadequate sign; for [15] things of different species also allow more and less. We have spoken about these earlier.

2 Perhaps these questions will become clear once we find out what it is that is lovable. For, it seems, not everything is loved, but [only] the lovable, and this is either good or pleasant or useful. However, it seems that the useful is the source of some good or some [20] pleasure; hence the good and the pleasant are lovable as ends.

Now do people love the good, or the good for themselves? For sometimes these conflict, and the same is true of the pleasant. Each one, it seems, loves the good for himself; and while the good is lovable without qualification, the lovable for each one is the [25] good for himself. In fact, each one loves not what is good for him, but what appears good for him; but this will not matter, since [what appears good for him] will be what appears lovable.

There are these three causes, then, of love. Now love for an inanimate things is not called friendship, since

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there is no mutual loving, and no wishing of good to it. For it would presumably be ridiculous to wish good things to wine; the most you wish is its preservation [30] so that you can have it. To a friend, however, it is said, you must wish goods for his own sake. If you wish good things in this way, but the same wish is not returned by the other, you would be said to have [only] goodwill for the other. For friendship is said to be reciprocated goodwill.

[35] But perhaps we should add that friends are [1156a] aware of the reciprocated goodwill. For many a one has goodwill to people whom he has not seen but supposes to be decent or useful, and one of these might have the same goodwill toward him. These people, then, apparently have goodwill to each other, but how could we call them friends, given that they are unaware of their attitude to each other? [If they [5] are to be friends], then, they must have goodwill to each other, wish goods and be aware of it, from one of the causes mentioned above.

3 Since these causes differ in species, so do the types of loving and types of friendship. Hence friendship has three species, corresponding to the three objects of love. For each object of love has a corresponding type of mutual loving, combined with awareness of it.

But those who love each other wish goods to each [10] other [only] insofar as they love each other. Those who love each other for utility love the other not in his own right, but insofar as they gain some good for themselves from him. The same is true of those who love for pleasure; for they like a witty person not because of his character, but because he is pleasant to them.

[15] Those who love for utility or pleasure, then, are fond of a friend because of what is good or pleasant for themselves, not insofar as the beloved is who he is, but insofar as he is useful or pleasant. Hence these friendships as well [as the friends] are coincidental, since the beloved is loved not insofar as he is who he is, but insofar as he provides some good or pleasure.

[20] And so these sorts of friendships are easily dissolved, when the friends do not remain similar [to what they were]; for if someone is not longer pleasant or useful, the other stops loving him.

What is useful does not remain the same, but is different at different times. Hence, when the cause of their being friends is removed, the friendship is dissolved too, on the assumption that the friendship aims at these [useful results]. This sort of friendship [25] seems to arise especially among older people, since at that age they pursue the advantageous, not the pleasant, and also among those in their prime or youth who pursue the expedient.

Nor do such people live together very much. For sometimes they do not even find each other pleasant. Hence they have no further need to meet in this way if they are not advantageous [to each other]; for each finds the other pleasant [only] to the extent that he [30] expects some good from him. The friendship of hosts and guests is taken to be of this type too.

The cause of friendship between young people seems to be pleasure. For their lives are guided by their feelings, and they pursue above all what is pleasant for themselves and what is at hand. But as they grow up [what they find] pleasant changes too. Hence [35] they are quick to become friends, and quick to stop; for their friendship shifts with [what they find] pleasant, and the change in such pleasure is quick. Young [1156b] people are prone to erotic passion, since this mostly accords with feelings, and is caused by pleasure; that is why they love and quickly stop, often changing in a single day.

These people wish to spend their days together [5] and to live together; for this is how they gain [the good things] corresponding to their friendship.

But complete friendship is the friendship of good people similar in virtue; for they wish goods in the same way to each other insofar as they are good, and they are good in their own right. [Hence they wish goods to each other for each other’s own sake.] Now [10] those who wish goods to their friend for the friend’s own sake are friends most of all; for they have this attitude because of the friend himself, not coincidentally. Hence these people’s friendship lasts as long as they are good; and virtue is enduring.

Each of them is both good without qualification and good for his friend, since good people are both good without qualification and advantageous for each other. They are pleasant in the same ways too, [15] since good people are pleasant both without qualification and for each other. [They are pleasant for each other] because each person finds his own actions and actions of that kind pleasant, and the actions of good people are the same or similar.

It is reasonable that this sort of friendship is enduring, since it embraces in itself all the features that [20]

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friends must have. For the cause of every friendship is good or pleasure, either unqualified or for the lover; and every friendship accords with some similarity. And all the features we have mentioned are found in this friendship because of [the nature of] the friends themselves. For they are similar in this way [i.e., in being good]. Moreover, their friendship also has the other things — what is good without qualification and what is pleasant without qualification; and these are lovable most of all. Hence loving friendship are found most of all and at their best in these friends.

[25] These kinds of friendships are likely to be rare, since such people are few. Further, they need time as well, to grow accustomed to each other; for, as the proverb says, they cannot know each other before they have shared their salt as often as it says, and they cannot accept each other or be friends until each appears lovable to the other and gains the other’s [30] confidence. Those who are quick to treat each other in friendly ways wish to be friends, but are not friends, unless they are also lovable, and know this. For though the wish for friendship comes quickly, friendship does not.

9 [1159b25] As we said at the beginning, friendship and justice would seem to be about the same things and to be found in the same people. For in every community there seems to be some sort of justice, and some type of friendship also. At any rate, fellow voyages and fellow soldiers are called friends, and so are members of other communities. And the extent of their community [30] is the extent of their friendship, since it is also the extent of the justice found there. The proverb ‘What friends have is common’ is correct, since friendship involves community.

But, whereas brothers and companions have everything in common, what people have in common in other types of community is limited, more in some communities and less in others, since some friendships [35] are also closer than others, some less close.

[1160a] What is just is also different, since it is not the same for parents toward children as for one brother toward another, and not the same for companions as for fellow citizens, and similarly with the other types of friendship. Similarly, what is unjust toward each of these is also different, and becomes more unjust as it is practiced on closer friends. It is more shocking, for [5] instance, to rob a companion of money than to rob a fellow citizen, to fail to help a brother than a stranger, and to strike one’s father than anyone else. Justice also naturally increases with friendship, since it involves the same people and extends over an equal area.

All the communities [mentioned], however, would seem to be parts of the political community. [10] For people keep company for some advantage and to supply something contributing to their life. And the political community as well [as the others] seems both to have been originally formed and to endure for advantage; for legislators also aim at advantage, and the common advantage is said to be just.

Now the other types of community aim at partial [15] advantage. Sea travellers, for instance, seek the advantage proper to a journey, in making money or something like that, while fellow soldiers seek the advantage proper to war, desiring either money or victory or a city; and the same is true of fellow members of a tribe or deme. Some communities — religious societies and dining clubs—seem to arise for pleasure, [20] since these are, respectively, for religious sacrifices and for companionship.

But all these communities would seem to be subordinate to the political community, since it aims not at some advantage close at hand, but at advantage for the whole of life… . [We can see this in the arrangements that cities make for religious festivals. For] in performing sacrifices and arranging gatherings [25] for these, people both accord honors to the gods and provide themselves with pleasant relaxations. For the long- established sacrifices and gatherings appear to take place after the harvesting of the crops, as a sort of first- fruits, since this was the time when people used to be most at leisure [and the time when relaxation would be most advantageous for the whole of life].

All the types of community, then, appear to be parts [30] of the political community, and these sorts of communities imply the appropriate sorts of friendships.

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BOOK IX

4 The defining features of friendship that are found [1166a] in friendships to one’s neighbors would seem to be derived from features of friendship toward oneself. For a friend is taken to be someone who wishes and does goods or apparent goods to his friend for the [5] friend’s own sake; or one who wishes the friend to be and to live for the friend’s own sake—this is how mothers feel toward their children, and how friends who have been in conflict feel [toward each other]. Others take a friend to be one who spends his time with his friend, and makes the same choices; or one who shares his friend’s distress and enjoyment—and this also is especially true of mothers. And people define friendship by one of these features.

[10] Each of these features is found in the decent person’s relation to himself, and it is found in other people, insofar as they suppose they are decent. As we have said, virtue and the excellent person would seem to be the standard in each case.

For the excellent person is of one mind with [15] himself, and desires the same things in his whole soul. Hence he wishes goods and apparent goods to himself, and achieves them in his actions, since it is proper to the good person to reach the good by his efforts. He wishes and does them for his own sake, since he does them for the sake of his thinking part, and that is what each person seems to be. Moreover, he wishes himself to live and to be preserved. And he wishes this for his rational part more than for any other part.

[20] For being is a good for the good person, and each person wishes for goods for himself. And no one chooses to become another person even if that other will have every good when he has come into being; for, as it is, the god has the good [but no one chooses to be replaced by a god]. Rather [each of us chooses goods] on condition that he remains whatever he is; and each person would seem to be the understanding part, or that most of all. [Hence the good person wishes for goods for the understanding part.]

Further, such a person finds it pleasant to spend [25] time with himself, and so wishes to do it. For his memories of what he has done are agreeable, and his expectations for the future are good, and hence both are pleasant. And besides, his thought is well supplied with topics for study. Moreover, he shares his own distresses and pleasures, more than other people share theirs. For it is always the same thing that is painful or pleasant, not different things at different times. This is because he practically never regrets [what he has done].

The decent person, then, has each of these features [30] in relation to himself, and is related to his friend as he is to himself, since the friend is another himself. Hence friendship seems to be one of these features, and people with these features seem to be friends.

But is there friendship toward oneself, or not? Let us dismiss that question for the present. However, [35] there seems to be friendship insofar as someone is two or more parts. This seems to be true from what we have said, and because an extreme degree of friendship resembles one’s friendship to oneself. [1166b]

The many, base though they are, also appear to have these features. But perhaps they share in them only insofar as they approve of themselves and suppose they are decent. For no one who is utterly [5] base and unscrupulous either has these features or appears to have them.

Indeed, even base people hardly have them. For they are at odds with themselves, and have an appetite for one thing and a wish for another, as incontinent people do. For they do not choose things that seem to be good for them, but instead choose pleasant things that are actually harmful; and cowardice or laziness [10] causes others to shrink from doing what they think best for themselves. And those who have done many terrible actions hate and shun life because of their vice, and destroy themselves.

Besides, vicious people seek others to pass their [15] days with, and shun themselves. For when they are by themselves they remember many disagreeable actions, and anticipate others in the future; but they manage to forget these in other people’s company. These people have nothing lovable about them, and so have no friendly feelings for themselves.

Hence such a person does not share his own enjoyments [20] and distresses. For his soul is in conflict, and because he is vicious one part is distressed at being restrained, and another is pleased [by the intended action]; and so each part pulls in a different direction, as though they were tearing him apart. Even if he cannot be distressed and pleased at the same time, still he is soon distressed because he was pleased, and wishes these things had not become pleasant to him; [25] for base people are full of regret.

Hence the base person appears not to have a friendly attitude even toward himself, because he has nothing

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lovable about him. If this state is utterly miserable, everyone should earnestly shun vice and try to be decent; for that is how

someone will have a friendly relation to himself and will become a friend to another.

7 [1167b] Benefactors seem to love their beneficiaries more than the beneficiaries love them [in return], and this is discussed as though it were an unreasonable thing [20] to happen. In most people’s view, this is because the beneficiaries are debtors and the benefactors creditors: The debtor in a loan wishes the creditor did not exist, while the creditor even attends to the safety of the debtor. So also, then, a benefactor wants the [25] beneficiary to exist because he expects gratitude in return, whereas the beneficiary is not attentive about making the return.

Now Epicharmus29 might say that most people say this because they ‘take a bad person’s point of view.’ Still, it would seem to be a human point of view, since the many are indeed forgetful, and seek to receive benefits more than to give them.

However, it seems that the cause is more proper to [30] [human] nature, and the case of creditors is not even similar. For they do not love their debtors, but in wishing for their safety simply seek repayment. Benefactors, however, love and like their beneficiaries even if they are of no present or future use to them. The same is true of craftsmen; for each likes his own product [35] more than it would like him if it acquired a soul. [1168a] Presumably this is true of poets most of all, since they dearly like their own poems, and are fond of them as though they were their children.

This, then, is what the case of the benefactor resembles; [5] here the beneficiary is his product, and hence he likes him more than the product likes its producer. The reason for this is that being is choiceworthy and lovable for all, and we are insofar as we are actualized, since we are insofar as we live and act. Now the product is, in a way, the producer in his actualization; hence the producer is fond of the product, because he loves his own being. This is natural, since what he is potentially is what the product indicates in actualization.

[10] At the same time, the benefactor’s action is fine for him, so that he finds enjoyment in the person he acts on; but the person acted on finds nothing fine in the agent, but only, at most, some advantage, which is less pleasant and lovable.

What is pleasant is actualization in the present, expectation for the future, and memory of the past; [15] but what is most pleasant is the [action we do] insofar as we are actualized, and this is also most lovable. For the benefactor, then, his product endures, since the fine is long-lasting; but for the person acted on, the useful passes away.

Besides, memory of fine things is pleasant, while memory of [receiving] useful things is not altogether pleasant, or is less pleasant—though the reverse would seem to be true for expectation.

Moreover, loving is like production, while being [20] loved is like being acted on; and [the benefactor’s] love and friendliness are the result of his greater activity.

Further, everyone is fond of whatever has taken effort to produce; for instance, people who have made money themselves are fonder of it than people who have inherited it. And while receiving a benefit seems to take no effort, giving one is hard work. This is also [25] why mothers love their children more [than fathers do], since giving birth is more effort for them, and they know better that the children are theirs. And this also would seem to be proper to benefactors.

8 There is also a puzzle about whether one ought to love oneself or someone else most of all; for those who [30] like themselves most are criticized and denounced as self-lovers, as though this were something shameful. Indeed, the base person seems to go to every length for his own sake, and all the more the more vicious he is; hence he is accused, for instance, of doing nothing [for any end apart] from himself. The decent person, on the contrary, acts for what is fine, all the more the [35] better he is, and for his friend’s sake, disregarding his own [interest].

The facts, however, conflict with these claims, and [1168b] that is not unreasonable. For it is said that we must love most the friend who is most a friend; and one person is a friend to another most of all if he wishes goods to the other for the other’s sake, even if no one will know about it. But these are features most of all of one’s relation to oneself; and so too are all the other [5] defining features of a friend, since we have said that all the features of friendship extend from oneself to others.

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All the proverbs agree with this too, speaking, for instance, of ‘one soul,’ ‘what friends have is common,’ ‘equality is friendship,’ and ‘the knee is closer than the shin.’ For all these are true most of all in someone’s relations with himself, since one is a friend to himself [10] most of all. Hence he should also love himself most of all.

It is not surprising, then, that there is a puzzle about which view we ought to follow, since both inspire some confidence. Presumably, then, we must divide these sorts of arguments, and distinguish how [15] far and in what ways those on each side are true. Perhaps, then, it will become clear, if we grasp how those on each side understand self-love.

Those who make self-love a matter for reproach ascribe it to those who award the biggest share in money, honors, and bodily pleasures to themselves. For these are the goods desired and eagerly pursued by the many on the assumption that they are the best. [20] That is why they are also contested. Those who overreach for these goods gratify their appetites and in general their feelings and the nonrational part of the soul; and this is the character of the many. That is why the application of the term [‘self-love’] is derived from the most frequent [kind of self-love], which is base. This type of self-lover, then, is justifiably reproached.

And plainly it is the person who awards himself [25] these goods whom the many habitually call a self- lover. For if someone is always eager above all to do just or temperate actions or any other actions in accord with the virtues, and in general always gains for himself what is fine, no one will call him a self-lover or blame him for it.

This sort of person, however, more than the other sort, seems to be a self-lover. At any rate he awards [30] himself what is finest and best of all, and gratifies the most controlling part of himself, obeying it in everything. And just as a city and every other composite system seems to be above all its most controlling part, the same is true of a human being; hence someone loves himself most if he likes and gratifies this part.

[35] Similarly, someone is called continent or incontinent because his understanding is or is not the master, [1169a] on the assumption that this is what each person is. Moreover, his own voluntary actions seem above all to be those involving reason. Clearly, then, this, or this above all, is what each person is, and the decent person likes this most of all.

That is why he most of all is a self-lover, but a different kind from the self-lover who is reproached. [5] He differs from him as much as the life guided by reason differs from the life guided by feelings, and as much as the desire for what is fine differs from the desire for what seems advantageous.

Those who are unusually eager to do fine actions are welcomed and praised by everyone. And when everyone strains to achieve what is fine and concentrates on the finest actions, everything that is right will [10] be done for the common good, and each person individually will receive the greatest of goods, since that is the character of virtue. And so the good person must be a self-lover, since he will both help himself and benefit others by doing fine actions. But the vicious person must not love himself, since he will harm both himself and his neighbors by following his base feelings.

For the vicious person, then, the right actions [15] conflict with those he does. The decent person, however, does the right actions, since every understanding chooses what is best for itself and the decent person obeys his understanding.

It is quite true that, as they say, the excellent person labors for his friends and for his native country, and [20] will die for them if he must; he will sacrifice money, honors, and contested goods in general, in achieving the fine for himself. For he will choose intense pleasure for a short time over slight pleasure for a long time; a year of living finely over many years of undistinguished life; and a single fine and great action over [25] many small actions. This is presumably true of one who dies for others; he does indeed choose something great and fine for himself. He is also ready to sacrifice money as long as his friends profit; for the friends gain money, which he gains the fine, and so he awards himself the greater good.

He treats honors and offices in the same way; for [30] he will sacrifice them all for his friends, since this is fine and praiseworthy for himself. It is not surprising, then, that he seems to be excellent, since he chooses the fine at the cost of everything. It is also possible, however, to sacrifice actions to his friend, since it may be finer to be responsible for his friend’s doing the action than to do it himself

[35] In everything praiseworthy, then, the excellent [1169b] person awards more of the fine to himself. In this way, then, we must be self-lovers, as we have said. But in the way the many are, we ought not to be.

9 There is also a dispute about whether the happy person will need friends or not. For it is said that blessedly

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happy and self-sufficient people have no need [5] of friends. For they already have [all] the goods, and hence, being self-sufficient, need nothing added. But your friend, since he is another yourself, supplies what your own efforts cannot supply. Hence it is said, ‘When the god gives well, what need is there of friends?’

It would seem absurd, however, to award the happy [10] person all the goods, without giving him friends; for having friends seems to be the greatest external good. And if it is more proper to a friend to confer benefits than to receive them, and it is proper to the good person and to virtue to do good, and it is finer to benefit friends than to benefit strangers, the excellent person will need people for him to benefit. Indeed, that is why there is a question about whether friends [15] are needed more in good fortune than in ill fortune; for it is assumed that in ill fortune we need people to benefit us, and in good fortune we need others for us to benefit.

Presumably it is also absurd to make the blessed person solitary. For no one would choose to have all [other] goods and yet be alone, since a human being is a political [animal], tending by nature to live together [20] with others. This will also be true, then, of the happy person; for he has the natural goods, and clearly it is better to spend his days with decent friends that with strangers of just any character. Hence the happy person needs friends.

Then what are those on the other side saying, and on what point are they correct? Perhaps they say what [25] they say because the many think that it is the useful people who are friends. Certainly the blessedly happy person will have no need of these, since he has [all] goods. Similarly, he will have no need, or very little, of friends for pleasure; for since his life is pleasant, it has no need of imported pleasures. Since he does not need these sorts of friends, he does not seem to need friends at all.

This conclusion, however, is presumably not true. For we said at the beginning that happiness is a kind [30] of activity; and clearly activity comes into being, and does not belong [to someone all the time], as a possession does. Now if being happy consists in living and being active; the activity of the good person in excellent, and [hence] pleasant in itself, as we said at the beginning; what is our own is pleasant; and we are able to observe our neighbors more than ourselves, [35] and to observe their actions more than our own; it follows that a good person finds pleasure in the actions of excellent people who are his friends, [1170a] since these actions have both the naturally pleasant [features — they are good, and they are his own]. The blessed person, therefore, will need virtuous friends, given that he decides to observe virtuous actions that are his own, and the actions of a virtuous friend are of this sort.

Further, it is thought that the happy person must [5] live pleasantly. But the solitary person’s life is hard, since it is not easy for him to be continuously active all by himself; but in relation to others and in their company it is easier. Hence his activity will be more continuous. It is also pleasant in itself, as it must be in the blessedly happy person’s case. For the excellent person, insofar as he is excellent, enjoys actions in accord with virtue, and objects to actions caused by [10] vice, just as the musician enjoys fine melodies and is pained by bad ones.

Further, good people’s life together allows the cultivation of virtue, as Theognis says. If we examine the question more from the point of view of [human] nature, an excellent friend would

seem to be choiceworthy by nature for an excellent person. For, as we have said, what is good by nature is [15] good and pleasant in itself for an excellent person.

For animals, life is defined by the capacity for perception, but for human beings, it is defined by the capacity for perception or understanding; moreover, every capacity refers to an activity, and a thing is present fully in its activity; hence living fully would seem to be perceiving or understanding.

Now life is good and pleasant in itself; for it has [20] definite order, which is proper to the nature of what is good. What is good by nature is also good for the decent person; that is why life would seem to be pleasant for everyone. But we must not consider a [25] life that is vicious and corrupted, or filled with pains; for such a life lacks definite order, just as its proper features do. (The truth about pain will be more evident in what follows.)

Life itself, then, is good and pleasant, as it would seem, at any rate, from the fact that everyone desires it, and decent and blessed people desire it more than others do — for their life is most choiceworthy for them, and their living is most blessed.

[30] Now someone who sees perceives that he sees; one who hears perceives that he hears; one who walks perceives that he walks; and similarly in the other cases also there is some [element] that perceives that we are active; so that if we are perceiving, we perceive that we are perceiving, and if we are understanding, we perceive that we are understanding. Now perceiving that we are perceiving or understanding is the same as perceiving that we are, since we agreed that being is perceiving or understanding.

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[1170b] Perceiving that we are alive is pleasant in itself. For life is by nature a good, and it is pleasant to perceive that something good is present in us. Living is also choiceworthy, for a good person most of all, since being good and pleasant for him; for he is pleased to [5] perceive something good in itself together [with his own being].

The excellent person is related to his friend in the same way as he is related to himself, since a friend is another himself. Therefore, just as his own being is choiceworthy for him, his friend’s being is choiceworthy for him in the same or a similar way. We agreed that someone’s own being is choiceworthy because he perceives that he is good, and this sort of perception is pleasant in itself. He must, then, perceive his friend’s [10] being together [with his own], and he will do this when they live together and share conversation and thought. For in the case of human beings what seems to count as living together is this sharing of conversation and thought, not sharing the same pasture, as in the case of grazing animals.

If, then, for the blessedly happy person, being is [15] choiceworthy, since it is naturally good and pleasant, and if the being of his friend is closely similar to his own, his friend will also be choiceworthy. What is choiceworthy for him he must possess, since otherwise he will in this respect lack something. Anyone who is to be happy, then, must have excellent friends.

12 What the erotic lover likes most is the sight of his [1171b30] beloved, and this is the sort of perception he chooses over the others, supposing that this above all is what makes him fall in love and remain in love. In the same way, surely, what friends find most choiceworthy is living together. For friendship is community, and we are related to our friend as we are related to ourselves. Hence, since the perception of our own being is choiceworthy, so is the perception of our friend’s being. Perception is active when we live with [35] him; hence, not surprisingly, this is what we seek. [1172a]

Whatever someone [regards as] his being, or the end for which he chooses to be alive, that is the activity he wishes to pursue in his friend’s company. Hence some friends drink together, others play dice, while others do gymnastics and go hunting, or do philosophy. [5] They spend their days together on whichever pursuit in life they like most; for since they want to live with their friends, they share the actions in which they find their common life.

Hence the friendship of base people turns out to be vicious. For they are unstable, and share base [10] pursuits; and by becoming similar to each other, they grow vicious. But the friendship of decent people is decent, and increases the more often they meet. And they seem to become still better from their activities and their mutual correction. For each molds the other in what they approve of, so that ‘[you will learn] what is noble from noble people.’

So much, then, for friendship. The next task will [15] be to discuss pleasure.

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BOOK X

4 What, then, or what kind of thing, is pleasure? This [1174a] will become clearer if we take it up again from the beginning. For seeing seems to be complete at any time, since it has no need for anything else to [15] complete its form by coming to be at a later time. And pleasure is also like this, since it is some sort of whole, and no pleasure is to be found at any time that will have its form completed by coming to be for a longer time.

That is why pleasure is not a process either. For every process, such as constructing a building, takes [20] time, and aims at some end, and is complete when it produces the product it seeks, or, [in other words, is complete] in this whole time [that it takes]. Moreover, each process is incomplete during the processes that are its parts, i.e., during the time it goes on; and it consists of processes that are different in form from the whole process and from one another.

For laying stones together and fluting a column [25] are different processes; and both are different from the [whole] production of the temple. For the production of the temple is a complete production, since it needs nothing further [when it is finished] to achieve the proposed goal; but the production of the foundation or the triglyph is an incomplete production, since [when it is finished] it is [the production] of a part. Hence [processes that are parts of larger processes] differ in form; and we cannot find a process complete in form at any time [while it is going on], but [only], if at all, in the whole time [that it takes].

[30] The same is true of walking and the other [processes]. For if locomotion is a process from one place to another, it includes locomotions differing in form — flying, walking, jumping, and so on. And besides these differences, there are differences in walking itself. For the place from which and the place to which are not the same in the whole racecourse as they are in a part of it, or the same in one part as in [1174b] another; nor is travelling along one line the same as travelling along another, since what we cover is not just a line, but a line in a [particular] place, and this line and that line are in different places.

Now we have discussed process exactly elsewhere. But, at any rate, a process, it would seem, is not [5] complete at every time; and the many [constituent] processes are incomplete, and differ in form, since the place from which and the place to which make the form of a process [and different processes begin and end in different places].

The form of pleasure, by contrast, is complete at any time. Clearly, then, it is different from a process, and is something whole and complete. This also seems true because a process must take time, but [10] being pleased need not; for what is present in an instant is a whole. This also makes it clear that it is wrong to say that pleasure is a process or a becoming. For this is not said of everything, but only of what is divisible and not a whole; for seeing, or a point, or a unit, has no coming to be, and none of these is either a process or a becoming. But pleasure is a whole; hence it too has no coming to be.

Every perceptual capacity is active in relation to [15] its perceptible object, and completely active when it is in good condition in relation to the finest of its perceptible objects. For this above all seems to be the character of complete activity, whether it is ascribed to the capacity or to the subject that has it. Hence for each capacity the best activity is the activity of the subject in the best condition in relation to the best object of the capacity.

This activity will also be the most complete and [20] the most pleasant. For every perceptual capacity and every sort of thought and study has its pleasure; the most pleasant activity is the most complete; and the most complete is the activity of the subject in good condition in relation to the most excellent object of the capacity. Pleasure completes the activity.

But the way in which pleasure completes the [25] activity is not the way in which the perceptible object and the perceptual capacity complete it when they are both excellent—just as health and the doctor are not the cause of being healthy in the same way.

Clearly a pleasure arises that corresponds to each perceptual capacity, since we say that sights and sounds are pleasant; and clearly it arises most of all whenever the perceptual capacity is best, and is active in relation to the best sort of object. When this is the [30] condition of the perceptible object and of the perceiving subject, there will always be pleasure, when the producer and the subject to be affected are both present.

Pleasure completes the activity—not, however, as the state does, by being present [in the activity], but as a sort of consequent end, like the bloom on youths. Hence as long as the objects of understanding or perception

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and the subject that judges or attends [1175a] are in the right condition, there will be pleasure in the activity. For as long as the subject affected and the productive [cause] remain similar and in the same relation to each other, the same thing naturally arises.

Then how is it that no one is continuously pleased? [5] Is it not because we get tired? For nothing human is capable of continuous activity, and hence no continuous pleasure arises either, since pleasure is a consequence of the activity. Some things delight us when they are new to us, but later delight us less, for the same reason. For at first our thought is stimulated and intensely active toward them, as our sense of sight [10] is when we look closely at something; but later the activity becomes lax and careless, so that the pleasure fades also.

Why does everyone desire pleasure? We might think it is because everyone also aims at being alive. Living is a type of activity, and each of us is active toward the objects he likes most and in the ways he likes most. The musician, for instance, activates his hearing in hearing melodies; the lover of learning [15] activates his thought in thinking about objects of study; and so on for each of the others. Pleasure completes their activities, and hence completes life, which they desire. It is reasonable, then, that they also aim at pleasure, since it completes each person’s life for him, and life is choiceworthy.

But do we choose life because of pleasure, or pleasure because of life? Let us set aside this question for [20] now, since the two appear to be combined and to allow no separation; for pleasure never arises without activity, and, equally, it completes every activity.

5 Hence pleasures also seem to differ in species. For we suppose that things of different species are completed by different things. That is how it appears, both with natural things and with artifacts—for instance, with [25] animals, trees, a painting, a statue, a house, or an implement. Similarly, activities that differ in species are also completed by things that differ in species. Now activities of thought differ in species from activities of the capacities for perception, and so do these from each other; so also, then, do the pleasures that complete them.

[30] This is also apparent from the way each pleasure is proper to the activity that it completes. For the proper pleasure increases the activity; for we judge each thing better and more exactly when our activity involves pleasure. If, for instance, we enjoy doing geometry, we become better geometers, and understand each question better; and similarly lovers of [35] music, building, and so on improve at their proper [1175b] function when they enjoy it. Each pleasure increases the activity; what increases it is proper to it; and since the activities are different in species, what is proper to them is also different in species.

This is even more apparent from the way some activities are impeded by pleasures from others. For lovers of flutes, for instance, cannot pay attention to a conversation if they catch the sound of someone playing the flute, because they enjoy flute playing more than their present activity; and so the pleasure proper to flute playing destroys the activity of conversation.

The same is true in other cases also, whenever we are engaged in two activities at once. For the more pleasant activity pushes out the other one, all the [10] more if it is much more pleasant, so that we no longer even engage in the other activity. Hence if we are enjoying one thing intensely, we do not do another very much. It is when we are only mildly pleased that we do something else; for instance, people who eat nuts in theatres do this most when the actors are bad.

Since, then, the proper pleasure makes an activity [15] more exact, longer, and better, whereas an alien pleasure damages it, clearly the two pleasures differ widely. For an alien pleasure does virtually what a proper pain does. The proper pain destroys activity, so that, if, for instance, writing or rational calculation has no pleasure and is in fact painful for us, we do not write or calculate, since the activity is painful. Hence the [20] proper pleasures and pains have contrary effects on an activity; and the proper ones are those that arise from the activity in itself. And as we have said, the effect of alien pleasures is similar to the effect of pain, since they ruin the activity, though not in the same way as pain.

Since activities differ in degrees of decency and [25] badness, and some are choiceworthy, some to be avoided, some neither, the same is true of pleasures; for each activity has its own proper pleasure. Hence the pleasure proper to an excellent activity is decent, and the one proper to a base activity is vicious; for, similarly, appetites for fine things are praiseworthy, and appetites for shameful things are blameworthy. [30] And in fact the pleasure in an activity is more proper to it than the desire for it. For the desire is distinguished from it in time and in nature; but the pleasure is close to the activity, and so little distinguished from it that disputes arise about whether the activity is the same as the pleasure.

Still, pleasure would seem to be neither thought nor perception, since that would be absurd. Rather, [35] it

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is because [pleasure and activity] are not separated [1176a] that to some people they appear the same. Hence, just as activities differ, so do the pleasures. Sight differs from touch in purity, as hearing and smell do from taste; hence the pleasures also differ in the same way. So also do the pleasures of thought differ from these [pleasure of sense]; and both sorts have different kinds within them.

Each kind of animal seems to have its own proper pleasure, just as it has its own proper function; for the proper pleasure will be the one that corresponds to its [5] activity. This is apparent if we also study each kind; for a horse, a dog, and a human being have different pleasures, and, as Heraclitus says, an ass would choose chaff over gold, since asses find food more pleasant than gold. Hence animals that differ in species also have pleasures that differ in species; and it would be reasonable for animals of the same species to have the same pleasures also.

[10] In fact, however, the pleasures differ quite a lot, in human beings at any rate. For the same things delight some people, and cause pain to others; and while some find them painful and hateful, others find them pleasant and lovable. The same is true of sweet things. For the same things do not seem sweet to a feverish and to a healthy person, or hot to an enfeebled [15] and to a vigorous person; and the same is true of other things.

But in all such cases it seems that what is really so is what appears so to the excellent person. If this is right, as it seems to be, and virtue, i.e., the good person insofar as he is good, is the measure of each thing, then what appear pleasures to him will also really be pleasures, and what is pleasant will be what he enjoys.

[20] And if what he finds objectionable appears pleasant to someone, that is not at all surprising; for human beings suffer many sorts of corruption and damage. It is not pleasant, however, except to these people in these conditions. Clearly, then, we should say that the pleasures agreed to be shameful are not pleasures at all, except to corrupted people.

[25] But what about those pleasures that seem to be decent? Of these, which kind, or which particular pleasure, should we take to be the pleasure of a human being? Surely it will be clear from the activities, since the pleasures are consequences of these. Hence the pleasures that complete the activities of the complete and blessedly happy man, whether he has one activity or more than one, will be called the fully human pleasures to the fullest extent. The other pleasures will be human in secondary, or even more remote ways, corresponding to the character of the activities.

6 We have now finished our discussion of the types of [30] virtue; of friendship; and of pleasure. It remains for us to discuss happiness in outline, since we take this to be the end of human [aims]. Our discussion will be shorter if we first take up again what we said before.

We said, then, that happiness is not a state. For if it were, someone might have it and yet be asleep for his [35] whole life, living the life of a plant, or suffer the greatest misfortunes. If we do not approve of this, we count [1176b] happiness as an activity rather than a state, as we said before.

Some activities are necessary, i.e., choiceworthy for some other end, while others are choiceworthy in their own right. Clearly, then, we should count happiness as one of those activities that are choiceworthy in [5] their own right, not as one of those choiceworthy for some other end. For happiness lacks nothing, but is self- sufficient.

An activity is choiceworthy in its own right if nothing further apart from it is sought from it. This seems to be the character of actions in accord with virtue; for doing fine and excellent actions is choiceworthy for itself. But pleasant amusements also [seem to be [10] choiceworthy in their own right]; for they are not chosen for other ends, since they actually cause more harm than benefit, by causing neglect of our bodies and possessions. Moreover, most of those people congratulated for their happiness resort to these sorts of pastimes. That is why people who are witty participants in them have a good reputation with tyrants, [15] since they offer themselves as pleasant [partners] in the tyrant’s aims, and these are the sort of people the tyrant requires. And so these amusements seem to have the character of happiness because people in supreme power spend their leisure in them.

These sorts of people, however, are presumably no evidence. For virtue and understanding, the sources of excellent activities, do not depend on holding [20] supreme power. Further, these powerful people have had no taste of pure and civilized pleasure, and so they resort to bodily pleasures. But that is no reason to think these pleasures are most choiceworthy, since boys also think that the things they honor are best. Hence, just as different things appear honorable to boys and to men, it is reasonable that in the same way different things appear honorable to base and to decent people.

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[25] As we have often said, then, what is honorable and pleasant is what is so to the excellent person. To each type of person the activity that accords with his own proper state is most choiceworthy; hence the activity in accord with virtue is most choiceworthy to the excellent person [and hence is most honorable and pleasant].

Happiness, then, is not found in amusement; for [30] it would be absurd if the end were amusement, and our lifelong efforts and sufferings aimed at amusing ourselves. For we choose practically everything for some other end—except for happiness, since it is [the] end; but serious work and toil aimed [only] at amusement appears stupid and excessively childish. Rather, it seems correct to amuse ourselves so that we can do something serious, as Anacharsis says;30 [35] for amusement would seem to be relaxation, and it is because we cannot toil continuously that we require relaxation. Relaxation, then, is not [the] end; for we [1177a] pursue it [to prepare] for activity. But the happy life seems to be a life in accord with virtue, which is a life involving serious actions, and not consisting in amusement.

Besides, we say that things to be taken seriously [5] are better than funny things that provide amusement, and that in each case the activity of the better part and the better person is more serious and excellent; and the activity of what is better is superior, and thereby has more the character of happiness.

Besides, anyone at all, even a slave, no less than the best person, might enjoy bodily pleasures; but no one would allow that a slave shares in happiness, if one does not [also allow that the slave shares in the sort of] life [needed for happiness]. Happiness, then, [10] is found not in these pastimes, but in the activities in accord with virtue, as we also said previously.

7 If happiness is activity in accord with virtue, it is reasonable for it to accord with the supreme virtue, [15] which will be the virtue of the best thing. The best is understanding, or whatever else seems to be the natural ruler and leader, and to understand what is fine and divine, by being itself either divine or the most divine element in us. Hence complete happiness will be its activity in accord with its proper virtue; and we have said that this activity is the activity of study.

This seems to agree with what has been said before, and also with the truth. For this activity is supreme, [20] since understanding is the supreme element in us, and the objects of understanding are the supreme objects of knowledge.

Further, it is the most continuous activity, since we are more capable of continuous study than any continuous action.

Besides, we think pleasure must be mixed into happiness; and it is agreed that the activity in accord [25] with wisdom is the most pleasant of the activities in accord with virtue. Certainly, philosophy seems to have remarkably pure and firm pleasures, and it is reasonable for those who have knowledge to spend their lives more pleasantly than those who seek it.

Moreover, the self-sufficiency we spoke of will be found in study more than in anything else. For admittedly the wise person, the just person, and the other virtuous people all need the good things necessary for life. Still, when these are adequately supplied, the [30] just person needs other people as partners and recipients of his just actions; and the same is true of the temperate person, the brave person, and each of the others. But the wise person is able, and more able the wiser he is, to study even by himself; and though [1177b] he presumably does it better with colleagues, even so he is more self-sufficient than any other [virtuous person].

Besides, study seems to be liked because of itself alone, since it has no result beyond having studied. But from the virtues concerned with action we try to a greater or lesser extent to gain something beyond the action itself.

Besides, happiness seems to be found in leisure; [5] for we deny ourselves leisure so that we can be at leisure, and fight wars so that we can be at peace. Now the virtues concerned with action have their activities in politics or war, and actions here seem to require trouble. This seems completely true for actions in war, since no one chooses to fight a war, [10] and no one continues it, for the sake of fighting a war; for someone would have to be a complete murderer if he made his friends his enemies so that there could be battles and killings. But the actions of the politician [15] also deny us leisure; apart from political activities themselves, those actions seek positions of power and honors, or at least they seek happiness for the politician himself and for his fellow citizens, which is something different from political science itself, and clearly is sought on the assumption that it is different.

Hence among actions in accord with the virtues those in politics and war are preeminently fine and great;

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but they require trouble, aim at some [further] end, and are choiceworthy for something other than [20] themselves. But the activity of understanding, it seems, is superior in excellence because it is the activity of study, aims at no end apart from itself, and has its own proper pleasure, which increases the activity. Further, self-sufficiency, leisure, unwearied activity (as far as is possible for a human being), and any other features ascribed to the blessed person, are evidently [25] features of this activity. Hence a human being’s complete happiness will be this activity, if it receives a complete span of life, since nothing incomplete is proper to happiness.

Such a life would be superior to the human level. For someone will live it not insofar as he is a human being, but insofar as he has some divine element in him. And the activity of this divine element is as much superior to the activity in accord with the rest of virtue [30] as this element is superior to the compound. Hence if understanding is something divine in comparison with a human being, so also will the life in accord with understanding be divine in comparison with human life. We ought not to follow the makers of proverbs and ‘Think human, since you are human,’ or ‘Think mortal, since you are mortal.’ Rather, as far as we can, we ought to be pro-immortal, and go to all lengths to live a life in accord with our supreme [1178a] element; for however much this element may lack in bulk, by much more it surpasses everything in power and value.

Moreover, each person seems to be his understanding, if he is his controlling and better element. It would be absurd, then, if he were to choose not [5] his own life, but something else’s. And what we have said previously will also apply now. For what is proper to each thing’s nature is supremely best and most pleasant for it; and hence for human being the life in accord with understanding will be supremely best and most pleasant, if understanding, more than anything else, is the human being. This life, then, will also be happiest.

8 The life in accord with the other kind of virtue [i.e., the kind concerned with action] is [happiest] [10] in a secondary way, because the activities in accord with this virtue are human. For we do just and brave actions, and the other actions in accord with the virtues, in relation to other people, by abiding by what fits each person in contracts, services, all types of actions, and also in feelings; and all these appear to be human conditions. Indeed, some feelings actually [15] seem to arise from the body; and in many ways virtue of character seems to be proper to feelings.

Besides, prudence is inseparable from virtue of character, and virtue of character from prudence. For the principles of prudence accord with the virtues of character; and correctness in virtues of character accords with prudence. And since these virtues are [20] also connected to feelings, they are concerned with the compound. Since the virtues of the compound are human virtues, the life and the happiness in accord with these virtues is also human. The virtue of understanding, however, is separated [from the compound]. Let us say no more about it, since an exact account would be too large a task for our present project.

Moreover, it seems to need external supplies [25] very little, or [at any rate] less than virtue of character needs them. For let us grant that they both need necessary goods, and to the same extent; for there will be only a very small difference, even though the politician labors more about the body and suchlike. Still, there will be a large difference in [what is needed] for the [proper] activities [of each type of virtue]. For [30] the generous person will need money for generous actions; and the just person will need it for paying debts, since wishes are not clear, and people who are not just pretend to wish to do justice. Similarly, the brave person will need enough power, and the temperate person will need freedom [to do intemperate actions], if they are to achieve anything that the virtue requires. For how else will they, or any other virtuous people, make their virtue clear?

[35] Moreover, it is disputed whether decision or action [1178b] is more in control of virtue, on the assumption that virtue depends on both. Well, certainly it is clear that the complete [good] depends on both; but for actions many external goods are needed, and the greater and finer the actions the more numerous are the external good needed.

But someone who is studying needs none of these goods, for that activity at least, indeed, for study at least, we might say they are even hindrances. Insofar [5] as he is a human being, however, and [hence] lives together with a number of other human beings, he chooses to do the actions that accord with virtue. Hence he will need the sorts of external goods [that are needed for the virtues], for living a human life.

In another way also it appears that complete happiness [10] is some activity of study. For we traditionally suppose that the gods more than anyone are blessed and happy; but what sorts of actions ought we to ascribe to them? Just actions? Surely they will appear ridiculous making contracts, returning deposits, and so on. Brave actions? Do they endure what [they find] frightening and endure dangers because it is fine? Generous

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actions? Whom will they give to? And [15] surely it would be absurd for them to have currency or anything like that. What would their temperate actions be? Surely it is vulgar praise to say that they do not have base appetites. When we go through them all, anything that concerns actions appears trivial and unworthy of the gods. Nonetheless, we all traditionally [20] suppose that they are alive and active, since surely they are not asleep like Endymion.31 Then if someone is alive, and action is excluded, and production even more, what is left but study? Hence the gods’ activity that is superior in blessedness will be an activity of study. And so the human activity that is most akin to the gods’ activity will, more than any others, have the character of happiness.

[25] A sign of this is the fact that other animals have no share in happiness, being completely deprived of this activity of study. For the whole life of the gods is blessed, and human life is blessed to the extent that it has something resembling this sort of activity; but none of the other animals is happy, because none of them shares in study at all. Hence happiness extends just as far as study extends, and the more someone [30] studies, the happier he is, not coincidentally but insofar as he studies, since study is valuable in itself. And so [on this argument] happiness will be some kind of study.

But happiness will need external prosperity also, since we are human beings; for our nature is not self- sufficient [35] for study, but we need a healthy body, and need to have food and the other services provided. Still, even though no one can be blessedly happy [1179a] without external goods, we must not think that to be happy we will need many large goods. For self-sufficiency and action do not depend on excess.

Moreover, we can do fine actions even if we do not rule earth and sea; for even from moderate resources [5] we can do the actions that accord with virtue. This is evident to see, since many private citizens seem to do decent actions no less than people in power do— even more, in fact. It is enough if moderate resources are provided; for the life of someone whose activity accords with virtue will be happy.

Solon surely described happy people well, when [10] he said they had been moderately supplied with external goods, had done what he regarded as the finest actions, and had lived their lives temperately. For it is possible to have moderate possessions and still to do the right actions. And Anaxagoras would seem to have supposed that the happy person was neither rich [15] nor powerful, since he said he would not be surprised if the happy person appeared an absurd sort of person to the many. For the many judge by externals, since these are all they perceive. Hence the beliefs of the wise would seem to accord with our arguments.

These considerations, then, produce some confidence. But the truth in questions about action is [20] judged from what we do and how we live, since these are what control [the answers to such questions]. Hence we ought to examine what has been said by applying it to what we do and how we live; and if it harmonizes with what we do, we should accept it, but if it conflicts we should count it [mere] words.

The person whose activity accords with understanding and who takes care of understanding would seem to be in the best condition, and most loved by [25] the gods. For if the gods pay some attention to human beings, as they seem to, it would be reasonable for them to take pleasure in what is best and most akin to them, namely understanding; and reasonable for them to benefit in return those who most of all like and honor understanding, on the assumption that [30] these people attend to what is beloved by the gods, and act correctly and finely. Clearly, all this is true of the wise person more than anyone else; hence he is most loved by the gods. And it is likely that this same person will be happiest; hence, by this argument also, the wise person, more than anyone else, will be happy.

9 We have now said enough in outlines about happiness [35] and the virtues, and about friendship and pleasure also. Should we, then, think that our decision [to [1179b] study these] has achieved its end? On the contrary, the aim of studies about action, as we say, is surely not to study and know about a given thing, but rather to act on our knowledge. Hence knowing about virtue is not enough, but we must also try to possess and exercise virtue, or become good in any other way.

[5] Now if arguments were sufficient by themselves to make people decent, the rewards they would command would justifiably have been many and large, as Theognis says, and rightly bestowed. In fact, however, arguments seem to have enough influence to stimulate and encourage the civilized ones among the young people, and perhaps to make virtue take possession of a well-born character that truly loves [10] what is fine; but they seem unable to turn the many toward being fine and good.

For the many naturally obey fear, not shame; they avoid what is base because of the penalties, not because it is disgraceful. For since they live by their feelings, they pursue their proper pleasures and the [15] sources of

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them, and avoid the opposed pains, and have not even a notion of what is fine and [hence] truly pleasant, since they have had no taste of it.

What argument, then, could reform people like these? For it is impossible, or not easy, to alter by argument what has long been absorbed as a result of one’s habits. But, presumably, we should be satisfied to achieve some share in virtue if we already have what we seem to need to become decent.

[20] Now some think it is nature that makes people good; some think it is habit; some that it is teaching. The [contribution] of nature clearly is not up to us, but results from some divine cause in those who have it, who are truly the fortunate ones. Arguments and teaching surely do not prevail on everyone, but the [25] soul of the student needs to have been prepared by habits for enjoying and hating finely, like ground that is to nourish seed. For someone who lives in accord with his feelings would not even listen to an argument turning him away, or comprehend it [if he did listen]; and in that state how could he be persuaded to change? And in general feelings seem to yield to [30] force, not to argument. Hence we must already in some way have a character suitable for virtue, fond of what is fine and objecting to what is shameful.

It is difficult, however, for someone to be trained correctly for virtue from his youth if he has not been brought up under correct laws; for the many, especially the young, do not find it pleasant to live in a temperate and resistant way. That is why laws must [15] prescribe their upbringing and practices; for they will not find these things painful when they get used to them.

Presumably, however, it is not enough if they get [1180a] the correct upbringing and attention when they are young; rather, they must continue the same practices and be habituated to them when they become men. Hence we need laws concerned with these things also, and in general with all of life. For the many yield [5] to compulsion more than to argument, and to sanctions more than to the fine.

That is why legislators must, in some people’s view, urge people toward virtue and exhort them to aim at the fine — on the assumption that anyone whose good habits have prepared him decently will listen to them —but must impose corrective treatments and penalties on anyone who disobeys or lacks [10] the right nature, and must completely expel an incurable. For the decent person, it is assumed, will attend to reason because his life aims at the fine, whereas the base person, since he desires pleasure, has to receive corrective treatment by pain, like a beast of burden. That is why it is said that the pains imposed must be those most contrary to the pleasures he likes.

As we have said, then, someone who is to be good [15] must be finely brought up and habituated, and then must live in decent practices, doing base actions neither willingly nor unwillingly. And this will be true if his life follows some sort of understanding and correct order that prevails on him.

Now a father’s instructions lack this power to [20] prevail and compel; and so in general do the instructions of an individual man, unless he is a king or someone like that. Law, however, has the power that compels; and law is reason that proceeds from a sort of prudence and understanding. Besides, people become hostile to an individual human being who opposes their impulses, even if he is correct in opposing them, whereas a law’s prescription of what is decent is not burdensome.

[25] And yet, it is only in Sparta, or in a few other cities as well, that the legislator seems to have attended to upbringing and practices. In most other cities they are neglected, and an individual lives as he wishes, ‘laying down the rules for his children and wife,’ like a Cyclops.32

[30] It is best, then, if the community attends to upbringing, and attends correctly. But if the community neglects it, it seems fitting for each individual to promote the virtue of his children and his friends—to be able to do it, or at least to decide to do it. From what we have said, however, it seems he will be better able to do it if he acquires legislative science. For, clearly, attention by the community works through [35] laws, and decent attention works through excellent [1180b] laws; and whether the laws are written or unwritten, for the education of one or of many, seems unimportant, as it is in music, gymnastics, and other practices. For just as in a city the provisions of law and the types [5] of character [found in that city] have influence, similarly a father’s words and habits have influence, and all the more because of kinship and because of the benefits he does; for his children are already fond of him and naturally ready to obey.

Further, education adapted to an individual is actually better than a common education for everyone, just as individualized medical treatment is better. For though generally a feverish patient benefits [10] from rest and starvation, presumably some patient does not; nor does the boxing instructor impose the same way of fighting on everyone. Hence it seems that treatment in particular cases is more exactly right when each person gets special attention, since he then more often gets the suitable treatment.

Nonetheless a doctor, a gymnastics trainer, and everyone else will give the best individual attention [15] if

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they also know universally what is good for all, or for these sorts. For sciences are said to be, and are, of what is common [to many particular cases]. Admittedly someone without scientific knowledge may well attend properly to a single person, if his experience has allowed him to take exact note of what happens in a given case, just as some people seem to be their own best doctors, though unable to help anyone else [20] at all. Nonetheless, presumably, it seems that someone who wants to be an expert in a craft and a branch of study should progress to the universal, and come to know that, as far as possible; for that, as we have said, is what the sciences are about.

Then perhaps also someone who wishes to make people better by his attention, many people or few, [25] should try to acquire legislative science, if laws are a means to make us good. For not just anyone can improve the condition of just anyone, or the person presented to him; but if someone can, it is the person with knowledge, just as in medical science and the others that require attention and prudence.

Next, then, should we examine whence and how [30] someone might acquire legislative science? Just as in other cases [we go to the practitioner], should we go to the politicians, since, as we saw, legislative science seems to be a part of political science? Or does the case of political science appear different from the other sciences and capacities? For evidently, in the other cases, the same people, such as doctors or painters, [35] who transmit the capacity to others actively practice [1181a] it themselves. By contrast, it is the Sophists who advertise that they teach politics but none of them practices it. Instead, those who practice it are the political activists, and they seem to act on some sort of capacity and experience rather than thought.

For evidently they neither write nor speak on such questions, though presumably it would be finer to [5] do this than to compose speeches for the law courts or the Assembly; nor have they made politicians out of their own sons or any other friends of theirs. But it would be reasonable for them to do this if they were able; for there is nothing better than the political capacity that they could leave to their cities, and nothing better that they could decide to produce in themselves, or, therefore, in their closest friends.

[10] Nonetheless, experience would seem to contribute quite a lot; otherwise people would not have become better politicians by familiarity with politics. That is why those who aim to know about political science would seem to need experience as well.

By contrast, those of the Sophists who advertise [that they teach political science] appear to be a long way from teaching; for they are altogether ignorant about the sort of thing political science is, and the [15] sorts of things it is about. For if they had known what it is, they would not have taken it to be the same as rhetoric, or something inferior to it, or thought it an easy task to assemble the laws with good reputations and then legislate. For they think they can select the best laws, as though the selection itself did not require comprehension, and as though correct judgment were not the most important thing, as it is in music.

[20] [They are wrong;] for those with experience in each area judge the products correctly and comprehend the ways and means of completing them, and what fits with what; for if we lack experience, we must be satisfied with noticing that the product is well or [1181b] badly made, as with painting. Now laws would seem to be the products of political science; how, then, could someone acquire legislative science, or judge which laws are best, from laws alone? For neither do we appear to become experts in medicine by reading textbooks.

And yet doctors not only try to describe the [recognized] treatments, but also distinguish different [bodily] states, and try to say how each type of patient [5] might be cured and must be treated. And what they say seems to be useful to the experienced, though useless to the ignorant. Similarly, then, collections of laws and political systems33 might also, presumably, be most useful if we are capable of studying them and of judging what is done finely or in the contrary way, and what sorts of [elements] fit with what. Those who lack the [proper] state [of experience] when they go [10] through these collections will not manage to judge finely, unless they can do it all by themselves [without training], though they might come to comprehend them better by going through them.

Since, then, our predecessors have left the area of legislation uncharted, it is presumably better to examine it ourselves instead, and indeed to examine political [15] systems in general, and so to complete the philosophy of human affairs, as far as we are able.

First, then, let us try to review any sound remarks our predecessors have made on particular topics. Then let us study the collected political systems, to see from them what sorts of things preserve and destroy cities, and political systems of different types; [20] and what causes some cities to conduct politics well, and some badly. For when we have studied these questions, we will perhaps grasp better what sort of political system is best; how each political system should be organized so as to be best; and what habits and laws it should follow.

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Let us discuss this, then, starting from the beginning.34

*Reprinted from Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, second edition, translated by Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999), by permission of the publisher. The use of brackets within the text indicates insertions not found in the manuscript.

1. [Regarding Hesiod, see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.13. — S.M.C.]

2. [According to legend, Sardanapallus was an Assyrian ruler who lived in great luxury.]

3. [Regarding the Pythagoreans, see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.7.]

4. [Regarding Speusippus, see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.20.]

5. [Priam was the legendary king of Troy at the time of its destruction by the Greeks, as related in Homer’s Iliad.]

6. [Solon (c. 639–c. 559 B.C.) was an Athenian statesman and a wise lawgiver.]

7. [Regarding Heraclitus, see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.8.]

8. [Milo was a sixth-century-B.C. Greek wrestler of legendary strength.]

9. [The play by the great fifth-century-B.C. Greek dramatists is not extant. According to Greek mythology, Alcmaeon killed his mother to avenge the death of his father.]

10. [The Greek dramatists Aeschylus is said to have been accused but then acquitted of revealing rites of a secret religious cult.]

11. [In a lost play of Euripides, Merope, not recognizing his son, nearly slays him.]

12. [The Scythians were an association of central Asian tribes, renowned for their horsemanship and decorative horse trappings, who penetrated into eastern Europe in the first millennium B.C.”

13. [Members of a group of tribes who, armed with iron weapons and mounted on horses, spread rapidly over Europe and the British Isles in the second millennium B.C.]

14. Iliad XXII.100; VIII.148–49.]

15. [The incident occurred in 353 B.C., when mercenaries paid to defend the citizens of Coronea in Boeotia deserted and left the citizen troops to be killed by invaders.]

16. [Iliad XI.11; XIV.151; XVI.529; V.470; XV 232, 594; Odyssey XXIV.318–19. The last phrase is not Homeric but known to us only in Idyll XX.15 by the post-Aristotelian poet Theocritus.

17. [In a battle in 392 B.C. the Spartans were wearing shields taken from their fleeing Sicyonian allies. The Argives, upon discovering the identity of their opponents, fled. The incident is related in Hellenica IV.4.10 by the Greek historian Xenophon (c. 430 B.C.–C. 355 B.C.).

18. [The quotation is thought to be from Euripides’ lost play Melanippe.]

19. [The quotation derives from the work of Theognis, regarding whom see Plato’s Meno, n.18.]

20. [Bias of Priene was a sixth-century-B.C. Ionian statesman and one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, who distinguished themselves in public affairs. His most famous saying was “Most men are bad.”]

21. [Regarding Brasidas, see Plato’s Symposium, n.60.]

22. [Lesbos, a large, fertile island in the Aegean Sea near Turkey, was a brilliant cultural center.]

23. [Agathon was a fifth-century B.C. Athenian poet.]

24. [Pericles (c. 495–429 B.C.), the eminent Athenian statesman, was renowned for his incorruptible character and the wisdom of his policies. He was a staunch defender of democracy and a patron of the arts.]

25. [Regarding Anaxagoras, see Plato’s Apology, n.7.]

26. [Regarding Thales, see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.3.]

27. [The quotation is from the Iliad.]

28. [Regarding Empedocles, see Plato’s Meno, n.6.]

29. [Epicharmus was a fifth-century-B.C. Sicilian comic poet.]

30. [Anacharsis was a sixth-century-B.C. Scythian prince of legendary wisdom.]

31. [According to Greek mythology, Endymion was a remarkably beautiful young man who was placed into everlasting sleep by the Moon so that she might embrace him each night.]

32. [The reference is to Homer’s Odyssey, in which the Cyclopes were portrayed as savage, one-eyed giants living without government or laws.]

33. [Aristotle supervised a collection of the constitutional histories of 158 Greek states, of which only one, the Constitution of Athens, is extant.]

34. [Here the Nicomachean Ethics ends, reminding us that for Aristotle the study of ethics is inseparable from the study of political philosophy.]

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Epicurus

Epicurus (341–271 B.C.) was born on the island of Samos of Athenian parents and was thus counted as an Athenian citizen. In order to fulfill his military obligations, he went to Athens in 323, the year in which Aristotle fled Athens, fearing anti-Macedonian sentiment after the death of Alexander the Great. However, even in Aristotle’s absence Athens remained the center for philosophical activity, and Epicurus most certainly became familiar with Platonism and Aristotelianism. The death of Alexander brought about a good deal of political turmoil, some of which affected Epicurus directly. While he was in Athens, his family was evicted from Samos by the Macedonians, as were other Athenian colonists. It may be that Epicurus’ evident antipathy to politics began with these events. In any case Epicureanism and the public life do not mix: the latter would upset the tranquillity required by the former.

Epicurus’ family migrated to Colophon, in Asia Minor, and Epicurus rejoined them in 321. He spent the next ten years in Colophon, where he came under the tutelage of Nausiphanes, who espoused a version of atomism, a philosophy that had been founded by Leucippus (fifth century B.C.) and Democritus of Abdera (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.). Epicurus himself became a convert to atomism, but his atomism differed from that of his predecessors.

Epicurus’ version of atomism contended that the universe is composed of only two kinds of things: bodies and the void. That bodies exist is a matter of observation. The existence of the void or empty space is necessary in order for bodies to move. Bodies of visible size are compounded out of bodies of invisible size, namely, atoms. It is impossible for anything to come into existence out of nothing, and it is impossible for anything to pass into nothingness. Therefore what exists always has existed and always will exist. Now many visible bodies are not everlasting; they can be cut up and disintegrated. But since it is impossible for anything to come out of or pass into nothingness, it must be that at least the ultimate parts or atoms of a visible body are not subject to creation, decomposition, or disintegration; that is, the atoms are everlasting. (Epicurus’ arguments explaining why there should be ultimate parts at all and why, if they do exist, they are too small to be seen, are obscure.)

Epicurus’ infinitely many atoms possess only three variable qualities. They can differ from each other in size, shape, and weight. Some atoms are larger than others, although none of them is big enough to be seen, and none is infinitely small. Some atoms are heavier than others, but the differences in weight do not result in differences in velocity among various atoms. In fact, all atoms move at exactly the same velocity as they fall directly downward through infinite space and infinite time. If all atoms followed parallel downward paths at the same speed, however, they would never interact with each other, and thus nothing would ever change. In order to avoid that difficulty, Epicurus claimed that the atoms occasionally swerve in a random way from their downward paths. When atoms swerve, they may strike other atoms, thus setting off whole series of collisions. Visible objects are the results of such collisions. These objects are systems of atoms that, for some time, display cohesiveness due to a kind of dynamic equilibrium. But, insisted Epicurus, such systems of atoms, no matter how large and well behaved, are the result of purely mechanical causes. There is no design or providence in the universe. Everything that exists can be explained in principle by the motions of atoms in empty space. Nor is the present world-order in which we find ourselves everlasting. It is, like every visible object in it, a collection of atoms that for the present time exists in a dynamic equilibrium, but that will eventually disperse.

Epicurus regarded his atomic theory as the key to his moral theory. The moral theory was epitomized in antiquity as follows: the gods are not to be feared, death is not to be feared, pleasure is easy to obtain, and it is easy to endure pain. The gods, who are also nothing more than collections of atoms, are not to be feared because they have utterly no concern for the affairs of humans. To have any concern would be to spoil their divine tranquillity. Death is not to be feared because it is simply the dissolution of the atomic structure that makes up the soul, and when that happens, one ceases to exist. Thus one can be confident that no pain will be experienced after death.

The pursuit of pleasure is natural in humans, according to Epicurus, and in fact, a person ought always to seek pleasure. But an Epicurean is not an epicure, one devoted to pleasing the senses. The pursuit of excessive or violent pleasures can only result in pain; thus, such pleasures should be avoided. Rather, the pleasure to be sought is best characterized as the absence of pain of any kind. The most pleasant condition, according to Epicurus, is that in which one is neither hungry, thirsty, nor apprehensive, yet confident that one will remain

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in that condition. In this condition, one’s atomic structure is unperturbed. Thus, true pleasure for Epicurus does not require extravagance.

From the time Epicurus began teaching in Athens in 306 until his death, he and his followers lived an abstemious life together, but one that they regarded as approaching perfect pleasure. Once the Epicureans’ concept of pleasure is understood, one can see why they thought that pleasure is easy to obtain.

Epicurus’ attitude toward his own painful terminal illness illustrates the thesis that it is easy to endure pain. In a letter written to a disciple shortly before his death, he said that “there is set over against these pains the joy of my heart at the memory of our happy conversations in the past.”

• • •

Although Epicurus was a prolific writer, few of his writings survive. His Letter to Menoeceus and Principal Doctrines, reprinted here, give us the rudiments of his moral theory. An important source of information about Epicureanism is the Roman poet Lucretius (c. 99–c. 55 B.C.), in On the Nature of Things, translated by Martin F. Smith (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001). Important source material, along with ancient commentary (some of it hostile), is contained in Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, eds., Hellenistic Philosophy, second edition (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997). Some of this material is topically arranged in A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, eds., The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), two volumes (English translations in volume I). J. M. Rist, Epicurus: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972) is a well-balanced account. David J. Furley, Two Studies in the Greek Atomists (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967) is a more specialized but provocative work.

William E. Mann

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Letter to Menoeceus*

Epicurus to Menoeceus, greetings: Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old. For no one is either too

young or too old for the health of the soul. He who says either that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it has passed. Therefore, both young and old must philosophize, the latter so that although old he may stay young in good things owing to gratitude for what has occurred, the former so that although young he too may be like an old man owing to his lack of fear of what is to come. Therefore, one must practise the things which produce happiness, since if that is present we have everything and if it is absent we do everything in order to have it.

Do and practise what I constantly told you to do, believing these to be the elements of living well. First, believe that god is an indestructible and blessed animal, in accordance with the general conception of god commonly held, and do not ascribe to god anything foreign to his indestructibility or repugnant to his blessedness. Believe of him everything which is able to preserve his blessedness and indestructibility. For gods do exist, since we have clear knowledge of them. But they are not such as the many believe them to be. For they do not adhere to their own views about the gods. The man who denies the gods of the many is not impious, but rather he who ascribes to the gods the opinions of the many. For the pronouncements of the many about the gods are not basic grasps but false suppositions. Hence come the greatest harm from the gods to bad men and the greatest benefits [to the good]. For the gods always welcome men who are like themselves, being congenial to their own virtues and considering that whatever is not such is uncongenial.

Get used to believing that death is nothing to us. For all good and bad consists in sense-experience, and death is the privation of sense-experience. Hence, a correct knowledge of the fact that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life a matter for contentment, not by adding a limitless time [to life] but by removing the longing for immortality. For there is nothing fearful in life for one who has grasped that there is nothing fearful in the absence of life. Thus, he is a fool who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful when it is still to come. For that which while present causes no distress causes unnecessary pain when merely anticipated. So death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist. Therefore, it is relevant neither to the living nor to the dead, since it does not affect the former, and the latter do not exist. But the many sometimes flee death as the greatest of bad things and sometimes choose it as a relief from the bad things of life. But the wise man neither rejects life nor fears death. For living does not offend him, nor does he believe not living to be something bad. And just as he does not unconditionally choose the largest amount of food but the most pleasant food, so he savours not the longest time but the most pleasant. He who advises the young man to live well and the old man to die well is simple-minded, not just because of the pleasing aspects of life but because the same kind of practice produces a good life and a good death. Much worse is he who says that it is good not to be born, “but when born to pass through the gates of Hades as quickly as possible.”1 For if he really believes what he says, why doesn’t he leave life? For it is easy for him to do, if he has firmly decided on it. But if he is joking, he is wasting his time among men who don’t welcome it. We must remember that what will happen is neither unconditionally within our power nor unconditionally outside our power, so that we will not unconditionally expect that it will occur nor despair of it as unconditionally not going to occur.

One must reckon that of desires some are natural, some groundless; and of the natural desires some are necessary and some merely natural; and of the necessary, some are necessary for happiness and some for freeing the body from troubles and some for life itself. The unwavering contemplation of these enables one to refer every choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the freedom of the soul from disturbance, since this is the goal of a blessed life. For we do everything for the sake of being neither in pain nor in terror. As soon as we achieve this state every storm in the soul is dispelled, since the animal is not in a passion to go after some need nor to seek something else to complete the good of the body and the soul. For we are in need of

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pleasure only when we are in pain because of the absence of pleasure, and when we are not in pain, then we no longer need pleasure.

And this is why we say that pleasure is the startingpoint and goal of living blessedly. For we recognized this as our first innate good, and this is our starting point for every choice and avoidance and we come to this by judging every good by the criterion of feeling. And it is just because this is the first innate good, that we do not choose every pleasure; but sometimes we pass up many pleasures when we get a larger amount of what is uncongenial from them. And we believe many pains to be better than pleasures when a greater pleasure follows for a long while if we endure the pains. So every pleasure is a good thing, since it has a nature congenial [to us], but not every one is to be chosen. Just as every pain too is a bad thing, but not every one is such as to be always avoided. It is, however, appropriate to make all these decisions by comparative measurement and an examination of the advantages and disadvantages. For at some times we treat the good things as bad and conversely, the bad things as good.

And we believe that self-sufficiency is a great good, not in order that we might make do with few things under all circumstances, but so that if we do not have a lot we can make do with few, being genuinely convinced that those who least need extravagance enjoy it most; and that everything natural is easy to obtain and whatever is groundless is hard to obtain; and that simple flavours provide a pleasure equal to that of an extravagant life-style when all pain from want is removed, and barley cakes and water provide the highest pleasure when someone in want takes them. Therefore, becoming accustomed to simple, not extravagant, ways of life makes one completely healthy, makes man unhesitant in the face of life’s necessary duties, puts us in a better condition for the times of extravagance which occasionally come along, and makes us fearless in the face of chance. So when we say that pleasure is the goal we do not mean the pleasures of the profligate or the pleasures of consumption, as some believe, either from ignorance and disagreement or from deliberate misinterpretation, but rather the lack of pain in the body and disturbance in the soul. For it is not drinking bouts and continuous partying and enjoying boys and women, or consuming fish and the other dainties of an extravagant table, which produce the pleasant life, but sober calculation which searches out the reasons for every choice and avoidance and drives out the opinions which are the source of the greatest turmoil for men’s souls.

Prudence is the principle of all these things and is the greatest good. That is why prudence is a more valuable thing than philosophy. For prudence is the source of all the other virtues, teaching that it is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honourably, and justly, and impossible to live prudently, honourably, and justly without living pleasantly. For the virtues are natural adjuncts of the pleasant life and the pleasant life is inseparable from them.

For who do you believe is better than a man who has pious opinions about the gods, is always fearless about death, has reasoned out the natural goal of life and understands that the limit of good things is easy to achieve completely and easy to provide, and that the limit of bad things either has a short duration or causes little trouble?

As to [Fate], introduced by some as the mistress of all, [he is scornful, saying rather that some things happen of necessity,] others by chance and others by our own agency, and that he sees that necessity is not answerable [to anyone], that chance is unstable, while what occurs by our own agency is autonomous, and that it is to this that praise and blame are attached. For it would be better to follow the stories told about the gods than to be a slave to the fate of the natural philosophers. For the former suggests a hope of escaping bad things by honouring the gods, but the latter involves an inescapable and merciless necessity. And he [the wise man] believes that chance is not a god, as the many think, for nothing is done in a disorderly way by god; nor that it is an uncertain cause. For he does not think that anything good or bad with respect to living blessedly is given by chance to men, although it does provide the starting points of great good and bad things. And he thinks it better to be unlucky in a rational way than lucky in a senseless way; for it is better for a good decision not to turn out right in action than for a bad decision to turn out right because of chance.

Practise these and the related precepts day and night, by yourself and with a like-minded friend, and you will never be disturbed either when awake or in sleep, and you will live as a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal goods is in no respect like a mere mortal animal.

*Reprinted from Hellenistic Philosophy, translated and edited by Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1988), by permission of the publisher.

1. [Theognis 425, 427. — B.I. and L.P.G.]

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The Principal Doctrines

I. What is blessed and indestructible has no troubles itself, nor does it give trouble to anyone else, so that it is not affected by feelings of anger or gratitude. For all such things are a sign of weakness.1

II. Death is nothing to us. For what has been dissolved has no sense-experience, and what has no sense- experience is nothing to us.

III. The removal of all feeling of pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures. Wherever a pleasurable feeling is present, for as long as it is present, there is neither a feeling of pain nor a feeling of distress, nor both together.

IV. The feeling of pain does not linger continuously in the flesh; rather, the sharpest is present for the shortest time, while what merely exceeds the feeling of pleasure in the flesh lasts only a few days. And diseases which last a long time involve feelings of pleasure which exceed feelings of pain.

V. It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honourably, and justly and impossible to live prudently, honourably, and justly without living pleasantly. And whoever lacks this cannot live pleasantly.

VI. The natural good of public office and kingship is for the sake of getting confidence from [other] men, [at least] from those from whom one is able to provide this.

VII. Some men want to become famous and respected, believing that this is the way to acquire security against [other] men. Thus if the life of such men is secure, they acquire the natural good; but if it is not secure, they do not have that for the sake of which they strove from the beginning according to what is naturally congenial.

VIII. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself. But the things which produce certain pleasures bring troubles many times greater than the pleasures.

IX. If every pleasure were condensed and were present, both in time and in the whole compound [body and soul] or in the most important parts of our nature, then pleasures would never differ from one another.

X. If the things which produce the pleasures of profligate men dissolved the intellect’s fears about the phenomena of the heavens and about death and pains and, moreover, if they taught us the limit of our desires, then we would not have reason to criticize them, since they would be filled with pleasures from every source and would contain no feeling of pain or distress from any source — and that is what is bad.

XI. If our suspicions about heavenly phenomena and about death did not trouble us at all and were never anything to us, and, moreover, if not knowing the limits of pains and desires did not trouble us, then we would have no need of natural science.

XII. It was impossible for someone ignorant about the nature of the universe but still suspicious about the subjects of the myths to dissolve his feelings of fear about the most important matters. So it was impossible to receive unmixed pleasures without knowing natural science.

XIII. It was useless to obtain security from men while the things above and below the earth and, generally, the things in the unbounded remained as objects of suspicion.

XIV. The purest security is that which comes from a quiet life and withdrawal from the many, although a certain degree of security from other men does come by means of the power to repel [attacks] and by means of prosperity.

XV. Natural wealth is both limited and easy to acquire. But wealth [as defined by] groundless opinions extends without limit.

XVI. Chance has a small impact on the wise man, while reasoning has arranged for, is arranging for, and will arrange for the greatest and most important matters throughout the whole of his life.

XVII. The just life is most free from disturbance, but the unjust life is full of the greatest disturbance. XVIII. As soon as the feeling of pain produced by want is removed, pleasure in the flesh will not increase

but is only varied. But the limit of mental pleasures is produced by a reasoning out of these very pleasures [of

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the flesh] and of the things related to these, which used to cause the greatest fears in the intellect. XIX. Unlimited time and limited time contain equal [amounts of] pleasure, if one measures its limits by

reasoning. XX. The flesh took the limits of pleasure to be unlimited, and [only] an unlimited time would have

provided it. But the intellect, reasoning out the goal and limit of the flesh and dissolving the fears of eternity, provided us with the perfect way of life and had no further need of unlimited time. But it [the intellect] did not flee pleasure, and even when circumstances caused an exit from life it did not die as though it were lacking any aspect of the best life.

XXI. He who has learned the limits of life knows that it is easy to provide that which removes the feeling of pain owing to want and makes one’s whole life perfect. So there is no need for things which involve struggle.

XXII. One must reason about the real goal and every clear fact, to which we refer mere opinions. If not, everything will be full of indecision and disturbance.

XXIII. If you quarrel with all your sense-perceptions you will have nothing to refer to in judging even those sense-perceptions which you claim are false.

XXIV. If you reject unqualifiedly any sense-perception and do not distinguish the opinion about what awaits confirmation, and what is already present in the sense-perception, and the feelings, and every application of the intellect to presentations, you will also disturb the rest of your sense-perceptions with your pointless opinions; as a result you will reject every criterion. If, on the other hand, in your conceptions formed by opinion, you affirm everything that awaits confirmation as well as what does not, you will not avoid falsehood, so that you will be in the position of maintaining every disputable point in every decision about what is and is not correct.

XXV. If you do not, on every occasion, refer each of your actions to the goal of nature, but instead turn prematurely to some other [criterion] in avoiding or pursuing [things], your actions will not be consistent with your reasoning.

XXVI. The desires which do not bring a feeling of pain when not fulfilled are not necessary, but the desire for them is easy to dispel when they seem to be hard to achieve or to produce harm.

XXVII. Of the things which wisdom provides for the blessedness of one’s whole life, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship.

XXVIII. The same understanding produces confidence about there being nothing terrible which is eternal or [even] long-lasting and has also realized that security amid even these limited [bad things] is most easily achieved through friendship.

XXIX. Of desires, some are natural and necessary, some natural and not necessary, and some neither natural nor necessary but occurring as a result of a groundless opinion.2

XXX. Among natural desires, those which do not lead to a feeling of pain if not fulfilled and about which there is an intense effort, these are produced by an groundless opinion and they fail to be dissolved not because of their own nature but because of the groundless opinions of mankind.

XXXI. The justice of nature is a pledge of reciprocal usefulness, [i.e.,] neither to harm one another nor be harmed.

XXXII. There was no justice or injustice with respect to all those animals which were unable to make pacts about neither harming one another nor being harmed. Similarly, [there was no justice or injustice] for all those nations which were unable or unwilling to make pacts about neither harming one another nor being harmed.

XXXIII. Justice was not a thing in its own right, but [exists] in mutual dealings in whatever places there [is] a pact about neither harming one another nor being harmed.

XXXIV. Injustice is not a bad thing in its own right, but [only] because of the fear produced by the suspicion that one will not escape the notice of those assigned to punish such actions.

XXXV. It is impossible for someone who secretly does something which men agreed [not to do] in order to avoid harming one another or being harmed to be confident that he will escape detection, even if in current circumstances he escapes detection ten thousand times. For until his death it will be uncertain whether he will continue to escape detection.

XXXVI. In general outline justice is the same for everyone; for it was something useful in mutual

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associations. But with respect to the peculiarities of a region or of other [relevant] causes, it does not follow that the same thing is just for everyone.

XXXVII. Of actions believed to be just, that whose usefulness in circumstances of mutual associations is supported by the testimony [of experience] has the attribute of serving as just whether it is the same for everyone or not. And if someone passes a law and it does not turn out to be in accord with what is useful in mutual associations, this no longer possesses the nature of justice. And if what is useful in the sense of being just changes, but for a while fits our basic grasp [of justice], nevertheless it was just for that length of time, [at least] for those who do not disturb themselves with empty words but simply look to the facts.

XXXVIII. If objective circumstances have not changed and things believed to be just have been shown in actual practice not to be in accord with our basic grasp [of justice], then those things were not just. And if objective circumstances do change and the same things which had been just turn out to be no longer useful, then those things were just as long as they were useful for the mutual associations of fellow citizens; but later, when they were not useful, they were no longer just.

XXXIX. The man who has made the best arrangements for confidence about external threats is he who has made the manageable things akin to himself, and has at least made the unmanageable things not alien to himself. But he avoided all contact with things for which not even this could be managed and he drove out of his life everything which it profited him to drive out.

XL. All those who had the power to acquire the greatest confidence from [the threats posed by] their neighbours also thereby lived together most pleasantly with the surest guarantee; and since they enjoyed the fullest sense of belonging they did not grieve the early death of the departed, as though it called for pity.

1. [Scholiast: “Elsewhere he says that the gods are contemplated by reason, and that some exist ‘numerically’ (i.e., are numerically distinct, each being unique in kind) while others are similar in form, because of a continuous flow of similar images to the same place; and that they are anthropomorphic.” — B.I. and L.P.G.]

2. [Scholiast: “Epicurus thinks that those which liberate us from pains are natural and necessary, for example drinking in the case of thirst; natural and not necessary are those which merely provide variations of pleasure but do not remove the feeling of pain, for example expensive foods; neither natural nor necessary are, for example, crowns and the erection of statues.”]

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Epictetus

Stoicism as an organized philosophical movement flourished for a period of approximately five hundred years, from 300 B.C. to A.D. 180. The dates are, respectively, the approximate year in which the founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium (c. 344–c. 262 B.C.), began lecturing from a stoa, or porch, in the marketplace in Athens, and the year in which the last famous Stoic, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, died. Although Stoic doctrine did not remain static in those five hundred years, the doctrinal differences between earlier and later Stoics appear for the most part to be minimal. What is remarkable is the difference in emphasis that Stoicism underwent. In the second and first centuries B.C., Stoicism was introduced into Roman intellectual circles. It found an audience so receptive that in the first and second centuries A.D. Stoicism was a powerful influence in the life of the Roman Empire, attracting such figures as Seneca (1–65), Epictetus (c. 50–c. 130), and Marcus Aurelius (121–180).

In the process of change, Stoicism became less of a philosophy and more of a guide to right conduct. The early Stoics had placed equal emphasis on logic, physics, and ethics; but the Roman Stoics were concerned almost exclusively with the ethical and political aspects of Stoicism. It is easy to see why those aspects of Stoicism appealed to a Marcus Aurelius: the Stoic emphasis on duty and the Stoic belief that all people are citizens of one vast city dovetailed nicely with Roman imperialistic policy. But Stoicism also offered consolation to the less fortunate of the time, including Epictetus, a former slave, since it claimed that that which has ultimate value, namely, virtue, is equally open to all; and that such things as wealth, health, and honor are either of no value whatsoever or merely of instrumental value in the attainment of virtue.

The early Stoics saw the three areas of logic, physics, and ethics as intimately related. These early Stoics made significant contributions to logical theory, with much of their work a departure from Aristotelian logic. For their physical theory the early Stoics looked back to what they took to be the teachings of a Pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, who flourished around 500 B.C. Heraclitus had taught that the universe is a continuously dynamic thing in which nothing remains strictly the same from one moment to the next. Heraclitus had used fire as a symbol for the ceaseless change occurring in the universe; he may also have intended to say that the universe is actually ruled and guided by fire, which would be the noblest kind of matter in nature. The early Stoics interpreted him in this way. Fire was also thought to be the source and seat of human intelligence; thus, if the universe is ruled by fire, the universe is itself intelligent. In fact, the Stoics believed the universe to be a vast rational being that exhibits, through the guidance of fire, order and law- governed behavior. The Stoics thus consciously appealed to a macrocosm-microcosm analogy: the universe is a rational animal writ large, and a person is or should be the universe writ small. This doctrine has four important repercussions for Stoic ethics.

First, since the source of human intelligence is a natural material element, fire, and since intelligence is the hallmark of what it is to be human, it followed for the Stoics that a person is a part of the natural physical universe, and not something over and above it. This belief fit very well with a doctrine that the Stoics adopted from the Cynics, namely, that all persons are “citizens of the world,” which implied that all persons are radically equal. Stoic materialism thus provided a metaphysical underpinning for Stoic cosmopolitanism.

Second, if the universe itself is governed by certain laws and if a person is a microcosm of the universe, then it follows that a person is subject to the same laws as those that govern the universe. The laws in question, moreover, were viewed not merely as descriptive but as prescriptive: they prescribe how things ought to behave. These laws might be at variance with the customs and legal conventions of a particular society, and if so, those customs and conventions are wrong. In other words, a “natural law” supersedes all customary law and is binding on all persons. Natural Law theories in and after the Middle Ages have their roots in Stoicism.

Third, inasmuch as a person is a microcosm of an inherently rational world, a person ought to live a life in perfect conformity with nature, that is, a life in which reason dominates a person’s actions and passions. The Stoic “wise man” will live his life so that he does only that which is in accord with nature; moreover, he will do it simply because it is in accord with nature. For the Stoic the value of an action resides not in the happiness or pleasure it may happen to bring about, but solely in the virtuous state of mind of the agent. In this respect Stoic ethics foreshadow the ethical theory of Immanuel Kant.

Finally, the Stoics’ insistence on the law-governed nature of the universe committed them to determinism, the thesis that everything that happens is the outcome of the operation of unchangeable and all-pervasive laws. As their critics were quick to point out, this seemed to clash with their belief that humans are free,

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responsible agents. In order to meet this criticism the Stoics stressed that it is important to see what constitutes human freedom. Epictetus’ Encheiridion, or “Handbook,” reprinted here, besides giving a moving account of the Stoic view of life, attempts to resolve the contradiction between human freedom and determinism.

Not much is known of Epictetus’ life. He was born in Hieropolis in Asia Minor, was for some time a slave, but was freed by his Roman master. He was educated by a Stoic philosopher and began to teach philosophy himself in Rome until he was banished by the emperor Domitian. Epictetus moved to Nicopolis, in northwestern Greece, where he taught and practiced Stoicism until his death. No written works survive: the Encheiridion was dictated to a disciple.

• • •

Important source material on Stoicism is topically arranged in A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, eds., The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), two volumes (English translations in volume I). See also Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, eds., Hellenistic Philosophy, second edition (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997). F. H. Sandbach’s The Stoics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975) gives an elementary account. J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969) deals topically with several major issues. Benson Mates, Stoic Logic (1953; rpt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961); Samuel Sambursky, Physics of the Stoics (1959; rpt. London: Hutchinson, 1971); and Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) are excellent in their areas. Important papers are collected in A. A. Long, ed., Problems in Stoicism (London: Athlone Press, 1971) and John M. Rist, ed., The Stoics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). Two more specialized but rewarding books are Susanne Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) and Richard Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

William E. Mann

365

Encheiridion

Some things are up to us and some are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions — in short, whatever is our own doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our own doing. The things that are up to us are by nature free, unhindered, and unimpeded; the things that are not up to us are weak, enslaved, hindered, not our own. So remember, if you think that things naturally enslaved are free or that things not your own are your own, you will be thwarted, miserable, and upset, and will blame both gods and men. But if you think that only what is yours is yours, and that what is not your own is, just as it is, not your own, then no one will ever coerce you, no one will hinder you, you will blame no one, you will not accuse anyone, you will not do a single thing unwillingly, you will have no enemies, and no one will harm you, because you will not be harmed at all.

As you aim for such great goals, remember that you must not undertake them by acting moderately,1 but must let some things go completely and postpone others for the time being. But if you want both those great goals and also to hold public office and to be rich then you may perhaps not get even the latter just because you aim at the former too; and you certainly will fail to get the former, which are the only things that yield freedom and happiness.2

From the start, then, work on saying to each harsh appearance,3 “You are an appearance, and not at all the thing that has the appearance.” Then examine it and assess it by these yardsticks that you have, and first and foremost by whether it concerns the things that are up to us or the things that are not up to us. And if it is about one of the things that is not up to us, be ready to say, “You are nothing in relation to me.”

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Remember, what a desire proposes is that you gain what you desire, and what an aversion proposes is that you not fall into what you are averse to. Someone who fails to get what he desires is unfortunate, while someone who falls into what he is averse to has met misfortune. So if you are averse only to what is against nature among the things that are up to you, then you will never fall into anything that you are averse to; but if you are averse to illness or death or poverty, you will meet misfortune. So detach your aversion from everything not up to us, and transfer it to what is against nature among the things that are up to us. And for the time being eliminate desire completely, since if you desire something that is not up to us, you are bound to be unfortunate, and at the same time none of the things that are up to us, which it would be good to desire, will be available to you. Make use only of impulse and its contrary, rejection,4 though with reservation, lightly, and without straining.

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In the case of everything attractive or useful or that you are fond of, remember to say just what sort of thing it is, beginning with the least little things. If you are fond of a jug, say “I am fond of a jug!” For then when it is broken you will not be upset. If you kiss your child or your wife, say that you are kissing a human being; for when it dies you will not be upset.

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When you are about to undertake some action, remind yourself what sort of action it is. If you are going out for a bath, put before your mind what happens at baths — there are people who splash, people who jostle, people who are insulting, people who steal. And you will undertake the action more securely if from the start you say of it, “I want to take a bath and to keep my choices in accord with nature”; and likewise for each action. For that way if something happens to interfere with your bathing you will be ready to say, “Oh, well, I wanted not only this but also to keep my choices in accord with nature, and I cannot do that if I am annoyed with things that happen.”

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What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things. For example, death is nothing dreadful (or else it would have appeared dreadful to Socrates), but instead the judgment about death that it is dreadful — that is what is dreadful. So when we are thwarted or upset or distressed, let us never blame someone else but rather ourselves, that is, our own judgments. An uneducated person accuses others when he is doing badly; a partly educated person accuses himself, an educated person accuses neither someone else nor himself.

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Do not be joyful about any superiority that is not your own. If the horse were to say joyfully, “I am beautiful,” one could put up with it. But certainly you, when you say joyfully, “I have a beautiful horse,” are joyful about the good of the horse. What, then, is your own? Your way of dealing with appearances. So whenever you are in accord with nature in your way of dealing with appearances, then be joyful, since then you are joyful about a good of your own.

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On a voyage when your boat has anchored, if you want to get fresh water you may pick up a small shellfish and a vegetable by the way, but you must keep your mind fixed on the boat and look around frequently in case the captain calls. If he calls you must let all those other things go so that you will not be tied up and thrown on the ship like livestock. That is how it is in life too: if you are given a wife and a child instead of a vegetable and a small shellfish, that will not hinder you; but if the captain calls, let all those things go and run to the boat without turning back; and if you are old, do not even go very far from the boat, so that when the call comes you are not left behind.

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Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well.

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Illness interferes with the body, not with one’s faculty of choice,5 unless that faculty of choice wishes it to. Lameness interferes with the limb, not with one’s faculty of choice. Say this at each thing that happens to you, since you will find that it interferes with something else, not with you.

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At each thing that happens to you, remember to turn to yourself and ask what capacity you have for dealing with it. If you see a beautiful boy or woman, you will find the capacity of self-control for that. If hardship comes to you, you will find endurance. If it is abuse, you will find patience. And if you become used to this, you will not be carried away by appearances.

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Never say about anything, “I have lost it,” but instead, “I have given it back.” Did your child die? It was given back. Did your wife die? She was given back. “My land was taken.” So this too was given back. “But the person who took it was bad!” How does the way the giver6 asked for it back concern you? As long as he gives it, take care of it as something that is not your own, just as travelers treat an inn.

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If you want to make progress,7 give up all considerations like these: “If I neglect my property I will have nothing to live on,” “If I do not punish my slave boy he will be bad.” It is better to die of hunger with distress and fear gone than to live upset in the midst of plenty. It is better for the slave boy to be bad than for you to be in a bad state. Begin therefore with little things. A little oil is spilled, a little wine is stolen: say, “This is the price of tranquillity; this is the price of not being upset.” Nothing comes for free. When you call the slave boy, keep in mind that he is capable of not paying attention, and even if he does pay attention he is capable of not doing any of the things that you want him to. But he is not in such a good position that your being upset or not depends on him.

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If you want to make progress, let people think you are a mindless fool about externals, and do not desire a reputation for knowing about them. If people think you amount to something, distrust yourself. Certainly it is not easy to be on guard both for one’s choices to be in accord with nature and also for externals, and a person who concerns himself with the one will be bound to neglect the other.

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You are foolish if you want your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, since you are wanting things to be up to you that are not up to you, and things to be yours that are not yours. You are stupid in the same way if you want your slave boy to be faultness, since you are wanting badness not to be badness but something else. But wanting not to fail to get what you desire — this you are capable of. A person’s master is someone who has power over what he wants or does not want, either to obtain it or take it away. Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others. Otherwise he will necessarily be a slave.

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Remember, you must behave as you do at a banquet. Something is passed around and comes to you: reach out your hand politely and take some. It goes by: do not hold it back. It has not arrived yet: do not stretch your desire out toward it, but wait until it comes to you. In the same way toward your children, in the same way toward your wife, in the same way toward public office, in the same way toward wealth, and you will be fit to share a banquet with the gods. But if when things are set in front of you, you do not take them but despise them, then you will not only share a banquet with the gods but also be a ruler along with them. For by acting in this way Diogenes and Heraclitus8 and people like them were deservedly gods and were deservedly called gods.

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When you see someone weeping in grief at the departure of his child or the loss of his property, take care not to be carried away by the appearance that the externals he is involved in are bad, and be ready to say immediately, “What weighs down on this man is not what has happened (since it does not weigh down on someone else), but his judgment about it.” Do not hesitate, however, to sympathise with him verbally, and even to moan with him if the occasion arises; but be careful not to moan inwardly.

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Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the playwright wants it to be: short if he wants it short, long if he wants it long. If he wants you to play a beggar, play even this part skillfully, or a cripple, or a public official, or a private citizen. What is yours is to play the assigned part well. But to choose it belongs to someone else.

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When a raven gives an unfavorable sign by croaking,9 do not be carried away by the appearance, but immediately draw a distinction to yourself and say, “None of these signs is for me, but only for my petty body or my petty property or my petty judgments or children or wife. For all signs are favorable if I wish, since it is up to me to be benefited by whichever of them turns out correct.”

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You can be invincible if you do not enter any contest in which victory is not up to you. See that you are not carried away by the appearance, in thinking that someone is happy when you see him honored ahead of you or very powerful or otherwise having a good reputation. For if the really good things are up to us, neither envy nor jealousy has a place, and you yourself will want neither to be a general or a magistrate or a consul, but to be free. And there is one road to this: despising what is not up to us.

384

Remember that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or hits you, but the judgment about them that they are insulting. So when someone irritates you be aware that what irritates you is your own belief. Most importantly, therefore, try not to be carried away by appearance, since if you once gain time and delay you will control yourself more easily.

385

Let death and exile and everything that is terrible appear before your eyes every day, especially death; and you will never have anything contemptible in your thoughts or crave anything excessively.

386

If you crave philosophy prepare yourself on the spot to be ridiculed, to be jeered at by many people who will say, “Here he is again, all of a sudden turned philosopher on us!” and “Where did he get that high brow?” But don’t you put on a high brow, but hold fast to the things that appear best to you, as someone assigned by god to this place. And remember that if you hold to these views, those who previously ridiculed you will later be impressed with you, but if you are defeated by them you will be doubly ridiculed.

387

If it ever happens that you turn outward to want to please another person, certainly you have lost your plan of life. Be content therefore in everything to be a philosopher, and if you want to seem to be one, make yourself appear so to yourself, and you will be capable of it.

388

Do not be weighed down by the consideration, “I shall live without any honor, everywhere a nobody!” For if lack of honors is something bad, I cannot be in a bad state because of another person any more than I can be in a shameful one. It is not your task10 to gain political office, or be invited to a banquet, is it? Not at all. How then is that a lack of honor? And how will you be a nobody everywhere, if you need to be a somebody only in things that are up to you — in which it is open to you to be of the greatest worth? “But your friends will be without help!” What do you mean, “without help?” Well, they will be without a little cash from you, and you will not make them Roman citizens. Who told you, then, that these things are up to you and not the business of someone else? Who can give to someone else what he does not have himself? “Get money,” someone says, “so that we may have some.” If I can get it while keeping self-respect and trustworthiness and high- mindedness, show me the way and I will get it. But if you demand that I lose the good things that are mine so that you may acquire things that are not good, see for yourselves how unfair and inconsiderate you are. Which do you want more, money or a self-respecting and trustworthy friend? Then help me more toward this, and do not expect me to do things that will make me lose these qualities. “But my country,” he says, “will be without help, in so far as it depends on me!” Again, what sort of “help” is this? So it will not have porticos and baths by your efforts. What does that amount to? For it does not have shoes because of the blacksmith or weapons because of the cobbler, but it is enough if each person fulfills his own task. And if you furnished for it another citizen who was trustworthy and self-respecting, would you in no way be helpful to it? “Yes, I would be.” Then neither would you yourself be unhelpful to it. “Then what place,” he says “will I have in the city?” The one you can have by preserving your trustworthiness and self-respect. And if while wanting to help it you throw away these things, what use will you be to it if you turn out shameless and untrustworthy?

389

Has someone been given greater honor than you at a banquet or in a greeting or by being brought in to give advice? If these things are good, you should be glad that he has got them. If they are bad, do not be angry that you did not get them. And remember, you cannot demand an equal share if you did not do the same things, with a view to getting things that are not up to us. For how can someone who does not hang around a person’s door have an equal share with someone who does, or someone who does not escort him with someone who does, or someone who does not praise him with someone who does? You will be unjust and greedy, then, if you want to obtain these things for free when you have not paid the price for which they are bought. Well, what is the price of heads of lettuce? An obol, say. So if someone who has paid an obol takes the heads of lettuce, and you who do not pay do not take them, do not think that you are worse off than the one who did. For just as he has the lettuce, you have the obol that you did not pay. It is the same way in this case. You were not invited to someone’s banquet? You did not give the host the price of the meal. He sells it for praise; he sells it for attention. Then give him the balance for which it is sold, if that is to your advantage. But you are greedy and stupid if you want both not to pay and also to take. Have you got nothing, then, in place of the meal? Indeed you do have something; you did not praise someone you did not wish to praise, and you did not have to put up with the people around his door.

390

It is possible to learn the will of nature from the things in which we do not differ from each other. For example, when someone else’s little slave boy breaks his cup we are ready to say, “It’s one of those things that just happen.” Certainly, then, when your own cup is broken you should be just the way you were when the other person’s was broken. Transfer the same idea to larger matters. Someone else’s child is dead, or his wife. There is no one would not say, “It’s the lot of a human being.” But when one’s own dies, immediately it is, “Alas! Poor me!” But we should have remembered how we feel when we hear of the same thing about others.

391

Just as a target is not set up to be missed, in the same way nothing bad by nature happens in the world.11

392

If someone turned your body over to just any person who happened to meet you, you would be angry. But are you not ashamed that you turn over your own faculty of judgment to whoever happens along, so that if he abuses you it is upset and confused?

393

For each action, consider what leads up to it and what follows it, and approach it in the light of that. Otherwise you will come to it enthusiastically at first, since you have not borne in mind any of what will happen next, but later when difficulties turn up you will give up disgracefully. You want to win an Olympic victory? I do too, by the gods, since that is a fine thing. But consider what leads up to it and what follows it, and undertake the action in the light of that. You must be disciplined, keep a strict diet, stay away from cakes, train according to strict routine at a fixed time in heat and in cold, not drink cold water, not drink wine when you feel like it, and in general you must have turned yourself over to your trainer as to a doctor, and then in the contest “dig in,”12 sometimes dislocate your hand, twist your ankle, swallow a lot of sand, sometimes be whipped, and, after all that, lose. Think about that and then undertake training, if you want to. Otherwise you will be behaving the way children do, who play wrestlers one time, gladiators another time, blow trumpets another time, then act a play. In this way you too are now an athlete, now a gladiator, then an orator, then a philosopher, yet you are nothing wholeheartedly, but like a monkey you mimic each sight that you see, and one thing after another is to your taste, since you do not undertake a thing after considering it from every side, but only randomly and half-heartedly.

In the same way when some people watch a philosopher and hear one speaking like Euphrates13 (though after all who can speak like him?), they want to be philosophers themselves. Just you consider, as a human being, what sort of thing it is; then inspect your own nature and whether you can bear it. You want to do the pentathlon, or to wrestle? Look at your arms, your thighs, inspect your loins. Different people are naturally suited for different things. Do you think that if you do those things you can eat as you now do, drink as you now do, have the same likes and dislikes? You must go without sleep, put up with hardship, be away from your own people, be looked down on by a little slave boy, be laughed at by people who meet you, get the worse of it in everything, honor, public office, law course, every little thing. Think about whether you want to exchange these things for tranquillity, freedom, calm. If not, do not embrace philosophy, and do not like children be a philosopher at one time, later a tax-collector, then an orator, then a procurator of the emperor. These things do not go together. You must be one person, either good or bad. You must either work on your ruling principle,14 or work on externals, practise the art either of what is inside or of what is outside, that is, play the role either of a philosopher or of a non-philosopher.

394

Appropriate actions15 are in general measured by relationships. He is a father: that entails taking care of him, yielding to him in everything, putting up with him when he abuses you or strikes you. “But he is a bad father.” Does nature then determine that you have a good father? No, only that you have a father.16 “My brother has done me wrong.” Then keep your place in relation to him; do not consider his action, but instead consider what you can do to bring your own faculty of choice17 into accord with nature. Another person will not do you harm unless you wish it; you will be harmed at just that time at which you take yourself to be harmed. In this way, then, you will discover the appropriate actions to expect from a neighbor, from a citizen, from a general, if you are in the habit of looking at relationships.

395

The most important aspect of piety toward the gods is certainly both to have correct beliefs about them, as beings that arrange the universe well and justly, and to set yourself to obey them and acquiesce in everything that happens and to follow it willingly, as something brought to completion by the best judgment. For in this way you will never blame the gods or accuse them of neglecting you. And this piety is impossible unless you detach the good and the bad from what is not up to us and attach it exclusively to what is up to us, because if you think that any of what is not up to us is good or bad, then when you fail to get what you want and fall into what you do not want, you will be bound to blame and hate those who cause this. For every animal by nature flees and turns away from things that are harmful and from what causes them, and pursues and admires things that are beneficial and what causes them. There is therefore no way for a person who thinks he is being harmed to enjoy what he thinks is harming him, just as it is impossible to enjoy the harm itself. Hence a son even abuses his father when the father does not give him a share of things that he thinks are good; and thinking that being a tyrant was a good thing is what made enemies of Polyneices and Eteocles.18 This is why the farmer too abuses the gods, and the sailor, and the merchant, and those who have lost their wives and children. For wherever someone’s advantage lies, there he also shows piety. So whoever takes care to have desires and aversions as one should also in the same instance takes care about being pious. And it is always appropriate to make libations and sacrifices and give firstfruits according to the custom of one’s forefathers, in a manner that is pure and neither slovenly nor careless, nor indeed cheaply nor beyond one’s means.

396

When you make use of fortune-telling, remember that you do not know what will turn out and have gone to the fortune-teller to find out, but that if you really are a philosopher you have gone already knowing what sort of thing it is. For if it is one of the things that is not up to us, it is bound to be neither good nor bad. Therefore do not bring desire or aversion to the fortune-teller and do not approach him trembling but instead realizing that everything that turns out is indifferent19 and nothing in relation to you, and that whatever sort of thing it may be, you will be able to deal with it well and no one will hinder that. So go confidently to the gods as advisers, and thereafter when some particular advice has been given to you remember who your advisers are and whom you will be disregarding if you disobey. Approach fortune-telling as Socrates thought a person should, in cases where the whole consideration has reference to the outcome, and no resource is available from reason or any other technique to find out about the matter. So, when it is necessary to share a danger with a friend or with your country, do not use fortune-telling about whether you should share the danger. For if the fortune-teller says that the omens are unfavorable, clearly death is signified or the injury of a part of your body or exile. But reason chooses to stand by your friend and to share danger with your country even under these conditions. For this reason pay attention to the greater fortune-teller, Pythian Apollo, who threw out of the temple the man who did not help his brother when he was being murdered.20

397

Set up right now a certain character and pattern for yourself which you will preserve when you are by yourself and when you are with people. Be silent for the most part, or say what you have to in a few words. Speak rarely, when the occasion requires speaking, but not about just any topic that comes up, not about gladiators, horse-races, athletes, eating or drinking — the things that always come up; and especially if it is about people, talk without blaming or praising or comparing. Divert by your own talk, if you can, the talk of those with you to something appropriate. If you happen to be stranded among strangers, do not talk. Do not laugh a great deal or at a great many things or unrestrainedly. Refuse to swear oaths, altogether if possible, or otherwise as circumstances allow. Avoid banquets given by those outside philosophy. But if the appropriate occasion arises, take great care not to slide into their ways, since certainly if a person’s companion is dirty the person who spends time with him, even if he happens to be clean, is bound to become dirty too. Take what has to do with the body to the point of bare need, such as food, drink, clothing, house, household slaves, and cut out everything that is for reputation or luxury. As for sex stay pure as far as possible before marriage, and if you have it do only what is allowable. But do not be angry or censorious toward those who do engage in it, and do not always be making an exhibition of the fact that you do not.

If someone reports back to you that so-and-so is saying bad things about you, do not reply to them but answer, “Obviously he didn’t know my other bad characteristics, since otherwise he wouldn’t just have mentioned these.”

For the most part there is no need to go to public shows, but if ever the right occasion comes do not show your concern to be for anything but yourself; that is to say, wish to have happen only what does happen, and for the person to win who actually does win, since that way you will not be thwarted. But refrain completely from shouting or laughing at anyone or being very much caught up in it. After you leave, do not talk very much about what has happened, except what contributes to your own improvement, since that would show that the spectacle had impressed you.

Do not go indiscriminately or readily to people’s public lectures, but when you do be on guard to be dignified and steady and at the same time try not to be disagreeable.

When you are about to meet someone, especially someone who seems to be distinguished, put to yourself the question, “What would Socrates or Zeno have done in these circumstances?” and you will not be at a loss as to how to deal with the occasion. When you go to see someone who is important, put to yourself the thought that you will not find him at home, that you will be shut out, that the door will be slammed, that he will pay no attention to you. If it is appropriate to go even under these conditions, go and put up with what happens, and never say to yourself, “It wasn’t worth all that!” For that is the way of a non-philosopher, someone who is misled by externals.

In your conversations stay away from making frequent and longwinded mention of what you have done and the dangers that you have been in, since it is not as pleasant for others to hear about what has happened to you as it is for you to remember your own dangers.

Stay away from raising a laugh, since this manner slips easily into vulgarity and at the same time is liable to lessen your neighbors’ respect for you. It is also risky to fall into foul language. So when anything like that occurs, if a good opportunity arises, go so far as to criticize the person who has done it, and otherwise by staying silent and blushing and frowning you will show that you are displeased by what has been said.

398

Whenever you encounter some kind of apparent pleasure, be on guard, as in the case of other appearances, not to be carried away by it, but let the thing wait for you and allow yourself to delay. Then bring before your mind two times, both the time when you enjoy the pleasure and the time when after enjoying it you later regret it and berate yourself; and set against these the way you will be pleased and will praise yourself if you refrain from it. But if the right occasion appears for you to undertake the action, pay attention so that you will not be overcome by its attractiveness and pleasantness and seductiveness, and set against it how much better it is to be conscious of having won this victory against it.

399

When you do something that you determine is to be done, never try not to be seen doing it, even if most people are likely to think something bad about it. If you are not doing it rightly, avoid the act itself; if you are doing it rightly, why do you fear those who will criticize you wrongly?

400

Just as the propositions “It is day” and “It is night” have their full value when disjoined [sc., in “It is day or it is night”] but have negative value when conjoined [sc., in “It is day and it is night”], in the same way, granted that taking the larger portion has value for one’s body, it has negative value for preserving the fellowship of a banquet in the way one should.21 So when you eat with another, remember not merely to see the value for your body of what lies in front of you, but also to preserve your respect for your host.

401

If you undertake some role beyond your capacity, you both disgrace yourself by taking it and also thereby neglect the role that you were unable to take.

402

Just as in walking about you pay attention so as not to step on a nail or twist your foot, pay attention in the same way so as not to harm your ruling principle.22 And if we are on guard about this in every action, we shall set about it more securely.

403

The measure of possessions for each person is the body, as the foot is of the shoe. So if you hold to this principle you will preserve the measure; but if you step beyond it, you will in the end be carried as if over a cliff; just as in the case of the shoe, if you go beyond the foot, you get a gilded shoe, and then a purple embroidered one. For there is no limit to a thing once it is beyond its measure.

404

Women are called ladies by men right after they are fourteen. And so when they see that they have nothing else except to go to bed with men, they begin to make themselves up and place all their hopes in that. It is therefore worthwhile to pay attention so that they are aware that they are honored for nothing other than appearing modest and self-respecting.

405

It shows lack of natural talent to spend time on what concerns the body, as in exercising a great deal, eating a great deal, drinking a great deal, moving one’s bowels or copulating a great deal. Instead you must do these things in passing, but turn your whole attention toward your faculty of judgment.23

406

When someone acts badly toward you or speaks badly of you, remember that he does or says it in the belief that it is appropriate for him to do so. Accordingly he cannot follow what appears to you but only what appears to him, so that if things appear badly to him, he is harmed in as much as he has been deceived. For if someone thinks that a true conjunctive proposition24 is false, the conjunction is not harmed but rather the one who is deceived. Starting from these considerations you will be gentle with the person who abuses you. For you must say on each occasion, “That’s how it seemed to him.”

407

Everything has two handles, one by which it may be carried and the other not. If your brother acts unjustly toward you, do not take hold of it by this side, that he has acted unjustly (since this is the handle by which it may not be carried), but instead by this side, that he is your brother and was brought up with you, and you will be taking hold of it in the way that it can be carried.

408

These statements are not valid inferences: “I am richer than you; therefore I am superior to you,” or “I am more eloquent than you; therefore I am superior to you.” But rather these are valid: “I am richer than you; therefore my property is superior to yours,” or “I am more eloquent than you; therefore my speaking is superior to yours.” But you are identical neither with your property nor with your speaking.

409

Someone takes a bath quickly; do not say that he does it badly but that he does it quickly. Someone drinks a great deal of wine; do not say that he does it badly but that he does a great deal of it. For until you have discerned what his judgment was, how do you know whether he did it badly? In this way it will not turn out that you receive convincing appearances of some things but give assent to quite different ones.25

410

Never call yourself a philosopher and do not talk a great deal among non-philosophers about philosophical propositions, but do what follows from them. For example, at a banquet do not say how a person ought to eat, but eat as a person ought to. Remember that Socrates had so completely put aside ostentation that people actually went to him when they wanted to be introduced to philosophers, and he took them.26 He was that tolerant of being overlooked. And if talk about philosophical propositions arises among non-philosophers, for the most part be silent, since there is a great danger of your spewing out what you have not digested. And when someone says to you that you know nothing and you are not hurt by it, then you know that you are making a start at your task. Sheep do not show how much they have eaten by bringing the feed to the shepherds, but they digest the food inside themselves, and outside themselves they bear wool and milk. So in your case likewise do not display propositions to non-philosophers but instead the actions that come from the propositions when they are digested.

411

When you have become adapted to living cheaply as far as your body is concerned, do not make a show of it, and if you drink water do not say at every opening that you drink water. If you wish to train yourself to hardship, do it for yourself and not for those outside. Do not throw your arms around statues.27 Instead, when you are terribly thirsty, take cold water into your mouth, and spit it out, and do not tell anyone about it.

412

The position and character of a non-philosopher: he never looks for benefit or harm to come from himself but from things outside. The position and character of a philosopher: he looks for all benefit and harm to come from himself.

Signs of someone’s making progress: he censures no one; he praises no one; he blames no one; he never talks about himself as a person who amounts to something or knows something. When he is thwarted or prevented in something, he accuses himself. And if someone praises him he laughs to himself at the person who has praised him; and if someone censures him he does not respond. He goes around like an invalid, careful not to move any of his parts that are healing before they have become firm. He has kept off all desire from himself, and he has transferred all aversion onto what is against nature among the things that are up to us. His impulses toward everything are diminished. If he seems foolish or ignorant, he does not care. In a single phrase, he is on guard against himself as an enemy lying in wait.

413

When someone acts grand because he understands and can expound the works of Chrysippus,28 say to yourself, “If Chrysippus had not written unclearly, this man would have nothing to be proud of.”

But what do I want? To learn to understand nature and follow it. So I try to find out who explains it. And I hear that Chrysippus does, and I go to him. But I do not understand the things that he has written, so I try to find the person who explains them. Up to this point there is nothing grand. But when I do find someone who explains them, what remains is to carry out what has been conveyed to me. This alone is grand. But if I am impressed by the explaining itself, what have I done but ended up a grammarian instead of a philosopher — except that I am explaining Chrysippus instead of Homer. Instead, when someone says to me, “Read me some Chrysippus,” I turn red when I cannot exhibit actions that are similar to his words and in harmony with them.

414

Abide by whatever task is set before you as if it were a law, and as if you would be committing sacrilege if you went against it. But pay no attention to whatever anyone says about you, since that falls outside what is yours.

415

How long do you put off thinking yourself worthy of the best things, and never going against the definitive capacity of reason?29 You have received the philosophical propositions that you ought to agree to and you have agreed to them. Then what sort of teacher are you still waiting for, that you put off improving yourself until he comes? You are not a boy any more, but already a full-grown man. If you now neglect things and are lazy and are always making delay after delay and set one day after another as the day for paying attention to yourself, then without realizing it you will make no progress but will end up a non-philosopher all through life and death. So decide now that you are worthy of living as a full-grown man who is making progress, and make everything that seems best be a law that you cannot go against. And if you meet with any hardship or anything pleasant or reputable or disreputable, then remember that the contest is now and the Olympic games are now and you cannot put things off any more and that your progress is made or destroyed by a single day and a single action. Socrates became fully perfect in this way, by not paying attention to anything but his reason in everything that he met with. You, even if you are not yet Socrates, ought to live as someone wanting to be Socrates.

416

The first and most necessary aspect of philosophy is that of dealing with philosophical propositions, such as “not to hold to falsehood.” The second is that of demonstrations, for example, “How come one must not hold to falsehood?” The third is that of the confirmation and articulation of these, for example, “How come this is a demonstration? What is demonstration? What is entailment? What is conflict? What is truth? What is falsity?” Therefore the third is necessary because of the second, and the second because of the first; but the most necessary, and the one where one must rest, is the first. We, however, do it backwards, since we spend time in the third and all of our effort goes into it, and we neglect the first completely. Therefore we hold to falsehood, but we are ready to explain how it is demonstrated that one must not hold to falsehood.

417

On every occasion you must have these thoughts ready: Lead me, Zeus, and you too, Destiny, Wherever I am assigned by you; I’ll follow and not hesitate, But even if I do not wish to, Because I’m bad, I’ll follow anyway.

Whoever has complied well with necessity Is counted wise by us, and understands divine affairs.

Well, Crito, if it is pleasing to the gods this way, then let it happen this way.

Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they can’t harm me.30

Reprinted from The Handbook of Epictetus, translated, with introduction and annotations, by Nicholas White (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983), by permission of the publisher.

1. [This may mean simply that the proposed undertaking is difficult (Oldfather’s translation suggests this), or it may mean (as I believe) that the aim cannot be achieved by the Aristotelian policy of pursuing a mean or middle course between extremes.—N.W.]

2. [Epictetus recommends aiming to have one’s state of mind in accord with nature, in the sense explained in the previous paragraph and in c. 8. His point here is that if you aim for that and also simultaneously for certain “externals” like wealth, you will probably have neither and clearly will not have the former.]

3. [The word “appearance” translates phantasia, which some translators render by “impression” or “presentation.” An appearance is roughly the immediate experience of sense or feeling, which may or may not represent an external state of affairs. (The Stoics held, against the Skeptics, that some appearances self-evidently do represent external states of affairs correctly.)]

4. [Impulse and rejection (horme and aphorme) are, in Stoic terms, natural and non-rational psychological movements, so to speak, that are respectively toward or away from external objects.]

5. [“Faculty of choice” translates proairesis, which designates a rational faculty of the soul (cf. n.4).]

6. [The “giver” can be taken to be nature, or the natural order of the cosmos, or god, which the Stoics identified with each other.]

7. [“Making progress” (prokoptein) is the Stoic expression for movement in the direction of the ideal condition for a human being, embodied by the Stoic “sage” (cf. c. 15, n.8).]

8. [Diogenes the Cynic (the one who with his lantern looked for an honest man) and Heraclitus of Ephesus, the Pre-Socratic philosopher, were along with Socrates and Zeno people whom the Stoics said might possibly have reached the perfect condition of being sages, which the Stoics took to be conceptually no different from the perfect condition of a god.]

9. [Most people in antiquity believed in fortune-telling of various kinds, involving bird-calls, the flight of birds, inspection of entrails, stars, and whatnot. Many Stoics, notably Chrysippus, believed in such things, not least because they saw in them manifestations of the order of the cosmos and the tight and intricate interconnections within it, and thus saw them as scientific rather than superstitious.]

10. [The word translated “task” here and below is ergon, which might also be translated by “function.”]

11. [According to the Stoic view, the universe as a whole is perfect and everything in it has a place in its overall design, so that nothing can exist or occur that is bad in its relation to that overall design.]

12. [Nobody knows just what this expression means in this context.]

13. [Euphrates was a Stoic lecturer noted for his eloquence.]

14. [The “ruling principle” (or “governing principle”), the hēgemonikon, in the rather complicated psychological theory adopted by the Stoics, is that central part of the soul that can understand what is good and decide to act on that understanding.]

15. [“Appropriate actions” are kathēkonta, which Cicero called officia, and are in English translations often called “duties,” though the notion is actually somewhat different from that of duty. They are the actions that are of a type generally in accord with nature, or with a particular sort of person’s place in it.]

16. [The idea here is, roughly, that there are certain relationships of affinity established by the natural order, and that having a father represents one of them, but that having a good father is not entailed by it.]

17. [Cf. c. 9, n.5, and c. 29, n.14.]

18. [The story of the conflict between the brothers Polyneices and Eteocles is best known to modern readers from Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone.]

418

19. [Things that are “indifferent” in the Stoic view are all things that are external and not up to oneself (cf. c. 1, e.g.).]

20. [The idea is that one does not need a fortune-teller to tell one whether one should defend one’s country or one’s friends, and that this fact was recognized by the oracle of Apollo at Delphi.]

21. [Very roughly, the idea is that the value of an action has to be judged from all features of the context. The parallel is that allegedly the meaningfulness of a sentence depends in a way on its context.]

22. [Cf. c. 29, n.14.]

23. [Cf. c. 29, n.14. The claim is in effect that one should be concerned wholly with the state of the ruling part of one’s soul, and not with external states of affairs or with those aspects of the soul, such as one’s affective feelings or desires, that are directly dependent on external states of affairs. One can see here the Stoic view, which seems paradoxical to many, that one’s feelings and non-rational desires are in a crucial sense external to one’s true self (cf. c. 6 and Introduction).]

24. [Cf. c. 36. A proposition of this sort consists of two component propositions conjoined by “and.”]

25. [A “convincing appearance” is a katalēptikē phantasia, the sort of appearance that according to the Stoics is a self-evidently correct representation of the way things actually are (cf. n.3). “Assent” is synkatathesis. Correct assent would of course be assent to self-evidently correct appearances. The line of thought here is, however, quite compressed, and the student will find it a difficult exercise to explain it.]

26. [The allusion is perhaps to the events in the early part of Plato’s Protagoras.]

27. [According to a story in Diogenes Laërtius 6.23, Diogenes the Cynic did this nude in cold weather, to toughen himself. But the statues were outdoors, and Diogenes was a bit of a show-off (but cf. n.8!).]

28. [Chrysippus was the third head of the Stoic school at Athens.]

29. [In brief, the capacity of reason here is that of distinguishing different things from each other and defining them.]

30. [These four bits of poetry have the following origins. The first is by Cleanthes, who was head of the Stoic school at Athens between Zeno and Chrysippus. The second is a fragment of Euripides (fr. 965 Nauck). The third is Plato, Crito 43d, and the fourth is Plato, Apology 30c–d (slightly modified as compared with our manuscript texts), both purporting to be quotations from Socrates (cf. n.8).]

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Sextus Empiricus

Sextus Empiricus is the only Greek skeptic of whom complete works survive. He stands near the end of the skeptical tradition known as Pyrrhonism, which originated with Pyrrho of Elis, a shadowy figure from the fourth and early third centuries B.C. But the movement to which Sextus belongs began in earnest with Aenesidemus of Cnossos, who in the first century B.C. initiated a method of thinking claiming inspiration from Pyrrho. Scholars have debated whether or how Pyrrhonism changed or developed during its long and discontinuous history.

Virtually nothing is known about the life of Sextus. Most scholars place him in the second century A.D. He makes clear that he was a doctor. The title Empiricus, as well as several ancient sources, suggests that he was a member of the Empiric school of medicine (as were other Pyrrhonists); yet in one puzzling passage, he appears to claim that Pyrrhonism is closer to the rival Methodic school. The indications as to where he may have lived are slender and conflicting.

Three works of Sextus survive whole or in part. Outlines of Pyrrhonism consists of three books. The first book (the majority of which is included here) expounds the Pyrrhonist outlook in general terms; the other two dissect the views of nonskeptical philosophers in logic, physics, and ethics, the three standard areas of philosophy. Another work, probably incomplete, covers (at greater length) roughly the same ground as Outlines of Pyrrhonism ll–lll, whereas a third attacks various specific technical fields of study. lt is a matter of some dispute whether Sextus’ works, taken as a whole, present a single consistent outlook (and this may be related to the issue of developments in the Pyrrhonist tradition). lt is generally agreed, however, that Outlines l constitutes by far the best introduction both to Sextus and to Pyrrhonism as a whole.

A single sentence of the Outlines (at the opening of Chapter lV) gives the essentials of Pyrrhonist skepticism. Sextus says that skepticism is an ability; to be a skeptic is to be an expert at a certain type of procedure, not an adherent of any theory or doctrine. The procedure has three stages. First, one assembles a set of opposing arguments or impressions, on any given topic. Second, in virtue of the “equality of force” exhibited by these opposing arguments or impressions—no one of them inclining us to acceptance any more than any other—one suspends judgment; that is, one refrains from adopting any of the alternative positions on offer. (Sextus does not say that one ought to suspend judgment—that would itself be taking a position—but that this is what happens; suspension of judgment is a psychological reaction, not a rational requirement.) lf this process is generalized to all topics, the result is suspension of judgment on a global scale. Third, this suspension of judgment results in “mental tranquillity” (ataraxia), assumed to be the common goal of all philosophers.

This bare-bones description invites many questions, some of which Sextus addresses in the ensuing discussion. A few of the most important questions follow.

Why is Sextus so sure that suspension of judgment will be the result of the juxtaposition of opposing arguments? ls one not likely often to find one argument more persuasive than the others— however artfully the skeptic has presented the range of alternatives—rather than seeing them all as equal in force? ln practice, Sextus frequently concedes that an opponent will continue to find one alternative more persuasive, and Sextus shifts to deeper questions about the proofs or the criteria on which the opponent relies.

How far does the skeptic’s suspension of judgment extend? What kinds of beliefs, if any, is the skeptic permitted to have? Sextus makes clear that skeptics do not hold theoretical doctrines; he also says that they do accept their own plain experience. What is not clear is whether this “acceptance” of one’s experience includes commitments concerning objective states of affairs (if so, a great many everyday beliefs might be permitted) or whether one merely registers the fact that one is undergoing certain impressions. Sextus may not tell us enough to settle this issue, or his position may not be fully consistent. A related question is whether he sees himself as arguing on the side of common sense, against the abstractions of philosophers, or whether ordinary beliefs as well as theoretical ones are part of his target; again, there are indications on either side.

How can the skeptic act? Sextus says that the skeptic relies on the appearances. He lists four main species of action-guiding appearances, some natural and some cultural. Given the kind of being that one is, one will naturally experience certain desires and motivations (for example, hunger leads to eating); and given that one has been raised or taught in a certain way, one will be disposed to observe certain customs and exercise certain skills. All of this, it is argued, can occur without any violation of skeptical suspension of judgment; one engages in various forms of behavior, but without the beliefs that, in the case of the nonskeptic, would

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typically accompany this behavior. Whether the way of life that results is a desirable or an admirable one is another question.

Why is suspension of judgment supposed to result in tranquillity—rather than, say, anxiety? Sextus’ answer is that the holding of definite beliefs, and especially definite beliefs to the effect that certain things are good (and others bad) by nature, leads to serious mental turmoil, from which the skeptic, through not having these beliefs, is free. The stakes for a skeptic are quite simply much lower than they are for the rest of us.

The Ten Modes, which occupy much of the present selection, are a set of standardized forms of skeptical argumentation. They consist of a multitude of examples of conflicting impressions, arranged into ten categories. The general idea is that, since one is bound to admit that no one of these conflicting impressions is to be preferred over any other, suspension of judgment is the only possible reaction. The Ten Modes, as well as various other groups of Modes not included here, are thus presented as means for the skeptic to induce suspension of judgment—or to maintain it, if it is in danger of lapsing. Sextus takes this to be a project requiring ongoing intellectual activity, rather than a result to be achieved once and for all. Again, skepticism is an ability, not a conclusion.

• • •

A concise and accessible general study of Greek skepticism is Harald Thorsrud, Ancient Scepticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism, ed. Richard Bett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) is a collection of essays by multiple authors. Both volumes devote considerable space to Sextus; both also contain extensive bibliographies organized by topic. The Ten Modes are analyzed in The Modes of Scepticism by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede, eds., The Original Sceptics: A Controversy (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1997) contains five important related essays.

Richard Bett

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Outlines of Pyrrhonism

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BOOK ONE

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CHAPTER I

The Basic Difference between Philosophies

It is a fair presumption that when people search for a thing the result will be either its discovery, a confession of non-discovery and of its non-apprehensibility, or perseverance in the search. Perhaps this is the reason why in matters of philosophical research some claim to have discovered the truth, while others declare that finding it is an impossibility, and others are still seeking it. There are some who think they have found the truth, such as Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, and certain others. These are, in a special sense of the term, the so-called dogmatists. Clitomachus1 and Carneades,2 on the other hand, and other Academics,3 claim it is a search for inapprehensibles. But the Sceptics go on searching. It is, therefore, a reasonable inference that basically there are three philosophies, the dogmatic, the Academic, and the Sceptic. For the present our task will be to present an outline of the Sceptic discipline, leaving it to such others as it befits to treat of the former two. We declare at the outset that we do not make any positive assertion that anything we shall say is wholly as we affirm it to be. We merely report accurately on each thing as our impressions of it are at the moment.

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CHAPTER II

The Arguments of Scepticism

The Sceptic philosophy comprises two types of argument, the general and the special. In the first we undertake an exposition of the character of Scepticism by stating its notion, the principles and methods of reasoning involved, and its criterion and end. We set forth also the various modes of suspension of judgement, the manner in which we use the Sceptic formulae, and the distinction between Scepticism and those philosophies which closely approach it. The special argument is that in which we dispute the validity of so- called philosophy in all its parts. Let us, then, first treat of the general argument and begin our sketch with the various appellations of the Sceptic discipline.

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CHAPTER III

The Names of Scepticism

Now, the Sceptic discipline is called the “zetetic” (searching) from its activity of searching and examining. It is also called the “ephectic” (suspending) from the experience which the inquirer feels after the search. “Aporetic” (doubting) is another name for it, either from the fact that their doubting and searching extends to everything (the opinion of some), or from their inability to give final assent or denial. It is also called “Pyrrhonean,” because Pyrrho4 appears to us to have applied himself to Scepticism more thoroughly and with more distinction than his predecessors.

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CHAPTER IV

The Meaning of Scepticism

Scepticism is an ability to place in antithesis, in any manner whatever, appearances and judgements, and thus — because of the equality of force in the objects and arguments opposed — to come first of all to a suspension of judgement and then to mental tranquillity. Now, we call it an “ability” not in any peculiar sense of the word, but simply as it denotes a “being able.” “Appearances” we take as meaning the objects of sense- perception; hence we set over against them the objects of thought. The phrase “in any manner whatever” may attach itself to “ability,” so that we may understand that word (as we have said) in its simple sense, or it may be understood as modifying the phrase “to place in antithesis appearances and judgements.” For since the antitheses we make take various forms, appearances opposed to appearances, judgements to judgements, or appearances to judgements, we say “in any manner whatever” in order to include all the antitheses. Or, we may understand it as “any manner of appearances and judgements whatever,” in order to relieve ourselves of the inquiry into how appearances appear or how judgements are formed, and thus take them at their face value. When we speak of arguments which are “opposed,” we do not at all mean denial and affirmation, but use this word in the sense of “conflicting.” By “equality of force” we mean equality in respect of credibility and incredibility, since we do not admit that any of the conflicting arguments can take precedence over another on grounds of its being more credible. “Suspension of judgement” is a cessation of the thought processes in consequence of which we neither deny nor affirm anything. “Mental tranquillity” is an undisturbed and calm state of soul. The question how mental tranquillity enters into the soul along with suspension of judgement we shall bring up in the chapter “On the End.”

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CHAPTER V

The Sceptic

The definition of the Pyrrhonean philosopher is also virtually included in the concept of the Sceptic discipline. It is, of course, he who shares in the “ability” we have spoken of.

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CHAPTER VI

The Principles of Scepticism

Scepticism has its inception and cause, we say, in the hope of attaining mental tranquillity. Men of noble nature had been disturbed at the irregularity in things, and puzzled as to where they should place their belief. Thus they were led on to investigate both truth and falsehood in things, in order that, when truth and falsehood were determined, they might attain tranquillity of mind. Now, the principle fundamental to the existence of Scepticism is the proposition, “To every argument an equal argument is opposed,” for we believe that it is in consequence of this principle that we are brought to a point where we cease to dogmatize.

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CHAPTER VII

Does the Sceptic Dogmatize?

We say that the Sceptic does not dogmatize. But in saying this we do not understand the word “dogma” as some do, in the more general sense of “approval of a thing.” The Sceptic, of course, assents to feelings which derive necessarily from sense-impressions; he would not, for example, when feeling warm (or cold), say, “I believe I am not warm (or cold).” But some say that “dogma” is “the assent given to one of the non-evident things which form the object of scientific research.” It is this meaning of “dogma” that we have in view when we say that the Sceptic does not dogmatize, for concerning non-evident things the Pyrrhonean philosopher holds no opinion. In fact, he does not even dogmatize when he is uttering the Sceptic formulae in regard to non-evident things (these formulae, the “No more,” the “I determine nothing,” and the others, we shall speak of later). No—for the dogmatizer affirms the real existence of that thing about which he is said to be dogmatizing, whereas the Sceptic does not take the real existence of these formulae wholly for granted. As he understands them, the formula “All things are false,” for example, asserts its own falsity together with that of all other things, and the formula “Nothing is true” likewise. Thus also the formula “No more” asserts not only of other things but of itself also that it is “no more” existent than anything else, and hence cancels itself together with the other things. We say the same about the other Sceptic formulae also. However, if the dogmatizer affirms the real existence of the thing about which he is dogmatizing, while the Sceptic, uttering his own formulae, does so in such a way that they virtually cancel themselves, he can hardly be said to be dogmatizing when he pronounces them. The greatest indication of this is that in the enunciation of these formulae he is saying what appears to him and is reporting his own feeling, without indulging in opinion or making positive statements about the reality of things outside himself.

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CHAPTER VIII

Does the Sceptic Have a System?

Our attitude is the same when we are asked whether the Sceptic has a system. For if one defines “system” as “an adherence to a set of numerous dogmas which are consistent both with one another and with appearances,” and if “dogma” is defined as “assent to a nonevident thing,” then we shall say that we have no system. But if one means by “system” a “discipline which, in accordance with appearance, follows a certain line of reasoning, that line of reasoning indicating how it is possible to seem to live rightly (‘rightly’ understood not only with reference to virtue, but more simply), and extending also to the ability to suspend judgement,” then we say that we do have a system. For we follow a certain line of reasoning which indicates to us, in a manner consistent with appearances, how to live in accordance with the customs, the laws, and the institutions of our country, and with our own natural feelings.

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CHAPTER IX

Is the Sceptic Concerned with the Study of Physics?

To the inquiry whether the Sceptic should theorize about physics our reply is similar. We do not theorize about physics in order to give firm and confident opinions on any of the things in physical theory about which firm doctrines are held. On the other hand, we do touch on physics in order to have for every argument an equal argument to oppose to it, and for the sake of mental tranquillity. Our approach to the logical and ethical divisions of so-called philosophy is similar.

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CHAPTER X

Do the Sceptics Deny Appearances?

Those who say that the Sceptics deny appearances seem to me to be ignorant of what we say. As we said above, we do not deny those things which, in accordance with the passivity of our sense-impressions, lead us involuntarily to give our assent to them; and these are the appearances. And when we inquire whether an object is such as it appears, we grant the fact of its appearance. Our inquiry is thus not directed at the appearance itself. Rather, it is a question of what is predicated of it, and this is a different thing from investigating the fact of the appearance itself. For example, honey appears to us to have a sweetening quality. This much we concede, because it affects us with a sensation of sweetness. The question, however, is whether it is sweet in an absolute sense. Hence not the appearance is questioned, but that which is predicated of the appearance. Whenever we do expound arguments directly against appearances, we do so not with the intention of denying them, but in order to point out the hasty judgement of the dogmatists. For if reason is such a rogue as to all but snatch even the appearances from under our very eyes, should we not by all means be wary of it, at least not be hasty to follow it, in the case of things non-evident?

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CHAPTER XI

The Criterion of Scepticism

That we pay attention to appearances is clear from what we say about the criterion of the Sceptic discipline. Now, the word “criterion” is used in two senses. First, it is the standard one takes for belief in reality or non- reality. This we shall discuss in our refutation. Second, it is the standard of action the observance of which regulates our actions in life. It is this latter about which we now speak. Now, we say that the criterion of the Sceptic discipline is the appearance, and it is virtually the sense-presentation to which we give this name, for this is dependent on feeling and involuntary affection and hence is not subject to question. Therefore no one, probably, will dispute that an object has this or that appearance; the question is whether it is in reality as it appears to be. Now, we cannot be entirely inactive when it comes to the observances of everyday life. Therefore, while living undogmatically, we pay due regard to appearances. This observance of the requirements of daily life seems to be fourfold, with the following particular heads: the guidance of nature, the compulsion of the feelings, the tradition of laws and customs, and the instruction of the arts. It is by the guidance of nature that we are naturally capable of sensation and thought. It is by the compulsion of the feelings that hunger leads us to food and thirst leads us to drink. It is by virtue of the tradition of laws and customs that in everyday life we accept piety as good and impiety as evil. And it is by virtue of the instruction of the arts that we are not inactive in those arts which we employ. All these statements, however, we make without prejudice.

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CHAPTER XII

The End of Scepticism

The next point to go through would be the end of Scepticism. An end is “that at which all actions or thoughts are directed, and which is itself directed at nothing, in other words, the ultimate of desirable things.” Our assertion up to now is that the Sceptic’s end, where matters of opinion are concerned, is mental tranquillity; in the realm of things unavoidable, moderation of feeling is the end. His initial purpose in philosophizing was to pronounce judgement on appearances. He wished to find out which are true and which false, so as to attain mental tranquillity. In doing so, he met with contradicting alternatives of equal force. Since he could not decide between them, he withheld judgement. Upon his suspension of judgement there followed, by chance, mental tranquillity in matters of opinion. For the person who entertains the opinion that anything is by nature good or bad is continually disturbed. When he lacks those things which seem to him to be good, he believes he is being pursued, as if by the Furies, by those things which are by nature bad, and pursues what he believes to be the good things. But when he has acquired them, he encounters further perturbations. This is because his elation at the acquisition is unreasonable and immoderate, and also because in his fear of a reversal all his exertions go to prevent the loss of the things which to him seem good. On the other side there is the man who leaves undetermined the question what things are good and bad by nature. He does not exert himself to avoid anything or to seek after anything, and hence he is in a tranquil state.

The Sceptic, in fact, had the same experience as that related in the story about Apelles the artist.5 They say that when Apelles was painting a horse, he wished to represent the horse’s foam in the painting. His attempt was so unsuccessful that he gave it up and at the same time flung at the picture his sponge, with which he had wiped the paints off his brush. As it struck the picture, the sponge produced an image of horse’s foam. So it was with the Sceptics. They were in hopes of attaining mental tranquillity, thinking that they could do this by arriving at some rational judgement which would dispel the inconsistencies involved in both appearances and thoughts. When they found this impossible, they withheld judgement. While they were in this state, they made a chance discovery. They found that they were attended by mental tranquillity as surely as a body by its shadow.

Nevertheless, we do not suppose the Sceptic to be altogether free from disturbance; rather, we say that when he is disturbed, it is by things which are unavoidable. Certainly we concede that he is sometimes cold and thirsty, and that he suffers in other such ways. But even here there is a difference. Two circumstances combine to the detriment of the ordinary man: he is hindered both by the feelings themselves and not less by the fact that he believes these conditions to be evil by nature. The Sceptic, on the other hand, rejects this additional notion that each of these things is evil by nature, and thus he gets off more easily. These, then, are our reasons for saying that the Sceptic’s end is mental tranquillity where matters of opinion are concerned, and moderate feeling in the realm of things unavoidable. Some notable Sceptics have, however, added to these a third: suspension of judgement in investigations.

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CHAPTER XIII

General Introduction to the Modes of Suspension of Judgement

We were saying that mental tranquillity follows on suspension of judgement in regard to all things. Next, it would be proper for us to state how we attain suspension of judgement. As a general rule, this suspension of judgement is effected by our setting things in opposition. We oppose appearances to appearances, or thoughts to thoughts, or appearances to thoughts. For example, when we say, “The same tower appears round from a distance, but square from close by,” we are opposing appearances to appearances. When a person is trying to prove the existence of providence from the order of the celestial bodies, and we counter him with the observation that the good often fare ill while the evil prosper and then conclude from this that there is no providence, we are opposing thoughts to thoughts. And then appearances may be opposed to thoughts. Anaxagoras,6 for instance, could oppose to the fact that snow is white his reasoning that “Snow is frozen water, and water is black, snow therefore is black also.” And sometimes, from the point of view of a different concept, we oppose present things to present things, as in the foregoing, and sometimes present things to past or future things. An example of this is the following. Whenever someone propounds an argument that we are not able to dispose of, we make this reply: “Before the birth of the founder of the school to which you belong, this argument of your school was not yet seen to be a sound argument. From the point of view of nature, however, it existed all the while as such. In like manner it is possible, as far as nature is concerned, that an argument antithetical to the one now set forth by you is in existence, though as yet unknown to us. This being so, the fact that an argument seems valid to us now is not yet a sufficient reason why we must assent to it.”

But for a better understanding of these antitheses, I shall now present also the modes by which suspension of judgement is induced. I cannot, however, vouch for their number or validity, since it is possible that they are unsound, and that there are more of them than the ones to be discussed.

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CHAPTER XIV

The Ten Modes

With the older Sceptics the usual teaching is that the modes by which suspension of judgement seems to be brought about are ten in number, which they also term synonymously “arguments” and “forms.” These are as follows. First is that in which suspension is caused by the variation in animals. In the second it is caused by the differences in human beings. Third, by the differences in the construction of the organs of sense. Fourth, by the circumstances. Fifth, by the positions, distances, and places involved. Sixth, by the admixtures present. Seventh, by the quantities and compoundings of the underlying objects. Eighth, by the relativity of things. Ninth, by the frequency or rarity of occurrence. Tenth, by the institutions, customs, laws, mythical beliefs, and dogmatic notions. This order, however, is merely arbitrary.

Transcending these are three modes: the argument from the subject judging, the argument from the object judged, and that from both. The first four modes above are subordinate to the argument from the subject judging (for that which judges is either an animal or a human being or a sense, and is in some circumstance or other). The seventh and the tenth are referred to the argument from the object judged. The fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth are referred to the argument from both combined. These three modes are in turn referred to the mode of relativity, so that the mode of relativity is the summum genus, while the three are its species, and the ten are subordinate. This is the most plausible statement we can make concerning their number. In regard to their meaning, we have the following to say.

The First Mode

As we were saying, the first argument is the argument from differences in animals. According to this mode, the same objects do not produce the same impression in different animals. This we conclude both from the fact that they have different origins and from the variety exhibited in the structure of their bodies. Now to consider origin. Some animals are produced without sexual union, others by coition. Of those which are produced without sexual union, some are generated out of fire, such as the little animals that appear in furnaces, others out of stagnant water, such as mosquitoes, and others, from soured wine, such as ants. From the earth come earthworms, from mud come frogs, from dung, maggots. From asses come beetles, and from vegetables caterpillars. Other animals come from fruits, as the gall-insects from wild figs; and still others from rotting animals, as bees from bulls and wasps from horses. Of the animals produced by sexual union, some (most of them, in fact) are the offspring of parents of like kind, some of parents of different kinds, as are mules. Speaking of animals in general again, some are born alive, as are human beings, some are born as eggs, as are birds, and some are born as unformed flesh, as bears. It is reasonable, then, to suppose that the dissimilarities and differences in their respective origins are a cause of greatly contrary affections in animals, and that the discordant, incongruous, and conflicting character of their affections is derived from their different origins.

Moreover, a very great conflict between sense-impressions can be produced even by differences in the most important parts of the body, especially the organs whose natural function is judging and perceiving. For instance, people suffering from jaundice say that what appears to us as white is yellow, and those who had a bloodshot condition of the eyes say it is blood-red. Now, since some animals have yellow eyes, others bloodshot eyes, while others have eyes which are white, and others have eyes of still other colours, it is reasonable to suppose, I think, that their perception of colour is different. Moreover, if we fix our gaze on the sun for a long time and then look down into a book, the letters appear to be gold-coloured and going in circles. Also, some animals have a sort of natural brilliance in their eyes, and send off from them a fine light which travels easily, so that they even see at night. In view of this fact, we might well be right in supposing that the impressions they get of external objects are different from ours. And jugglers, too, by smearing their lamp-wick with copper rust or with the ink of the cuttle-fish, make their onlookers appear to have a copper or black colour, as the case may be. This they effect by the application of only a small quantity of their preparation. It is surely much more reasonable to suppose that if the eyes of animals contain different mixtures of fluids, the impressions they receive of external objects will be different. Also, when we press one side of the eyeball, the objects viewed appear longish and narrow in form, figure, and size. It is probable, therefore, that those animals which have a slanting and elongated pupil, such as goats, cats, and the like, receive impressions of objects which are different from and unlike the impressions had of the same objects by animals with round pupils. And then mirrors: owing to differences in their construction, they sometimes show the external objects as being very small (concave mirror), sometimes as longish and narrow (convex mirror). Some show the

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mirrored person’s head at the bottom and his feet at the top. Now, there are similar differences in the organs of sight of animals. Some of these, owing to their convexity, protrude quite out of the sockets, while others are more concave, and others lie in a flat plane. It is natural to suppose that these conditions also may cause differences in the sense-impressions. If this is so, when dogs and fishes and lions and humans and locusts look at the same objects, they would in such case see objects that are neither equal in size nor similar in shape. Rather, what each perceives would be the impression created by the particular sight that receives the object.

The same argument applies to the other senses. Take the sense of touch. One could hardly postulate a similarity of sensibility between hard-shelled animals, fleshy animals, thorny animals, and feathered or scaly ones. And as for perceptions conveyed through the sense of hearing, one could hardly say that they are the same in those animals which have a very narrow auditory passage as they are in those which have a very wide one, or the same in animals with hairy ears as in those with smooth ears. We can even see the truth of this assertion in ourselves, as far as the sense of hearing is concerned, for when we plug up our ears, our perception through this sense is different from our normal hearing. The sense of smell also would exhibit differences by virtue of the variety in animals. We ourselves, when we have a cold and the phlegm in us is excessive, are affected in one way; but when an excessive amount of blood is collected in the parts about the head, we are affected in another way, and turn away from things which to others seem fragrant, believing ourselves overpowered, as it were, by their smell. Some animals, too, are flaccid by nature and abound in phlegm, while others are very rich in blood; and in others yellow or black bile, present in an excessive amount, is the predominant element. Hence it would be reasonable to assume that this is another reason why objects of smell appear different to each severally. It is the same with objects of taste. In the first place, the tongues of animals are different, some being rough and without moisture, some very moist. In fever our tongues too become very dry, so that we think the food set before us has an earthy, ill-flavoured, and bitter taste; and this experience of ours is caused by the varying predominance of the juices we are said to have in us. Now, since the organs of taste of animals differ from each other, and have different juices in excess, it would follow that they also receive different ideas of the taste of things.

An analogous process is the distribution of food throughout the body. In one place it becomes a vein, in another an artery, a bone, a sinew, and so on. The difference in the power it displays corresponds with the differences between the parts which receive it. Water also, which is one and uniform when it is absorbed by trees, becomes in different places bark, branch, or fruit, and further, fig, pomegranate, or whatever it may be. The breath of the musician, also one and the same when it enters the flute, becomes in turn a high-pitched tone or a low one. Similarly, the same pressure of his hand upon the lyre sometimes produces a low tone, sometimes a high one. In the same manner it is a fair supposition that external objects appear different to the animals receiving the sense-impressions of the objects, and that this is due to differences of constitution in the different animals. But this can be seen more clearly from the preferences and aversions of animals. For example, perfume seems very agreeable to men, but intolerable to beetles and bees. Olive-oil is beneficial to men, but it kills wasps and bees if sprinkled on them. Sea-water is unpleasant for men to drink, even poisonous, but for fish most pleasant — and drinkable. Pigs would much rather wash in the most stinking mire than in clear and pure water. And then some animals subsist on herbs, others on shrubs, and other live in the woods; others live on seeds, flesh, or milk. Some enjoy putrefied food, while others like it prepared by cooking; and in general, what is pleasant to some is unpleasant to others, and may be undesirable, even fatal. Hemlock, for example, fattens quails, and henbane fattens sows. The latter even like to eat salamanders, just as deer eat venomous animals and swallows eat blister-beetles. Ants and wood-lice, if swallowed by humans, produce nausea and colic, while the bear, if he falls sick, licks them up and thus regains his strength. One touch of an oak-twig is sufficient to stun a viper. The leaf of a plane-tree has the same effect on bats. An elephant will run from a ram, a lion from a cock. Sea-monsters will flee from the crackling noise produced by the pounding of beans, and a tiger will run from the mere sound of a drum. We could multiply these examples, but it would mean dwelling unduly long on the subject. In short, if the same things are unpleasant to some animals but pleasant to others, and pleasure and displeasure depend on sense-impression, then the sense-impressions that animals get from the objects are different.

But if the difference in animals is a cause of things appearing different, then we shall, it is true, be able to say what—in our view—a thing is; but on the question what it really is by nature, we shall suspend judgement. And as for acting ourselves as judges between our own sense-impressions and those of the other animals, that is out of the question, because we ourselves are a party to the disagreement. For this reason, in fact, we shall be more in need of a judge than capable ourselves of judging. Moreover, we are unable, either without proof or with proof, to give the preference to our own sense-impressions over those of the irrational animals. For besides the possibility (which we shall mention) that proof is non-existent, the so-called proof itself will be either apparent to us or non-apparent. If it is non-apparent, we cannot even bring it forward with confidence.

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But suppose it is apparent to us. Then, since what is apparent to animals is the question at issue and we to whom the proof is apparent are animals, we still shall have to investigate whether the proof itself is in the same degree true as it is apparent. It is absurd to attempt to establish the question at issue by means of the question at issue, since that would involve believing and disbelieving the same thing at once—which is impossible. We should have to believe it in so far as it professes to furnish the proof, and disbelieve it in so far as it itself is the thing to be proved. We shall have, then, no proof which will enable us to give the preference to our own sense-impressions over those of the so-called irrational animals. If, therefore, the sense- impressions of animals differ as a consequence of the differences which exist between animals, and we cannot possibly sit in judgement over them, we must of necessity suspend judgement in regard to external objects.

We also allow ourselves the luxury of comparing the so-called irrational animals with man in respect of sense-impressions. For after our practical arguments have done their work, we feel not unqualified to make sport of those demented braggarts the dogmatists. Now, the men of our school are wont to compare the generality of the irrational animals with man. But since the dogmatists sophistically assert that the comparison is unfair, we shall base our argument on one animal only — for instance, the dog, if you please, which seems to be the most worthless — and still continue our jesting at great advantage. Even so, we shall find that as far as the trusthworthiness of appearances goes, the animals we speak of are not inferior to ourselves. Now, the dogmatists concede that this animal excels us in sense-perception. His perception by the sense of smell is superior to ours, and he also has a keen sense of hearing.

Let us now turn to the faculty of reason. One kind of reason is internal reason, and the other kind is uttered reason. Let us look first at internal reason. According to those dogmatists whose doctrines are the most opposed to us, namely, the Stoics, it seems that internal reason is activated in the following cases: in the choice of congenial and the avoidance of alien things; in the knowledge of the arts that contribute to this; in the apprehension and alleviation of one’s own sufferings; and in the acquisition of the virtues consistent with one’s own nature. Now, the dog — the example we decided to take for the sake of the argument—makes a choice of the congenial when he seeks after food, and he avoids the harmful when he retires before a raised whip. What is more, he possesses an art by which he procures what is congenial to him, the art of hunting. He is not without virtue, either. Certainly, at any rate, if justice means to render each his due, the dog would not be without justice, for he exercises it by guarding and wagging his tail at those who are familiar to him and who treat him well, and by keeping strangers and those who harm him at a distance. But if he possesses this virtue, then, since the virtues are reciprocally implied, he possesses the other virtues also, which according to the claim of the wise men the majority of men do not possess. We see that he is brave from the way he defends us, and intelligent too, as Homer also testified when he represented Odysseus as going unrecognized by all the members of his household and as being recognized only by his dog Argus, who was not deceived by the changes that had come over the body of the man.7 Neither had his impression of the man lost its immediacy; in fact, it appeared that he had retained this immediacy of impression better than the humans did. But according to Chrysippus,8 who is hostile, if anybody is, to irrational animals, the dog even shares in the famous science of dialectic. At any rate, the aforesaid man is responsible for the statement that the dog knows intuitively the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism. He shows this knowledge whenever he is tracking an animal and comes to a meeting of three roads. After he has tried two of the roads and found that the animal has not passed that way, he rushes off immediately on the third without even stopping to pick up the scent. The old philosopher says that the dog virtually reasons this out, as follows: “The animal passed either this way, or this way, or this way; but it did not take this road, nor that; therefore it must have gone by the third road.” Moreover, he is capable of apprehending his own sufferings and of relieving them. Thus, if there is a thorn stuck in his foot, he sets about removing it by rubbing his foot against the ground, or by means of his teeth. And if he has a sore anywhere, because dirty sores are slow to heal and clean ones heal easily, he gently wipes off the discharge that gathers. Why, he even observes the teaching of Hippocrates,9 and very well at that; for if he should receive an injury to his foot, he applies the general rule (that rest will cure it) and elevates the injured foot and keeps it as undisturbed as possible. And when he is troubled by unwholesome humours, he eats grass, which enables him to vomit up the unwholesome matter and get well.

Now, we based our observations on the dog as an example for the sake of the argument. If, then, it appears that he chooses what is good for him and avoids what is troublesome, if he possesses an art which enables him to procure the good things, if he is capable of apprehending and relieving his own sufferings, if he is not without virtue—these being the conditions on which the perfection of internal reason depends—then the dog will be, in this respect, perfect. This may be the reason why some philosophers have exalted themselves with the name of this animal.10

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An inquiry concerning uttered reason is for the present unnecessary, since even some of the dogmatists have rejected it on the grounds that it is prejudicial to the acquisition of virtue. For the same reason they also used to practise silence during the time they were learners.11 And besides, just supposing a man were dumb, no one is going to say that he is irrational. But leaving this consideration aside also, as our subject is animals, we certainly see some animals, jays among others, that can even utter human sounds. But leaving this point aside also, we note simply that even though we do not understand the sounds made by the so-called irrational animals, it is not altogether improbable that they do converse — without our understanding them. But then when we hear the speech of foreigners we do not understand that either; we think it monotonous. Also, the sounds we hear dogs utter are different: when they are keeping people off it is one sound, when they are howling it is another; and when they receive a beating, the sound is different from the sound they utter when they are fawning. And in general, if a person were to look into this matter carefully, he would find that the utterances of both this and the other animals vary greatly under different circumstances. On this account the so-called irrational animals might fairly be said to share in uttered reason also. But if these animals are inferior to humans neither in the accuracy of their perceptions, nor in internal reason, nor—needless to say— in uttered reason, then their sense-impressions will be no more untrustworthy than ours. It is perhaps even possible to prove this by basing our argument on each class of the irrational animals separately. Who, for example, would not admit that birds excel in quickness of wit and that they possess the use of uttered reason? Their understanding is not confined to the present but extends to future things as well, and to those who are able to understand them they show the future beforehand, both by their prophetic cry and by the other signs they give.

The comparison I have here drawn is given into the bargain as a bonus. This I have indicated before. I had previously shown sufficiently, I think, that we cannot give the preference to our own sense-impressions over those of the irrational animals. But then if the irrational animals, as judges of the sense-impressions, are not less reliable than we, and if the discrepancy in sense-impressions is due to the difference between animals, it is true that I shall be able to say what each object appears to me to be, but no more. As to what its real nature is, I shall be forced, for the reasons given above, to suspend judgement.

The Second Mode

Such, then, is the first mode of suspension. The second, as we said, is the argument from the difference between men. Let us make a concession for the sake of the argument and say that human beings are more to be believed than the irrational animals. Even so, inasmuch as we differ from one another, we shall find suspension of judgement being brought in. It is said that man is made up of two elements, soul and body. Well, in both of these we differ from one another.

As for the body, we have different figures and constitutional peculiarities. Now, the Scythian’s figure is different from that of an Indian, and the difference is due, it is said, to the varying predominance of the humours. And according as different humours predominate in men, their sense-impressions also are different, as we showed in the first argument. That is why there is also much difference between them in their choice and avoidance of external things. Thus the Indian standard of taste is different from that in our country, and the fact that we enjoy different things is indicative of a difference in the sense-impressions that we get from the external objects. We differ also in our constitutional peculiarities: for some people, beef is easier to digest than rock-fish, and some suffer diarrhoea from inferior Lesbian wine. There used to be an old woman of Attica, they said, who could take thirty drams of hemlock with impunity, and Lysis used to take four drams of opium without harm. And Demophon, Alexander’s butler, used to shiver when he was in the sun or in a hot bath, but when he was in the shade he felt warm. Athenagoras of Argos was not affected by the sting of scorpions and poisonous spiders; the tribe called the Psyllaeans are not injured by the bite of snakes and asps; and the Tentyritae, an Egyptian people, suffer no harm from the crocodiles. Also, the Ethiopians who live along the Astapous River on the other side of Lake Meroë eat scorpions and snakes and such-like animals without ill effect. Rufinus of Chalcis would drink hellebore without vomiting and without any evacuation at all; he could simply take it and digest it like any of the usual beverages. Chrysermus, of the school of Herophilus, ran the risk of a heart attack whenever he took pepper, and Soterichus the surgeon used to suffer from diarrhoea whenever he caught the odour of fried sheat-fish. Andron of Argos was so unaffected by thirst that he even journeyed across the waterless part of Libya without requiring a drink. Tiberius Caesar could see in the dark, and Aristotle tells us of a certain Thracian who had the hallucination that a man was continually leading the way in front of him.

Now, we shall content ourselves with the recitation of these few examples from the many found in the writings of the dogmatists. Even so, it is clear that the bodily differences between men are great, and it is thus

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natural to assume that these differences extend also to the very soul of man, for the body is in a sense the stamped image of the soul, as the art of physiognomy shows us. But the greatest indication of the wide, indeed infinite, variety to be found in human intelligence is the discrepancy in the statements which the dogmatists make on every subject, particularly on the question what things it is proper to choose or avoid. The poets, too, have expressed themselves on this. Pindar12 says:

The honours and wreaths won by wind-swift horses are the delight of one man, Others delight in a life in gilded chambers; Another man, too, finds joy in traversing the salty main with a fast ship.

And the Poet says:

Different men take delight in different deeds.13

Tragedy also is full of these sentiments. For example:

If fair and wise meant both the same to all, Dispute and strife would be no more.14

And again:

Strange, to say the least, that what gives joy to some,

Is an object of hate to others.15

Now, since choice and avoidance depend on pleasure and displeasure, and pleasure and displeasure in turn depend on sensation and sense-impression, it is logical for us to conclude that whenever the same things are chosen by some and avoided by others they are not even affected in the same manner by the same objects, since otherwise they would agree in their choices and avoidances. But if it is because of the differences between men that the same objects affect us differently, then this would be another good reason for bringing in suspension of judgement. We are, perhaps, able to say what each external object appears to be from our several different points of view, but we are unable to give an account of its true essence. For we shall have to believe either all men or some of them; to believe all would be an impossible undertaking, as we should have to accept contradictory accounts, while if we are to believe some, let them tell us who it is we are supposed to agree with. The Platonist will say Plato, the Epicurean, Epicurus, and so on with the others. They cannot decide as between their own factions, and this only serves to bring us round to suspension again. Furthermore, to say that we should agree with the majority would be puerile, since it is in no one’s power to make a survey of all mankind and determine statistically the majority opinion. It is quite possible that there are peoples unknown to us, to whom things rare with us are common occurrences and with whom the conditions obtaining with us are comparatively rare. It might turn out, for example, that those who feel no pain at the bite of spiders are in the majority, and that some feel pain only rarely; and this might be similarly the case with the other constitutional peculiarities mentioned above. The differences in men, therefore, are another compelling reason for invoking suspension of judgement.

The Third Mode

Now, the dogmatists are a rather conceited class of people, and they say that they must give themselves the preference over other men in the matter of judging things; but we know that their claim is absurd because they themselves form a party to the disagreement. Furthermore, if they are thus prejudiced in favour of themselves whenever they judge appearances, then they are begging the question before they even begin their judgement, because they are turning the decision over to themselves. Nevertheless, we can arrive at suspension of judgement even when basing the argument on a single man, for instance on the “wise man” who is the product of their dreams. In order to do this we bring into play the mode which is third in order. This is the one we called the argument from the differences in the senses. And it is clear at the outset that the senses differ from one another. Take paintings, for example. To the eye they seem to have hollows and prominences, but certainly not to the sense of touch. And to some, honey appears to be pleasant to the tongue, but to the eyes it appears unpleasant; thus it is impossible to say whether it is in itself pleasant or unpleasant. With perfume the case is similar; it delights the sense of smell but is disgusting to the taste. Then there is the juice of the spurge. Since it is painful to the eyes but causes pain to no other part of the body, it will not be for us to say whether,

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as far as its own nature is concerned, it is in itself painful or painless to bodies. And rain-water is beneficial to the eyes, but irritates the windpipe and lungs just as olive-oil does, which to the skin is soothing. The electric ray produces stiffness if applied to the extremities, while application to the rest of the body is without ill effect. Therefore we are not in a position to say what each thing is by nature, although it is possible to say what it appears to be on each occasion.

We could easily cite more examples, but to avoid waste of time, on account of the plan of the treatise, we need say just this. Each appearance that we perceive through the senses seems to present itself under many forms; an apple, for instance, seems smooth, fragrant, sweet, and yellow. It is uncertain, however, whether these are really the only qualities it possesses, or whether it is of one quality only but appears in different forms because the various sense-organs are of different construction. It may also be that it has more qualities than are apparent, and that some of them are not perceived by us. Now, that the apple is of a single quality we can conclude, on the one hand, from our previous statements about the distribution of food throughout the body, of water throughout trees, and about the breathing of wind into flutes, pipes, and similar instruments. For the apple, like these, may well be of a uniform quality, yet still appear to possess several qualities by reason of the differences between the sense-organs through which its perception takes place. On the other hand, we can conclude that the apple possesses more qualities than those which are apparent to us, as follows. Let us imagine a man whose senses of touch, smell, and taste are intact, but who is congenitally deaf and blind. This man will have no idea at all that a thing is visible or audible, but will believe that only those three classes of qualities exist which he is capable of apprehending. With us too it is possible that our apprehension of qualities in the apple is determined by the number of senses we possess — five only. And it is possible that there exist other qualities that fall within the province of other organs of sense. Our not possessing any such other organs of sense would be reason enough why we do not apprehend the type of sense-objects proper to them.

“But,” one will say, “nature made the senses commensurate with their objects.” In view of the great disagreement amongst the dogmatists on the unsettled question of the existence of nature, we can only reply, “Which nature?” On this question of the existence of nature the layman’s judgement will carry no authority with the dogmatists. But a philosopher’s judgement is no better, for he is not a judge, but a party to the disagreement, himself subject to judgement. However, given these possible alternatives, that there may subsist in the apple only those qualities which we seem to apprehend, likewise that there may subsist more than just these; or again that even the ones we perceive may not subsist at all; it follows that it will be non-evident to us what kind of thing the apple is. And the same argument holds for the other objects of sense. But then if the senses do not apprehend external objects, the intellect cannot apprehend them either, seeing that it is led astray by its guides, which is all the more reason why suspension of judgement in regard to the external underlying objects will be indicated.

The Fourth Mode

But we can also reach suspension by basing our argument on each sense separately, or even by disregarding the senses. To this end we employ the fourth mode of suspension, which we call the mode based on the circumstances. We understand by “circumstances” the states in which we are. This mode, we say, is seen in cases of natural or unnatural states, in states of waking or sleeping, in cases where age, motion or rest, hating or loving are involved; or where the determining factor is a state of want or satiety, drunkenness or soberness; in cases of predispositions, or when it is a question of confidence or fear, or grief or joy. For example, things appear dissimilar according to whether we are in a natural or unnatural state; delirious people, and those who are possessed by a god, think that they hear divine voices, while we do not. Often they claim that they perceive, among a number of other things, the odour of storax or frankincense, or something of that sort, where we perceive nothing. And the same water that seems hot to a person when poured on inflamed parts seems lukewarm to us. The coat which appears yellowish-orange to men with bloodshot eyes does not appear so to me, yet it is the same coat. And the same honey that appears sweet to me appears bitter to those suffering from jaundice.

Now, one might object that in those whose condition is unnatural it is the intermingling of certain humours that causes them to get unnatural impressions from the external objects. Our reply to this would be that it is possible that the external objects actually are in reality such as they appear to those who are said to be in an unnatural state; and that since persons in a state of good health also have mixed humours, it may be that it is these humours that make the objects appear different to them. For it would be a fabrication to attribute to the humours of sick people a power to change external objects, and to deny this power to the humours of the healthy. After all, it is natural for the healthy to be in a healthy state, and unnatural for them to be in a sick

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state. By the same token it is unnatural for the sick to be in a healthy state, but natural for them to be in a sick state. Consequently, the sick warrant credence also, since they too are in some respect in a natural state. Whether one is in a sleeping or a waking state also makes a difference in the sense-impressions, since our manner of perception while awake differs from the perception we have in sleep; and our manner of perception in sleep is not like our waking perception. As a result, the existence or non-existence of our sense-impressions is not absolute but relative, since they bear a relation to our sleeping or waking state. It is probable, therefore, that although our dream-images are unreal in our waking state, they are nevertheless not absolutely unreal, for they do exist in our dreams. In the same manner the realities of the waking state, even if they do not exist in dreams, nevertheless exist. Age also makes a difference. Old men, for example, may think the air is cold, but the same air seems mild to those who are in the prime of life. The same colour appears dim to older persons but full to those in their prime. And a sound, likewise the same, seems faint to the former but quite audible to the latter. The matter of choice and avoidance of things also provokes different reactions in people of different ages. Children, perhaps, take their ball-games and their hoops seriously, but grown men have different tastes, and old men prefer still other things. From this it follows that differences of age also can cause the sense- impressions to be different where the external objects are the same. Motion or rest may also be the determining factor when objects appear different. For instance, things which we see to be motionless when we are stationary seem to be moving when we are sailing past them. Loving or hating may also make the difference. For example, there are those to whom pork is extremely repugnant, while others eat it with gusto. Hence also Menander’s16 lines:

And then what does his face look like, Since he has come to be like this? Why, he’s a beast! Fair dealing makes us fair as well.

There are also many who have ugly mistresses and yet think them very beautiful. Hunger or satiety may also be the cause, as the same food can seem very tasty to the hungry and yet disagreeable to those who have had their fill. Drunkenness or soberness is another cause, since what we think shameful when sober does not seem shameful to us when we are drunk. Predispositions are another cause, since the same wine seems to be sour if you have eaten dates or dried figs beforehand, and sweet if you have eaten nuts or chick-peas. Also, the vestibule of the bath-house is warming to those who come in from the outside, but chills those who are coming out, if they tarry in it. Fear or confidence is also a cause, as a thing may seem fearful and terrible to the coward, yet not at all so to the man who is more daring. Being in a state of grief or joy would also be a factor, since the same matters are at once burdensome to those who are in grief and pleasant to those who are rejoicing.

Now, considering the fact that so much discrepancy is due to the states we are in, and that men are in different states at different times, it is easy, perhaps, to state the nature of each object as it appears to this or that person, but difficult to say further what its real nature is. This is because the discrepancy does not lend itself to judgement. In fact, whoever attempts to resolve this discrepancy will find himself either in one or the other of the aforesaid states or else in no state at all. But now to say that he is in no state at all, that he is neither healthy nor sick, neither in motion nor at rest, that he is not of any particular age, and that he is free from the other states, is perfectly absurd. On the other hand, the fact of his being in some state or other while attempting to pass judgement will make him a party to the controversy. And moreover, he will be confused by the states in which he finds himself, and this will prevent him from being an absolute judge in the matter. A person, therefore, who is in the waking state cannot compare the impressions of a sleeping person with those of waking persons, and a healthy person cannot compare the impressions of sick people with those of the healthy. We do, after all, tend to give our assent to those things which are present and have a present influence over us rather than to things which are not present.

The discrepancy between such impressions is irresolvable on other grounds also, for if a person prefers one sense-impression to another, and one circumstance to another, he does so either without judging and without proof or by judging and offering proof. But he cannot do so without judgement and proof, for then he will be discredited. Nor can he do so even with judgement and proof, for if he judges the impressions, he must at all events use a criterion in judging them. And this criterion he will declare to be either true or false. If false, he will not be worthy of belief; but if he claims it is true, then his statement that the criterion is true will be offered either without proof or with proof. If without proof, again he will not be worthy of belief; but if he offers proof for his statement, the proof must in any case be a true one, otherwise he will not be worthy of belief. Now, if he says that the proof employed for the confirmation of his criterion is true, will he say this after having passed judgement on the proof, or without having judged it? If he has not judged it, he will not

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be worthy of belief, but if he has, obviously he will say he has used a criterion in his judgement. We shall ask for a proof for this criterion, and for this proof another criterion. For the proof always needs a criterion to confirm it, and the criterion needs a proof to show that it is true. A proof cannot be sound without the pre- existence of a true criterion, and a criterion cannot be true either without prior confirmation of the proof. And so both the criterion and the proof fall into circular argument, in which both are found to be untrustworthy. The fact that each expects confirmation from the other makes both of them equally untrustworthy. It is impossible, then, for a person to give the preference to one sense-impression over another. This being so, such differences in sense-impressions as arise from a disparity of states will be irresolvable. As a result, this mode also serves to introduce suspension of judgement with regard to the nature of external objects.

The Fifth Mode

The fifth argument is the one based on positions, distances, and places. Each of these can cause the same objects to appear different. Take a portico for example. When seen from either end, it appears tapered, yet the same portico viewed from the middle appears symmetrical on all sides. Also, the same boat appears small and stationary from a distance, and large and moving from close by. And the same tower appears round from afar but square from near by.

These differences are the result of the distances involved. Then there are differences due to the places involved. For example, the light of a lamp appears dim in sunlight but bright in the dark, the same oar appears broken in the water but straight when out of the water, and the egg is soft inside the bird but hard when exposed to the air. Amber is liquid when inside the lynx but hard when exposed to the air, and coral is soft when in the sea but hard in the air. And a sound appears different according to whether it is produced in a pipe, a flute, or simply in the air.

Position also may be the cause of different appearances. The same picture appears smooth when inclined backwards, but seems to have hollows and prominences when inclined forward to a certain angle. Also, the necks of pigeons appear different in colour according to differences in inclination.

Thus all objects appearing to us are seen as being in some place or other, at a certain distance, and in a certain position, and each of these factors makes a great difference in the sense-impressions, as we have mentioned. Hence, by this mode also we shall be compelled to have recourse to suspension of judgement. In point of fact, anyone who wishes to give any of these sense-impressions the preference over the others will be undertaking an impossible task. For if he makes his judgement simply and without proof, he will be discredited; and if he wishes to employ a proof, then says his proof is false, he will be refuting himself; if he says the proof is true, he will be asked for a proof of its truth, and another proof for that one, and soon ad infinitum. But it is impossible to present an infinite series of proofs; therefore he will not be able, even by the use of proofs, to prefer one sense-impression to another. And if a person is unable to pass judgement on the above-mentioned impressions either without proof or with proof, then the necessary result is suspension of judgement. Thus, while we are perhaps able to state of what nature each object appears to be in one particular position, at one particular distance, and in one location, it is not in our power, for the reasons just given, to declare what its true nature is.

The Sixth Mode

The sixth mode is the one based on admixtures. By this mode we conclude that, since none of the external objects appears to us singly but always in conjunction with something else, it is perhaps possible to state the nature of the mixture resulting from the conjunction of the external object and that other thing which we perceive together with it, but we are not able to say what the real nature of the external object is in its unmixed state. That no external object is ever perceived singly but in all cases together with something else, and that this causes it to have a different appearance for us, I take as evident fact. Our skin, for instance, shows a different colour according to whether the air is warm or cold; and we cannot say what our true natural colour is, but only what it appears to be in conjunction with each of these conditions. And the same sound appears different according as it occurs in air which is rarefied or dense; and aromatic odours are rather more overpowering in the warm bath and in the sun than in chilled air; and if a body is enclosed by water, it is light, but if enclosed by air, it is heavy.

But to get away from external admixtures, the internal contents of our eyes consist of both membranes and fluid matter. Now, since visible objects, in order to be seen, require both of these, they will not be apprehended with accuracy. What we actually perceive is the mixture, and this is the reason why people sick with jaundice see everything yellow, and those with bloodshot eyes see everything blood-red. And since the

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same sound appears different according as it occurs in open places or in narrow and winding places, and according as the air is pure or foul, it is probable that our apprehension of the sound is not free from admixture. For the ears have winding, narrow passages and are fouled with vaporous discharges which are said to gather from various parts of the head. And since secreted matter is also present in the nostrils and in the places where the sense of taste is located, our apprehension of the objects of taste and smell is not without admixture but includes the apprehension of that matter as well. Consequently, the admixtures prevent our senses from apprehending with accuracy the true nature of external objects.

But neither can the intellect do this, the chief reason being that the senses, which are its guides, are deceived; though perhaps the intellect, too, produces some peculiar admixture of its own, which then also affects the reports communicated by the senses. For we can perceive the presence of certain humours in each place where the dogmatists think the ruling part of the soul is located, whether one wishes to regard it as located in the brain, in the heart, or in any part of the animal body whatever. We see, therefore, that according to this mode also we are unable to predicate anything about the nature of external objects. As a result, we are compelled to suspend judgement.

The Seventh Mode

The seventh mode, as we said, is based on the quantities and compoundings of the external objects. By their “compounding” we mean in general their composition. And it is evident that this mode too obliges us to suspend judgement as regards the nature of things. For example, the filings from a goat’s horn appear white when they are seen by themselves and uncompounded, but when they are compounded so as to constitute a horn they appear black. And filings of silver appear black by themselves, but in conjunction with the whole they are perceived as white. And pieces of the marble of Taenarum look white when they are polished, but when together in the rough stone they appear yellow. Grains of sand appear rough when they are scattered apart, but when combined as a heap they produce the impression of softness. Hellebore causes suffocation if taken as a fine powder, but not if taken coarse. Wine strengthens us if drunk in moderate amounts, but if more than this is taken, it enervates the body. And with food the case is similar, for the efficacy it exhibits varies according to the quantity taken. For instance, taking food in large quantities often causes the body to be purged through attacks of indigestion and diarrhoea. Here also, then, we shall be in a position to state the nature of the small bit of horn and of the whole composed of the many fine parts, and the nature of the chip of Taenarean marble and of the whole composed of the many small pieces. We may also be able to state the nature, in relative terms, of the grains of sand, the hellebore, the wines, and the food. Yet we shall not be able to go further and state the absolute nature of the objects. This we are prevented from doing by the discrepancy in our sense-impressions caused by the varying compositions of things.

In fact, it seems generally true that even things beneficial to us become harmful through their use in immoderate quantities, and that things that seem harmful when taken in excessive quantity are not injurious in very small quantities. The best argument in support of this reasoning is the observation we make regarding the action of medicines. Here we find that an accurate mixing of the component drugs renders the compound beneficial, while sometimes the slightest inclination of the balance, if overlooked, can render the product not only ineffectual but often very harmful, even poisonous. Thus the argument based on the quantities and compoundings makes the question of the real properties of external objects a confused issue. Therefore, since we are unable to state in absolute terms the nature of external objects, this mode also will bring us round naturally to suspension of judgement.

The Eighth Mode

The eighth mode is the argument from relativity. By this mode we conclude that, since all things are relative, we shall suspend judgement as to what they are absolutely and in themselves. But there is one qualification we must realize, both here and elsewhere. This is that we employ the word “are” in place of the word “appear,” so that what we are saying amounts virtually to this: “All things appear to be relative.” And our statement about relativity has a double sense; in the first place, there is a relationship to the thing judging (for the external object being judged appears to the thing judging it), and there is a relationship — in another way — to the things which are perceived along with it, such as the relationship of right to left. But we have considered the relativity of all things in the foregoing also. With respect to the thing which judges, for instance, we said that each object appears relatively to some particular animal or man or sense, and to such and such a circumstance. With respect to the things perceived along with it, each object appears relatively to some particular admixture or manner or composition or quantity or position.

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But it is also possible to prove separately that all things are relative. This is done in the following manner. Do absolutes differ from relatives or not? If they do not differ, then they are themselves relative. But if they do differ, since all things which differ are relative (for it is in relation to that from which it differs that it is said to differ), then absolute things are relative. Also, the dogmatists divide all existent things into three classes, the highest genera, the lowest species, and the things which are both genera and species. But all these are relative; therefore all things are relative. A further statement which they themselves make is that some things are manifest, others non-evident; and they say that apparent things are significative and that it is the non-evident things that are made manifest by the apparent things, for according to them, “Things apparent are an aspect of the things not evident.”17 But that which makes manifest and that which is made manifest are relative; therefore all things are relative. In addition to this, existent things are divided into the similar and the dissimilar, and the equal and the unequal. But now these are relative; therefore all things are relative. But even he who denies that all things are relative confirms, by his opposition to us, the proposition that all things are relative; for he shows that the proposition itself (that all things are relative) is relative to us, and not universal.

The result, however, is clear once we show in this manner that all things are relative. We shall not be able to say what each object is in its own nature and absolutely, but what it appears to be under the aspect of relativity. Hence follows the necessity of our suspending judgement concerning the nature of things.

The Ninth Mode

The mode concerned with frequency or rarity of occurrence, which we said was ninth in order, we expound as follows. The sun is surely a much more amazing thing than a comet. But the sun we see constantly, whereas we rarely see a comet. Hence our astonishment at the sight of a comet is such that we may even believe it to be a divine omen, while we are not at all astonished at the sight of the sun. If, however, we only imagine the sun as appearing rarely and setting rarely, illuminating everything at once and causing everything to be thrown suddenly into shadow, then we shall observe great astonishment at the occurrence. Earthquakes, also, do not cause a like degree of confusion in those who are experiencing one for the first time as they do in those who have become accustomed to them by habit. And how great is the astonishment the sea causes in a man who beholds it for the first time! But also the beauty of the human body, in a subject we see for the first time, and suddenly, excites us more than if the right should become a common one. Rare things seem to be valuable; things familiar to us, and easily obtainable, not at all. For example, if we suppose water to be a rare thing, how much more valuable it will appear to us than all the things which are held to be valuable! Or if we ponder the thought of gold simply lying about in large quantities on the ground like stones, to whom shall we suppose it would be so valuable, or so much worth locking up? Since, therefore, according to the frequency or rarity of their occurrence, the same things seem sometimes to be astonishing or valuable, and sometimes not at all so, we conclude that we shall perhaps be able to say what the nature of each of these things appears to be in the context of its frequent or rare occurrence, but that it is not within our power to state the nature of each external object considered purely and simply in itself. And so this mode too causes us to suspend judgement concerning them.

The Tenth Mode

There is a tenth mode, this one concerned chiefly with ethics. This is the argument from disciplines, customs, laws, mythical beliefs, and dogmatic notions. Now, a “discipline” is a choice of a way of life or of some objective, made by one person or by many. A case in point would be Diogenes,18 or the Laconians.19 A law is a written covenant among men who live in organized states, the transgressor of which is punished. A custom or habit (there is no difference) is a common acceptance by many men of a certain thing. Here the transgressor is not punished at all. Examples: It is a law not to commit adultery, but a custom not to have intercourse with a woman publicly. Mythical belief is an acceptance of unhistorical; and fictitious events, such as — among others — the tales told of Kronos (for there are many who are led to believe these tales). A dogmatic notion is acceptance of a thing in so far as the acceptance seems to be confirmed by a line of reasoning or by some proof, for example, that atoms are the elements of existing things, or homoeomeries, or minimal bodies, or something else.

Each of these we oppose sometimes to itself, sometimes to each of the others. We oppose custom to custom, for instance, in this way. Some of the Ethiopians tattoo their babies, while we do not. And Persians think that the use of bright-coloured, dragging garments is seemly, while we think it is unbecoming. And the Indians have intercourse with their women in public, whereas most other peoples hold this to be shameful. We oppose law to law in the following manner. With the Romans, he who relinquishes claim to the property

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inherited from his father is not obliged to pay his father’s debts, but with the Rhodians one must pay them in any event. And among the Tauri of Scythia there was a law that strangers should be sacrificed to Artemis, while with us the ritual killing of humans is forbidden. We oppose discipline to discipline when we set the discipline of Diogenes in opposition to that of Aristippus, or that of the Laconians to that of the Italians. We oppose mythical belief to mythical belief when we say that in one version Zeus is spoken of as the father of gods and men, while in another version it is Oceanus. To quote:

Ocean, sire of the gods, and Tethys their mother.20

And we set dogmatic notions against one another when we say that some declare that there is only one element, while others assume that they are infinite in number. We do so also when we say that some believe the soul to be mortal, others immortal; and that some declare that human affairs are directed by divine providence, while others claim providence has no hand in them.

We oppose custom to the other things, as for example to a law, when we say that with Persian men it is a custom to indulge in homosexual practices, while with the Romans this practice is prohibited by law. This is also the case when we say that with us adultery is forbidden, while with the Massagetae the custom is traditionally an indifferent matter, as Eudoxus of Cnidos records in the first book of his Voyage. And whereas intercourse with our mothers is prohibited by our laws, with the Persians it is a custom to marry thus if one possibly can. Among the Egyptians men marry their sisters, a practice which with us is prohibited by law. The opposition of custom to discipline is seen in the fact that whereas most men have intercourse with their wives in private, Crates did so with Hipparchia in public. And Diogenes went about with only a one-sleeved tunic, while we dress as is customary. Custom is opposed to mythical belief when the stories have it that Kronos devoured his own children, since it is our custom to provide for our children. And while it is habitual practice with us to venerate the gods as being good and unaffected by evils, the poets represent them as getting wounded and being envious of one another. And custom is opposed to dogmatic notion when Epicurus says, in opposition to our custom of begging favours of the gods, that the Divinity does not pay any attention to us; and when Aristippus thinks that dressing in women’s clothes is a matter of indifference, whereas we consider this a shameful thing.

We have discipline opposed to law when in the face of a law which forbids the striking of a freeman or a well-born man, pancratiasts strike each other because of the discipline of the life they follow; and when gladiators, for the same reason, kill each other even though homicide is forbidden. We oppose mythical belief to discipline when we say that the myths tell of Heracles that he

carded wool and endured the lot of a slave,21

and that he did things that no one, exercising even a moderate choice, would have done, whereas Heracles’ discipline of life was a noble one. Discipline is opposed to dogmatic notion when athletes pursue glory as something good, and for its sake take upon themselves a laborious discipline of life, while many philosophers have the dogmatic notion that glory is a trivial thing. We oppose law to mythical belief when the poets portray the gods as committing adultery and practising paederasty, whereas with us these practices are forbidden by law. And we oppose law to dogmatic notion when Chrysippus says that having intercourse with mothers or sisters is a matter of indifference, while the law forbids this. And we oppose mythical belief to dogmatic notion when the poets tell of Zeus coming down and having intercourse with mortal women, while with the dogmatists it is believed that this is impossible. And the Poet says that Zeus, in his grief over Sarpedon, “poured down showers of blood to the earth,”22 yet it is a dogma of philosophers that the Deity is impassive; and philosophers confute the story of the horse-centaurs, and offer us the horse-centaur as an example of non- reality.

Now, it would be possible to take up many other examples for each of the antitheses mentioned above, but for a brief account these will be sufficient. However, since this mode too points out how great the discrepancy in things is, we shall not be able to say what quality an object possesses according to nature, but only what quality it appears to possess with reference to a particular discipline, a particular law, a particular custom, and so on with each of the others. This mode also, then, compels us to suspend judgement regarding the nature of external objects. And so in this manner, through the ten modes, we end with suspension of judgement.

Reprinted from Sextus Empiricus, Selections from the Major Writings on Scepticism, Man, and God, translated by Sanford G. Etheridge

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(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985), by permission of the publisher.

1. [Clitomachus, a second-century-B.C. Carthaginian, migrated to Athens in his twenties, became a student of Carneades, and eventually headed the Academy. — S.M.C.]

2. [Carneades, a second-century-B.C. Athenian, led the Academy and was renowned for his defense of withholding judgment. He frequently spoke with equal skill and fervor on one side of a question and then on the other.]

3. [The Academics were philosophers from the Academy, the school founded by Plato, which became during the third and second centuries B.C. the center of skepticism.]

4. [Pyrrho (c. 360–270 B.C.) was the Greek philosopher who founded skepticism.]

5. [Apelles was a leading fourth-century-B.C. painter.]

6. [Regarding Anaxagoras, see Plato’s Apology, n.7.]

7. [The story is told in the Odyssey.]

8. [Regarding Chrysippus, see Epictetus’ Encheiridion, n.28.]

9. [Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.) was the Greek physician who is recognized as the father of medicine.]

10. [The reference is to the Cynics, literally “doggish” followers of Diogenes (404–323 B.C.), the Greek philosopher who urged self-sufficiency and shamelessness. When Alexander the Great offered to fulfill a request from Diogenes, the Cynic replied, “Only step out of my sunlight.”]

11. [The reference is to the Pythagoreans, regarding whom see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.7.]

12. [Regarding Pindar, see Plato’s Republic, Book I, n.7.]

13. [The quotation is from Homer, Odyssey 14.228.]

14. [The quotation is from Euripides’ play The Phoenician Women 499.]

15. [The author of the quotation is unknown.]

16. [Menander was a fourth-century-B.C. Greek author of comic plays].

17. [A saying of Anaxagoras.]

18. [Regarding Diogenes, see n.10.]

19. [Laconia was the region of Greece whose capital was Sparta, which fought beside Athens in the Persian Wars and then against Athens in the Peloponnesian War.]

20. [The quotation is from Homer, Iliad 14.201.]

21. [The quotation is from the Odyssey 22.423.]

22. [The quotation is from the Iliad 16.459.]

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Augustine

During the second through the fifth centuries or so of the Christian Era, Christian apologists began to graft the shoots of the New Testament onto the roots of Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism. Such husbandry was the work of the Fathers of the Church; hence, this part of the Christian Era is sometimes called the Patristic Era.

Indisputably the greatest of the Church Fathers was St. Augustine (A.D. 354–430). Born in the North African town of Thagaste (now Souk-Ahras, Algeria), Augustine was sent to Carthage in 370 to receive an education in rhetoric, preparatory to a career in law. Not only was Carthage then renowned for education in rhetoric and law, it was also, by Augustine’s account, famous for its iniquity, in which he indulged himself freely. In Carthage Augustine first heard of Manichaeism, a dualistic Oriental religion he followed for some nine years. Augustine was attracted to the Manicheans by their swift solution to the problem of evil; that is, the problem of why an all-good, all-powerful God permits the existence of evil in the world. The Manicheans held that counterpoised to God is an all-powerful malignant force, and the world continually exhibits the endless strife between these two.

Following his education, Augustine taught rhetoric in Thagaste, Carthage, and Rome, and in 384 secured a position as a professor of rhetoric at Milan. His disenchantment with Manichaeism had been growing through the years, and by then it was complete; but still tormented by the problem of evil, he had settled for skepticism. While in Milan he encountered two influences that had a profound effect on his life: St. Ambrose, then bishop of Milan, and the writings of the Neoplatonists. Augustine heard many of the sermons given by Ambrose and was deeply moved by them. He also read, in Latin translation, some of the writings of such Neoplatonist philosophers as Plotinus (205–270), who claimed to be perfecting the philosophy of Plato. These two sources convinced him that his reservations about Christianity were ill founded. In particular, he now thought he saw a way out of the impasse created by the problem of evil: since everything that exists is created by God and everything created by God is good, there could be no all-powerful, perfectly malign being continually thwarting God’s efforts. It follows, then, according to Augustine, that evil is nonexistent. As Augustine would have it, evil is not the presence of something that exists, but rather the absence of something, namely, goodness. Augustine finally converted to Christianity in 386 and was baptized in Milan the next year. After his conversion he returned to Africa, where he was ordained as priest in the city of Hippo. He rose rapidly in the ecclesiastical ranks to become the bishop of Hippo, a position he held until his death. He died in 430 as the Vandals were preparing to lay siege to Hippo.

Augustine’s prodigious writings cover virtually every aspect of Christian experience, since he spent much of his adult life seeking to define Christianity and defend it not only from the attacks of nonbelievers but also from the challenges of several types of heretical Christians. For example, in addition to combating the Manicheans, Augustine also wrote several treatises against the members of a schismatic North African sect, the Donatists, who maintained that the sacraments, if administered by a sinful priest, had no validity. Augustine also took issue with the Pelagians, who denied the doctrine of original sin, claiming that Adam and Eve’s sin was not transmitted to their descendants. The Pelagians believed that God’s grace was not necessary for human salvation, a proposition vehemently denied by Augustine. His success against Christian heretics was so complete that subsequent Christian theologians generally consider it sufficient merely to cite his authority on many doctrinal issues. Indeed, his authority was so great that it was appealed to by both sides during the Reformation controversies.

It is commonly said that Augustine Platonized Christianity. This statement must be treated cautiously, for Augustine could not have read many, if any, of Plato’s dialogues. In fact, he emphatically rejected many of Plato’s most characteristic doctrines, including the doctrines of reincarnation (along with the associated Platonic thesis that the body is the prison of the soul, deserved because of the soul’s transgressions in a previous life); recollection (which he replaced with a doctrine of divine illumination); and the denial of moral weakness. Nevertheless, there is a Platonic core to Augustine’s thinking. Plato’s Forms become for Augustine eternal ideas in God’s mind; and, like Plato, Augustine makes a sharp distinction between the things that exist in space or time and that which is outside space and time, the latter being perfect, the former imperfect.

On Free Choice of the Will gives an overview of many of the themes central to Augustine’s thought. As the title suggests, the work focuses on the notion of freedom of the will, its importance in dealing with the problem of evil, God’s justice in bestowing it upon us, its incompatibility with God’s foreknowledge of all our

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future choices, and its necessity for our happiness. Augustine’s most comprehensive treatment of the problems of time constitutes Book XI of his Confessions,

which is reprinted here. The Confessions is a unique book, a work that is at once autobiographical, didactic, devotional, and philosophical. The first nine books give a detailed account of Augustine’s life up to and including his conversion to Christianity. In Book XI, however, the issues are strictly theological and philosophical. Augustine begins with the question, “What was God doing before He created Heaven and Earth?” His treatment of this question leads him to consider the further question, “How is it possible to measure time?” which invokes the more general question, “What is time?” The honesty and evident self- perplexity with which he grapples with these difficult questions have attracted many contemporary philosophers to this book of the Confessions.

• • •

A serviceable biography of Augustine’s life is Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), which also contains information about English translations of Augustine’s writings. Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine (New York: Random House, 1960) provides a clear introduction to Augustine’s philosophy. R. A. Markus, ed., Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1972); Gareth B. Matthews, ed., The Augustinian Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); and Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) are valuable collections of papers on Augustine’s philosophy. Two useful studies of Augustine as philosopher are Christopher Kirwan, Augustine (London: Routledge, 1989) and Gareth B. Matthews, Augustine (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2005). For examinations of several philosophical themes in the Confessions, see William E. Mann, ed., Augustine’s Confessions (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).

William E. Mann

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On Free Choice of the Will*

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BOOK ONE

[1] Evodius: Please tell me: isn’t God the cause of evil? AUGUSTINE: I will tell you once you have made clear what kind of evil you are asking about. For we use

the word ‘evil’ in two senses: first, when we say that someone has done evil; and second, when we say that someone has suffered evil.

EVODIUS: I want to know about both. AUGUSTINE: But if you know or believe that God is good — and it is not right to believe otherwise —

then he does no evil. On the other hand, if we acknowledge that God is just — and it is impious to deny it — then he rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Those punishments are certainly evils for those who suffer them. Therefore, if no one is punished unjustly—and we must believe this, since we believe that this universe is governed by divine providence—it follows that God is a cause of the second kind of evil, but in no way causes the first kind.

EVODIUS: Then is there some other cause of the evil that God does not cause? AUGUSTINE: There certainly is. Such evil could not occur unless someone caused it. But if you ask who

that someone is, it is impossible to say. For there is no single cause of evil; rather, everyone who does evil is the cause of his own evildoing. If you doubt this, recall what I said earlier: Evil deeds are punished by the justice of God. They would not be punished justly if they had not been performed voluntarily.

EVODIUS: It seems that no one could sin unless he had first learned how to sin. And if that is the case, I must ask this: From whom did we learn to sin?

AUGUSTINE: Do you think learning is a good thing? EVODIUS: Who would dare to say that learning is a bad thing? AUGUSTINE: What if it is neither good nor bad? EVODIUS: I think it is good. AUGUSTINE: Indeed it is, since knowledge is given or awakened through learning and no one comes to

know anything except through learning.1 Don’t you agree? EVODIUS: I think that we come to know only good things through learning. AUGUSTINE: Then we do not come to know evil things; for the word ‘learning’ is correctly applied only

when we come to know something.2 EVODIUS: But if we do not come to know evil things, how is it that human beings perform evil acts? AUGUSTINE: Perhaps because they turn away from learning and become strangers to it. But whether that is

the correct explanation or not, one thing is certainly clear: since learning is good, and the word ‘learning’ is correctly applied only when we come to know something, we simply cannot come to know evil things. If we could, then they would be part of learning, and so learning would not be a good thing. But it is a good thing, as you said yourself. Therefore, we do not come to know evil things, and there is no point in your asking from whom we learn to do evil things. Or else we do come to know them, but only as things to be avoided, not as things to be done. It follows that doing evil is nothing but turning away from learning.

EVODIUS: I rather think that there are two sorts of learning: one by means of which we learn to do right, and another by means of which we learn to do evil. But when you asked whether learning was good, the love of good itself caught my attention, and I saw only the sort of learning by which we learn to do right. That is why I answered that it is good. But now I remember that there is another sort of learning. I have no doubt that it is evil, and I would like to know its cause.

AUGUSTINE: Do you at least consider understanding good? EVODIUS: Certainly. I consider it so good that I cannot see how any human trait could be better. And I

would in no way say that any understanding can be bad. AUGUSTINE: When someone is being taught but does not understand, would you think that he has

learned? EVODIUS: Of course not. AUGUSTINE: Well then, if all understanding is good, and no one who does not understand learns, then

everyone who learns is doing good. For everyone who learns, understands; and everyone who understands is

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doing good. So someone who wants to know the cause of our learning something really wants to know the cause of our doing good. So let’s have no more of your wanting to hunt down this mysterious evil teacher. If he is evil, he is no teacher; and if he is a teacher, he is not evil.

[2] EVODIUS: Now that you have convinced me that we do not learn to do evil, please explain to me what is the source of our evildoing.

AUGUSTINE: You have hit upon the very question that worried me greatly when I was still young, a question that wore me out, drove me into the company of heretics,3 and knocked me flat on my face. I was so hurt by this fall, buried under a mountain of silly fairy tales, that if my love of finding the truth had not secured divine help, I would not have been able to get out from under them to breathe freely and begin to seek the truth. And since such pains were taken to free me from this difficulty, I will lead you on the same path that I followed in making my escape. God will be with us, and he will make us understand what we have believed. For we are well aware that we are at the stage described by the prophet, who says, “Unless you believe, you will not understand.”4 We believe that everything that exists comes from the one God, and yet we believe that God is not the cause of sins. What is troubling is that if you admit that sins come from the souls that God created, and those souls come from God, pretty soon you’ll be tracing those sins back to God.

EVODIUS: You have stated plainly what bothers me in thinking about this question. That is the problem that has compelled me and drawn me into this inquiry.

AUGUSTINE: Be courageous, and go on believing what you believe. There is no better belief, even if you do not yet see the explanation for why it is true. The truest beginning of piety is to think as highly of God as possible; and doing so means that one must believe that he is omnipotent, and not changeable in the smallest respect; that he is the creator of all good things, but is himself more excellent than all of them; that he is the supremely just ruler of everything that he created; and that he was not aided in creating by any other being, as if he were not sufficiently powerful by himself. It follows that he created all things from nothing. He did not create from himself, but generated one who is equal to himself, whom we call the only Son of God. In trying to describe the Son more clearly we call him “the Power of God and the Wisdom of God,”5 through whom God made all the things that were made from nothing. On that basis let us try, with God’s help, to achieve an understanding of the problem you have raised. You want to know the source of our evildoing. So we [3] must first discuss what evildoing is. State your view on the matter. If you cannot explain the whole thing at once in a few words, you can at least show me your view by naming particular evil deeds.

EVODIUS: Adultery, murder, and sacrilege, not to mention others that time and memory do not permit me to enumerate. Who could fail to recognize these as evil deeds?

AUGUSTINE: Tell me first, why do you think adultery is evil? Because the law forbids it? EVODIUS: On the contrary. Clearly, it is not evil because the law forbids it; rather, the law forbids it

because it is evil. AUGUSTINE: But suppose someone were to make things difficult for us by extolling the pleasures of

adultery and asking why we think adultery evil and deserving of condemnation. Surely you do not think that people who want to understand, and not merely to believe, would have to take refuge in an appeal to the authority of the law? Now like you I do believe, and I believe most firmly, and cry out that all peoples and nations should believe, that adultery is evil. But now we are attempting to know and hold firmly by understanding what we have already accepted by faith. So think this over as carefully as you can, and tell me what reason you have by which you know that adultery is evil.

EVODIUS: I know that it is evil because I would not tolerate it if someone tried to commit adultery with my own wife. Anyone who does to another what he does not want done to himself does evil.

AUGUSTINE: What if someone’s lust is so great that he offers his wife to another and willingly allows him to commit adultery with her, and is eager to enjoy the same freedom with the other man’s wife? Do you think that this man has done nothing evil?

EVODIUS: Far from it! AUGUSTINE: But by your rule he does not sin, since he is not doing anything that he is unwilling to have

done to himself. You must therefore look for some other argument to show that adultery is evil. EVODIUS: The reason that I think it is evil is that I have often seen people condemned for this crime. AUGUSTINE: But haven’t people often been condemned for good deeds? Not to refer you to any other

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books, recall the story that is superior to all others by virtue of its divine authority. There you will find that we must think very poorly of the apostles and martyrs if we intend to make condemnation a sure sign of wrongdoing. All of them were judged worthy of condemnation because of their confession of faith. It follows that if everything that is condemned is evil, it was evil in those days to believe in Christ and to confess that faith. But if not everything that is condemned is evil, find some other way to show why adultery is evil.

EVODIUS: I can’t think how to respond.

AUGUSTINE: Then perhaps what makes adultery evil is inordinate desire,6 whereas so long as you look for the evil in the external, visible act, you are bound to encounter difficulties. In order to understand that inordinate desire is what makes adultery evil, consider this: if a man is unable to sleep with someone else’s wife, but it is somehow clear that he would like to, and would do so if he had the chance, he is no less guilty than if he were caught in the act.

EVODIUS: Nothing could be clearer. Now I see that there is no need for a long discussion to persuade me that this is the case with murder and sacrilege and every sin whatsoever. For it is clear now that inordinate desire is what drives every kind of evildoing.

AUGUSTINE: Do you know that inordinate desire is [4] also called ‘cupidity’? EVODIUS: Yes. AUGUSTINE: Do you think there is any difference between cupidity and fear? Or are they quite the same? EVODIUS: Indeed, I think there is a huge difference between the two. AUGUSTINE: I suppose you think so because cupidity desires its object, and fear flees from it. EVODIUS: You’re quite right. AUGUSTINE: Then suppose a man kills someone, not out of cupidity for something that he desires to gain,

but because he fears that some harm will come to himself. Would he be a murderer? EVODIUS: Yes, he would. But even in this deed, cupidity is the driving force: for a man who kills someone

out of fear surely desires to live without fear. AUGUSTINE: Do you think that living without fear is a small good? EVODIUS: It is a great good, but that murderer cannot achieve it by his action. AUGUSTINE: I am not asking what he can achieve, but what he desires. Someone who desires a life free

from fear certainly desires a good thing, so his desire is not blameworthy; otherwise we will have to blame everyone who loves the good. Consequently, we will have to say that there is an instance of murder in which cupidity is not the driving force; and it will be false that inordinate desire is what drives all sins, to the extent that they are evil. Either that, or there will be an instance of murder that is not sinful.

EVODIUS: If murder is just killing a human being, then there can be murder that is not sinful. When a soldier kills the enemy, when a judge or his representative puts a criminal to death, or when a weapon accidentally slips out of someone’s hand without his willing or noticing it: these people do not seem to me to be sinning when they kill someone.

AUGUSTINE: I agree, but such people are not usually called murderers. So consider someone who kills his master because he fears severe torture. Do you think that he should be classed among those who kill a human being but do not deserve to be called murderers?

EVODIUS: I think this case is entirely different. In the earlier examples, those men are acting in accordance with the law, or at least not contrary to the law; but no law approves of the deed in your example.

AUGUSTINE: Again you refer me to authority. You must remember that we took up this discussion in order to understand what we believe. We believe the laws, and so we must try to understand, if we can, whether the law that punishes this deed does so unjustly.

EVODIUS: It is in no way unjust to punish someone who knowingly and willingly kills his master. None of the men in my earlier examples did that.

AUGUSTINE: But do you not remember that a little while ago you said that inordinate desire is what drives every evil deed, and that this is the very reason why the deed is evil?

EVODIUS: Of course I remember. AUGUSTINE: And did you not also grant that someone who desires to live without fear does not have an

evil desire? EVODIUS: I remember that too.

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AUGUSTINE: It follows that, since the master is killed by the slave as a result of this desire, he is not killed as a result of a blameworthy desire. And so we have not yet figured out why this deed is evil. For we are agreed that all wrongdoing is evil only because it results from inordinate desire, that is, from blameworthy cupidity.

EVODIUS: At this point it seems to me that the slave is unjustly condemned, which I would not dream of saying if I could think of some other response.

AUGUSTINE: You have let yourself be persuaded that this great crime should go unpunished, without considering whether the slave wanted to be free of the fear of his master in order to satisfy his own ordinate desires. All wicked people, just like good people, desire to live without fear. The difference is that the good, in desiring this, turn their love away from things that cannot be possessed without the fear of losing them. The wicked, on the other hand, try to get rid of anything that prevents them from enjoying such things securely. Thus they lead a wicked and criminal life, which would better be called death.

EVODIUS: Now I’ve come to my senses. I am glad that I understand so clearly the nature of that blameworthy cupidity that is called inordinate desire. Obviously it is the love of those things that one can lose against one’s will… .

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BOOK TWO

EVODIUS: Now explain to me, if you can, why God [1] gave human beings free choice of the will, since if we had not received it, we would not have been able to sin.

AUGUSTINE: Do you know for certain that God gave us this thing that you think should not have been given?

EVODIUS: If I understood Book One correctly, we have free choice of the will and we cannot sin without it.

AUGUSTINE: I too remember that that had become quite clear to us. But what I asked just now was whether you knew that it was God who gave us this thing, which we clearly have and by which we sin.

EVODIUS: Who else would it be? For we have our existence from God, and it is from him that we deserve punishment for doing wrong and reward for doing good.

AUGUSTINE: Here again I want to know whether you know this for certain, or whether you willingly believe it on the urging of some authority, without actually knowing it.

EVODIUS: I admit that at first I believed this on authority. But what could be truer than that everything good comes from God, that everything just is good, and that it is just for sinners to be punished and the good rewarded? From this I conclude that it is God who afflicts sinners with unhappiness and confers happiness on the good.

AUGUSTINE: I make no objection. But I do have one further question: How do you know that we have our existence from God? You did not explain that; you showed only that it is from him that we deserve punishment or reward.

EVODIUS: That is an obvious consequence of the fact that God, as the source of all justice, punishes sins. It may be that goodness confers benefits on those not committed to its charge, but justice does not punish those not in its jurisdiction. So it is obvious that we belong to God, because he is not only most generous in conferring benefits but also most just in punishing.

Furthermore, I claimed, and you agreed, that everything good is from God. From this we can understand that human beings too are from God. For human beings as such are good things, since they can live rightly if they so will.

AUGUSTINE: If all of this is true, the question you posed has clearly been answered. If human beings are good things, and they cannot do right unless they so will, then they ought to have a free will, without which they cannot do right. True, they can also use free will to sin, but we should not therefore believe that God gave them free will so that they would be able to sin. The fact that human beings could not live rightly without it was sufficient reason for God to give it. The very fact that anyone who uses free will to sin is divinely punished shows that free will was given to enable human beings to live rightly, for such punishment would be unjust if free will had been given both for living rightly and for sinning. After all, how could someone justly be punished for using the will for the very purpose for which it was given? When God punishes a sinner, don’t you think he is saying, “Why didn’t you use your free will for the purpose for which I gave it to you?” — that is, for living rightly?

And as for the goodness that we so admired in God’s justice — his punishing sins and rewarding good deeds—how could it even exist if human beings lacked the free choice of the will? No action would be either a sin or a good deed if it were not performed by the will, and so both punishment and reward would be unjust if human beings had no free will. But it was right for there to be justice in both reward and punishment, since this is one of the goods that come from God. Therefore, it was right for God to give free will to human beings.

EVODIUS: I concede that point now. But don’t you [2] think that if free will was given to us for living rightly, we ought not to have been able to pervert it and use it for sinning? It should have been like justice, which was also given to human beings to enable them to live well. No one can use justice to live wickedly. In the same way, it ought to be the case that no one could use the will to sin, if indeed the will was given for acting rightly.

AUGUSTINE: God will, I hope, enable me to reply to you—or rather, he will enable you to reply to yourself, as Truth, the greatest teacher of all, teaches you within. But first I want you to tell me this. I asked whether you knew for certain that God gave us free will, and you said that you did. So now that we have agreed that he gave us free will, should we presume to say that it should not have been given? If there is some doubt whether

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it was God who gave it, it is appropriate for us to ask whether it was a good gift; and if we find that it was, then we have also found that it was given by God, from whom the soul has all good gifts. But if we find that it was not a good gift, we will understand that it was not given by God, whom it is impious to blame. But if it is quite certain that God gave us free will, then we must admit that it ought to have been given, and in exactly the way that it was given; for God gave it, and his deeds are utterly beyond reproach.

EVODIUS: Although I hold these things with unshaken faith, let’s investigate them as if they were all uncertain, since I do not yet know them. It is uncertain whether free will was given for doing right, since we can also use it to sin; consequently, it is also uncertain whether it ought to have been given. For if it is uncertain whether it was given for doing right, then it is also uncertain whether it ought to have been given. This means in turn that it is doubtful whether it was given by God. For if it is doubtful whether it ought to have been given, then it is also doubtful whether it was given by God, since it is impious to believe that God gave something that should not have been given.

AUGUSTINE: You are at any rate certain that God exists. EVODIUS: Even that is something I hold by faith, not something I see for myself.

AUGUSTINE: Scripture says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”7 Suppose one of those fools were to say that to you. Suppose he did not want to believe what you believe, but to know whether what you believe is true. Would you just give up, or would you think that he could somehow be persuaded of what you firmly believe — especially if he was not merely being contentious, but sincerely wanted to know?

EVODIUS: This last proviso of yours suggests a response. However absurd he might be, he would surely concede that one should not discuss anything, and especially not such an important matter, with a deceitful and obstinate person. Then he would have to get me to believe that he had the proper attitude and was not concealing any deceitfulness or obstinacy regarding this issue. Then I would point out to him that he expects other people to believe things about his own state of mind, things that he knows but other people do not. And I would try to get him to see (as I think anyone easily can) how much more reasonable it is for him to believe that God exists on the authority of the writings of such great men, who left written testimony that they lived with the Son of God, and wrote that they saw things that could not have happened if God did not exist. He would be completely foolish to reproach me for believing them, when he expects me to believe him. And since he could not rightly reproach me, he would have no reason not to join me.

AUGUSTINE: But if you think it is acceptable to believe that God exists because we have found those men to be reliable authorities, why don’t you think we should also accept the authority of those same men regarding the other issues that we had found to be uncertain and unknown, rather than toiling on with our inquiry?

EVODIUS: But we want to know and understand what we believe. AUGUSTINE: Your memory serves you well; we cannot deny what we said at the beginning of our previous

discussion. Unless believing and understanding were two different things, and we were first to believe the great and divine things that we desire to understand, there would have been no point in the prophet’s saying “Unless you believe, you will not understand.”8 At first our Lord himself by his words and deeds urged those whom he had called to salvation to believe in him. But later, when he spoke of the gift that he was going to give to those who believed, he did not say, “This is eternal life, that they may believe,” but “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.”9 And he said to those who already believe, “Seek, and you will find.”10 For something that is believed but not known has not yet been found, and no one becomes ready to find God unless he first believes what he will afterwards know.

Therefore, let us diligently obey the Lord’s command as we seek; for he himself will show us what we seek at his urging, insofar as it can be found in this life by such people as we are. For we must believe that better people, even in this earthly life, and all good and pious people in the next, see and possess these things more clearly and completely. We must hope one day to be like them, and we must wholeheartedly desire and love these things and place no value on what is earthly and human… .

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BOOK THREE

[1] EVODIUS: It has been demonstrated to my satisfaction that free will is to be numbered among good things, and indeed not among the least of them, and therefore that it was given to us by God, who acted rightly in giving it. So now, if you think that this is a good time, I would like you to explain the source of the movement by which the will turns away from the common and unchangeable good toward its own good, or the good of others, or lower goods, all of which are changeable.

AUGUSTINE: Why do we need to know that? EVODIUS: Because if the will was given to us in such a way that it had this movement naturally, then it

turned to changeable goods by necessity, and there is no blame involved when nature and necessity determine an action.

AUGUSTINE: Does this movement please you or displease you? EVODIUS: It displeases me. AUGUSTINE: So you find fault with it. EVODIUS: Of course. AUGUSTINE: Then you find fault with a blameless movement of the soul. EVODIUS: No, it’s just that I don’t know whether there is any blame involved when the soul deserts the

unchangeable good and turns toward changeable goods. AUGUSTINE: Then you find fault with what you don’t know. EVODIUS: Don’t quibble over words. In saying “I don’t know whether there is any blame involved,” I

meant it to be understood that there undoubtedly is blame involved. The “I don’t know” implied that it was ridiculous to have doubts about such an obvious fact.

AUGUSTINE: Then pay close attention to this most certain truth, which has caused you to forget so quickly what you just said. If that movement existed by nature or necessity, it could in no way be blameworthy. But you are so firmly convinced that this movement is indeed blameworthy that you think it would be ridiculous to entertain doubts about something so certain. Why then did you affirm, or at least tentatively assert, something that now seems to you clearly false? For this is what you said: “If the will was given to us in such a way that it had this movement naturally, then it turned to changeable goods by necessity, and there is no blame involved when nature and necessity determine an action.” Since you are sure that this movement was blameworthy, you should have been quite sure that the will was not given to us in such a way.

EVODIUS: I said that this movement was blameworthy and that therefore it displeases me. And I am surely right to find fault with it. But I deny that a soul ought to be blamed when this movement pulls it away from the unchangeable good toward changeable goods, if this movement is so much a part of its nature that it is moved by necessity.

AUGUSTINE: You admit that this movement certainly deserves blame; but whose movement is it? EVODIUS: I see that the movement is in the soul, but I don’t know whose it is. AUGUSTINE: Surely you don’t deny that the soul is moved by this movement. EVODIUS: No. AUGUSTINE: Do you deny that a movement by which a stone is moved is a movement of the stone? I’m

not talking about a movement that is caused by us or some other force, as when it is thrown into the air, but the movement that occurs when it falls to the earth by its own weight.

EVODIUS: I don’t deny that this movement, by which the stone seeks the lowest place, is a movement of the stone. But it is a natural movement. If that’s the sort of movement the soul has, then the soul’s movement is also natural. And if it is moved naturally, it cannot justly be blamed; even if it is moved toward something evil, it is compelled by its own nature. But since we don’t doubt that this movement is blameworthy, we must absolutely deny that it is natural, and so it is not similar to the natural movement of a stone.

AUGUSTINE: Did we accomplish anything in our first two discussions? EVODIUS: Of course we did. AUGUSTINE: I’m sure you recall that in Book One we agreed that nothing can make the mind a slave to

inordinate desire except its own will. For the will cannot be forced into such iniquity by anything superior or

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equal to it, since that would be unjust; or by anything inferior to it, since that is impossible. Only one possibility remains: the movement by which the will turns from enjoying the Creator to enjoying his creatures belongs to the will itself. So if that movement deserves blame (and you said it was ridiculous to entertain doubts on that score), then it is not natural, but voluntary.

This movement of the will is similar to the downward movement of a stone in that it belongs to the will just as that downward movement belongs to the stone. But the two movements are dissimilar in this respect: the stone has no power to check its downward movement, but the soul is not moved to abandon higher things and love inferior things unless it wills to do so. And so the movement of the stone is natural, but the movement of the soul is voluntary. If someone were to say that a stone is sinning because its weight carries it downward, I would not merely say that he was more senseless than the stone itself; I would consider him completely insane. But we accuse a soul of sin when we are convinced that it has abandoned higher things and chosen to enjoy inferior things. Now we admit that this movement belongs to the will alone, and that it is voluntary and therefore blameworthy; and the only useful teaching on this topic is that which condemns and checks this movement and thus serves to rescue our wills from their fall into temporal goods and turn them toward the enjoyment of the eternal good. Therefore, what need is there to ask about the source of the movement by which the will turns away from the unchangeable good toward changeable good?

EVODIUS: I see that what you are saying is true, and in a way I understand it. There is nothing I feel so firmly and so intimately as that I have a will by which I am moved to enjoy something. If the will by which I choose or refuse things is not mine, then I don’t know what I can call mine. So if I use my will to do something evil, whom can I hold responsible but myself? For a good God made me, and I can do nothing good except through my will; therefore, it is quite clear that the will was given to me by a good God so that I might do good. If the movement of the will by which it turns this way or that were not voluntary and under its own control, a person would not deserve praise for turning to higher things or blame for turning to lower things, as if swinging on the hinge of the will. Furthermore, there would be no point in admonishing people to forget about lower things and strive for what is eternal, so that they might refuse to live badly but instead will to live rightly. And anyone who does not think that we ought to admonish people in this way deserves to be banished from the human race.

Since these things are true, I very much wonder how [2] God can have foreknowledge of everything in the future, and yet we do not sin by necessity. It would be an irreligious and completely insane attack on God’s foreknowledge to say that something could happen otherwise than as God foreknew. So suppose that God foreknew that the first human being was going to sin. Anyone who admits, as I do, that God foreknows everything in the future will have to grant me that. Now I won’t say that God would not have made him — for God made him good, and no sin of his can harm God, who not only made him good but showed His own goodness by creating him, as He also shows His justice by punishing him and His mercy by redeeming him — but I will say this: since God foreknew that he was going to sin, his sin necessarily had to happen. How, then, is the will free when such inescapable necessity is found in it?

AUGUSTINE: You have knocked powerfully on the door of God’s mercy; may it be present and open the door to those who knock. Nevertheless, I think the only reason that most people are tormented by this question is that they do not ask it piously; they are more eager to excuse than to confess their sins. Some people gladly believe that there is no divine providence in charge of human affairs. They put their bodies and their souls at the mercy of chance and give themselves up to be beaten and mangled by inordinate desires. They disbelieve divine judgments and evade human judgments, thinking that fortune will defend them from those who accuse them. They depict this “fortune” as blind, implying either that they are better than fortune, by which they think they are ruled, or that they themselves suffer from the same blindness. It is perfectly reasonable to admit that such people do everything by chance, since in whatever they do, they fall.11 But we said enough in Book Two to combat this opinion, which is full of the most foolish and insane error.

Others, however, are not impertinent enough to deny that the providence of God rules over human life; but they prefer the wicked error of believing that it is weak, or unjust, or evil, rather than confessing their sins with humble supplication. If only they would let themselves be convinced that, when they think of what is best and most just and most powerful, the goodness and justice and power of God are far greater and far higher than anything they can conceive; if only they would consider themselves and understand that they would owe thanks to God even if he had willed to make them lower than they are. Then the very bone and marrow of their conscience would cry out, “I said, ‘O Lord, have mercy upon me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.’”12 Thus they would be led in the secure paths of divine mercy along the road to wisdom, not becoming conceited when they made new discoveries or disheartened when they failed to do so. Their

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new knowledge would simply prepare them to see more, and their ignorance would make them more patient in seeking the truth. Of course I’m sure that you already believe this. But you will see how easily I can answer your difficult question once I have answered a few preliminary questions.

[3] Surely this is the problem that is disturbing and puzzling you. How is it that these two propositions are not contradictory and inconsistent: (1) God has foreknowledge of everything in the future; and (2) We sin by the will, not by necessity? For, you say, if God foreknows that someone is going to sin, then it is necessary that he sin. But if it is necessary, the will has no choice about whether to sin; there is an inescapable and fixed necessity. And so you fear that this argument forces us into one of two positions: either we draw the heretical conclusion that God does not foreknow everything in the future; or, if we cannot accept this conclusion, we must admit that sin happens by necessity and not by will. Isn’t that what is bothering you?

EVODIUS: That’s it exactly. AUGUSTINE: So you think that anything that God foreknows happens by necessity and not by will. EVODIUS: Precisely. AUGUSTINE: Now pay close attention. Look inside yourself for a little while, and tell me, if you can, what

sort of will you are going to have tomorrow: a will to do right or a will to sin? EVODIUS: I don’t know. AUGUSTINE: Do you think that God doesn’t know either? EVODIUS: Not at all — God certainly does know. AUGUSTINE: Well then, if God knows what you are going to will tomorrow, and foresees the future wills

of every human being, both those who exist now and those who will exist in the future, he surely foresees how he is going to treat the just and the irreligious.

EVODIUS: Clearly, if I say that God foreknows all of my actions, I can much more confidently say that he foreknows his own actions and foresees with absolute certainty what he is going to do.

AUGUSTINE: Then aren’t you worried that someone might object that God himself will act out of necessity rather than by his will in everything that he is going to do? After all, you said that whatever God foreknows happens by necessity, not by will.

EVODIUS: When I said that, I was thinking only of what happens in his creation and not of what happens within himself. For those things do not come into being; they are eternal.

AUGUSTINE: So God does nothing in his creation. EVODIUS: He has already established, once for all, the ways in which the universe that he created is to be

governed; he does not administer anything by a new act of will. AUGUSTINE: Doesn’t he make anyone happy? EVODIUS: Of course he does. AUGUSTINE: And he does this when that person is made happy. EVODIUS: Right. AUGUSTINE: Then suppose, for example, that you are going to be happy a year from now. That means that

a year from now God is going to make you happy. EVODIUS: That’s right too. AUGUSTINE: And God knows today what he is going to do a year from now. EVODIUS: He has always foreknown this, so I admit that he foreknows it now, if indeed it is really going to

happen. AUGUSTINE: Then surely you are not God’s creature, or else your happiness does not take place in you. EVODIUS: But I am God’s creature, and my happiness does take place in me. AUGUSTINE: Then the happiness that God gives you takes place by necessity and not by will. EVODIUS: His will is my necessity. AUGUSTINE: And so you will be happy against your will. EVODIUS: If I had the power to be happy I would be happy right now. Even now I will to be happy, but

I’m not, since it is God who makes me happy. I cannot do it for myself. AUGUSTINE: How clearly the truth speaks through you! You could not help thinking that the only thing

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that is within our power is that which we do when we will it. Therefore, nothing is so much within our power as the will itself, for it is near at hand the very moment that we will. So we can rightly say, “We grow old by necessity, not by will”; or “We become feeble by necessity, not by will”; or “We die by necessity, not by will,” and other such things. But who would be crazy enough to say “We do not will by the will”? Therefore, although God foreknows what we are going to will in the future, it does not follow that we do not will by the will.

When you said that you cannot make yourself happy, you said it as if I had denied it. Not at all; I am merely saying that when you do become happy, it will be in accordance with your will, not against your will. Simply because God foreknows your future happiness — and nothing can happen except as God foreknows it, since otherwise it would not be foreknowledge—it does not follow that you will be happy against your will. That would be completely absurd and far from the truth. So God’s foreknowledge, which is certain even today of your future happiness, does not take away your will for happiness once you have begun to be happy; and in the same way, your blameworthy will (if indeed you are going to have such a will) does not cease to be a will simply because God foreknows that you are going to have it.

Just notice how imperceptive someone would have to be to argue thus: “If God has foreknown my future will, it is necessary that I will what he has foreknown, since nothing can happen otherwise than as he has foreknown it. But if it is necessary, then one must concede that I will it by necessity and not by will.” What extraordinary foolishness! If God foreknew a future will that turned out not to be a will at all, things would indeed happen otherwise than as God foreknew them. And I will overlook this objector’s equally monstrous statement that “it is necessary that I will,” for by assuming necessity he tries to abolish will. For if his willing is necessary, how does he will, since there is no will?

Suppose he expressed it in another way and said that, since his willing is necessary, his will is not in his own power. This would run up against the same problem that you had when I asked whether you were going to be happy against your will. You replied that you would already be happy if you had the power; you said that you have the will but not the power. I answered that the truth had spoken through you. For we can deny that something is in our power only if it is not present even when we will it; but if we will, and yet the will remains absent, then we are not really willing at all. Now if it is impossible for us not to will when we are willing, then the will is present to those who will; and if something is present when we will it, then it is in our power. So our will would not be a will if it were not in our power. And since it is in our power, we are free with respect to it. But we are not free with respect to anything that we do not have in our power, and anything that we have cannot be nothing.

Thus, we believe both that God has foreknowledge of everything in the future and that nonetheless we will whatever we will. Since God foreknows our will, the very will that he foreknows will be what comes about. Therefore, it will be a will, since it is a will that he foreknows. And it could not be a will unless it were in our power. Therefore, he also foreknows this power. It follows, then, that his foreknowledge does not take away my power; in fact, it is all the more certain that I will have that power, since he whose foreknowledge never errs foreknows that I will have it.

EVODIUS: I agree now that it is necessary that whatever God has foreknown will happen, and that he foreknows our sins in such a way that our wills remain free and are within our power.

[4] AUGUSTINE: Then what is troubling you? Have you perhaps forgotten the results of our first discussion? Will you deny that nothing at all, whether superior, equal, or inferior, can coerce the will, and that we sin by our own wills?

EVODIUS: I certainly wouldn’t dream of denying any of those things. But still, I must admit that I can’t quite see how God’s foreknowledge of our sins can be consistent with our free choice in sinning. For we must admit that God is just, and that he has foreknowledge. But I would like to know how it can be just to punish sins that happen necessarily, or how things that God foreknows do not happen necessarily, or how whatever happens necessarily in creation should not be attributed to the Creator.

AUGUSTINE: Why do you think that our free choice is inconsistent with God’s foreknowledge? Because it’s foreknowledge, or because it’s God’s foreknowledge?

EVODIUS: Because it’s God’s foreknowledge. AUGUSTINE: If you knew that someone was going to sin, he wouldn’t sin necessarily, would he? EVODIUS: Indeed he would. Unless I foreknew something with certainty, it wouldn’t be foreknowledge at

all. AUGUSTINE: Then it’s not God’s foreknowledge that makes his sin necessary, but any foreknowledge, since

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if something is not foreknown with certainty, it is not foreknown at all. EVODIUS: I agree. But where are you headed with this? AUGUSTINE: Unless I am mistaken, you do not force someone to sin just because you foreknow that he is

going to sin. Nor does your foreknowledge force him to sin, even if he is undoubtedly going to sin — since otherwise you would not have genuine foreknowledge. So if your foreknowledge is consistent with his freedom in sinning, so that you foreknow what someone else is going to do by his own will, then God forces no one to sin, even though he foresees those who are going to sin by their own will.

Why then can’t our just God punish those things that his foreknowledge does not force to happen? Just as your memory does not force the past to have happened, God’s foreknowledge does not force the future to happen. And just as you remember some things that you have done but did not do everything that you remember, God foreknows everything that he causes but does not cause everything that he foreknows. Of such things he is not the evil cause, but the just avenger. Therefore, you must understand that God justly punishes the sins that he foreknows but does not cause. If the fact that God foresees their sins means that he should not punish sinners, then he should also not reward those who act rightly, for he also foresees their righteous actions. Let us rather confess that nothing in the future is hidden from God’s foreknowledge, and that no sin is left unpunished by his justice, for sin is committed by the will, not coerced by God’s foreknowledge.

As for your third question, about how the Creator [5] can escape blame for whatever happens necessarily in his creation, it will not easily overcome that rule of piety that we ought to bear in mind, namely, that we owe thanks to our Creator. His most abundant goodness would be most justly praised even if he had created us at a lower level of creation. For even though our souls are decayed with sin, they are better and more sublime than they would be if they were transformed into visible light. And you see that even souls that are addicted to the bodily senses give God great praise for the grandeur of light. Therefore, don’t let the fact that sinful souls are condemned lead you to say in your heart that it would be better if they did not exist. For they are condemned only in comparison with what they would have been if they had refused to sin. Nonetheless, God their Creator deserves the most noble praise that human beings can offer him, not only because he places them in a just order when they sin, but also because he created them in such a way that even the filth of sin could in no way make them inferior to corporeal light, for which he is nonetheless praised.

So you should not say that it would be better if sinful souls had never existed. But I must also warn you not to say that they ought to have been created differently. Whatever might rightly occur to you as being better, you may be sure that God, as the Creator of all good things, has made that too. When you think that something better should have been made, it is not right reason, but grudging weakness, to will that nothing lower had been made, as if you looked upon the heavens and wished that the earth had not been made. Such a wish is utterly unjust.

If you saw that the earth had been made but not the heavens, then you would have a legitimate complaint, for you could say that the earth ought to have been made like the heavens that you can imagine. But since you see that the pattern to which you wanted the earth to conform has indeed been made (but it is called “the heavens” and not “the earth”), I’m sure that you would not begrudge the fact that the inferior thing has also been made, and that the earth exists, since you are not deprived of the better thing. And there is so great a variety of parts in the earth that we cannot conceive of any earthly form that God has not created. By intermediate steps one passes gradually from the most fertile and pleasant land to the briniest and most barren, so that you would not dream of disparaging any of them except in comparison with a better. Thus you ascend through every degree of praise, so that even when you come to the very best land, you would not want it to exist without the others. And how great a distance there is between the whole earth and the heavens! For between the two is interposed the watery and airy nature. From these four elements come a variety of forms and species too numerous for us to count, although God has numbered them all.

Therefore, it is possible for something to exist in the universe that you do not conceive with your reason, but it is not possible for something that you conceive by right reason not to exist. For you cannot conceive anything better in creation that has slipped the mind of the Creator. Indeed, the human soul is naturally connected with the divine reasons on which it depends. When it says “It would be better to make this than that,” if what it says is true, and it sees what it is saying, then it sees that truth in the reasons to which it is connected. If, therefore, it knows by right reason that God ought to have made something, let it believe that God has in fact done so, even if it does not see the thing among those that God has made.

For example, suppose we could not see the heavens. Nonetheless, if right reason showed that some such thing ought to have been made, it would be right for us to believe that it was made, even if we did not see it

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with our own eyes. For if we see by thought that something ought to have been made, we see it only in those reasons by which all things were made. But no truthful thinking can enable someone to see what is not in those reasons, for whatever is not there is not true.

Many people go astray when they have seen better things with their mind because in searching for it with their eyes they look in the wrong places. They are like someone who understands perfect roundness and is angry because he does not find it in a nut, if that is the only round object that he sees. In the same way, some people see by the truest reason that a creature is better if it is so firmly dedicated to God that it will never sin, even though it has free will. Then, when they look upon the sins of human beings, they do not use their sorrow over sin to stop people from sinning; they bemoan the fact that human beings were created in the first place. “He ought to have made us,” they say, “so that we would always enjoy his unchangeable truth, so that we would never will to sin.” Let them not moan and complain! God, who gave them the power to will, did not force them to sin; and there are angels who never have sinned and never will sin.

Therefore, if you take delight in a creature whose will is so perfectly steadfast that he does not sin, it is by right reason that you prefer this creature to one that sins. And just as you give it a higher rank in your thinking, the Creator gave it a higher rank in his ordering. So be sure that such a creature exists in the higher places and in the splendor of the heavens, since if the Creator manifested his goodness in creating something that he foresaw would sin, he certainly manifested his goodness in creating something that he foreknew would not sin.

That sublime creature has perpetual happiness in the perpetual enjoyment of its Creator, a happiness that it deserves because it perpetually wills to retain justice. Next, there is a proper place even for the sinful nature that by its sins has lost happiness but not thrown away the power to recover happiness. This nature is in turn higher than one that perpetually wills to sin. It occupies a sort of intermediate position between those that persist in willing justice and those that persist in willing to sin. It receives its greatness from the lowliness of repentance.

But God, in the bounty of his goodness, did not shrink from creating even that creature whom he foreknew would not merely sin, but would persist in willing to sin. For a runaway horse is better than a stone that stays in the right place only because it has no movement or perception of its own; and in the same way, a creature that sins by free will is more excellent than one that does not sin only because it has no free will. I would praise wine as a thing good of its kind, but condemn a person who got drunk on that wine. And yet I would prefer that person, condemned and drunk, to the wine that I praised, on which he got drunk. In the same way, the material creation is rightly praised on its own level, but those who turn away from the perception of the truth by immoderately using the material creation deserve condemnation. And yet even those perverse and drunken people who are ruined by this greed are to be preferred to the material creation, praiseworthy though it is in its own order, not because of the merit of their sins, but because of the dignity of their nature.

Therefore, any soul is better than any material object. Now no sinful soul, however far it may fall, is ever changed into a material object; it never ceases to be a soul. Therefore, no soul ceases to be better than a material object. Consequently, the lowest soul is still better than light, which is the foremost among material objects. It may be that the body in which a certain soul exists is inferior to some other body, but the soul itself can in no way be inferior to a body.

Why, then, should we not praise God with unspeakable praise, simply because when he made those souls who would persevere in the laws of justice, he made others who he foresaw would sin, even some who would persevere in sin? For even such souls are better than souls that cannot sin because they lack reason and the free choice of the will. And these souls are in turn better than the brilliance of any material object, however splendid, which some people mistakenly worship instead of the Most High God. In the order of material creation, from the heavenly choirs to the number of the hairs of our heads, the beauty of good things at every level is so perfectly harmonious that only the most ignorant could say, “What is this? Why is this?” — for all things were created in their proper order. How much more ignorant, then, to say this of a soul whose glory, however dimmed and tarnished it might become, far exceeds the dignity of any material object!

Reason judges in one way, custom in another. Reason judges by the light of truth, so that by right judgment it subjects lesser things to greater. Custom is often swayed by agreeable habits, so that it esteems as greater what truth reveals as lower. Reason accords the heavenly bodies far greater honor than earthly bodies. And yet who among carnal human beings would not much rather have many stars gone from the heavens than one sapling missing from his field or one cow from his pasture? Children would rather see a man die (unless it is someone they love) than their pet bird, especially if the man frightens them and the bird is beautiful and can sing; but adults utterly despise their judgments, or at least wait patiently until they can be corrected. In the

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same way, there are those who praise God for his lesser creatures, which are better suited to their carnal senses. But when it comes to his superior and better creatures, some of these people praise him less or not at all; some even try to find fault with them or change them; and some do not believe that God created them. But those who have advanced along the road to wisdom regard such people as ignorant judges of things. Until they can correct the ignorant, they learn to bear with them patiently; but if they cannot correct them, they utterly repudiate their judgments.

Since this is the case, it is quite wrong to think that [6] the sins of the creature should be attributed to the Creator, even though it is necessary that whatever he foreknows will happen. So much so, that when you said you could find no way to avoid attributing to him everything in his creation that happens necessarily, I on the other hand could find no way — nor can any way be found, for I am convinced that there is no way—to attribute to him anything in his creation that happens necessarily by the will of sinners.

Someone might say, “I would rather not exist at all than be unhappy.” I would reply, “You’re lying. You’re unhappy now, and the only reason you don’t want to die is to go on existing. You don’t want to be unhappy, but you do want to exist. Give thanks, therefore, for what you are willingly, so that what you are against your will might be taken away; for you willingly exist, but you are unhappy against your will. If you are ungrateful for what you will to be, you are justly compelled to be what you do not will. So I praise the goodness of your Creator, for even though you are ungrateful you have what you will; and I praise the justice of your Lawgiver, for because you are ungrateful you suffer what you do not will.”

But then he might say, “It is not because I would rather be unhappy than not exist at all that I am unwilling to die; it’s because I’m afraid that I might be even more unhappy after death.” I would reply, “If it is unjust for you to be even more unhappy, you won’t be so; but if it is just, let us praise him by whose laws you will be so.”

Next he might ask, “Why should I assume that if it is unjust I won’t be more unhappy?” I would reply, “If at that time you are in your own power, either you will not be unhappy, or you will be governing yourself unjustly, in which case you will deserve your unhappiness. But suppose instead that you wish to govern yourself justly but cannot. That means that you are not in your own power, so either someone else has power over you, or no one has. If no one has power over you, you will act either willingly or unwillingly. It cannot be unwillingly, because nothing happens to you unwillingly unless you are overcome by some force, and you cannot be overcome by any force if no one has power over you. And if it is willingly, you are in fact in your own power, and the earlier argument applies: either you deserve your unhappiness for governing yourself unjustly, or, since you have whatever you will, you have reason to give thanks for the goodness of your Creator.

“Therefore, if you are not in your own power, some other thing must have control over you. This thing is either stronger or weaker than you. If it is weaker than you, your servitude is your own fault and your unhappiness is just; since you could overpower this thing if you willed to do so. And if a stronger thing has control over you, its control is in accordance with proper order, and you cannot rightly think that so right an order is unjust. I was therefore quite correct to say, ‘If it is unjust for you to be even more unhappy, you won’t be so; but if it is just, let us praise him by whose laws you will be so.’”

[7] Then he might say, “The only reason that I will to be unhappy rather than not to exist at all is that I already exist; if somehow I could have been consulted on this matter before I existed, I would have chosen not to exist rather than to be unhappy. The fact that I am now afraid not to exist, even though I am unhappy, is itself part of that very unhappiness because of which I do not will what I ought to will. For I ought to will not to exist rather than to be unhappy. And yet I admit that in fact I would rather be unhappy than be nothing. But the more unhappy I am, the more foolish I am to will this; and the more truly I see that I ought not will this, the more unhappy I am.”

I would reply, “Be careful that you are not mistaken when you think you see the truth. For if you were happy, you would certainly prefer existence to nonexistence. Even as it is, although you are unhappy and do not will to be unhappy, you would rather exist and be unhappy than not exist at all. Consider, then, as well as you can, how great is the good of existence, which the happy and the unhappy alike will. If you consider it well, you will realize three things. First, you are unhappy to the extent that you are far from him who exists in the highest degree. Second, the more you think that it is better for someone not to exist than to be unhappy, the less you will see him who exists in the highest degree. Finally, you nonetheless will to exist because you are from him who exists in the highest degree.”

So if you will to escape from unhappiness, cherish your will to exist. For if you will more and more to exist,

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you will approach him who exists in the highest degree. And give thanks that you exist now, for even though you are inferior to those who are happy, you are superior to things that do not have even the will to be happy — and many such things are praised even by those who are unhappy. Nonetheless, all things that exist deserve praise simply in virtue of the fact that they exist, for they are good simply in virtue of the fact that they exist.

The more you love existence, the more you will desire eternal life, and so the more you will long to be refashioned so that your affections are no longer temporal, branded upon you by the love of temporal things that are nothing before they exist, and then, once they do exist, flee from existence until they exist no more. And so when their existence is still to come, they do not yet exist; and when their existence is past, they exist no more. How can you expect such things to endure, when for them to begin to exist is to set out on the road to nonexistence?

Someone who loves existence approves of such things insofar as they exist and loves that which always exists. If once he used to waiver in the love of temporal things, he now grows firm in the love of the eternal. Once he wallowed in the love of fleeting things, but he will stand steadfast in the love of what is permanent. Then he will obtain the very existence that he willed when he was afraid not to exist but could not stand upright because he was entangled in the love of fleeting things.

Therefore, do not grieve that you would rather exist and be unhappy than not exist and be nothing at all. Instead, rejoice greatly, for your will to exist is like a first step. If you go on from there to set your sights more and more on existence, you will rise to him who exists in the highest degree. Thus you will keep yourself from the kind of fall in which that which exists in the lowest degree ceases to exist and thereby devastates the one who loves it. Hence, someone who prefers not to exist rather than to be unhappy has no choice but to be unhappy, since he cannot fail to exist; but someone who loves existence more than he hates being unhappy can banish what he hates by cleaving more and more to what he loves. For someone who has come to enjoy an existence that is perfect for a thing of his kind cannot be unhappy.

[8] Notice how absurd and illogical it would be to say “I would prefer not to exist rather than to be unhappy.” For someone who says “I would prefer this rather than that” is choosing something. But not to exist is not something, but nothing. Therefore, you can’t properly choose it, since what you are choosing does not exist.

Perhaps you will say that you do in fact will to exist, even though you are unhappy, but that you shouldn’t will to exist. Then what should you will? “Not to exist,” you say. Well, if that is what you ought to will, it must be better; but that which does not exist cannot be better. Therefore, you should not will not to exist, and the frame of mind that keeps you from willing it is closer to the truth than your belief that you ought to will it.

Furthermore, if someone is right in choosing to pursue something, it must be the case that he becomes better when he attains it. But whoever does not exist cannot be better; and so no one can be right in choosing not to exist. We should not be swayed by the judgment of those whose unhappiness has driven them to suicide. Either they thought that they would be better off after death, in which case they were doing nothing contrary to our argument (whether they were right in thinking so or not); or else they thought that they would be nothing after death, in which case there is even less reason for us to bother with them, since they falsely chose nothing. For how am I supposed to concur in the choice of someone who, if I asked him what he was choosing, would say “Nothing”? And someone who chooses not to exist is clearly choosing nothing, even if he won’t admit it.

To tell you quite frankly what I think about this whole issue, it seems to me that someone who kills himself or in some way wants to die has the feeling that he will not exist after death, whatever his conscious opinion may be. Opinion, whether true or false, has to do with reason or faith; but feeling derives its power from either habit or nature. It can happen that opinion leads in one direction and feeling in another. This is easy to see in cases where we believe that we ought to do one thing but enjoy doing just the opposite. And sometimes feeling is closer to the truth than opinion is, as when the opinion is in error and the feeling is from nature. For example, a sick man will often enjoy drinking cold water, which is good for him, even if he believes that it will kill him. But sometimes opinion is closer to the truth than feeling is, as when someone’s knowledge of medicine tells him that cold water would be harmful when in fact it would be harmful, even though it would be pleasant to drink. Sometimes both are right, as when one rightly believes that something is beneficial and also finds it pleasing. Sometimes both are wrong, as when one believes that something is beneficial when it is actually harmful and one is also happy not to give it up.

It often happens that right opinion corrects perverted habits and that perverted opinion distorts an upright nature, so great is the power of the dominion and rule of reason. Therefore, someone who believes that after death he will not exist is driven by his unbearable troubles to desire death with all his heart; he chooses death and takes hold of it. His opinion is completely false, but his feeling is simply a natural desire for peace. And

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something that has peace is not nothing; indeed, it is greater than something that is restless. For restlessness generates one conflicting passion after another, whereas peace has the constancy that is the most conspicuous characteristic of Being.

So the will’s desire for death is not a desire for nonexistence but a desire for peace. When someone wrongly believes that he will not exist, he desires by nature to be at peace; that is, he desires to exist in a higher degree. Therefore, just as no one can desire not to exist, no one ought to be ungrateful to the goodness of the Creator for the fact that he exists.

*Reprinted from Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, translated by Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), by permission of the publisher.

1. [In the passage that follows, Augustine relies on the similarity between the verb “discere” (“to learn”) and its noun form “disciplina” (“learning”). Unfortunately, the words are so similar in English that a literal translation sounds odd and occasionally nonsensical. I have therefore translated “discere” as “come to know” in most cases. The reader should bear in mind that the connection between “come to know” and “learning” is much closer in the Latin than I can safely make it in the English.—T.W.]

2. [Literally, “the word ‘disciplina’ is derived from the word ‘discere.’”]

3. [The Manichees, who believed in the existence of an evil “god” equal to and independent of the good “god.”]

4. [Isaiah 7:9 (pre-Vulgate text).]

5. [1 Corinthians 1:24.]

6. [The Latin here is “libido.” There is no single English word that adequately conveys its meaning. Some translators have rendered it “desire,” with the result that Augustine often seems to be saying that all desire is sinful, which is not his view at all. The alternative translation of “lust” captures the fact that “libido” is one specific kind of desire, but English usage restricts “lust” to blameworthy sexual desire; and Augustine certainly does not mean to claim that all murder and sacrilege result from misdirected sexual passion. Therefore, despite the occasional clumsiness of doing so, I have translated “libido” as “inordinate desire.” The other important term in this passage is “cupiditas.” Sometimes Augustine treats “cupiditas” as synonymous with “libido”; in those cases I have translated it as “cupidity.” But sometimes he uses it as a neutral term, and there I have translated it as “desire.”]

7. [Psalm 14:1; 53:1.]

8. [Isaiah 7:9 (pre-Vulgate text).]

9. [John 17:3.]

10. [Matthew 7:7.]

11. [The Latin word for “chance” (“casus”) is derived from the verb “to fall” (“cado”).]

12. [Psalm 41:4.]

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Confessions*

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BOOK XI

IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED …

But, Lord, since You are in eternity, are You unaware of what I am saying to You? Or do you see in time what takes place in time? But if You do see, why am I giving You an account of all these things? Not, obviously, that You should learn them from me; but I excite my own love for You and the love of those who read what I write, that we all may say: The Lord is great, and exceedingly to be praised. I have said before and I will say again: “It is for love of Your love that I do it.” We pray [for what we want], yet Truth Himself has said: Your Father knows what is needful for you before you ask Him. Thus we are laying bare our love for You in confessing to You our wretchedness and Your mercies towards us: that You may free us wholly as You have already freed us in part, so that we may cease to be miserable in ourselves and come to happiness in You. For You have called us to be poor in spirit, to be meek, to mourn, to hunger and thirst after justice, to be merciful and clean of heart and peacemakers.

Thus I have told You many things, with such power and will as I had, because You, O Lord my God, had first willed that I should confess to You: for Thou art good and Thy mercy endureth forever.

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But when will the voice of my pen have power to tell all Your exhortations and all Your terrors, Your consolations and the guidance by which You have brought me to be to Your people a preacher of Your word and a dispenser of Your Sacrament? Even had I the power to set down all these things duly, the drops of my time are too precious.

For a long time now I burn with the desire to meditate upon Your law, and to confess to You both my knowledge of it and my ignorance of it — the first beginnings of Your light and what remains of my own darkness—until my weakness shall be swallowed up in Your strength. And I do not want to see scattered and wasted upon other things such time as I find free from necessary care of the body, intellectual labour, and the service which either I owe men or do not owe but render all the same.

O Lord my God, be attentive to my prayer. Let Thy mercy grant my desire, since it does not burn for myself alone, but longs to serve the charity I have for my brethren: and in my heart Thou seest that it is so. Let me offer in sacrifice to Thee the service of my mind and my tongue, and do Thou give me what I may offer Thee. For I am needy and poor, Thou art rich unto all who call upon Thee. Thou art free from care for Thyself and full of care for us. Circumcise the lips of my mouth and lips of my mind of all rash speech and lying. May Thy Scriptures be for my chaste delight; let me not deceive others about them nor be myself deceived. O Lord, hearken and have mercy, O Lord my God, Light of the blind and Strength of the weak, but Light too of the clear of sight and Strength of the strong; hearken to my soul, hear it crying from the depths. Unless Thine ears are attentive to us in the abyss, whither shall we go? To whom shall we cry?

Thine is the day, and Thine is the night: at Thy will the moments flow and pass. Grant me, then, space for my meditations upon the hidden things of Thy law, nor close Thy law against me as I knock. Not for nothing hast Thou willed that the deep secrets of all those pages should be written, not for nothing have those woods their stags, which retire to them and are restored, walk in them and are fed, lie down in them and ruminate. Complete Thy work in me, O Lord, and open those pages to me. Thy voice is my joy, abounding above all joys. Grant me what I love, for I do love it. And this too is of Thy gift. Do not abandon what Thou hast given, nor scorn Thy grass that is athirst for Thee. Let me confess to thee whatsoever I shall find in Thy books, and let me hear the voice of thy praise, and drink of Thee and consider the wondrous things of Thy law from the first beginning, when Thou didst make heaven and earth, until our everlasting reign with Thee in Thy holy city.

O Lord have mercy on me and grant what I desire. For, as I think, my desire is not of earth, not of gold and silver and gems or fine raiment or power and glory or the lusts of the flesh or the necessities of my body and of this our earthly pilgrimage: all these things shall be added unto us who seek the Kingdom of God and Thy justice.

See, O my God, whence comes my desire. The wicked have told me fables but not as Thy law. That is the source of my desire. See, Father: gaze and see and approve: and may it be pleasing in the sight of Thy mercy that I should find grace before Thee, that the inner secret of Thy words may be laid open at my knock. I beseech it by our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, the Man of Thy right hand, the Son of Man, whom Thou hast confirmed for Thyself as Mediator between Thyself and us: by whom Thou didst seek us when we sought not Thee, didst seek us indeed that we might seek Thee: Thy Word, by which Thou hast made all things and me among them: The Only One, by whom Thou hast called the people of the faithful, and me among them, unto adoption. I beseech it by Him who sits at Thy right hand and makes intercession for us, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. These treasures are what I seek in Thy books. Moses wrote of Him: this He says, who is Truth.

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III

Grant me to hear and understand what is meant by In the beginning You made heaven and earth. For so Moses wrote, wrote and went his way: passed from this world to You and is no longer here before me. Were he here, I should lay hold of him, and ask him, and in Your name beg him, to explain the sense of those words to me; I should lend my bodily ear to the sounds that should issue from his mouth. If he spoke in Hebrew, his voice would beat upon my ear to no purpose, nothing of what it said would reach my mind: if he spoke in Latin, I should know what he said. But how should I know that what he said was true? And if I did know it, would it be from him that I knew it? No: but within me, in the inner retreat of my mind, the Truth, which is neither Hebrew nor Greek, nor Latin, nor Barbarian, would tell me, without lips or tongue or sounded syllables: “He speaks truth”: and I (at once assured) would say to Your servant in all confidence: “You speak truth.” Since, then, I cannot question him, I ask Thee, the Truth, filled with whom Moses spoke truth: I ask Thee, my God: pardon my sins, and as Thou didst grant to Thy servant to speak those words, grant me to understand them.

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We look upon the heavens and the earth, and they cry aloud that they were made. For they change and vary. (If anything was not made and yet exists, there is nothing in it that was not there before: and it is the essence of change and variation that something should be that was not there before.) They cry aloud, too, that they did not make themselves. “We exist, because we were made; but we did not exist before we existed to be able to give ourselves existence!” And their visible presence is itself the voice with which they speak.

It was You, Lord, who made them: for You are beautiful, and they are beautiful: You are good, and they are good: You are, and they are. But they neither are beautiful nor are good nor simply are as You their Creator: compared with You they are not beautiful and are not good and are not. These truths, thanks to You, we know; and our knowledge compared with Your knowledge is ignorance.

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But how did You make heaven and earth? What instrument did You use for a work so mighty? You are not like an artist; for he forms one body from another as his mind chooses; his mind has the power to give external existence to the form it perceives within itself by its inner eye — and whence should it have that power unless You made it? It impresses that form upon a material already existent and having the capacity to be thus formed, such as clay or stone or wood or gold or such like. And how should these things have come to be unless You had made them to be? It was You who made the workman his body, and the mind that directs his limbs, the matter of which he makes what he makes, the intelligence by which he masters his art and sees inwardly what he is to produce exteriorly, the bodily sense by which he translates what he does from his mind to his material, and then informs the mind of the result of his workmanship, so that the mind may judge by that truth which presides within it whether the work is well done.

All these things praise You, the Creator of them all. But how do You create them? How, O God, did You create heaven and earth? Obviously it was not in heaven or on earth that You made heaven and earth; nor in the air nor in the waters, since these belong to heaven and earth; nor did You make the universe in the universe, because there was no place for it to be made in until it was made. Nor had You any material in Your hand when You were making heaven and earth: for where should You have got what You had not yet made to use as material? What exists, save because You exist? You spoke and heaven and earth were created; in Your word You created them.

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But how did You speak? Was it perhaps as when that voice sounded from the cloud saying: This is my beloved Son? That voice sounded and ceased to sound, had a beginning and an end. The syllables sounded and died away, the second after the first, the third after the second, and so in order, until the last after the rest, and silence after the last. From this it is clear beyond question that that voice was sounded by the movement of something created by You, a movement in time but serving Your eternal will.

These words were uttered in time and the bodily ear conveyed them to the understanding mind, whose spiritual ear is attuned to Your eternal Word. And the mind compared these words sounding in time with Your eternal Word and its silence: and it said: “It is other, far other. These words are far less than I, indeed they are not at all, for they pass away and are no more: but the Word of God is above me and endures for ever.”

Thus, had it been by words sounding and passing away that You said “Let heaven and earth be made,” and so created heaven and earth, there would have had to be some bodily creature before heaven and earth, by the movement of which in time that voice came and went in time.

But there was no bodily thing before heaven and earth: or if there were then certainly You did not use some still earlier utterance in time to produce it, that by it You might utter in time the decree that heaven and earth should be made. Whatever it may have been that produced such a voice, it must have been made by You, otherwise it would not have existed at all. But to produce the bodily thing capable of uttering those words, what word did You utter?

473

VII

Clearly You are calling us to the realization of that Word — God with You, God as You are God — which is uttered eternally and by which all things are uttered eternally.

For this is not an utterance in which what has been said passes away that the next thing may be said and so finally the whole utterance be complete: but all in one act, yet abiding eternally: otherwise it would be but time and change and no true eternity, no true immortality.

I know it, O my God, and I give You thanks. I know it, Lord, I confess it to You: and every man knows it as I do and praises You as I do who is not ungrateful for Your sure truth. We know, Lord, we know, that in the degree that anything is no longer what it was, and is now what it once was not, it is in the process of dying and beginning anew. But of Your Word nothing passes or comes into being, for it is truly immortal and eternal. Thus it is by a Word co-eternal with Yourself that in one eternal act You say all that You say, and all things are made that You say are to be made. You create solely by thus saying. Yet all the things You create by saying are not brought into being in one act and from eternity.

474

VIII

Tell me, O Lord my God, how this can be? In a kind of way I see, but how to express it I do not know: save that whatever comes into being and ceases to be, begins at the moment and ends at the moment when the eternal reason — which has in itself no beginning or ending — knows that it should begin or end. That eternal reason is Your Word, the Beginning who also speaks unto us. This He tells us in the Gospel to our bodily ear, this He uttered exteriorly in the ears of men: that we might believe in Him, and seek Him within us and find Him in the eternal Truth, where the one good Master teaches all His disciples.

There it is that I hear Your voice, Lord, telling me that only one who teaches us is speaking to us, and that whoever does not teach us may be speaking, but not to us. Yet who teaches us save Truth unchanging? When from changing creatures we learn anything, we are led to Truth that does not change: and there we truly learn, as we stand and hear Him and rejoice with you for the voice of the bridegroom, returning to the Source of our being. Thus it is that He is the Beginning: unless He remained when we wandered away, there should be no abiding place for our return. But when we return from error, we return by realizing the Truth; that we may realize it, He instructs us for He is the Beginning who also speaks unto us.

475

This then, O God, was the Beginning in which You created Heaven and Earth: marvellously speaking and marvellously creating in Your Word, Who is Your Son and Your Strength and Your Wisdom and Your Truth. Who shall understand this? Who shall relate it? What is that light which shines upon me but not continuously, and strikes upon my heart with no wounding? I draw back in terror: I am on fire with longing: terror in so far as I am different from it, longing in the degree of my likeness to it. It is Wisdom, Wisdom Itself, which in those moments shines upon me, cleaving through my cloud. And the cloud returns to wrap me round once more as my strength is beaten down under its darkness and the weight of my sins: for my strength is weakened through poverty, so that I can no longer support my good, until Thou, Lord who art merciful to my iniquities, shall likewise heal my weakness: redeeming my life from corruption and crowning me with pity and compassion, and filling my desire with good things: my youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s. For we are saved by hope and we wait with patience for Thy promises.

Let him who can hear Thy voice speaking within him; I, relying upon Thy inspired word, shall cry aloud: How great are Thy works, O Lord! Thou has made all things in wisdom. Wisdom is “the Beginning”: and it is in that Beginning that You made heaven and earth.

476

Surely those are still in their ancient error who say to us: “What was God doing before He made heaven and earth?” If, they say, He was at rest and doing nothing, why did He not continue to do nothing for ever after as for ever before? If it was a new movement and a new will in God to create something He had never created before, how could that be a true eternity in which a will should arise which did not exist before? For the will of God is not a creature: it is prior to every creature, since nothing would be created unless the will of the Creator first so willed. The will of God belongs to the very substance of God. Now if something arose in the substance of God which was not there before, that substance could not rightly be called eternal; but if God’s will that creatures should be is from eternity, why are creatures not from eternity?

477

Those who speak thus do not yet understand You, O Wisdom of God, Light of minds: they do not yet understand how the things are made that are made by You and in You. They strive for the savour of eternity, but their mind is still tossing about in the past and future movements of things, and is still vain.

Who shall lay hold upon their mind and hold it still, that it may stand a little while, and a little while glimpse the splendour of eternity which stands for ever: and compare it with time whose moments never stand, and see that it is not comparable. Then indeed it would see that a long time is long only from the multitude of movements that pass away in succession, because they cannot co-exist: that in eternity nothing passes but all is present, whereas time cannot be present all at once. It would see that all the past is thrust out by the future, and all the future follows upon the past, and past and future alike are wholly created and upheld in their passage by that which is always present? Who shall lay hold upon the mind of man, that it may stand and see that time with its past and future must be determined by eternity, which stands and does not pass, which has in itself no past or future. Could my hand have the strength [so to lay hold upon the mind of man] or could my mouth by its speaking accomplish so great a thing?

478

XII

I come now to answer the man who says: “What was God doing before He made Heaven and earth?” I do not give the jesting answer — said to have been given by one who sought to evade the force of the question—”He was getting Hell ready for people who pry too deep.” To poke fun at a questioner is not to see the answer. My reply will be different. I would much rather say “I don’t know,” when I don’t, than hold one up to ridicule who had asked a profound question and win applause for a worthless answer.

But, O my God, I say that You are the Creator of all creation, and if by the phrase heaven and earth we mean all creation, then I make bold to reply: Before God made heaven and earth, He did not make anything. For if He had made something, what would it have been but a creature? And I wish I knew all that it would be profitable for me to know, as well as I know that no creature was made before any creature was made.

479

XIII

But a lighter mind, adrift among images of time and its passing, might wonder that You, O God almighty and all-creating and all-conserving, Maker of heaven and earth, should have abstained from so vast a work for the countless ages that passed before You actually wrought it. Such a mind should awaken and realize how ill- grounded is his wonder.

How could countless ages pass when You, the Author and Creator of all ages, had not yet made them? What time could there be that You had not created? or how could ages pass, if they never were?

Thus, since You are the Maker of all times, if there actually was any time before You made heaven and earth, how can it be said that You were not at work? If there was time, You made it, for time could not pass before You made time. On the other hand, if before heaven and earth were made there was no time, then what is meant by the question “What were You doing then?” If there was not any time, there was not any “then.”

It is not in time that You are before all time: otherwise You would not be before all time. You are before all the past by the eminence of Your ever-present eternity: and You dominate all the future in as much as it is still to be: and once it has come it will be past: but Thou art always the self-same and Thy years shall not fail. Your years neither go nor come: but our years come and go, that all may come. Your years abide all in one act of abiding: for they abide and the years that go are not thrust out by those that come, for none pass: whereas our years shall not be, till all are no more. Your years are as a single day; and Your day comes not daily but is today, a today which does not yield place to any tomorrow or follow upon any yesterday. In You today is eternity: thus it is that You begot one co-eternal with Yourself to whom you said: Today have I begotten Thee. You are the Maker of all time, and before all time You are, nor was there ever a time when there was no time!

480

XIV

At no time then had You not made anything, for time itself You made. And no time is co-eternal with You, for You stand changeless; whereas if time stood changeless, it would not be time. What then is time? Is there any short and easy answer to that? Who can put the answer into words or even see it in his mind? Yet what commoner or more familiar word do we use in speech than time? Obviously when we use it, we know what we mean, just as when we hear another use it, we know what he means.

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know. But at any rate this much I dare affirm I know: that if nothing passed there would be no past time; if nothing were approaching, there would be no future time; if nothing were, there would be no present time.

But the two times, past and future, how can they be, since the past is no more and the future is not yet? On the other hand, if the present were always present and never flowed away into the past, it would not be time at all, but eternity. But if the present is only time, because it flows away into the past, how can we say that it is? For it is, only because it will cease to be. Thus we can affirm that time is only in that it tends towards not- being.

481

Yet we speak of a long time or a short time, applying these phrases only to past or future. Thus for example we call a hundred years ago a long time past, and a hundred years hence a long time ahead, and ten days ago a short time past, ten days hence a short time ahead. But in what sense can that which does not exist be long or short? The past no longer is, the future is not yet. Does this mean that we must not say: “It is long,” but of the past “It was long,” of the future “It will be long?”

O, my Lord, my Light, here too man is surely mocked by Your truth! If we say the past was long, was it long when it was already past or while it was still present? It could be long only while it was in existence to be long. But the past no longer exists; it cannot be long, because it is not at all.

Thus we must not say that the past was long: for we shall find nothing in it capable of being long, since, precisely because it is past, it is not at all. Let us say then that a particular time was long while it was present, because in so far as it was present, it was long. For it had not yet passed away and so become non-existent; therefore it still was something, and therefore capable of being long: though once it passed away, it ceased to be long by ceasing to be.

Let us consider, then, O human soul, whether present time can be long: for it has been given you to feel and measure time’s spaces. What will you answer me?

Are the present hundred years a long time? But first see whether a hundred years can be present. If it is the first year of the hundred, then that year is present, but the other ninety-nine are still in the future, and so as yet are not: if we are in the second year, then one year is past, one year is present, the rest future. Thus whichever year of our hundred-year period we choose as present, those before it have passed away, those after it are still to come. Thus a hundred years cannot be present.

But now let us see if the chosen year is itself present. If we are in the first month, the others are still to come, if in the second, the first has passed away and the rest are not yet. Thus a year is not wholly present while it runs, and if the whole of it is not present, then the year is not present. For a year is twelve months, and the month that happens to be running its course is the only one present, the others either are no longer or as yet are not. Even the current month is not present, but only one day of it: if that day is the first, the rest are still to come; if the last, the rest are passed away; if somewhere between, it has days past on one side and days still to come on the other.

Thus the present, which we have found to be the only time capable of being long, is cut down to the space of scarcely one day. But if we examine this one day, even it is not wholly present. A day is composed of twenty-four hours — day-hours, night-hours: the first hour finds the rest still to come, the last hour finds the rest passed away, any hour between has hours passed before it, hours to come after it. And that one hour is made of fleeing moments: so much of the hour as has fled away is past, what still remains is future. If we conceive of some point of time which cannot be divided into even the minutest parts of moments, that is the only point that can be called present: and that point flees at such lightning speed from being future to being past, that it has no extent of duration at all. For if it were so extended, it would be divisible into past and future: the present has no length.

Where, then, is there a time that can be called long? Is it the future? But we cannot say of the future “It is long” because as yet it is not at all and therefore is not long. We say “It will be long.” By when will it be long? While it is still in the future, it will not be long, because it does not yet exist and so cannot be long. Suppose we say, then, that it is to be long only when, coming out of the future [which is not yet], it begins to be and is now present — and thus something, and thus capable of being long. But the present cries aloud, as we have just heard, that it cannot have length.

482

XVI

Yet, Lord, we are aware of periods of time; we compare one period with another and say that some are longer, some shorter. We measure how much one is longer than another and say that it is double, or triple, or single, or simply that one is as long as the other. But it is time actually passing that we measure by our awareness; who can measure times past which are now no more or times to come which are not yet, unless you are prepared to say that that which does not exist can be measured? Thus while time is passing, it can be perceived and measured; but when it has passed it cannot, for it is not.

483

XVII

I am seeking, Father, not saying: O, my God, aid me and direct me. Perhaps it might be said that there are not three times, past, present and future, as we learnt in boyhood

and have taught boys: but only present, because the other two do not exist. Or perhaps that these two do exist, but that time comes forth from some secret place when from future it becomes present, and departs into some secret place when from present it becomes past. For where have those who prophesied the future seen the future, if it does not yet exist? What does not exist cannot be seen. And those who describe the past could not describe it truly if they did not mentally see it: and if the past were totally without existence it would be totally impossible to see it. Hence both past and future must exist.

484

XVIII

Suffer me, Lord, to push my inquiry further; O my Hope, let not my purpose go awry. If the future and the past exist, I want to know where they are. And if I cannot yet know this, at least I do

know that wherever they are, they are there not as future or past, but present. If wherever they are they are future, then in that place they are not yet; if past, then they are there no more. Thus wherever they are and whatever they are, they are only as present. When we relate the past truly, it is not the things themselves that are brought forth from our memory— for these have passed away: but words conceived from the images of the things: for the things stamped their prints upon the mind as they passed through it by way of the senses. Thus for example my boyhood, which no longer exists, is in time past, which no longer exists; but the likeness of my boyhood, when I recall it and talk of it, I look upon in time present, because it is still present in my memory.

Whether the case is similar with prophecies of things to come — namely that images of things which are not yet are seen in advance as now existent—I confess, O my God, that I do not know. But this I do know, that we ordinarily consider our future actions in advance, and that this consideration is present, but the action we are thinking of does not yet exist, because it is future; when we have actually set about it and have begun to do what we planned, then that action will exist, because then it will not be future but present.

Whatever may be the mode of this mysterious foreseeing of things to come, unless the thing is it cannot be seen. But what now is, is not future but present. Therefore when we speak of seeing the future, obviously what is seen is not the things which are not yet because they are still to come, but their causes or perhaps the signs that foretell them, for these causes and signs do exist here and now. Thus to those who see them now, they are not future but present, and from them things to come are conceived by the mind and foretold. These concepts already exist, and those who foretell are gazing upon them, present within themselves.

Let me take one example from a vast number of such things. I am looking at the horizon at dawn: I foretell that the sun is about to rise. What I am looking at is

present, what I foretell is future—not the sun, of course, for it now is, but its rising which is not yet. But unless I could imagine the actual rising in my mind, as now when I speak of it, I could not possibly foretell it. But the dawn which I see in the sky is not the sunrise, although it precedes the sunrise; nor is the dawn the image of the sunrise that is in my mind. But both—the dawn and the image of the sunrise— are present and seen by me, so that the sunrise which is future can be told in advance. Thus the future is not yet; and if it is not yet, it is not; and if it is not, then it is totally impossible to see it. But it can be foretold from things present which now exist and are seen.

485

XIX

But You, O Ruler of Your creation, how is it that you can show souls things that are to come? For such things You have told Your prophets. In what manner do You show the future to man, for whom nothing future yet is? Or do You show only present signs of things to come? For what does not exist obviously cannot be shown. The means You use is altogether beyond my gaze; my eyes have not the strength; of myself I shall never be able to see so deep, but in You I shall be able, when you grant it, O lovely Light of the eyes of my spirit.

486

At any rate it is now quite clear that neither future nor past actually exists. Nor is it right to say there are three times, past, present and future. Perhaps it would be more correct to say: there are three times, a present of things past, a present of things present, a present of things future. For these three exist in the mind, and I find them nowhere else: the present of things past is memory, the present of things present is sight, the present of things future is expectation. If we are allowed to speak thus, I see and admit that there are three times, that three times truly are.

By all means continue to say that there are three times, past, present and future; for, though it is incorrect, custom allows it. By all means say it. I do not mind, I neither argue nor object: provided that you understand what you are saying and do not think future or past now exists. There are few things that we phrase properly; most things we phrase badly: but what we are trying to say is understood.

487

XXI

I said a little while ago that we measure time in its passing, so that we are able to say that this period of time is to that as two to one, or that this is of the same duration as that, and can measure and describe any other proportions of time’s parts.

Thus, as I said, we measure time in its passing. If you ask me how I know this, my answer is that I know it because we measure time, and we cannot measure what does not exist, and past and future do not exist. But how do we measure time present, since it has no extent? It is measured while it is passing; once it has passed, it cannot be measured, for then nothing exists to measure.

But where does time come from, and by what way does it pass, and where does it go, while we are measuring it? Where is it from? — obviously from the future. By what way does it pass? — by the present. Where does it go?—into the past. In other words it passes from that which does not yet exist, by way of that which lacks extension, into that which is no longer.

But how are we measuring time unless in terms of some kind of duration? We cannot say single or double or triple or equal or proportioned in any other way, save of the duration of periods of time. But in what duration do we measure time while it is actually passing? In the future, from which it comes? But what does not yet exist cannot be measured. In the present, then, by which it passes? But that which has no space cannot be measured. In the past, to which it passes? But what no longer exists cannot be measured.

488

XXII

My mind burns to solve this complicated enigma. O Lord my God, O good Father, for Christ’s sake I beseech Thee, do not shut off these obscure familiar problems from my longing, do not shut them off and leave them impenetrable but let them shine clear for me in the light of Thy mercy, O Lord. Yet whom shall I question about them? And to whom more fruitfully than to Thee shall I confess my ignorance: for Thou art not displeased at the zeal with which I am on fire for Thy Scriptures. Grant me what I love: for it is by Your gift that I love. Grant me this gift, Father, who dost know how to give good gifts to Thy children. Grant it because I have studied that I might know and it is a labour in my sight until Thou shalt open it to me. For Christ’s sake I beseech Thee, in the name of Him who is the Holy of Holies, that no one prevent me. I have believed, therefore have I spoken. This is my hope; for this do I live, that I may see the delight of the Lord. Behold Thou hast made my days old, and they pass away: but how I know not.

We are forever talking of time and of times. “How long did he speak,” “How long did it take him to do that,” “For how long a time did I fail to see this,” “This syllable is double the length of that.” So we speak and so we hear others speak, and others understand us, and we them. They are the plainest and commonest of words, yet again they are profoundly obscure and their meaning still to be discovered.

489

XXIII

I once heard a learned man say that time is simply the movement of the sun and moon and stars. I did not agree. For why should not time rather be the movement of all bodies? Supposing the lights of heaven were to cease and the potter’s wheel moved on, would there not be time by which we could measure its rotations and say that these were at equal intervals, or some slower, some quicker, some taking longer, some shorter? And if we spoke thus, should we not ourselves be speaking in time: would there not be in our words some syllables long, some short — because some would sound for a longer time, some for a shorter?

O God, grant unto men to see by some small example the elements in common between small things and great. There are stars and the lights of heaven to be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. This is evident; but just as I would not affirm that one turn of that little wooden wheel is a day, neither should my philosopher say that it is no time at all.

What I am trying to come at is the force and nature of time, by which we measure the movement of bodies and say for example that this movement is twice as long as that. A day means not only the length of time that the sun is above the earth — so that we distinguish day from night — but the time of the sun’s whole circuit from east to east—as we say that so many days have passed, so many days being used to include their nights, for the nights are not reckoned separately. Thus, since a day is constituted by the movement of the sun and its completed circle from east to east, I wish to know whether a day is that movement itself, or simply the time the movement takes, or both.

If the movement of the sun through one complete circuit were the day, then it would be a day even if the sun sped through its course in a space of time equal to an hour. If the time the sun now takes to complete its circuit is the day, then it would not be a day if between one sunrise and the next there were only the space of an hour: the sun would have to go around twenty-four times to make one day. But if to constitute a day there is needed both the movement of the sun through one circuit and the time the sun now takes, then you would not have a day if the sun completed its whole circuit in an hour, nor again if the sun stood still and as much time passed as the sun normally takes to complete its journey from one morning to the next.

But I shall not at the moment pursue the question of what it is that we call a day. I shall continue to seek what time is, by which we measure the sun’s journey: so that we should say that it had gone round in half its accustomed time, if it went round in a space of time equivalent to twelve hours. And comparing its normal time with this twelve-hour time, we should say that the latter was single, the former double; yet the sun would in the one case have made its journey from east to east in the shorter time, in the other in the longer (so that time is something independent of the sun’s movement).

Let no one tell me that the movement of the heavenly bodies is time: when at the prayer of a man the sun stood still that he might complete his victory in battle, the sun stood still but time moved on. The battle was continued for the necessary length of time and was finished.

Therefore I see time as in some way extended. But do I see it? Or do I only seem to see it? Thou wilt show me, O Light, O Truth.

490

XXIV

Would You have me agree with one who said that time is the movement of a body? You would not: for I learn that no body moves save in time: You have said it. But I do not learn that the movement of the body is time: You have not said it. For when a body is in motion, it is by time that I measure how long it is in motion from the beginning of its movement till it ceases to move. And if I did not see when the movement began, and if it moved on without my seeing when it ceased, I should be able to measure only from the movement I began to look until the moment I stopped looking. If I looked for a long time, all I can say is that the time is long, but not how long it is, because when we say how long a time, we say it by comparison: as for example: this is as long as that, or this is twice that, and such like. But if we could note the point of space from which a body in motion comes or the point to which it goes, or could distinguish its parts if it is moving on its axis, we should be able to say how much time has elapsed for the movement of the body, or its part, from one place to another.

Thus since the movement of a body is not the same as our measurement of how long the movement takes, who can fail to see which of these is more deserving of the name of time? A body moves at different speeds, and sometimes stands still; but time enables us to measure not only its motion but its rest as well; and we say “It was at rest for the same length of time as it was in motion,” or “It was at rest twice or thrice as long as it was in motion” or any other proportion, whether precisely measured or roughly estimated.

Therefore time is not the movement of a body.

491

XXV

I confess to You, Lord, that I still do not know what time is. And again I confess to You, Lord, that I know that I am uttering these things in time: I have been talking of time for a long time, and this long time would not be a long time unless time had passed. But how do I know this, since I do not know what time is? Or perhaps I do know, but simply do not know how to express what I know. Alas for me, I do not even know what I do not know! See me, O my God, I stand before You and I do not lie: as my speech is, so is my heart. For Thou lightest my lamp, O Lord; O my God, enlighten my darkness.

492

XXVI

Does not my soul speak truly to You when I say that I can measure time? For so it is, O Lord my God, I measure it and I do not know what it is that I am measuring. I measure the movement of a body, using time to measure it by. Do I not then measure time itself? Could I measure the movement of a body— its duration and how long it takes to move from place to place—if I could not measure the time in which it moves?

But if so, what do I use to measure time with? Do we measure a longer time by a shorter one, as we measure a beam in terms of cubits? Thus we say that the duration of a long syllable is measured by the space of a short syllable and is said to be double. Thus we measure the length of poems by the lengths of the lines, and the lengths of the lines by the lengths of the feet, and the lengths of the feet by the lengths of the syllables, and the lengths of long syllables by the lengths of short. We do not measure poems by pages, for that would be to measure space not time; we measure by the way the voice moves in uttering the poem, and we say: “It is a long poem, for it consists of so many lines; the lines are long for they are composed of so many feet; the feet are long for they include so many syllables; this syllable is long for it is the double of a short syllable.”

But not by all this do we arrive at an exact measure of time. It may well happen that a shorter line may take longer if it is recited slowly than a longer line hurried through. And the same is true of a poem or a foot or a syllable.

Thus it seems to me that time is certainly extendedness—but I do not know what it is extendedness of: probably of the mind itself. Tell me, O my God, what am I measuring, when I say either, with no aim at precision, that one period is longer than the other, or precisely, that one is double the other? That I measure time, I know. But I do not measure the future, for it is not yet; nor the present, for it is not extended in space; nor the past, which no longer exists. So what do I measure? Is it time in passage but not past? So I have already said.

493

XXVII

Persevere, O my soul, fix all the power of your gaze. God is our helper. He made us, and not we ourselves. Fix your gaze where truth is whitening toward the dawn.

Consider the example of a bodily voice. It begins to sound, it sounds and goes on sounding, then it ceases: and now there is silence, the sound has passed, the sound no longer is. It was future before it began to sound, and so could not be measured, for as yet it did not exist; and now it cannot be measured because now it exists no longer. Only while sounding could it be measured for then it was, and so was measurable. But even then it was not standing still; it was moving, and moving out of existence. Did this make it more measurable? Only in the sense that by its passing it was spread over a certain space of time which made it measurable: for the present occupies no space.

At any rate, let us grant that it could be measured. And now again imagine a voice. It begins to sound and goes on sounding continuously without anything to break its even flow. Let us measure it, while it is sounding. For when it has ceased to sound, it will be past and will no longer be measurable. Let us measure it then and say how long it is. But it is still sounding and can be measured only from its beginning when it began to sound to its end, when it ceased. For what we measure is the interval between some starting point and some conclusion. This means that a sound which is not yet over cannot be measured so that we may say how long or short it is, nor can it be said either to be equal to some other sound or single or double or any other proportion in relation to it. But when it is over, it will no longer be. Then how will it be possible to measure it? Yet we do measure time — not that which is not yet, nor that which is no longer, nor that which has no duration, nor that which lacks beginning and end. Thus it seems that we measure neither time future nor time past nor time present nor time passing: and yet we measure time.

Deus creator omnium:1 This line is composed of eight syllables, short and long alternately: the four short syllables, the first, third, fifth, seventh are single in relation to the four long syllables, the second, fourth, sixth, eighth. Each long syllable has double the time of each short syllable. I pronounce them and I say that it is so, and so it is, as is quite obvious to the ear. As my ear distinguishes I measure a long syllable by a short and I perceive that it contains it twice. But since I hear a syllable only when the one before it has ceased—the one before being short and the one following long—how am I to keep hold of the short syllable, and how shall I set it against the long one to measure it and find that the long one is twice its length—given that the long syllable does not begin to sound until the short one has ceased? And again can I measure the long one while it is present, since I cannot measure it until it is completed? And its completion is its passing out of existence.

What then is it that I measure? Where is the short syllable by which I measure? Where is the long syllable which I measure? Both have sounded, have fled away, have gone into the past, are now no more: yet I do measure, and I affirm with confidence, in so far as a practised sense can be trusted, that one is single, the other double, in the length of time it occupies. And I could not do this unless they had both passed away and ended. Thus it is not the syllables themselves that I measure, for they are now no more, but something which remains engraved in my memory.

It is in you, O my mind, that I measure time. Do not bring against me, do not bring against yourself the disorderly throng of your impressions. In you, I say, I measure time. What I measure is the impress produced in you by things as they pass and abiding in you when they have passed: and it is present. I do not measure the things themselves whose passage produced the impress; it is the impress that I measure when I measure time. Thus either that is what time is, or I am not measuring time at all.

But when we measure silences, and say that some particular silence lasted as long as some particular phrase, do we not stretch our mind to measure the phrase as though it were actually sounded, so as to be able to form a judgment of the relation between the space of the silence and that space of time? For without voice or lips we can go through poems and verses and speeches in our minds, and we can allow for the time it takes for their movement, one part in relation to another, exactly as if we were reciting them aloud. If a man decides to utter a longish sound and settles in his mind how long the sound is to be, he goes through that space of time in silence, entrusts it to his memory, then begins to utter the sound, and it sounds until it reaches the length he had fixed for it. Or rather I should say [not that it sounds but] that it has sounded and will sound: for as much of it as has been uttered at a given moment has obviously sounded, and what remains will sound: and so he completes the sound: at every moment his attention, which is present, causes the future to make its way into the past, the future diminishing and the past growing, until the future is exhausted and everything is past.

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But how is the future diminished or exhausted, since the future does not yet exist: or how does the past grow, since it no longer is? Only because, in the mind which does all this, there are three acts. For the mind expects, attends and remembers: what it expects passes, by way of what it attends to, into what it remembers. Would anyone deny that the future is as yet not existent? But in the mind there is already an expectation of the future. Would anyone deny that the past no longer exists? Yet still there is in the mind a memory of the past. Would anyone deny that the present time lacks extension, since it is but a point that passes on? Yet the attention endures, and by it that which is to be passes on its way to being no more. Thus it is not the future that is long, for the future does not exist: a long future is merely a long expectation of the future; nor is the past long since the past does not exist: a long past is merely a long memory of the past.

Suppose that I am about to recite a psalm that I know. Before I begin, my expectation is directed to the whole of it; but when I have begun, so much of it as I pluck off and drop away into the past becomes matter for my memory; and the whole energy of the action is divided between my memory, in regard to what I have said, and my expectation, in regard to what I am still to say. But there is a present act of attention, by which what was future passes on its way to becoming past. The further I go in my recitation, the more my expectation is diminished and my memory lengthened, until the whole of my expectation is used up when the action is completed and has passed wholly into my memory. And what is true of the whole psalm, is true for each part of the whole, and for each syllable: and likewise for any longer action, of which the canticle may be only a part: indeed it is the same for the whole life of man, of which all a man’s actions are parts: and likewise for the whole history of the human race, of which all the lives of all men are parts.

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But The mercy is better than lives, and behold my life is but a scattering. Thy right hand has held me up in my Lord, the Son of Man who is the Mediator in many things and in divers manners — that I may apprehend by Him in whom I am apprehended and may be set free from what I once was, following your Oneness: forgetting the things that are behind and not poured out upon things to come and things transient, but stretching forth to those that are before (not by dispersal but by concentration of energy) I press towards the prize of the supernal vocation, where I may hear the voice of Thy praise and contemplate Thy delight which neither comes nor passes away. But now my years are wasted in sighs, and Thou, O Lord, my eternal Father, art my only solace; but I am divided up in time, whose order I do not know, and my thoughts and the deepest places of my soul are torn with every kind of tumult until the day when I shall be purified and melted in the fire of Thy love and wholly joined to Thee.

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And I shall stand and be established in You, in my own true form, in Your truth. I shall no longer suffer the questions of men who, by a disease they have merited for their punishment, ever thirst for more than they can drink. Thus they ask: “What was God making before He made Heaven and earth?” “Or how did the idea of creating something come into His mind whereas He had never created anything before?”

Grant them, Lord, to think well what they are saying, and to realize that one cannot use the word “never” when there is no time. If you say that he “never” made anything, obviously this means that He did not make anything “at any time.” Let them see then that there can be no time apart from creation, and let them cease to talk such nonsense. Let them stretch forth to the things that are before, and let them realize that before all times You are the Eternal Creator of all times, and that no times are co-eternal with You, nor is any creature, even if there were a creature above time.

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XXXI

O Lord, My God, how deep is the abyss of Thy secret, and how far from it have the consequences of my sins held me? Cleanse my eyes and let me rejoice in Thy Light. Assuredly if there were a mind of such vast knowledge and fore-knowledge that all the past and all the future were as clearly known to it as some familiar canticle is known to me, such a mind would be marvellous beyond measure, would strike us silent with awe. For to such a mind nothing would be hidden of ages past or ages still to come, any more than when I am singing my canticle anything is unknown to me of what I have sung from the beginning, of what remains to me to sing to the end. Yet far from me be it to think that You, O Creator of the Universe, Creator of souls and bodies, had only such knowledge as that of the future and the past. Far more marvellously, far more mysteriously, do You hold Your knowledge. For when a man is singing a song he knows, or hearing a song he knows, his impressions vary and his senses are divided between the expectation of sounds to come and the memory of sounds already uttered. No such thing happens to You, the immutable and eternal, the eternal Creator of minds. In the beginning You knew heaven and earth without any element of change in your knowledge; and similarly in the beginning You created Heaven and earth without any element of change in Your action. Let him who understands praise You, and let him who does not understand praise You likewise. You are the highest, and the humble of heart are Your dwelling place. For You lift up them that are cast down, and those do not fall who have You for their high place.

*Reprinted from Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by F. J. Sheed (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1943), by permission of the publisher. The words in brackets are amplifications by the translator. The italicized words are biblical quotations.

1. [God, the creator of all. — S.M.C.]

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Plotinus

Neoplatonism, the most influential philosophical movement of the Roman Empire, combined metaphysical speculation on the esoteric meanings of Plato’s dialogues with a contemplative vision of reality. At once erudite and eclectic, as it drew on the six centuries of philosophical development between Plato’s Academy and its own emergence in Alexandria in the third century A.D., Neoplatonism above all used philosophical structures to expound and expand the dimensions of inner experience. Its scholasticism was matched only by its spiritual aspirations, and so its influence continued through its adaptations by the mystical teachers of the Orthodox Church and its prolongation in the Aristotelian Platonism of classical Islam.

It was the brilliantly original work of Plotinus (A.D. 204/5–270) as recorded in the Enneads, edited and published by Plotinus’ disciple Porphyry, that inspired and provided the foundations for the work of later Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus (active 245) and Proclus (412–485). Virtually all that we know of Plotinus’ life comes from Porphyry’s essay The Life of Plotinus, which Porphyry published alongside his edition of the Enneads (the title in Greek means “Nines,” as there are six groups of nine essays each, the divisions of which were established by Porphyry). Plotinus was born in Alexandria, studied philosophy for eleven years, joined the emperor Gordian III’s campaign against the Persians, and after the failure of that expedition, moved to Rome where he began to teach philosophy. Plotinus committed nothing to writing until almost the age of fifty and instead concerned himself with the difficulties presented by individual students during the course of personal instruction.

Although Plotinus engaged whoever wished to attend the lectures (evidently chaos reigned in Plotinus’ classroom, with answers to objections dragging on for days), this public teaching style was modified by two factors. The first qualification for a student of philosophy was basic familiarity with the textual tradition that maintained the philosophical lineage.

The other constraint involved philosophy as a way of life. Senators, doctors, politicians—indeed, the emperor himself—were welcome. But the life of philosophy set one apart, as in the case of Plotinus’ student Rogatianus, a senator who renounced his office and became “an example for those who engage in the life of philosophy” (Life 7.45–46). Perhaps it was ironically fitting, then, that at the end of his life Plotinus found himself alone, abandoned by all but his attending physician.

Rather than claiming to be innovators or original thinkers, philosophers in the Roman Empire tended to present themselves as exegetes of previous texts or doctrines, and Plotinus was no exception. In Ennead V.1, “On the Three Principal Hypostases,” reprinted here, Plotinus says concerning his three primary hypostases, the Soul, the Intellect, and the One: “Our present doctrines are an exegesis of those [ancient teachings], and so the writings of Plato himself provide evidence that our doctrines are of ancient origin.” (V.1.8.11–15). What exactly does Plotinus mean when he calls his doctrines an exegesis of Plato’s text, especially in the context of Ennead V.1? To answer this question is to gain a theoretical foothold in the often abstract world of Neoplatonic metaphysics.

Plotinus held that Plato’s Parmenides was a theological disquisition that charted not only the fundamental principles of reality but also the emergence of any possible form of being from one transcendent source. As we have just seen, in Ennead V.1, Plotinus interprets the three initial hypotheses in the second half of the Parmenides as adumbrating his own metaphysical doctrine, according to which reality has different levels: the One, Intellect, and Soul. Plotinus’ first hypothesis (“if the one is,” Parmenides 137c4) refers to the One beyond being, the transcendent source of all. The second hypothesis refers to a subsequent stage of reality that arises when the wisdom inherent within the One turns back on itself, giving rise to Being/Intellect, the intelligible world that consists of intellects each contemplating all the other intellects, rather like a hall of mirrors. This order of reality represents Plotinus’ transformation of the Platonic Forms via an Aristotelian conception of divine thought eternally contemplating itself. Transitory being (Greek genesis, or “becoming”) originates in the third hypostasis, at the level of Soul, which is present both on a cosmic level as caretaker of all that is soulless, and as the embodied individual whose destiny is to return to his origin by recovering his lost unity with the One.

Yet the Enneads are certainly not merely scholastic or exegetical. There is also a dynamic aspect of the philosophy that is best understood as a spiritual circuit. In Ennead V.1 Plotinus uses the physical similes of perfume, snow, and sunlight to describe the eternal process of emanation, the radiation of all beings from the One. The cosmic respiration or universal pulse that constantly sends forth beings from the One into a state of

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manifestation derives from the self-giving nature of reality. Plotinus says that all that is perfect produces. Nevertheless, Plotinus also insists that the soul remains very close to the One and prescribes exercises by means of which the soul can begin to recover from its apparent separation. The soul discovers its own native fullness when it undertakes its cosmic mission of returning the multiplicity back to the source. Porphyry ends the Life of Plotinus with the dying words of the sage: “Strive to bring the One in yourself back to the One.”

Indeed, much of what strikes us as unique in the Enneads is Plotinus’ attempt to convey this experience of return to the One in the terms of a contemplative vision where ordinary notions of the self, of language, and of reality as a whole are utterly transformed. Plotinus discusses this experience in the first of the treatises reprinted here, Ennead IV.8, “On the Descent of the Soul into Bodies.” In both Enneads V.1 and IV.8, Plotinus dwells at length on the consequences and reasons for the soul’s separation from the unity of the One as a desire to be independent, even as “rashness.” At the same time, Plotinus is always at pains to make clear, as he does very decisively in IV.8, that the soul is never actually separate from the divine nature of the Intellect and that it does not descend entirely but remains part of the intelligible universe. Much of treatise IV.8 is devoted to teaching the soul how to live in the midst of its guardian duties, caring for the life of the body, but mindful that it nevertheless enjoys a higher calling. Perhaps it is this optimism concerning the possibilities of the human soul, Plotinus’ insistence that soul is rooted in and an expression of divine reality, that has made Plotinus and Neoplatonism as a whole such an important vehicle for the shaping of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish mystical traditions.

• • •

The best introduction to Neoplatonism remains R. T. Wallis’ Neoplatonism (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995). A. C. Lloyd’s Anatomy of Neoplatonism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) and O’Meara’s Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) are also extremely useful. A more analytic approach is taken in Lloyd P. Gerson’s Plotinus (London: Routledge, 1996).

Sara Ahbel-Rappe

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Enneads*

IV 8. On the Descent of the Soul into Bodies

§1. I have many times awakened into myself from the body when I exited the things other than myself, and entered into myself, and, seeing a marvelous and great beauty, I was then especially confident that I belonged to the better part and that I was engaging in the best life, and that I had come to that activity having identified myself with the divine and having situated myself in it, that is, having situated myself above all else in the intelligible world. After this repose in the divine, descending from Intellect into discursive reasoning, I am puzzled how I have now descended and how my soul has come to be in the body when it is the way it appeared to itself even while it was in the body.

Heraclitus,1 who exhorted us to examine this, in supposing “necessary changes from opposites” and saying “the road up and down” and “while changing, it is at rest” and “it is weary to toil at and be ruled by the same things,” seemed to leave it to us to imagine what he meant, since he did not care to make clear to us his argument, perhaps on the grounds that it is necessary for one to seek by oneself, just as he found by seeking. And Empedocles,2 when he said that it was a law that sinful souls enter here and that he himself, “fleeing from the home of the gods,” “trusting in mad strife” gave us a peek, I think, as much as did Pythagoras3 and his followers, who offered riddles about this and about many other things. But it was also possible that Heraclitus did not make himself clear, because he was writing poetry. We are left with the divine Plato, who said many and beautiful things about soul and spoke in many places in his writings about its arrival here [the sensible world], so that we hope to grasp something clear from him. What then does this philosopher say?

He appears not to say the same thing everywhere, so that one could easily know his intention, but everywhere disdaining the whole sensible world and blaming the soul for its association with the body, he says the soul is “in its bonds” and “buried in it” and that great is the saying among the mysteries that claims that the soul is “under detention.” And his cave, like the grotto of Empedocles, stands, I think, for this world when he actually says that the “journey” to the intelligible world is a “release from our bonds” and an “ascent from the cave” for the soul. And in Phaedrus, “the shedding of wings” is the cause of our arriving here. And according to him, the cycles bring here again the soul that has ascended, and “judgments” send others down here as well as “lots and fortunes,” or forces.

In addition, though blaming the soul for its arrival in the body in all these places, in Timaeus, when speaking about this universe, he praises it and says that it is a “happy god” and that the soul was given by a good craftsman in order that this universe might be intelligent, since it had to be intelligent, and without soul it was not possible for it to become so. The soul of the universe, then, was sent into it by the god for the sake of this, and the soul of each of us was sent for the universe’s perfection. This occurred since it was necessary that there exist in the sensible world the same kinds of living things that there are in the intelligible world.

§2. For us, the result of seeking to learn from Plato about our soul is that we find ourselves also compelled to focus on and to seek out a general account of the soul, investigating how by its nature it can ever be in association with the body, and in regard to the nature of the universe, what sort of thing we should suppose it is in which the soul resides: whether it does so willingly, or under compulsion, or in some other manner; and about its producer: whether it has done its job correctly or, perhaps like our souls, which, since they had to direct inferior bodies, had to sink far below, owing to them, if, that is, they were going to rule over them at all; otherwise, each part of the body would be scattered and borne to its own place — though in the universe everything is in its own place by nature—whereas our bodies are in need of a lot of onerous providential care, since there are many alien things that befall them, and since they are always constrained by want, they need every type of assistance for the great difficulty that they are in.

But since the body of the universe is perfect and sufficient, that is, self-sufficient and having nothing in itself beyond what its nature requires, it is in need of little direction. And as its soul is always as it naturally wanted to be, it has no appetite, nor is it affected. For “there is nothing that goes out of it and nothing that

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goes into it.” For this reason, Plato says that our soul, too, if it should come to be with that perfect soul, is itself perfected and “travels on the heights and directs the universe.” When it departs for a state where it neither is within any body nor belongs to any one of them, then it will be like the soul of the universe effortlessly directing the universe with it, since it is not evil in any way for the soul to provide the body with the power of doing well and of existing. This is because not every form of providence for what is inferior removes the superior status for that which is provident.

For there are two types of care for everything: the universal, by the inactive command of the one providing the order with royal oversight, and the particular, which consists in some immediate self-involved doing and, by contact with that which is done, the doer is contaminated with the nature of what is done. Since the divine soul is said always to direct the heavens in the first way, with its higher part transcendent while sending its last [lowest] power into [the body of the universe], God could still not be said to be responsible for having made the soul of the universe be in something worse, and the soul would not be deprived of what belongs to it according to nature, which it has from eternity and will have forever, which cannot possibly be counter to its nature, and which continuously belongs to it forever, without having ever begun.

And when Plato says that the souls of the stars stand to their bodies in the same manner as does the soul of the universe in regard to its body—for he inserts the stars’ bodies into the circles of the soul — he preserves the appropriate state of happiness for them, for there are two things, owing to which the association of the soul with the body is made difficult to endure: first, because the association produces an impediment to thought and second, because pleasures and appetites and pains fill it up. Neither of these could happen to a soul that did not descend into the interior of a body that does not belong to anyone nor is the body’s possession, but rather the body belongs to it, and it is such as neither to need anything nor to be deficient in some respect, so that the soul is not filled up with appetites or fears, for neither will it expect anything fearful from a body of this kind, nor will any occupation make it incline downward and lead it away from the better and blessed vision, but it is always directed to those [intelligible realities], governing this universe with an effortless power.

§3. Regarding the human soul which, when it is in the body, is said [by Plato] to suffer all forms of evil and to “experience distress,” because it comes to be amidst inanities and appetites and fears and other evils— insofar as the body is a chain and a tomb, and the universe is for it a cave or a cavern—let us now express how [Plato] understands its descent; here, he does not contradict what he says about the causes [of the descent of the soul of the universe], which are not, in its case, the same.

Now since universal Intellect is as a whole and universally in the world of thinking, which we suppose to be an intelligible universe, and since there are also intellectual powers and individual intellects contained in this—for the intelligible world is not only one but also one and many—it had to be the case that there be both many souls and one Soul, with the many differing souls coming from the one, just as from one genus come many species, some better and some worse, some more intellectually active, some less actualized; for in the intelligible world, in Intellect, there is Intellect encompassing virtually the others [individual intellects] as a sort of great living being, and there are the individual intellects in actuality, each of which the other encompasses virtually. For example, if a city were ensouled, encompassing other ensouled beings, the [soul of the] city would be more complete and would be more powerful though nothing in its nature prevented other souls from existing. Or arising from a universal fire, there comes a large and a small fire. But it is the universal essence that is the essence of the universal fire, or rather that from which the universal fire also comes.

The function of the more rational Soul is thinking, but it is not just thinking. For if it were, how would it differ from Intellect? For it added to the intellectual something else such that it did not remain Intellect. And it has its own function, if it is the case that every part of intelligible reality has a function. But looking at that which is prior to it, it thinks, while when looking to itself it arranges that which comes after it and manages and rules it, because it was not possible for everything to stay in the intelligible world, when it was possible for something else that is inferior to it to come to be, something that necessarily came to be if that which was prior to it was also necessary.

§4. The individual souls, not only exercise an intellectual desire for their return to that from which they came, but also have a power directed to here below, like a light dependent on the sun above, which does not begrudge its bounty to what comes after it. But they are without pain if they remain with universal Soul in the intelligible world, governing the heaven with that whole Soul, like those living with the king of all, sharing in his rule but not themselves alighting from the royal thrones. For these are all together in the same place.

But they move away from the whole [Soul] into being a part, and being by themselves and, in a way, tiring of being with another, each withdraws into itself. And whenever a soul does this for a time, fleeing the all and standing apart in separateness and not looking in the direction of that which is intelligible, it has become a

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part isolated and weak and consumed with its own affairs and looks to the part, and by a separation from the whole, it enters some one thing and flees all the rest. And coming to and turning towards that one thing that is beaten up by the totality of things in every way, setting itself apart from the whole, it manages the individual [body] with complications as soon as it has attached itself to it and, caring for externals and being present [to the body], it sinks far into its interior.

It is here that the so-called “molting” occurs, and it comes to be in the “chains” of the body, since it has failed to achieve the immunity that pertains to the more exalted management that belonged to it when it was with universal Soul. It was in every way better for it before, when it was traveling on the upward path. It has, then, been captured and it is falling in the direction of its chains and acting by sense-perception, owing to its being prevented from acting with intellect in its new state. And it is said to be “buried” and “in a cave,” but when it is turning in the direction of thinking, it is loosed from its chains and ascends, whenever it might get a start, owing to recollection, to view reality. For it always has, still, something that is transcendent.

Souls, then, in a way become amphibious, necessarily living a part of their life in the intelligible world and a part here, those which are able to consort with Intellect living more of their life there while those who are governed in the opposite way by nature or by chance, live more of their life here. Plato gently shows this when he divides again that which comes from the second mixing, that is, he divides [the mixture] into parts. It is then that he says that they must enter into the world of becoming, since they have become such parts. But if he says that god “sowed” them, this must be taken in the same way as when he says that god is speaking and in a way making a public speech. As for the things that are in nature, these the hypothesis generates and makes as a demonstration, adducing in order things that are always becoming and always being.

§5. There is, then, no discordance between “the sowing in becoming” and “the descent of the all into completion,” and the judgment and the cave, and the necessary and the voluntary, since the necessary includes the voluntary and the being in an evil state that is being in a body. There is discordance in neither Empedocles’ flight from god and the wandering, nor the error upon which judgment follows, nor the halting of Heraclitus in flight, nor, in general, the voluntariness of the descent and, again, its involuntariness. For while everything that gravitates to the worse does so involuntarily, still, since it does so in fact by its own impetus, when it suffers the worse it is said to receive punishment for the things it did. But it suffers these things and does what it does necessarily by an eternal law of nature, and this occurs when it meets up with the needs of another [the body] in its procession from that which is above it [above the human being]. So if someone were to say that a god had sent it down, he would not be out of tune either with the truth or with himself. For each thing, including the ultimate things, must be referred to the principle from which it comes, even if there are many intermediaries.

But since the error of the soul is twofold, one being the explanation for its descent and one being the evils it does when it has come here, [the punishment] for the first is the fact that it experiences the descent and for the second, that it enters other [inferior] bodies; this occurs quickly, based on the judgment of what it deserves — the word “judgment” shows that it happens by divine decree — whereas the limitless kind of evil deserves a more severe judgment, rendered by the oversight of punishing spirits.

In this way, then, even though the soul is divine and comes to be in a body from divine regions above, since it is a god of a lesser rank, it comes here by a self-determining inclination, and by reason of its power, and to order what comes after it. And if soul flees quickly, there is no harm in its acquiring a knowledge of evil, and knowing the nature of vice, and rendering its own powers manifest, and displaying its works and deeds, which, if they were to have stayed in the bodiless world, would have remained quiet in vain being eternally unactualized. And the soul itself would not have been aware of what it had if these had neither been made manifest nor proceeded forth. This is so, because everywhere it is the case that actuality shows potentiality totally hidden, and in a way nonapparent, and not ever being really real. As it is now, each of its interior properties is an object of wonder, owing to the external variety [of their manifestations] such that it is from this interior that someone achieves these splendid manifestations.

§6. If, then, it had to be the case that there was not one thing only—for if there had been, all things would have been hidden in that one thing, which did not have any shape, and there would not have existed any of the beings had the One remained in itself, neither the multiplicity of these beings generated from the One nor those things which assumed the order of souls, which proceeded after these—in the same way, it had to be that souls not be alone without there being the things that are made apparent through them, if indeed it is the case that each nature makes what comes after it and unfolds itself like a seed from some partless source, proceeding to its perceptible conclusion.

On the one hand, that which is prior remains in its own position; on the other, that which comes after is in a way produced from unspeakably great power, consisting of all that was in those [higher powers]. It had

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not to remain in itself in a way circumscribed in grudging, but it had to go forward eternally, until all things should arrive at the ultimate limit of power, owing to its enormous power, which, in sending forth itself in every way, does not fail to permit anything to share in its own power. For there was nothing that prevented anything from having a share in the nature of good insofar as it was possible for each thing to share in it.

Either, then, the nature of matter is eternal and it is not possible for it, since it is existing, not to participate in that which provides that which is good to each thing insofar as it is able, or else the generation of it followed from necessity upon the causes that came before it, though even so it was not the case that it had to be separate [from all existing things], owing to the fact that before it came into being, there was an immobilization of activity because of a lack of power in that which gave it existence as a sort of grace.

The most beautiful part of the sensible world, then, is a manifestation of the best among the intelligibles, of their power and of their goodness; and all things, both sensible and intelligible, are eternally connected, the intelligibles existing by themselves, the things that partake always receiving their existence from them, imitating the intelligible nature insofar as they are able.

§7. Even if the nature of the soul is twofold, being both intelligible and sensible and, though it would be better for the soul to be in the intelligible world, still it is necessary for something having such a nature to be able to share in the sensible world, and it should not be irritated with itself, because even if all things are not in the best way, it occupies a middle rank among things. Though it has a “divine portion,” it is at the outer limit of intelligibility such that it has a common boundary with the sensible nature, giving something of itself to this while receiving in return something from it, unless it governs the universe in a detached manner rather than, possessed of a greater zeal, entering into the interior, not remaining wholly with the whole Soul. At any rate, it is possible for it to surface again and acquire the narrative of the things it saw and experienced here, and then for it to learn what it is like to be in the intelligible world, and then to learn more clearly which is better by making a comparison of what are, in a way, contrary states.

For the experience of evil is a clearer understanding of the Good for those with a capacity too weak to know evil before experiencing it. And just as the intellectual procession is a descent into the limits of that which is worst — for it is not in it to ascend to that which transcends it, but it necessarily acts from itself and, not being able to remain in its own nature, it must by necessity and law arrive at soul, for this is its goal, and it must hand over that which comes next to soul and return again — so the activity of soul operates in the same way: one part is that which comes after it, namely, the things here, and the other part is the contemplation of the beings that are prior to it.

For some particular souls, such an experience comes with time, when they are in a bad state and they make a return to the better, whereas for the one called the soul of the universe, it has not been involved in inferior work, and, since it is unaffected by evils, it reflects contemplatively on the things below here and remains forever dependent on the things prior to it. In fact, it is able to do both at once; it receives from there, and at the same time provides here, since, being soul, it was unrealistic for it not to be attached to these things.

§8. But if one must, contrary to the opinions of others, dare to say more clearly what appears to be the case, it is not our entire soul that has descended, but rather there is some part of it always in the intelligible world. But if the part that is in the sensible world should rule, rather if it should be ruled and confused, it does not allow us awareness of the things that the upper part of the soul contemplates. In that case, that which is thought comes to us, but only when it comes into our awareness in its descent. For we do not know everything that occurs in every part of our souls before it reaches the whole soul. For example, appetite, while remaining in the appetitive part of the soul, is cognized by us, but only when we grasp it by the internal perceptual power, or by the discursive power, or by both. For every soul has something of that which is below, which is connected to the body, and something of that which is above, which is connected to Intellect.

And universal Soul or the soul of the universe, by means of the part of it that is connected to the body, governs the whole while remaining effortlessly apart, because it does not do this by calculation, as do we, but by intellect, just as “art does not deliberate” that part of the whole governing its [the universe’s] inferior part [the body]. But particular souls that occupy part of the universe have a part that stands apart, though they are busy with sense-perception and with the apprehension, apprehending many things that are, contrary to nature, painful and terrifying, since that which gets their attention is a part that is defective, having many alien things around it, many that it desires. And it is pleased, and pleasure deceives it. But there is that part that, being immune to pleasure, the momentary pleasures do not please, and its way of life is like that in the upper region.

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V 1. On the Three Principal Hypostases

§1. What can it be, then, that has made the souls forget the god who is their father and be ignorant both of themselves and him even though they are parts of the intelligible world and are completely derived from it?

The starting point for their evil is audacity, that is, generation or primary difference, or wanting to belong to themselves. Since they then appeared to be pleased with their self-determination and to have made much use of their self-motion, running as far away as possible and producing the maximum distance, they were also ignorant that they themselves came from the intelligible world. They were like children who at birth are separated from their fathers and, being raised for a long time far away, are ignorant both of themselves and of their fathers. Since they no longer can see their father or themselves, they dishonor themselves, owing to ignorance of their lineage, honoring instead other things, in fact, everything more than themselves; marveling at and being awestruck and loving and being dependent on these, and they severed themselves as much as possible from those things from which they turned away with their dishonor.

So it follows that it is honor of these things and dishonor of themselves that is the cause of their complete ignorance of god. For one to pursue and marvel at something is at the same time to accept that one is inferior to that which one is pursuing and marveling at. If one supposes oneself inferior to things that come to be and perish and assuming oneself to be the most dishonored and mortal of the things one does honor, neither the nature nor the power of god would ever be impressed in one’s heart.

For this reason, the way of arguing with those so disposed should be twofold — that is, if one is going to turn them in the opposite direction and towards the things that are primary and lead them up to that which is highest or first, that is, the One. What, then, are the two ways?

First, one shows how the things now honored by the soul are in fact dishonorable, which we will discuss further elsewhere. Second, one teaches the soul to remember the sort of lineage it has and its worth, a line of reasoning that is, in fact, prior to the other and, once having been set forth, makes that other evident, too. This is the one that needs to be spoken of now. It is close to that which we are seeking and provides the groundwork for that. For that which is doing the seeking is the soul, and it should know that which is doing the seeking so that it can learn, first about itself and next whether it has the ability for seeking such things, whether it has the sort of “eye” that is able to see, and whether it is fitting for it to seek these things, for if the things sought are alien to it, why should it seek them? But if they are of the same lineage, it is fitting for it to seek them, and it is possible to find that which it is seeking.

§2. Let every soul, then, first consider that soul itself made all living things by breathing life into them, those that are nourished by the earth, the sea, and the air, and the divine stars in heaven. Soul itself made the sun and this great heaven, and it ordered it, and it drives it in a regular arrangement, being a nature different from that which it orders, from that which it moves, and from that which it makes to be alive. And it is necessary that it be more honorable than these, since while these are generated and destroyed whenever soul departs from them or supplies them with life, soul itself exists forever by “not departing from itself.”

As for the manner in which it supplies life to the whole and to each individual, this is how soul should reason about the matter: let it consider the great soul, being itself another soul of no small stature, worthy of consideration once it has been released from deception and from the things that have enchanted the other souls by being in a state of tranquility. Let not only its encompassing body and its surging waves be tranquil, but all that surrounds it; let the earth be tranquil, the sea and the air be tranquil, and heaven, the better part. Let soul, then, think of itself as, in a way, flowing or pouring everywhere into immobile heaven from “outside,” inhabiting and completely illuminating it. Just as rays from the sun light up a dark cloud, make it shine, and give it a golden appearance, so soul entered into the body of heaven and gave it life, gave it immortality, and wakened the sleeping. And heaven, moved with an everlasting motion by the “wise guidance” of soul, became “a happy living being,” and acquired its value from soul’s dwelling within it, before which it was a dead body, mere earth and water, or rather the darkness of matter and of nonbeing and “what the gods hate,” as the poet says.

The power and nature of soul would be more apparent, or clearer, if one would reflect here on how soul encompasses and directs heaven with its own acts of will. For soul has given itself to the entire extent of heaven, such as that is, and every interval both great and small is ensouled, even as one body lies apart from another, one here and one there, some separated by the contraries of which they are composed, and some separated in other ways, though they be mutually interdependent.

The soul is, however, not like that, and it does not make something alive by a part of it being broken up and put in each one, but all things live by the whole of it, and all soul is present everywhere by its being like

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the father who begat it, according to its unity and its universality. And though heaven is multiple and diverse, it is one by the power of soul, and this universe is a god owing to this. The sun is also a god—because it is ensouled—and the other stars: and we, if we are divine in some way, are so for just this reason, “for corpses are more apt for disposal than dung.”

But the explanation for gods being gods must necessarily be a god older than they. Our soul is of the same kind, and when you examine it without the accretions, taking it in its “purified condition,” you will find that it is the same honorable thing that soul was found to be, more honorable than everything that is bodily. For all bodily things are earth, but even if they were fire, what would be the cause of its burning? And so, too, for everything composed of these, even if you add water and air. But if the body is worth pursuing just because it is ensouled, why would one ignore oneself to pursue another? If you loved the soul in another, then love yourself.

§3. Since the soul is so honorable and divine a thing — trusting at once that such a thing is able to approach god with [the help of] such a cause — ascend to him. Certainly, you will not have to cast far, “nor are the intermediary steps many.” Understand, then, the soul’s higher neighboring region, more divine than the divine soul, after which and from which the soul comes. For even though the argument has shown the kind of thing soul is [honorable and divine], it is an image of Intellect. Just as spoken words are an expression of thinking, so, too, Soul is an expression of Intellect, and its whole [external] activity, that which Intellect sends forth as life for the existence of something else. It is just like fire that has both internal heat and radiant heat. But in the intelligible world, one should understand that the internal activity does not flow out of it, but rather one activity remains in it, and the other is the independent reality.

Since, then, Soul is derived from Intellect, it is intellectual, and its own intellect is found in its acts of discursive reasoning, and its perfection comes from Intellect, again like a father raising a child whom he begat as imperfect in relation to himself. Then both its independent reality is from Intellect and the actuality of it as an expression of Intellect occurs when Intellect is seen in it. For whenever it [Soul] looks into Intellect, it has inside of itself objects of thought and activity that belong to it. And these alone should be called activities of Soul, namely, those that are intellectual and belong to it. The inferior activities come from elsewhere, and are states of an inferior soul.

Intellect, then, makes Soul even more divine by being its father and by being present to it. For there is nothing in between them but the fact of their being different, soul as next in order and as receptive, and Intellect as form. Even the matter of Intellect is beautiful, since it is both in the form of Intellect and simple. What Intellect is like, then, is clear from the above, namely, that it is superior to Soul thus described.

§4. One might also see this from the following: if one starts by marveling at this sensible universe, looking at its expanse and its beauty and its everlasting motion and the gods in it, both the visible and the invisible ones, and the spirits, and all the animals and plants, let him then ascend to the archetype of this universe and the truer reality, and there let him see all that is intelligible and eternal in it with its own understanding and life, and “pure Intellect” presiding over these, and indescribable wisdom, and the life that is truly that of Kronos, a god of “fullness” and intellect. For it encompasses every immortal within itself, that is, every intellect, every god, every soul, always at rest. For why should it seek to alter itself from its happy condition? Where should it go to, having all things within itself? It does not even seek to enlarge itself, since it is most perfect.

For this reason, in addition, all the things in it are perfect so as to be perfect in every way, having nothing which is not like this, nothing in it that it does not think, though it thinks not by seeking but by having. Its blessedness is not acquired; rather, everything is in it eternally, and it is true eternity, which time imitates, moving around along with Soul, dropping some things and picking up others. For different things occur at the level of Soul; one time there is a Socrates, one time there is a horse—always some particular reality—whereas Intellect just is everything. So it has all things at rest in it in eternity, and it alone is, and the “is” is always, and the future is nothing to it (for it “is” then, too), nor is there a past for it (for nothing in the intelligible world has passed away), but all things are set in it always, and since they are the same, they are in a way pleased with the condition they are in.

Each of them is Intellect and Being, that is, the totality consists of all Intellect and all Being— Intellect, insofar as it thinks, making Being exist, and Being, by its being thought, giving to Intellect its thinking, which is its Being. But the cause of thinking is something else, something that is also the cause of Being. So the cause of thinking, then, which is also the cause of Being, is something else. Both of these, then, have at the same time a cause other than themselves. For those coexist simultaneously and do not abandon each other, but this one thing is nevertheless two: Intellect and Being, thinking and being thought—Intellect, insofar as it is thinking, Being insofar as it is being thought. For thinking could not occur if there was not Difference as well

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as Sameness. The first things that occur, then, are Intellect, Being, Difference, and Sameness. And one should include Motion and Rest—Motion if Intellect is thinking, and Rest, so that it thinks the same thing. There must be Difference, so that there can be both thinking and being thought; if you were to remove Difference, it would be made silent, having become one. It also must be that things that are thought are different from each other. There must also be Sameness, since Intellect is one with itself, that is, there is a certain commonality in all its objects, but “differentiation is Difference.” And their having become many produces number and quantity, and quality is the unique character of each of these, and from these as principles all the other things arise.

§5. The god, then, who is above the soul is complex, and soul exists within this complex, connected to it, so long as it does not wish to be “separated” from it. Then, when it approaches near to Intellect and in a way becomes one with it, it seeks to know who it is that produced it. It is he who is simple and who is prior to this multiplicity, who is the explanation for the being and the complexity of this god; it is he who is the maker of number.

For number is not primary. Before the Dyad is the One; the Dyad is second and, having come from the One, it has that as limit imposed on it, whereas it is itself unlimited. When it is limited, it is henceforth a number, a number in the sense of a substance. The soul, too, is a number. The first things are neither masses nor magnitudes. The things that have thickness come later, those things that sense-perception takes to be real. Nor is it the moist part in seeds that is valuable, but the part that is not seen. This is number and an expressed principle. So, what are called number and the Dyad in the intelligible world are expressed principles and Intellect. But whereas the Dyad, understood in a way as a substrate, is unlimited, each number that comes from it and the One is a Form, [Intellect] in a way having been shaped by the Forms that come to be in it. In one manner, it is shaped by the One, and in another by itself, as in the way the faculty of sight is actualized. For thinking is [as] sight’s seeing, and both are one.

§6. How, then, does it [Intellect] see, and what does it see, and how in general did it get realized and come to be from the One so that it can even see? For the soul now grasps that these things [the Forms] must of necessity be, but in addition it longs to grasp the answer to the question much discussed among the ancient wise men, too, of how from a unity, such as we say the One is, anything acquired existence, whether plurality or duality or number. Why did it not remain by itself, but instead such a plurality flowed from it, which [plurality], though seen among existing things, we think right to lead back to it.

Let us speak of this matter, then, in the following manner, calling to God Himself, not with spoken words, but by extending ourselves with our soul in prayer to Him, in this way being able to pray alone to Him who is alone. Since God is by Himself, as if inside a temple, remaining tranquil while transcending everything, the contemplator should contemplate the fixed statues which are in a way outside the temple already, or rather the first statue which appeared in the following manner.

It must be that for everything in motion there is something towards which it moves. Since the One has nothing towards which it moves, let us not suppose that it is moving, but if something comes to be after it, it has necessarily come to be by being eternally turned towards the One. Let the sort of coming to be that is in time not get in our way, since our discussion is concerned with things that are eternal. When in our discussion we attribute “coming to be” to them, we are doing so in order to give their causal order. We should say, then, that that which comes to be from the intelligible world does so without the One being moved. For if something came to be as a result of its having moved, then that which came to be from it would be third after the motion and not second. It must be, then, that if something came second after it, that came to exist while the One was unmoved, neither inclining, nor having willed anything, nor moving in any way.

How, then, does this happen, and what should we think about what is near to the One while it reposes? A radiation of light comes from it, but from it while it reposes, like the light from the sun, in a way encircling it, eternally coming from it while it reposes. And all things that exist, so long as they continue to exist, necessarily, in virtue of their present power, produce from their own essence a dependent reality around them at their exterior, a sort of image of the archetypes from which it was generated. Fire produces the heat that comes from it. And snow does not only hold its coldness inside itself. Perfumes especially witness to this, for so long as they exist, something flows from them around them, the reality of which a bystander enjoys. Further, all things, as soon as they are perfected, generate. That which is eternally perfect generates eternally an everlasting reality, and it generates something inferior to itself.

What, then, must we say about that which is most perfect? Nothing can come from it except that which is greatest after it. The greatest after it is Intellect, that which is second. For Intellect sees that and is in need of it alone. But the One has no need of Intellect. And that which is generated from something greater than Intellect is Intellect, which is greater than other things, because other things come after it. For example, Soul

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is an expression of Intellect and a certain activity, just as Intellect is an activity of the One. But Soul’s reason is murky, for it is a reflection of Intellect, and, owing to this, it must look to Intellect. Similarly, Intellect has to look to the One, so that it can be Intellect. It sees it not as having been separated from it, but because it is after it and there is nothing in between, as there is nothing in between Soul and Intellect. Everything longs for that which produced it and loves this, especially whenever there is just producer and produced. And “whenever the producer is the best,” the produced is necessarily together with it, since they are only separated by difference.

§7. Since we really should speak more clearly, let’s say that Intellect is an image of the One. We must say first that that which is produced must somehow be the One and preserve many of its properties, that is, be a likeness in relation to it, just like the light that comes from the sun. But the One is not Intellect. How, then, does it generate Intellect? In fact, by Intellect’s reversion to it, Intellect saw the One, and this seeing is Intellect. For that which grasps anything else is either sense-perception or intellect. Sense-perception is a line, etc. But the circle is the sort of thing that can be divided, though intellect is not like that. There is unity here, but the One has the power to produce all things. Thinking observes those things that the One is virtually, in a way cutting itself off from that virtuality. Otherwise, it would not have become Intellect, since it already has by itself a sort of awareness of the One’s power to produce essence.

At any rate, Intellect, by means of itself, also defines its own being by the power that comes from the One and, because it is a sort of unitary part of what belongs to the One and is the substance coming from it, it is strengthened by it and brought to perfection as substance by it, and comes from it. It sees what is there by seeing itself, a sort of division of the indivisible, life and thinking and all things, none of which the One is.

For in this way all things come from it, because it is not constrained by some shape, for it is one alone. If it were all things, it would be among the things that are. For this reason, the One is none of the things in Intellect, but from it all things come. For this reason, these are essences, for each has already been defined, and each has a sort of shape. Being should not be suspended, so to speak, in the indefinite, but fixed by definition and stability. Stability in the intelligible world is definition and shape, by means of which it [essence] acquires reality.

“This is the lineage” of this Intellect, worthy of the purest Intellect, born from nowhere else than from the first principle, and, having been generated, at once generating all things together with itself, both all the beauty of the Ideas and all the intelligible gods. And it is full of the beings it has generated and, so to speak, swallowing them again by having them in itself and neither letting them fall into matter nor be reared by Rhea (as the mysteries and myths about the gods enigmatically say that Kronos, the wisest god, before the birth of Zeus, holds back in himself what he generates, so that he is full and is like Intellect in satiety).

After this, so they say, being already sated, he generates Zeus, for Intellect generates Soul, being perfect as Intellect. For since it is perfect, it had to generate and since it was such a great power, it could not be barren. That which was generated by it could, in this case as well, not be superior to it but had to be an inferior reflection of it, first similarly undefined and then defined by that which generated it, in a way made to be a reflection. The offspring of Intellect is an expressed principle and a reality, that which thinks discursively [Soul]. This is what moves around Intellect and is a light and trace of Intellect, dependent on it, on one side attached to Intellect and filled up with it and enjoying it and sharing in it and thinking, and on the other side, attached to the things that came after it, or rather itself generating what is necessarily inferior to Soul. These matters should be discussed later. This is as far as the divine realities go.

§8. And it is for this reason that Plato says that the principles are three: “around the king of all,” meaning the primary things, “second around the secondary things,” and “third around the tertiary things.” And he says “father of the cause” meaning by “cause,” Intellect. For the Intellect is his Demiurge. And he says that the Demiurge makes the Soul in that “mixing bowl.” And since the Intellect is cause, he means by “father” the Good, or that which is beyond Intellect and “beyond essence.” Often he calls Being and the Intellect “Idea,” which shows that Plato understood that the Intellect comes from the Good, and the Soul comes from the Intellect. So these statements of ours are not recent or new, but rather were made a long time ago, though not explicitly. The things we are saying now are interpretations of those, relying on the writings of Plato himself as evidence that these are ancient views.

Parmenides4 previously touched on this doctrine to the extent that he amalgamated Being and Intellect, that is, he did not place Being among sensibles, saying “for thinking and being are the same.” And he says that Being is “immobile,” though he does attach thinking to it, eliminating all bodily motion from it so that it would remain as it is, likening it to a “spherical mass,” because it encompasses all things and because thinking is not external to it, but rather in it itself. Saying that it was “one” in his own writings, he got blamed for

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saying that this one thing was in fact found to be many.

Plato’s Parmenides,5 speaking more accurately, distinguishes from among other ones the primary One, which is one in a more proper sense, calling the second one “one many” and the third one “one and many.” In this way, too, he is in harmony with [the doctrine of] the three natures.

§9. Anaxagoras6 himself, too, in saying that “intellect is pure and unmixed,” is positing the first principle as simple and the One as separate, although he neglects to give an accurate account owing to his antiquity. In addition, Heraclitus knew the One to be everlasting and intelligible, since bodies are always coming into being and are “in flux.” And for Empedocles, “Strife” divides and “Love” is the One — this itself is incorporeal — and the elements are posited as matter.

Aristotle later said that the first principle was “separate” and “intelligible,” but when he says that “it thinks itself,” he no longer makes it the first principle. Further, he makes many other things intelligible (as many as there are spheres in the heavens, so that each intelligible moves each sphere), but by doing so he describes intelligibles in a way different from Plato, supposing an argument from plausibility, since he did not have an argument from necessity. One might pause to consider whether it is even plausible, for it is more plausible that all the spheres, contributing to one system, should look to one thing that is the first principle.

And one might inquire if the many intelligibles are, according to him, derived from one first principle, or whether he holds that there are many principles among the intelligibles. And if they are derived from one, it will be clear that, analogous to the way it is among sensibles, where one sphere encompasses another, until you reach the outermost one that is dominant, so the first there will also encompass everything, that is, there will be an intelligible world. And just as here the spheres are not empty, but the first is full of stars, and the others also have stars, so, too, in the intelligible world the movers will have many things within themselves, and the truer realities will be there. But if each one is a principle, the principles will be an arbitrary collection. And what will be the explanation for their working together and their agreement on a single task, the harmony of the entire universe? How can there be equality [in number] of the sensibles [spheres] in the universe in relation to the intelligibles or movers? How can these incorporeals be thus many, without matter to separate them?

So, among the ancients, those who adhered most closely to the doctrines of Pythagoras and to those who came after him, and to those of Pherecydes,7 held to this account of this nature [the One]. But some among them worked out this view among themselves in their own writings, while some did not do so in writings but demonstrated it in unwritten discussions or, altogether left it alone.

§10. It has already been shown that it is necessary to believe that things are this way: that there is the One beyond Being, that it is such as the argument strove to show to the extent that it is possible to demonstrate anything about these matters; that next, there is Being and Intellect; and third, there is the nature of the Soul.

And just as in nature these aforementioned three are found, so it is necessary to believe as well that these are in us. I do not mean that they are among sensibles — for these three are separate from sensibles— but that they are in things that transcend the sensible order, using the term “transcend” in the same manner in which it is used to refer to those things that transcend the whole universe. In the same way, in saying that they belong to a human being, I mean what Plato means by “the inner human being.”

Our soul is, then, something divine and of another nature, like the nature of all soul. But the soul that has intellect is perfect, and one part of intellect is that which reasons and one part is that which makes reasoning possible. The reasoning part of soul is in need of no bodily organ for its reasoning, having its own activity in purity in order that it also be possible for it to reason purely; someone who supposed it to be separate and not mixed with body and in the primary intelligible world would not be mistaken. For we should not search for a place in which to situate it, but we should make it transcend all place. For this is how it is for that which is by itself, transcendent and immaterial, which it is whenever it is alone, retaining nothing from the nature of the body. For this reason, Plato says that the Demiurge “in addition” encircled the soul of the universe from “outside,” pointing to the part of the soul that abides in the intelligible world. As for us, hiding his meaning, he said that it is “at the top of our head.”

And his exhortation “to be separate” is not meant spatially—for this is by nature separated—but is an exhortation not to incline to the body, even by acts of imagination, and to alienate ourselves from the body, if somehow someone could lead upward the remaining part of the soul and even bear upward that which is situated here below, that part that alone is craftsman of the body and has the job of shaping it and caring for it.

§11. Since, then, there is soul that reasons about just and beautiful things and reasoning that seeks to

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know if this is just or if this is beautiful, it is necessary that there exist permanently something that is just, from which the reasoning in the soul arises. How else could it reason? And if soul sometimes reasons about these things and sometimes does not, there must be in us Intellect that does not reason but always possesses Justice, and there must be also the principle of Intellect and its cause and god [the One]. And it must be indivisible and remain so, and while not remaining in [any one] place, it is still seen in many things, each one able to receive it [the One] in a way as other than it, just as the center of the circle exists by itself, but each of the points on it has a mark of the center in themselves, that is, the radii bring to the center that which is in each case unique. For it is by something like this in ourselves that we are in contact with God and are with Him and depend on Him. And if we converge on Him, we would be settled in the intelligible world.

§12. How, then, given that we have such great things in us, do we not grasp them, but rather are mostly inactive with respect to these activities; indeed, some are altogether inactive?

Those are always involved with their own activities—I mean, Intellect and that which is prior to Intellect, eternally in itself, and Soul as well, which is thus “always moving.” For not everything in soul is immediately perceptible, but it comes to us whenever it comes to our sense-perception. But whenever there is perceptual activity that is not being transmitted to the perceptual faculty, it has not yet come to the entire soul. We do not yet know it, then, since we are the whole soul, including the perceptual faculty, not just a part of it. Further, each of the parts of the soul is always acting always by itself with its own object, but cognizing occurs whenever transmission, that is, apprehension, occurs.

If, then, there is going to be apprehension of things present in this way, then that which is to apprehend must revert inward, and focus attention there. Just as if someone were waiting to hear a voice that he wanted to hear, and, distancing himself from other voices, were to prick up his ears to hear the preferred one, waiting for the time when it would arrive — so, too, in this case one must let go of perceptible sounds, except insofar as they are necessary, and guard the soul’s pure power of apprehension and be ready to listen to the sounds from above.

*Reprinted from Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, edited and translated by John Dillon and Lloyd P. Gerson (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), by permission of the publisher.

1. [Regarding Heraclitus, see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.8.—S.M.C.]

2. [Regarding Empedocles, see Plato’s Meno, n.6.]

3. [Regarding Pythagoras, see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.7.]

4. [Regarding Parmenides, see Aristotle’s Metaphysics, n.11.]

5. [The reference is to the character Parmenides in Plato’s Parmenides dialogue.]

6. [Regarding Anaxagoras, see Plato’s Apology, n.7.]

7. [The reference is to Pherecydes of Syros, a sixth-century-B.C. Greek thinker who authored a theory about the origin of the universe.]

512

Boethius

Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor, was forcibly sent into retirement in A.D. 476 by Odoacer, a “barbarian” (that is, Germanic) military officer, who thereupon became king of the region now known as Italy. Shortly thereafter, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (A.D. 480–524) was born into a distinguished Roman senatorial family. Two events occurred during Boethius’ childhood that were to have an enormous impact on his life. The death of his father resulted in his being adopted into an even more distinguished family, that of Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus. And Odoacer was overthrown and treacherously murdered in 493 by Theodoric the Ostrogoth, who ruled over Italy for thirty-three years.

Boethius flourished in Symmachus’ family, both as a precocious learner receiving an excellent education and as a successful suitor marrying Symmachus’ daughter. In a normal upper-class family, Boethius’ educational achievements might have resulted in a life dedicated solely to scholarship. For someone who died in his mid-forties, Boethius’ written accomplishments are impressive. He translated most of Aristotle’s logical works into Latin, wrote commentaries on them and on logical treatises written by Porphyry and Cicero, and authored logical treatises of his own. He also wrote works on arithmetic, geometry, and music, along with five essays on theological topics. Many of these writings were highly influential in the development of medieval philosophy and theology for centuries after his death. His philosophical masterpiece, however, is the Consolation of Philosophy, the culminating book of which is presented here.

But Symmachus’ family was no normal upper-class family. Symmachus was a highly respected and politically influential Roman senator who at one time had held the office of consul, or nominal and by this time mainly ceremonial executive officer of the state. Boethius followed his father-in-law’s footsteps, becoming consul in 510. In 522 his two sons became joint consuls, while Boethius himself was appointed Master of the Offices, a position whose closest parallel in contemporary American political organization might be the fusion of White House Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor.

Boethius’ and Theodoric’s careers were thus intertwined. Theodoric had originally been sent to Italy to depose Odoacer by the Eastern (Byzantine) emperor Zeno. Although Theodoric owed allegiance to Zeno and his successors, he was allowed considerable latitude in his rule over Italy. That rule was marked by political shrewdness in creating and maintaining strategic alliances, respect for Roman legal and religious institutions, and—the universal measure of a successful politician—repair and improvement of public works. At the same time, Theodoric resisted assimilation. He banned Roman citizens from serving in the army and Goths from being educated in Roman schools.

One badge that differentiated Theodoric from his Roman subjects was his Arianism, a doctrine that Roman Christians regarded as heretical. Arianism maintained that, like the material world, Christ had been created by God out of nothing. Although superior to other creatures, Christ was nonetheless inferior to God. Arians claimed that this very inferiority enabled Christ to become flesh and suffer for humans’ salvation. Arianism was the target of the Nicene Creed (promulgated in 325), which explicitly declared that Christ was “begotten,” not made, “being of one substance with the Father.” Theological controversy did not cease, however, for now questions arose about the relation between Christ’s divinity and Christ’s humanity. The Council of Chalcedon (451) maintained that Christ was one person with two natures, “truly God and truly Man.” The expression of these theological doctrines depended heavily on such philosophically significant concepts as substance, relation, person, and nature. Boethius’ theological treatises were efforts to clarify the positions enunciated in Nicaea and Chalcedon, using the tools of Aristotelian logic, not so much in an attempt to demonstrate or prove the positions as to show that some views opposed to them rested on confusion.

These seemingly abstruse philosophical exercises were in fact politically dangerous. In the second decade of the sixth century, the soon-to-be Eastern emperor Justinian sought to bring the Roman west into the Byzantine fold. In service of that end, Justinian was willing to accept the Chalcedonian definition of Christ’s nature. As an Arian, Theodoric now found himself and his Goths regarded as heretics both by their Roman subjects, with whom they had resisted assimilation, and by their Eastern master. In this political context, it would be easy to read Boethius’ treatises as propaganda designed to aid Justinian by stirring up Roman unrest. Theodoric had Boethius arrested and imprisoned in Favia. A Roman senatorial court 500 miles away found him guilty and imposed a sentence of death without benefit of hearing a defense. He remained in prison for several months, during which time he wrote the Consolation of Philosophy. In it Boethius claims that the

513

charges brought against him include conspiring with the senate against Theodoric, having written documents advocating freedom for Rome (could the evidence have been the theological treatises?), and committing sacrilege by trafficking with evil spirits. The last charge is reminiscent of the charge of impiety brought against Socrates, equally inflammatory and equally groundless. Unlike Socrates, who was put to death in a humane way, Boethius was brutally executed. As if for good measure, Theodoric also had Symmachus killed.

The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and Philosophy, personified as a goddess. The earlier books contain discussions of what constitutes the good life, how God is the ultimate good, and how evil can occur in a world governed by God’s providence and justice. In Book V, the final book, Boethius raises the question of how it is possible for humans to have freedom of will if God knows in advance what every human choice will be. Philosophy’s answer is to claim that the way in which a thing is known depends on the way in which the knower knows it, and that God knows things that are future to us as present to him. In arguing for this thesis, Philosophy offers a definition of eternity that came to exert considerable influence in the subsequent history of philosophy: Eternity is “a possession of life, a possession simultaneously entire and perfect, which has no end.”

• • •

Two of Boethius’ logical works have been translated, with much helpful commentary, by Eleonore Stump: Boethius’s “De topicis differentiis” (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978) and Boethius’s “In Ciceronis Topica” (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988). A magisterial study of Boethius’ life and works is Henry Chadwick, Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). A helpful examination of Boethius’ philosophy is John Marenbon, Boethius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). A useful collection of recent essays on Boethius is contained in John Marenbon, ed., The Cambridge Compainion to Boethius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

William E. Mann

514

Consolation of Philosophy*

515

BOOK V

Prose 1

So she concluded, and she was starting to turn the direction of her pleading toward the treatment and explanation of some other things.

But then I said: A proper encouragement to be sure, completely and absolutely worthy of your authority! But as to what you said previously about Providence, that it is a question bound up with many other questions — I know that by personal experience. That is to say, I’m asking you whether you think there is such a thing as chance at all and, tell me, what sort of thing do you think it is?

Then she said: I’m hurrying to make good the debt of my promise, and to open up for you the path by which you may be carried back to your fatherland. But these questions — even though they are quite useful to know, they are all the same a little off to one side of the path of what I had proposed. And it’s reasonable for me to be afraid that you’ll be exhausted on the sidetracks and won’t be able to bear up for traveling the straight path through to its end.

I said: You must have absolutely no fear of that. For it will be like tranquil quiet for me to bring to mind the things in which I take the greatest delight. And at the same time, when every side of your argument stands fixed, its trustworthiness undoubted, I want there to be no doubt at all about what follows.

Then she said: I’ll humor you; and as she did so she began as follows. She said: If someone were to define chance as a result that is a product of random motion, without any

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