ALCIBIADES: To be musical, I suppose.

SOCRATES: Very good; and now please to tell me what is the excellence of
war and peace; as the more musical was the more excellent, or the more
gymnastical was the more excellent, tell me, what name do you give to the
more excellent in war and peace?

ALCIBIADES: But I really cannot tell you.

SOCRATES: But if you were offering advice to another and said to him--This
food is better than that, at this time and in this quantity, and he said to
you--What do you mean, Alcibiades, by the word 'better'? you would have no
difficulty in replying that you meant 'more wholesome,' although you do not
profess to be a physician: and when the subject is one of which you
profess to have knowledge, and about which you are ready to get up and
advise as if you knew, are you not ashamed, when you are asked, not to be
able to answer the question? Is it not disgraceful?

ALCIBIADES: Very.

SOCRATES: Well, then, consider and try to explain what is the meaning of
'better,' in the matter of making peace and going to war with those against
whom you ought to go to war? To what does the word refer?

ALCIBIADES: I am thinking, and I cannot tell.

SOCRATES: But you surely know what are the charges which we bring against
one another, when we arrive at the point of making war, and what name we
give them?

ALCIBIADES: Yes, certainly; we say that deceit or violence has been
employed, or that we have been defrauded.

SOCRATES: And how does this happen? Will you tell me how? For there may
be a difference in the manner.

ALCIBIADES: Do you mean by 'how,' Socrates, whether we suffered these
things justly or unjustly?

SOCRATES: Exactly.

ALCIBIADES: There can be no greater difference than between just and
unjust.

SOCRATES: And would you advise the Athenians to go to war with the just or
with the unjust?

ALCIBIADES: That is an awkward question; for certainly, even if a person
did intend to go to war with the just, he would not admit that they were
just.

SOCRATES: He would not go to war, because it would be unlawful?

ALCIBIADES: Neither lawful nor honourable.

SOCRATES: Then you, too, would address them on principles of justice?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: What, then, is justice but that better, of which I spoke, in
going to war or not going to war with those against whom we ought or ought
not, and when we ought or ought not to go to war?

ALCIBIADES: Clearly.

SOCRATES: But how is this, friend Alcibiades? Have you forgotten that you
do not know this, or have you been to the schoolmaster without my
knowledge, and has he taught you to discern the just from the unjust? Who
is he? I wish you would tell me, that I may go and learn of him--you shall
introduce me.

ALCIBIADES: You are mocking, Socrates.

SOCRATES: No, indeed; I most solemnly declare to you by Zeus, who is the
God of our common friendship, and whom I never will forswear, that I am
not; tell me, then, who this instructor is, if he exists.

ALCIBIADES: But, perhaps, he does not exist; may I not have acquired the
knowledge of just and unjust in some other way?

SOCRATES: Yes; if you have discovered them.

ALCIBIADES: But do you not think that I could discover them?

SOCRATES: I am sure that you might, if you enquired about them.

ALCIBIADES: And do you not think that I would enquire?

SOCRATES: Yes; if you thought that you did not know them.

ALCIBIADES: And was there not a time when I did so think?

SOCRATES: Very good; and can you tell me how long it is since you thought
that you did not know the nature of the just and the unjust? What do you
say to a year ago? Were you then in a state of conscious ignorance and
enquiry? Or did you think that you knew? And please to answer truly, that
our discussion may not be in vain.

ALCIBIADES: Well, I thought that I knew.


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