Alcibiades 2 (138-142)

Soc. Alcibiades, are you on your way to offer a prayer to the god?

Alc. I am, certainly, Socrates.

Soc. You seem, let me say, to have a gloomy look, and to keep your eyes on the ground, as though you were pondering something.

Alc. And what might one ponder, Socrates?

Soc. The greatest of questions, Alcibiades, as I believe. For tell me, in Heaven’s name, do you not think that the gods sometimes grant in part, but in part refuse, what we ask of them in our private and public prayers, and gratify some people, but not others?

Alc. I do, certainly.

Soc. Then you would agree that one should take great precautions against falling unawares into the error of praying for great evils in the belief that they are good, while the gods happen to be disposed to grant freely what one is praying for? Just as Oedipus, they say, suddenly prayed that his sons might divide their patrimony with the sword: it was open to him to pray that his present evils might by some means be averted, but he invoked others in addition to those which he had already. Wherefore not only were those words of his accomplished, but many other dread results therefrom, which I think there is no need to recount in detail.

Alc. But you have instanced a madman, Socrates: why, do you suppose that anyone could bring himself, while he was in a sound state, to utter such a prayer?

Soc. Do you regard madness as the opposite of wisdom?

Alc. Certainly I do.

Soc. And there are some men whom you regard as unwise, and others as wise?

Alc. Why, yes.

Soc. Come then, let us consider who these people are. We have admitted that some are unwise, some wise, and others mad.

Alc. Yes, we have.

Soc. And again, there are some in sound health?

Alc. There are.

Soc. And others also who are in ill-health?

Alc. Quite so.

Soc. And they are not the same?

Alc. No, indeed.

Soc. And are there any others besides, who are found to be in neither state?

Alc. No, to be sure.

Soc. For a human being must needs be either sick or not sick.

Alc. I agree.

Soc. Well then, do you hold the same view about wisdom and unwisdom?

Alc. How do you mean?

Soc. Tell me, do you think it is only possible to be either wise or unwise, or is there some third condition between these, which makes a man neither wise nor unwise?

Alc. No, there is not.

Soc. So he must needs be in one or the other of these two conditions.

Alc. I agree.

Soc. And you remember that you admitted that madness is the opposite of wisdom?

Alc. I do.

Soc. And further, that there is no third condition between these, which makes a man neither wise nor unwise?

Alc. Yes, I admitted that.

Soc. Well now, can there possibly be two opposites of one thing?

Alc. By no means.

Soc. Then it looks as though unwisdom and madness were the same.

Alc. Yes, apparently.

Soc. So we shall be right, Alcibiades, in saying that all unwise persons are mad; for example, such of your contemporaries as happen to be unwise—some such there are—and of your elders, even: for tell me, in Heaven’s name, do you not think that in our city the wise people are but few, whereas the majority are unwise, and these you call mad?

Alc. I do.

Soc. Well, do you suppose we could safely live with so many madmen as our fellow-citizens, and should not long ago have paid the penalty for it in knocks and blows at their hands, and all the usual proceedings of madmen? Consider now, my wonderful friend, whether the case is not quite different?

Alc. Well, it must be, Socrates. For it looks as though it were not as I thought.

Soc. And I think so too. But there is another way of regarding it.

Alc. I wonder what way you mean.

Soc. Well, I will tell you. We conceive there are some who are sick, do we not?

Alc. We do, to be sure.

Soc. And do you believe that a sick man must necessarily have the gout, or a fever, or ophthalmia? Do you not think that, although he may be afflicted in none of these ways, he may be suffering from some other disease? For surely there are many of them: these are not the only ones.

Alc. I agree.

Soc. And is every ophthalmia, in your opinion, a disease?

Alc. Yes.

Soc. And is every disease also ophthalmia?

Alc. No, I should think not: still, I am in doubt as to my meaning.

Soc. Well, if you will attend to me, two together [*] will be searching, and so mayhap we shall find what we seek.

Alc. Nay, but I am attending, Socrates, to the best of my power.

Soc. Then we have admitted that while every ophthalmia is a disease, every disease, on the other hand, is not ophthalmia?

Alc. We have.

Soc. And our admission seems to me quite right. For everyone in a fever is sick, but yet not everyone who is sick has a fever or the gout or ophthalmia, I take it; though everything of the sort is a disease, but differs—to quote those whom we call doctors— in its manifestation. [*] For they are not all alike, nor of like effect, but each works according to its own faculty, and yet all are diseases. In the same way, we conceive of some men as artisans, do we not?

Alc. Certainly.

Soc. That is, cobblers and carpenters and statuaries and a host of others, whom we need not mention in particular; but any way, they have their several departments of craft, and all of them are craftsmen; yet they are not all carpenters or cobblers or statuaries, though these taken together are craftsmen.

Alc. No, indeed.

Soc. In the same way, then, have men divided unwisdom also among them, and those who have the largest share of it we call mad, and those who have a little less, dolts and idiots; though people who prefer to use the mildest language term them sometimes romantic, [*] sometimes simpleminded, [*] or again innocent, inexperienced, or obtuse; and many another name will you find if you look for more. But all these things are unwisdom, though they differ, as we observed that one art or one disease differs from another. Or how does it strike you?

Alc. That is my view.

Soc. Then let us turn at this point and retrace our steps. For we said, you know, at the beginning that we must consider who the unwise can be, and who the wise: for we had admitted that there are such persons, had we not?

Alc. Yes, we have admitted it.

Soc. Then you conceive those to be wise who know what one ought to do and say?

Alc. I do.

Soc. And which are the unwise? Those who know neither of these things?

Alc. The same.

Soc. And those who know neither of these things will say and do unawares what one ought not?

Alc. Apparently.

Soc. Well, just such a person, as I was saying, Alcibiades, was Oedipus; and even in our time you will find many who do the same, not in a fit of anger, as he was: they think they pray not for something evil, but for something good. He neither prayed for that, nor thought he did, but there are others who are in the opposite case. For I imagine that if the god to whom you are now going should appear to you and first ask you, before you made any prayer, whether you would be content to become sovereign of the Athenian state and, on your accounting this as something poor and unimportant, should add and of all the Greeks also; and if he saw you were still unsatisfied unless he promised you besides the mastery of all Europe, and should not merely promise you that, but on the self-same day a recognition by all men, if you so desired, of Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, as their sovereign—I imagine you would actually depart in a transport of delight, as having secured the greatest of goods.

Alc. So would anybody else, I imagine, Socrates, at such a stroke of luck!

Soc. But still you would not wish to sacrifice your life even for the territory and sovereignty of all the Greeks and barbarians together.

Alc. I should think not. How could I, without a prospect of making any use of them?

Soc. And what if you had a prospect of making an evil and injurious use of them? Not in this case either?

Alc. No, indeed.

Soc. So you see it is not safe either to accept casually what one is given, or to pray for one’s own advancement, if one is going to be injured in consequence, or deprived of one’s life altogether. Yet we could tell of many ere now who, having desired sovereignty, and endeavored to secure it, with the idea of working for their good, have lost their lives by plots which their sovereignty has provoked. And I expect you are not unacquainted with certain events

of a day or two ago,

Hom. Il. 2.303 when Archelaus, the monarch of Macedonia, was slain [*] by his favorite, who was as much in love with the monarchy as Archelaus was with him, and who killed his lover with the expectation of being not only the monarch, but also a happy man: but after holding the monarchy for three or four days he was plotted against by others in his turn, and perished.

Soc. You have only to look at some of our own citizens—and these are examples that we know, not by hearsay, but by personal observation—who in their time have desired to hold military command and have obtained it, and see how some to this very day are exiles from our city, while others have lost their lives. And even those who are deemed to be faring best have not only gone through many dangers and terrors in holding their command, but on returning home have continued to be as sorely besieged by informers as they were by the enemy, so that some of them wished to heaven that they had been anything but commanders rather than have held such appointments. Of course, if these dangers and toils were conducive to our advantage, there would be some reason for them; but the case is quite the contrary. And you will find it is just the same in regard to children: some people have been known to pray that they might have them, and when they have got them have fallen into the greatest disasters and pains. For some have had children that were utterly bad, and have spent their whole lives in repining; while others, though they had good ones, were bereft of them by disasters that overtook them, and thus were cast into as great misfortune as the others, and wished that no children at all had been born to them. But nevertheless, with all this plain evidence, and a great deal more of a similar kind, before men’s eyes, it is rare to find anyone who has either declined what was offered to him or, when he was likely to gain something by prayer, refrained from praying. Most men would not decline the offer of either a monarchy or a generalship or any of the various other things which bring with them harm rather than benefit, but would even pray to be granted them in cases where they were lacking: but after a little while they often change their tune, and retract all their former prayers. I question therefore if men are not really wrong in blaming the gods as the authors of their ills, when

they themselves by their own presumption

Hom. Od. 1.32—or unwisdom, shall we say?—

have gotten them more than destined sorrows.

Hom. Od. 1.32 It would seem, at any rate, Alcibiades, that one old poet had some wisdom; for I conceive it was because he had some foolish friends, whom he saw working and praying for things that were not for their advantage, though supposed to be by them, that he made a common prayer on behalf of them all, in terms something like these:

King Zeus, give unto us what is good, whether we pray or pray not;

But what is grievous, even if we pray for it, do thou avert.

Anth. Pal. 10.108.