Soc. So then, to my mind the poet spoke well and soundly; but if you have thought of an answer to his words, do not be silent.

Alc. It is difficult, Socrates, to gainsay what has been well spoken: one thing, however, I do observe —how many evils are caused to men by ignorance, when, as it seems, we are beguiled by her not only into doing, but—worst of all—into praying to be granted the greatest evils. Now that is a thing that no one would suppose of himself; each of us would rather suppose he was competent to pray for his own greatest good, not his greatest evil. Why, that would seem, in truth, more like some sort of curse than a prayer!

Soc. But perhaps, my excellent friend, some person who is wiser than either you or I may say we are wrong to be so free with our abuse of ignorance, unless we can add that it is ignorance of certain things, and is a good to certain persons in certain conditions, as to those others it is an evil.

Alc. How do you mean? Can there be anything of which it is better for anybody, in any condition whatsoever, to be ignorant than cognizant?

Soc. I believe so; and do not you?

Alc. No, indeed, upon my word.

Soc. But surely I shall not have to tax you with an inclination to commit such an act against your own mother as Orestes and Alcmaeon, and any others who have followed their example, are said to have committed against theirs.

Alc. No unlucky words, in Heaven’s name, Socrates!

Soc. Why, it is not the person who says, Alcibiades, that you would not like to be guilty of such an act, whom you should bid avoid unlucky words, but much rather him who might say the contrary; since the act seems to you so very dreadful as to be unfit even for such casual mention. But do you think that Orestes, if he had had all his wits about him and had known what was best for him to do, would have brought himself to commit any act of the sort?

Alc. No, indeed.

Soc. Then let us consider this further case. Suppose it should quite suddenly occur to your mind that you had better take a dagger and go to the door of Pericles, your own guardian and friend, and ask if he were at home, with the design of killing just him and no one else, and his servants said he was at home: now, I do not say you would be inclined to do any such thing, but I suppose, if you are under the impression which at some moment may well be present, surely, to the mind of a man who is ignorant of the best—that what is really the worst is best at some moment—or do you not agree?

Alc. Quite so.

Soc. Well then, if you went indoors and saw Pericles himself, but did not know him, and thought he was somebody else, would you still venture to kill him?

Alc. No, upon my word, I should think not.

Soc. For your man was, I presume, not anyone you met, but that particular person whom you wished to kill?

Alc. Yes.

Soc. And although you might make a number of attempts, if you always failed to know Pericles when you were about to commit the act, you would never attack him.

Alc. No, indeed.

Soc. Well now, do you suppose that Orestes would ever have attacked his mother if he had similarly failed to know her?

Soc. Well, take the orators, for example: they either know, or think they know, how to advise us on various occasions—some about war and peace, and others about building walls or fitting up harbors; and in a word, whatever the city does to another city or within herself, all comes about by the advice of the orators.

Alc. That is true.

Soc. Then observe the consequence.

Alc. If I am able.

Soc. Why, surely you call men either wise or unwise?

Alc. I do.

Soc. And the many unwise, and the few wise?

Alc. Precisely.

Soc. And in either case you name them in reference to something?

Alc. Yes.

Alc. A paltry one, I should call it, Socrates.

Soc. Yes, you would, I expect, when you saw each one of them vying with the other and assigning the largest part in the conduct of the state to thatWherein himself is found most excellent,Eur. Antiope, Fr. Cf. Plat. Gorg. 484e. I mean, what is done best by rule of his particular art—while he is entirely off the track of what is best for the state and for himself, because, I conceive, he has put his trust in opinion apart from intelligence. In these circumstances, should we not be right in saying that such a state is one great mass of turmoil and lawlessness?

Alc. We should, upon my word.

Soc. And we took it to be necessary that we should first think we know, or really know, anything that we confidently intend either to do or to say?

Alc. We did.

Soc. And if a man does what he knows or thinks he knows, and is assisted by knowing how to make it beneficial, we shall find him profitable both to the city and to himself?

Alc. Certainly.

Soc. But if, I suppose, he does the contrary, he will not be so either to the city or to himself?

Alc. No, indeed.

Soc. Well then, do you still take the same view now as before, or do you think differently?

Alc. No, I take the same view.

Soc. And you said you called the many unwise, and the few wise?

Alc. I did.

Soc. So now we repeat our statement that the many have missed getting the best because in most cases, I conceive, they have put their trust in opinion apart from intelligence.

Soc. Hence the state or soul that is to live aright must hold fast to this knowledge, exactly as a sick man does to a doctor, or as he who would voyage safely does to a pilot. For without this, the more briskly it is wafted by fortune either to the acquisition of wealth or to bodily strength or aught else of the sort, the greater will be the mistakes in which these things, it would seem, must needs involve it. And he who has acquired the so-called mastery of learning and arts, but is destitute of this knowledge and impelled by this or that one among those others, is sure to meet with much rough weather, as he truly deserves; since, I imagine, he must continue without a pilot on the high seas, and has only the brief span of his life in which to run his course. So that his case aptly fits the saying of the poet, in which he complains of somebody or other that Full many crafts he knew: but stillHe knew them all so very ill.Margites, Fr. Quoted from the mock-epic , of which only this and five other lines have survived. The hero, Margites, became the proverbial type of a blundering idiot, and the poem was generally attributed to Homer.

Alc. Why, how on earth is the poet’s saying apposite, Socrates? For to my mind it has nothing to do with the point.

Soc. It is very much to the point: but he, good sir, like almost every other poet, speaks in riddles. For poetry as a whole is by nature inclined to riddling, and it is not every man who can apprehend it. And furthermore, besides having this natural tendency, when it gets hold of a grudging person who wishes not to show forth to us his own wisdom but to conceal it as much as possible, we find it an extraordinarily difficult matter to make out whatever this or that one of them may mean. For surely you do not suppose that Homer, divinest and wisest of poets, did not know it was impossible to know ill; for it is he who says of Margites that he knew many things, but knew them all ill: but it is a riddle, I think, in which he has made ill stand for evil, and knew for to know. So if we put it together, letting the meter go, indeed, but grasping his meaning, we get this: Full many crafts he knew, but it was evil for him to know them all. This trick of twisting the words of a quotation into an unnatural meaning is quite characteristic of Socrates. Cf. Plat. Prot. 343-7. Then clearly, if it was evil for him to know many things, he was in fact a paltry fellow, assuming we are to believe what we have previously argued.