The sorcerer’s art is the charming of snakes and tarantulas and scorpions and other beasts and diseases, while the other is just the charming and soothing of juries, assemblies, crowds, and so forth. Or does it strike you differently? I asked. No, it appears to me, he replied, to be as you say. Which way then, said I, shall we turn now? What kind of art shall we try? For my part, he said, I have no suggestion. Why, I think I have found it myself, I said. What is it? said Cleinias. Generalship, I replied, strikes me as the art whose acquisition above all others would make one happy. I do not think so. Why not? I asked. In a sense, this is an art of hunting men. What then? I said. No part of actual hunting, he replied, covers more than the province of chasing and overcoming; and when they have overcome the creature they are chasing, they are unable to use it: the huntsmen or the fishermen hand it over to the caterers, and so it is too with the geometers, astronomers, and calculators— for these also are hunters in their way, since they are not in each case diagram-makers, but discover the realities of thingsi.e. geometers etc. are not to be regarded as mere makers of diagrams, these being only the necessary and common machinery for their real business, the discovery of mathematical and other abstract truths.—and so, not knowing how to use their prey, but only how to hunt, I take it they hand over their discoveries to the dialecticians to use properly, those of them, at least, who are not utter blockheads. Very good, I said, most handsome and ingenious Cleinias; and is this really so? To be sure it is; and so, in the same way, with the generals. When they have hunted either a city or an army, they hand it over to the politicians—since they themselves do not know how to use what they have hunted—just as quail-hunters, I suppose, hand over their birds to the quail-keepers. If, therefore, he went on, we are looking for that art which itself shall know how to use what it has acquired either in making or chasing, and if this is the sort that will make us blest, we must reject generalship, he said, and seek out some other.

What is this, Socrates? Such a pronouncement from that stripling!

You do not believe it is his, Crito?

I should rather think not. For I am sure, if he spoke thus, he has no need of education from Euthydemus or anyone else.

But then, Heaven help me! I wonder if it was Ctesippus who said it, and my memory fails me.

Very like Ctesippus!

Well, of this at any rate I am certain, that it was neither Euthydemus nor Dionysodorus who said it. Tell me, mysterious Crito, was it some superior power that was there to speak it? For that speech I heard, I am sure.

Yes, I promise you, Socrates: I fancy it was indeed some superior power—very much so. But after that, did you go on looking for a suitable art? Did you find the one which you had as the object of your search, or not?

Find it, my good fellow! No, we were in a most ridiculous state; like children who run after crested larks, we kept on believing each moment we were just going to catch this or that one of the knowledges, while they as often slipped from our grasp. What need to tell you the story at length? When we reached the kingly art, and were examining it to see if we had here what provides and produces happiness, at this point we were involved in a labyrinth: when we supposed we had arrived at the end, we twisted about again and found ourselves practically at the beginning of our search, and just as sorely in want as when we first started on it.

How did this happen to you, Socrates?

I will tell you. We took the view that the statesman’s and the monarch’s arts were one and the same.

Well, what then?

To this art, we thought, generalship and the other arts handed over the management of the productions of their own trades, as this one alone knew how to use them. So it seemed clear to us that this was the one we were seeking, and was the cause of right conduct in the state, and precisely as Aeschylus’ lineCf. Aesch. Seven 2 Whoso at helm of the state keeps watch upon affairs, guiding the tiller without resting his eyelids in sleep. expresses it, is seated alone at the helm of the city, steering the whole, commanding the whole, and making the whole useful.

And surely your notion was a good one, Socrates?

You shall judge of that, Crito, if you care to hear what befell us thereafter. For later on we reconsidered it somewhat in this manner: Look now, does the monarch’s art, that rules over all, produce any effect or not? Certainly it does, of course, we said to one another. Would you not say so too, Crito?

I would.