Very true, he said.
Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end
of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end,
and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having
the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore
losing whatever good there is in other things,--of a principle
such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom
everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance?
Certainly not, he said.
I am sure, I said, that he who does not know now the beautiful
and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them;
and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true
knowledge of them.
That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours.
And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State
will be perfectly ordered?
Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether
you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge
or pleasure, or different from either.
Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman like you
would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about
these matters.
True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed
a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating
the opinions of others, and never telling his own.
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