[133]
Soc.
And have you observed that the face of the person who looks into another’s eye is shown in the optic confronting him, 133a as in a mirror, and we call this the pupil, 1 for in a sort it is an image of the person looking?Alc.
That is true.Soc.
Then an eye viewing another eye, and looking at the most perfect part of it, the thing wherewith it sees, will thus see itself.Alc.
Apparently.Soc.
But if it looks at any other thing in man or at anything in nature but what resembles this, 2 it will not see itself.Alc.
That is true.Soc.
Then if an eye is to see itself, it must look at an eye, and at that region of the eye in which the virtue of an eye is found to occur; and this, I presume, is sight.Alc.
That is so.Soc.
And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul, and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul—wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this?Alc.
I agree, Socrates.Soc.
And can we find any part of the soul that we can call more divine than this, which is the seat of knowledge and thought?Alc.
We cannot.Soc.
Then this part of her resembles God, and whoever looks at this, and comes to know all that is divine, will gain thereby the best knowledge of himself.Alc.
Apparently.Soc.
And self-knowledge we admitted to be temperance. 3Alc.
To be sure.Soc.
So if we have no knowledge of ourselves and no temperance, shall we be able to know our own belongings, good or evil?Alc.
How can that be, Socrates?Soc.
For I expect it seems impossible to you that without knowing Alcibiades you should know that the belongings of Alcibiades are in fact his.Alc.
Impossible indeed, upon my word.Soc.
Nor could we know that our belongings are ours if we did not even know ourselves?Alc.
How could we?Soc.
And so, if we did not so much as know our belongings, we could not know the belongings of our belongings either?Alc.
Apparently not.Soc.
Then we were not quite correct in admitting just now that there are people who, without knowing themselves, know their belongings, while others know their belongings’ belongings. For it seems to be the function of one man and one art to discern all three— 133e himself, his belongings, and the belongings of his belongings.Alc.
It looks like it.Soc.
And anyone who is ignorant of his belongings will be similarly ignorant, I suppose, of the belongings of others.Alc.
Quite so.Soc.
And if ignorant of others’ affairs, he will be ignorant also of the affairs of states.Alc.
He must be.Soc.
Then such a man can never be a statesman.Alc.
No, indeed.Soc.
No, nor an economist either.Alcibiades 1. Plato. Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1927.
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