Theaetetus

​THEODORUS: If, Socrates, you could persuade everyone of what you say as you do me, there would be more peace and fewer evils among men. SOCRATES: But it is impossible for evils to be destroyed, Theodorus—for there must always be something contrary to the good—nor can they be established among the gods, but they must of necessity prowl around mortal nature and this region. Therefore, we must also try to flee from here to there as quickly as possible. And flight is becoming like god as far as possible; and becoming like god is to become just and holy with wisdom. But indeed, my excellent friend, it is not altogether easy to persuade people that, after all, it is not for the reasons the many say we must flee wickedness and pursue virtue—namely, in order that one may not seem bad and may seem good, for these are, as it seems to me, the so-called “old wives’ tales”—but let us state the truth as follows. God is in no way and by no means unjust, but is as just as possible, and there is nothing more like him than whoever among us in turn becomes as just as possible. On this depends the true cleverness of a man, as well as his worthlessness and unmanliness. For the knowledge of this is true wisdom and virtue, while ignorance of it is manifest folly and wickedness; and the other seeming clevernesses and wisdoms, when they occur in political offices, become vulgar, and in the crafts low. To the one, therefore, who commits injustice and says or does unholy things, it is by far the best not to concede that he is clever by reason of his unscrupulousness; for they glory in the reproach and think they hear that they are not nonentities, “mere burdens on the earth,” but men such as those who are to survive in a city ought to be. We must, therefore, tell them the truth: that they are all the more the kind of men they think they are not, precisely because they do not think so; for they are ignorant of the penalty of injustice, which they ought least of all to be ignorant of. For it is not what they think it is, stripes and death, which they sometimes suffer though doing no injustice, but a penalty which it is impossible to escape. THEODORUS: What penalty do you mean?

​SOCRATES: My friend, there are two patterns established in reality, the one divine and most happy, the other godless and most miserable, and because they do not see that this is so, through their foolishness and extreme mindlessness they fail to notice that they are becoming like the one by their unjust actions, and unlike the other. They pay the penalty for this by living the life that conforms to the pattern they resemble. But if we tell them that, unless they rid themselves of their “cleverness,” even when they die, that place which is pure of evils will not receive them, and here they will always have a mode of life resembling themselves, evil men associating with evil men, they, as extremely clever and unscrupulous people, will listen to these things as the babblings of some fools. THEODORUS: Quite so, indeed, Socrates. SOCRATES: I know it well, my companion. However, one thing happens to them: whenever they must give and receive an account in private about the things they censure, and they are willing to endure manfully for a long time and not flee unmanfully, then, strangely enough, my good friend, they end up being displeased with themselves concerning the things they say, and that rhetoric of theirs somehow fades away, so that they seem to differ in no way from children. But let us depart from these matters, since they happen to be spoken of as digressions—otherwise, more flowing in constantly will bury our original argument—and let us go on to what went before, if it also seems good to you. THEODORUS: For me, Socrates, such things are not unpleasant to hear; for it is easier for one of my age to follow them. However, if it seems good, let us return. SOCRATES: Were we not, then, somewhere about this point in the argument, where we said that those who assert a changing reality, and that what seems to each person always also is for the one to whom it seems, are willing to maintain this in other matters, and not least about things that are just, namely that above all, whatever a city establishes as seeming right to itself, these things are indeed just for the city that established them, for as long as they remain established; but concerning the good, no one is any longer so manly as to dare to contend that whatever a city establishes thinking it to be advantageous to itself, also is advantageous for as long a time as it remains established, unless one were to speak only of the name? But this would surely be a mockery of what we are saying. Or is it not? THEODORUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Let him not, indeed, speak of the name, but let him contemplate the thing named. THEODORUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: But whatever a city calls this, it surely aims at it in making laws, and it establishes all its laws, as far as it opines and is able, as most advantageous to itself; or does it make laws looking to something else?