Gorgias

​SOCRATES: Should we, then, attempt to care for the city and the citizens in this way, by making the citizens themselves as good as possible? For without this, as we found in what went before, there is no use in offering any other benefit, unless the mind of those who are to receive either much money or rule over some people or any other power whatsoever be noble and good. Shall we say this is so? CALLICLES: Quite so, if it is more pleasing to you. SOCRATES: If, then, we were encouraging one another, Callicles, to engage in public affairs on the side of building—either of walls, or shipyards, or temples, up to the greatest buildings—would we have needed to examine ourselves and inspect first whether we know the art or do not know it, namely building, and from whom we learned it? Would we have needed to or not? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Therefore, secondly, this also: whether we have ever built any building privately, either for one of our friends or for ourselves, and whether this building is fine or shameful; and if, on examination, we found that our teachers had been good and reputable, and that many fine buildings had been built by us with our teachers, and many also privately by ourselves after we parted from our teachers—if we were so circumstanced, it would be the part of sensible men to go on to public works; but if we had neither any teacher of ourselves to point out, nor any buildings at all, or else many but of no worth, in that case indeed it would surely be foolish to attempt public works and to exhort one another to them. Shall we say that these things are said correctly or not? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Therefore, is it so with everything else? And if we were exhorting one another to practice publicly, having made an attempt as if we were competent physicians, we would surely have examined, I you and you me: “Come, by the gods, how does Socrates himself stand in regard to bodily health? Or has anyone else already been freed from disease through Socrates, whether slave or free man?” And I, I think, would have examined other such things about you. And if we did not find that anyone had become better in body through us, whether of strangers or citizens, whether man or woman, by Zeus, Callicles, would it not have been truly ridiculous for men to reach such a pitch of folly that, before having practiced much in private just as it happened, and having succeeded in many things and trained sufficiently in the art—doing what is called “learning pottery on a jar”—they should attempt to practice publicly themselves and exhort others of the same sort to do so? Does it not seem to you that it would be foolish to act in this way? CALLICLES: To me, at least.