Charmides.
Socrates, Critias.
if you will only tell me what you mean by them. Please then to begin again, and be a little plainer. Do you mean that this doing or making, or whatever is the word which you would use, of good actions, is temperance?
I do, he said.
Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is tem- perate?
Yes, he said; and you, friend, would agree.
No matter whether 1 should or not; just now, not what I think, but what you are saying, is the point at issue.
Fourth definition: Temperance is the doing of good actions. Well, he answered; I mean to say, that he who does evil, and not good, is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and not evil : for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing of good actions.
And you may be very likely right in what you are saying; 164 but I am curious to know whether you imagine that temperate men are ignorant of their own temperance?
I do not think so, he said.
And yet were you not saying, just now, that craftsmen might be temperate in doing another's work, as well as in doing their own?
I was, he replied; but what is your drift?
Cross-examination by Socrates of Critias, who admits that the temperate man does not always know himself to be acting temperately, and then digresses into a lengthy explanation of the Delphic motto, 'Know thyself,' I have no particular drift, but I wish that you would tell me whether a physician who cures a patient may do good to him- self and good to another also?
I think that he may.
And he who does so does his duty?
Yes.
And does not he who does his duty act temperately or wisely?
Yes, he acts wisely.
But must the physician necessarily know when his treat- ment is likely to prove beneficial, and when not? or must the craftsman necessarily know when he is likely to be benefited, and when not to be benefited, by the work which he is doing?
I suppose not.
Then, I said, he may sometimes do good or harm, and not know what he is himself doing, and yet, in doing good, as you say, he has done temperately or wisely. Was not that your statement?
