Charmides.
Socrates, Critias.
Or of working in brass? Certainly not.
Or in wool, ur wood, or anything of that sort? No, I do not.
Then, I said, we are giving up the doctrine that he who lives according to knowledge is happy, for these live accord ing to knowledge, and yet they are not allowed hy you to be happy; but I think that you mean to confine happiness to patticular individuals who live according to knowledge, such for example as the prophet, who, as I was saying, knows thP. future. I,; it of him you are speaking or of some one else?
Yes, I mean him, but there are others as well.
Yes, I said, snme one who knows the past and presf'n t as well as the future, and is ignorant of nothing. Let us suppose that there is such a person, and if there is, you will allow that he is the most knowing of all living men.
Certainly he is.
Yet I should like to know one thing more: which of the different kinds of knowledge makes him happy? or do all equally make him happy?
Nut all equally, he replied.
But which most tends to make him happy? the knowledge of what past, present, or future thing? May I infer this to be the knowledge of the game of draughts?
Nonsense about the game of draughts. Or of computation?
No.
Or of health?
That is nearer the tmth, he said.
And that knowledge which is nearest of all. I said, is the knowledge of what?
The knowledge with which he discerns good and evil.
Not universal knowledge, but the knowledge of good and evil, is really required by man. Monster! I said; you have been carrying me round in a circle, and all this time hiding from me the fact that the life according to knowledge is not that which makes men act rightly and be happy, not even if knowledge include all the sciences, but one science only, that of good and evil. For, let me ask you, Critias, whether, if you take away this, medicine will not equally give health, and shoemaking equally produce shoes, and the art of the weaver clothes?—
