ALCIBIADES I
Page: 24

course of action will be most expedient; for there is a difference between
justice and expediency. Many persons have done great wrong and profited by
their injustice; others have done rightly and come to no good.

SOCRATES: Well, but granting that the just and the expedient are ever so
much opposed, you surely do not imagine that you know what is expedient for
mankind, or why a thing is expedient?

ALCIBIADES: Why not, Socrates?--But I am not going to be asked again from
whom I learned, or when I made the discovery.

SOCRATES: What a way you have! When you make a mistake which might be
refuted by a previous argument, you insist on having a new and different
refutation; the old argument is a worn-our garment which you will no longer
put on, but some one must produce another which is clean and new. Now I
shall disregard this move of yours, and shall ask over again,--Where did
you learn and how do you know the nature of the expedient, and who is your
teacher? All this I comprehend in a single question, and now you will
manifestly be in the old difficulty, and will not be able to show that you
know the expedient, either because you learned or because you discovered it
yourself. But, as I perceive that you are dainty, and dislike the taste of
a stale argument, I will enquire no further into your knowledge of what is
expedient or what is not expedient for the Athenian people, and simply
request you to say why you do not explain whether justice and expediency
are the same or different? And if you like you may examine me as I have
examined you, or, if you would rather, you may carry on the discussion by
yourself.

ALCIBIADES: But I am not certain, Socrates, whether I shall be able to
discuss the matter with you.

SOCRATES: Then imagine, my dear fellow, that I am the demus and the
ecclesia; for in the ecclesia, too, you will have to persuade men
individually.

ALCIBIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is not the same person able to persuade one individual
singly and many individuals of the things which he knows? The grammarian,
for example, can persuade one and he can persuade many about letters.