ALCIBIADES II
Page: 9

Pericles himself?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And if you made many attempts, and each time failed to recognize
Pericles, you would never attack him?

ALCIBIADES: Never.

SOCRATES: Well, but if Orestes in like manner had not known his mother, do
you think that he would ever have laid hands upon her?

ALCIBIADES: No.

SOCRATES: He did not intend to slay the first woman he came across, nor
any one else's mother, but only his own?

ALCIBIADES: True.

SOCRATES: Ignorance, then, is better for those who are in such a frame of
mind, and have such ideas?

ALCIBIADES: Obviously.

SOCRATES: You acknowledge that for some persons in certain cases the
ignorance of some things is a good and not an evil, as you formerly
supposed?

ALCIBIADES: I do.

SOCRATES: And there is still another case which will also perhaps appear
strange to you, if you will consider it? (The reading is here uncertain.)

ALCIBIADES: What is that, Socrates?

SOCRATES: It may be, in short, that the possession of all the sciences, if
unaccompanied by the knowledge of the best, will more often than not injure
the possessor. Consider the matter thus:--Must we not, when we intend
either to do or say anything, suppose that we know or ought to know that
which we propose so confidently to do or say?

ALCIBIADES: Yes, in my opinion.

SOCRATES: We may take the orators for an example, who from time to time
advise us about war and peace, or the building of walls and the
construction of harbours, whether they understand the business in hand, or
only think that they do. Whatever the city, in a word, does to another
city, or in the management of her own affairs, all happens by the counsel
of the orators.

ALCIBIADES: True.

SOCRATES: But now see what follows, if I can (make it clear to you).
(Some words appear to have dropped out here.) You would distinguish the
wise from the foolish?

ALCIBIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES: The many are foolish, the few wise?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And you use both the terms, 'wise' and 'foolish,' in reference
to something?