Page:The Dialogues of Plato v. 1.djvu/62

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Yes.

Then, as woul<l seem, in doing good, he may act wisdy or temperately, and be wise or temperate, but not know hi•s own wisdom or temperance?

But that, Socrates, he said, is impossihle; and therefore if th1.s 1.s, as you i.mp1y, the necessary consequence of any of my previous admissions, J will withdraw them, rather than admit that a man can be temperate or wise who does not know himself; and I am not ashamed to confess that I was in error. Fur self-knowledge would certainly be maintained hy me to be the very essence of knowledge, and in this I agree with him who dedicated the inscription, ' Know thyself!' at Delphi. That word, if I am not mistaken, is put there as a sort of salutation which the god addresses to those who enter the temple; as much as to say that the ordinary salutation of ' Hail! ' is not right, and that the exhortation ' Be temperate! ' would be a far better way of saluting one another. The notion of him who dedicated the inscription was, as I believe, that the god speaks to those who enter his temple, not as men speak; but, when a worshipper enters, the first word which he hears is 'Be temperate! ' This, however, like a prophet he expresses in a sort of riddle, for ' Know thyself!' and ' Be temperate! ' are the same, as I maintain, and as the letters imply [σωφρόνει, γνῶθι σαυτόν] , and yet they may be easily misunderstood;

and succeeding sages who added ' Never too much,' or, 'Give a pledge, and evil is nigh at hand,' would appear to have so misunderstood them; for they imagined that ' Know thyself! ' was a piece of advice which the god gave, and not his salutation of the worshippers at their first coming in; and they dedicated their own inscription under the idea that they too would give equally useful pieces of advice. Shall I tell you, Socrates, why I say all this? My object is to leave the previous discussion (in which I know not whether you or

I are more right, but, at any rate, no clear result was attained), and to raise a new one in which I will attempt to prove, if you deny, that temperance is self-knowledge.

Yes, I said, Critias; but you come to me as though I pro­ fessed to know about the questions which I ask, and as though I could, if I only would, agree with you. Whereas the fact