Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 1) (Cary, 1854).djvu/247

Rh other in turn. Protagoras begins by getting Socrates to allow that an ode of Simonides is beautiful, but that it cannot be beautiful if the poet contradicts himself. He then shews that in one part of the ode it is said "that to become a good man is difficult," and in another part, "that he is not pleased with the saying of Pittacus, where he says that it is difticult to continue to be good." Socrates, however, justifies the opinion he had expressed by a minute and subtle examination of the object the poet had in view in composing the ode.

Having concluded his criticism of the ode, Socrates is anxious to bring back the discussion to the original subject, and having with difficulty prevailed on Protagoras to consent to this, repeats the question with which they set out, which was to this effect: whether wisdom, temperance, courage, justice, and holiness are five parts of virtue, differing from each other as the parts of the face do? Protagoras answers that they all are parts of virtue, four of them very like each other, but the fifth, courage, very different from all the rest. But this distinction Socrates overthrows as follows: you admit that the courageous are daring; but they who, like divers, are bold in a matter in which they are skilled are commended as courageous, whereas they who are unskilled and yet bold are not courageous but mad; so that according to this reasoning wisdom and courage are the same. Protagoras, however, tries to avoid this conclusion by saving that Socrates has mis-stated his former admission, for that he allowed only that the courageous are bold, not that the bold are courageous. But Socrates, with a view more certainly to convict his opponent of error, changes his ground, and asks whether all pleasant things are good, and all painful things evil? Protagoras is in doubt what answer to give; Socrates, therefore, shews that pleasure is in itself a good, but that men mistake as to what things are pleasant; for knowledge alone ought to govern man, and if a man knows good and evil he will never be overcome by any thing