For every one who suffers from
a fever is sick; but the sick, I conceive, do not all have fever or gout or
ophthalmia, although each of these is a disease, which, according to those
whom we call physicians, may require a different treatment. They are not
all alike, nor do they produce the same result, but each has its own
effect, and yet they are all diseases. May we not take an illustration
from the artizans?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: There are cobblers and carpenters and sculptors and others of
all sorts and kinds, whom we need not stop to enumerate. All have their
distinct employments and all are workmen, although they are not all of them
cobblers or carpenters or sculptors.
ALCIBIADES: No, indeed.
SOCRATES: And in like manner men differ in regard to want of sense. Those
who are most out of their wits we call 'madmen,' while we term those who
are less far gone 'stupid' or 'idiotic,' or, if we prefer gentler language,
describe them as 'romantic' or 'simple-minded,' or, again, as 'innocent' or
'inexperienced' or 'foolish.
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