SOCRATES:--Such an one, I say, we should call wise and a useful adviser
both of himself and of the city. What do you think?
ALCIBIADES: I agree.
SOCRATES: And if any one knows how to ride or to shoot with the bow or to
box or to wrestle, or to engage in any other sort of contest or to do
anything whatever which is in the nature of an art,--what do you call him
who knows what is best according to that art? Do you not speak of one who
knows what is best in riding as a good rider?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And in a similar way you speak of a good boxer or a good flute-
player or a good performer in any other art?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But is it necessary that the man who is clever in any of these
arts should be wise also in general? Or is there a difference between the
clever artist and the wise man?
ALCIBIADES: All the difference in the world.
SOCRATES: And what sort of a state do you think that would be which was
composed of good archers and flute-players and athletes and masters in
other arts, and besides them of those others about whom we spoke, who knew
how to go to war and how to kill, as well as of orators puffed up with
political pride, but in which not one of them all had this knowledge of the
best, and there was no one who could tell when it was better to apply any
of these arts or in regard to whom?
ALCIBIADES: I should call such a state bad, Socrates.
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