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Section 133

SOCRATES. Have you observed then that the face of the one looking into the eye appears in the vision of the one opposite as if in a mirror, which we indeed call the pupil, being an image of the one looking?

ALCIBIADES. You speak the truth.

SOCRATES. Therefore an eye observing an eye, and looking into this which is best in it and with which it sees, thus might see itself.

ALCIBIADES. It appears so.

SOCRATES. But if it looks at any other of a man's things or anything existing, except at that to which this happens to be similar, it will not see itself.

ALCIBIADES. You speak the truth.

SOCRATES. Therefore if an eye is going to see itself, it must look into an eye, and to that place of the eye in which the virtue of an eye happens to arise; and this I suppose is vision?

ALCIBIADES. Thus.

SOCRATES. Therefore, dear Alcibiades, if a soul is also going to know itself, must it not look into a soul, and especially into this place of it in which the virtue of a soul, wisdom, arises, and into anything else to which this happens to be similar?

ALCIBIADES. It seems so to me, Socrates.

SOCRATES. Can we say then that there is anything of the soul more divine than this, concerning which knowing and thinking exist?

ALCIBIADES. We cannot.

SOCRATES. Therefore this in it is like the god, and someone looking into this and knowing all the divine, both god and thought, would thus also know himself most.

ALCIBIADES. It appears so.

SOCRATES. Therefore, just as mirrors are clearer and purer and brighter than the reflecting surface in the eye, so also the god happens to be purer and brighter than the best in our soul?

ALCIBIADES. It seems so at least, Socrates.

SOCRATES. Looking into the god therefore we would use that most beautiful mirror even among human things for the virtue of the soul, and thus we would most see and know ourselves.

ALCIBIADES. Yes.

SOCRATES. But did we agree that knowing oneself is moderation?

ALCIBIADES. Very much so.

SOCRATES. Therefore not knowing ourselves nor being moderate, could we know our own evil and good things?

ALCIBIADES. And how could this be, Socrates?

SOCRATES. For it perhaps seems impossible to you for one not knowing Alcibiades to know that the things of Alcibiades are Alcibiades'.

ALCIBIADES. Impossible indeed, by Zeus.

SOCRATES. Therefore neither our own things that they are ours, if we do not even know ourselves?

ALCIBIADES. How could we?

SOCRATES. And if not our own things, neither the things belonging to our own things?

ALCIBIADES. It appears not.

SOCRATES. Therefore we did not entirely correctly agree agreeing just now that there are some who do not know themselves, but know their own things, and others the things belonging to their own things. For it seems to be of one person and one art to observe all these things: himself, his own things, the things of his own things.

ALCIBIADES. It risks being so.

SOCRATES. And whoever is ignorant of his own things, would surely also be ignorant of the things of others in the same way.

ALCIBIADES. Of course.

SOCRATES. Therefore if the things of others, he will also be ignorant of the things of the cities.

ALCIBIADES. Necessary.

SOCRATES. Therefore such a man could not become a statesman.

ALCIBIADES. Certainly not.

SOCRATES. Nor indeed a household manager.