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Section 13

SOCRATES. Look at what follows. If the pious is a part of the just, we must discover what part of the just it is. Now, if you had asked me about the example I just used—what part of number is the even, and what kind of number is it?—I would have said it is any number that is not scalene, but isosceles (divisible into two equal parts). Don't you agree?

EUTHYPHRO. I do.

SOCRATES. Then try to teach me in the same way what part of the just the pious is. Then we can tell Meletus to stop doing me wrong and indicting me for impiety, since I will have sufficiently learned from you what is godly and pious, and what is not.

EUTHYPHRO. It seems to me, Socrates, that the godly and pious is the part of the just that concerns the care of the gods. The remaining part of justice is the part that concerns the care of men.

SOCRATES. You seem to speak very well, Euthyphro. But I still need one small piece of information. I do not yet understand what you mean by "care." You surely do not mean the care of the gods in the same way we use the word for other things. For we say, for example, that not everyone knows how to care for horses, but only the horse-trainer. Is that right?

EUTHYPHRO. Yes.

SOCRATES. Because horse-training is the care of horses.

EUTHYPHRO. Yes.

SOCRATES. Nor does everyone know how to care for dogs, but only the huntsman.

EUTHYPHRO. Yes.

SOCRATES. And the herdsman's art is the care of cattle.

EUTHYPHRO. Exactly.

SOCRATES. And piety and godliness is the care of the gods, Euthyphro? Is that what you say?

EUTHYPHRO. That is what I say.

SOCRATES. Now, does not all care produce the same result? I mean something like this: it aims at the good and benefit of the thing being cared for. You see that horses cared for by the horse-trainer are benefited and made better. Do you not think so?

EUTHYPHRO. I do.

SOCRATES. And dogs are made better by the huntsman's art, and cattle by the herdsman's art, and so on. Or do you think that care aims at harming the thing cared for?

EUTHYPHRO. By Zeus, no!

SOCRATES. It aims at benefiting it?

EUTHYPHRO. Of course.

SOCRATES. Then does piety, which is the care of the gods, benefit the gods and make the gods better? Would you concede that whenever you do something pious, you make some god better?

EUTHYPHRO. By Zeus, no!

SOCRATES. Nor do I think you meant that, Euthyphro. I am far from thinking so. That is why I asked what you meant by the "care" of the gods, because I assumed you did not mean that kind of care.

EUTHYPHRO. You were right to assume so, Socrates. I do not mean that kind.

SOCRATES. Very well. Then what kind of care for the gods would piety be?

EUTHYPHRO. The kind of care, Socrates, that slaves provide for their masters.

SOCRATES. I understand. It would be a kind of service to the gods, it seems.

EUTHYPHRO. Exactly.