Soc. Well spoken. Then can you tell me at what time it was that you thought you did not know what is just and unjust? Pray, was it a year ago that you were inquiring, and thought you did not know? Or did you think you knew? Please answer truly, that our debates may not be futile.
Alc. Well, I thought I knew.
Soc. And two years, and three years, and four years back, were you not of the same mind?
Alc. I was.
Soc. But, you see, before that time you were a child, were you not?
Alc. Yes.
Soc. So I know well enough that then you thought you knew.
Alc. How do you know it so well?
Soc. Many a time I heard you, when as a child you were dicing or playing some other game at your teacher’s or elsewhere, instead of showing hesitation about what was just and unjust, speak in very loud and confident tones about one or other of your playmates, saying he was a rascal and a cheat who played unfairly. Is not this a true account?
Alc. But what was I to do, Socrates, when somebody cheated me?
Soc. Yet if you were ignorant then whether you were being unfairly treated or not, how can you ask—What are you to do?
Alc. Well, but on my word, I was not ignorant: no, I clearly understood that I was being wronged.
Soc. So you thought you knew, even as a child, it seems, what was just and unjust.
Alc. I did; and I knew too.
Soc. At what sort of time did you discover it? For surely it was not while you thought you knew.
Alc. No, indeed.
Soc. Then when did you think you were ignorant? Consider; I believe you will fail to find such a time.
Alc. Upon my word, Socrates, I really cannot say.
Soc. So you do not know it by discovery.
Alc. Not at all, apparently.
Soc. But you said just now that you did not know it by learning either; and if you neither discovered nor learnt it, how do you come to know it, and whence?
Alc. Well, perhaps that answer I gave you was not correct, that I knew it by my own discovery.
Soc. Then how was it done?
Alc. I learnt it, I suppose, in the same way as everyone else.
Soc. Back we come to the same argument. From whom? Please tell me.
Alc. From the many.
Soc. They are no very serious teachers with whom you take refuge, if you ascribe it to the many!
Alc. Why, are they not competent to teach?
Soc. Not how to play, or not to play, draughts; and yet that, I imagine, is a slight matter compared with justice. What? Do you not think so?
Alc. Yes.
Soc. Then if they are unable to teach the slighter, can they teach the more serious matter?
Alc. I think so: at any rate, there are many other things that they are able to teach, more serious than draughts.
Soc. What sort of things?