Soc. What a way of going on! If your answer is incorrect, and a previous argument can be used to prove it so, you claim to be told something new, and a different line of proof, as though the previous one were like a poor worn-out coat which you refuse to wear any longer; you must be provided instead with something clean and unsoiled in the way of evidence. But I shall ignore your sallies in debate, and shall none the less ask you once more, where you learnt your knowledge of what is expedient, and who is your teacher, asking in one question all the things I asked before; and now you will clearly find yourself in the same plight, and will be unable to prove that you know the expedient either through discovery or through learning. But as you are dainty, and would dislike a repeated taste of the same argument, I pass over this question of whether you know or do not know what is expedient for the Athenians: but why have you not made it clear whether the just and the expedient are the same or different? If you like, question me as I did you, or if you prefer, argue out the matter in your own way.
Alc. But I am not sure I should be able, Socrates, to set it forth to you.
Soc. Well, my good sir, imagine I am the people in Assembly; even there, you know, you will have to persuade each man singly, will you not?
Alc. Yes.
Soc. And the same man may well persuade one person singly, and many together, about things that he knows, just as the schoolmaster, I suppose, persuades either one or many about letters?
Alc. Yes.
Soc. And again, will not the same man persuade either one or many about number?
Alc. Yes.
Soc. And this will be the man who knows—the arithmetician?
Alc. Quite so.
Soc. And you too can persuade a single man about things of which you can persuade many?
Alc. Presumably.
Soc. And these are clearly things that you know.
Alc. Yes.
Soc. And the only difference between the orator speaking before the people and one who speaks in a conversation like ours is that the former persuades men in a number together of the same things, and the latter persuades them one at a time?
Alc. It looks like it.
Soc. Come now, since we see that the same man may persuade either many or one, try your unpracticed hand on me, and endeavor to show that the just is sometimes not expedient.
Alc. You are insolent, Socrates!
Soc. This time, at any rate, I am going to have the insolence to persuade you of the opposite of that which you decline to prove to me.
Alc. Speak, then.
Soc. Just answer my questions.
Alc. No, you yourself must be the speaker.
Soc. What? Do you not wish above all things to be persuaded?
Alc. By all means, to be sure.
Soc. And you would best be persuaded if you should say the case is so
?
Alc. I agree.
Soc. Then answer; and if you do not hear your own self say that the just is expedient, put no trust in the words of anyone again.
Alc. I will not: but I may as well answer; for I do not think I shall come to any harm.