Charmides


nor the body without the soul.

His approving answers reassured me, and I began by degrees to regain confidence, and the vital heat returned. Such, Charmides,
I said, is the nature of the charm, which I learned when serving with the army from one of the physicians of the Thracian king
Zamolxis, who are said to be so skilful that they can even give immortality. This Thracian told me that in these notions of theirs,
which I was just now mentioning, the Greek physicians are quite right as far as they go; but Zamolxis, he added, our king, who is
also a god, says further, ‘that as you ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so
neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul; and this,’ he said, ‘is the reason why the cure of many diseases
is unknown to the physicians of Hellas, because they are ignorant of the whole, which ought to be studied also; for the part can
never be well unless the whole is well.’ For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates, as he declared,
in the soul, and overflows from thence, as if from the head into the eyes. And therefore if the head and body are to be well, you
must begin by curing the soul; that is the first thing. And the cure, my dear youth, has to be effected by the use of certain charms,
and these charms are fair words; and by them temperance is implanted in the soul, and where temperance is, there health is speedily
imparted, not only to the head, but to the whole body. And he who taught me the cure and the charm at the same time added a spe-
cial direction: ‘Let no one,’ he said, ‘persuade you to cure the head, until he has first given you his soul to be cured by the charm.
For this,’ he said, ‘is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians separate the soul from the body.’
And he added with emphasis, at the same time making me swear to his words, ‘Let no one, however rich, or noble, or fair, persuade
you to give him the cure, without the charm.’ Now I have sworn, and I must keep my oath, and therefore if you will allow me to apply
the Thracian charm first to your soul, as the stranger directed, I will afterwards proceed to apply the cure to your head. But if not,
I do not know what I am to do with you, my dear Charmides.

Critias, when he heard this, said: The headache will be an unexpected gain to my young relation, if the pain in his head compels him
to improve his mind: and I can tell you, Socrates, that Charmides is not only pre-eminent in beauty among his equals, but also in that
quality which is given by the charm; and this, as you say, is temperance?

Yes, I said.

Then let me tell you that he is the most temperate of human beings, and for his age inferior to none in any quality.

The outward form of Charmides does no discredit to his great ancestors.

Has he temperance also?

If to beauty you add temperance, and if in other respects you are what Critias declares you to be, then, dear Charmides, blessed art
thou, in being the son of thy mother. And here lies the point; for if, as he declares, you have this gift of temperance already, and are
temperate enough, in that case you have no need of any charms, whether of Zamolxis or of Abaris the Hyperborean, and I may as well
let you have the cure of the head at once; but if you have not yet acquired this quality, I must use the charm before I give you the
medicine. Please, therefore, to inform me whether you admit the truth of what Critias has been saying;—have you or have you not this
quality of temperance?

The modest reply of Charmides.

Charmides blushed, and the blush heightened his beauty, for modesty is becoming in youth; he then said very ingenuously, that he really
could not at once answer, either yes, or no, to the question which I had asked: For, said he, if I affirm that I am not temperate, that would
be a strange thing for me to say of myself, and also I should give the lie to Critias, and many others who think as he tells you, that I am
temperate: but, on the other hand, if I say that I am, I shall have to praise myself, which would be ill manners; and therefore I do not know
how to answer you.

That is a natural reply, Charmides, and I think that you and I ought together to enquire whether you have this quality about which I am
asking or not; and then you will not be compelled to say what you do not like; neither shall I be a rash practitioner of medicine: there-
fore, if you please, I will share the enquiry with you,

First definition: Temperance is quietness.

At first he hesitated, and was very unwilling to answer: then he said that he thought temperance was doing things orderly and quietly,
such things for example as walking in the streets, and talking, or anything else of that nature. In a word, he said, I should answer that,
in my opinion, temperance is quietness.

Are you right, Charmides? I said. No doubt some would affirm that the quiet are the temperate; but let us see whether these words have
any meaning; and first tell me whether you would not acknowledge temperance to be of the class of the noble and good?

Yes.

But in many actions quickness is found to be better than quietness; e.g. writing, reading, running, etc.
But which is best when you are at the writing-master’s, to write the same letters quickly or quietly?

Quickly.

And to read quickly or slowly?

Quickly again.

And in playing the lyre, or wrestling, quickness or sharpness are far better than quietness and slowness?

Yes.

And the same holds in boxing and in the pancratium?

Certainly.

And in leaping and running and in bodily exercises generally, quickness and agility are good; slowness, and inactivity, and quietness,
are bad?

That is evident.

Then, I said, in all bodily actions, not quietness, but the greatest agility and quickness, is noblest and best?

Yes, certainly.

And is temperance a good?

Yes.

Then, in reference to the body, not quietness, but quickness will be the higher degree of temperance, if temperance is a good?

True, he said.

And which, I said, is better—facility in learning, or difficulty in learning?

Facility.

Yes, I said; and facility in learning is learning quickly, and difficulty in learning is learning quietly and slowly?

True.

And is it not better to teach another quickly and energetically, rather than quietly and slowly?

Yes.

And which is better, to call to mind, and to remember, quickly and readily, or quietly and slowly?

The former.

And is not shrewdness a quickness or cleverness of the soul, and not a quietness?

True.

And is it not best to understand what is said, whether at the writing-master’s or the music-m

And in the searchings or deliberations of the soul, not the quietest, as I imagine, and he who with difficulty deliberates and discovers,
is thought worthy of praise, but he who does so most easily and quickly?

Quite true, he said.

And in all that concerns either body or soul, swiftness and activity are clearly better than slowness and quietness?

Clearly they are.

Temperance therefore is no more quietness than quickness.

Then temperance is not quietness, nor is the temperate life quiet,—certainly not upon this view; for the life which is temperate is sup-
posed to be the good. And of two things, one is true,—either never, or very seldom, do the quiet actions in life appear to be better than
the quick and energetic ones; or supposing that of the nobler actions, there are as many quiet, as quick and vehement: still, even if we
grant this, temperance will not be acting quietly any more than acting quickly and energetically, either in walking or talking or in anything
else; nor will the quiet life be more temperate than the unquiet, seeing that temperance is admitted by us to be a good and noble thing,
and the quick have been shown to be as good as the quiet.

Second definition: Temperance is modesty.

After a moment’s pause, in which he made a real manly effort to think, he said: My opinion is, Socrates, that temperance makes a man
ashamed or modest, and that temperance is the same as modesty.

Very good, I said; and did you not admit, just now, that temperance is noble?

Yes, certainly, he said.

And the temperate are also good?

Yes.

And can that be good which does not make men good?

Certainly not.

And you would infer that temperance is not only noble, but also good?

That is my opinion.

Well, I said; but surely you would agree with Homer when he says,

‘Modesty is not good for a needy man’?

But Homer says that modesty is not always good.

Yes, he said; I agree.

Then I suppose that modesty is and is not good?

Clearly.

But temperance, whose presence makes men only good, and not bad, is always good?

That appears to me to be as you say.

And the inference is that temperance cannot be modesty—if temperance is a good, and if modesty is as much an evil as a good?

Third definition: Temperance is doing our own business.

Charmides had heard this from Critias, who denies that he said it.
All that, Socrates, appears to me to be true; but I should like to know what you think about another definition of temperance, which I just now
remember to have heard from some one, who said, ‘That temperance is doing our own business.’ Was he right who affirmed that?

Writing is doing; is writing your enemy’s name doing your own business?

And yet if reading and writing are the same as doing, you were doing what was not your own business?

But they are the same as doing.

And the healing art, my friend, and building, and weaving, and doing anything whatever which is done by art,—these all clearly come under the
head of doing?

Certainly.

Must a good citizen make his own coat, etc.?

And do you think that a state would be well ordered by a law which compelled every man to weave and wash his own coat, and make his own
shoes, and his own flask and strigil, and other implements, on this principle of every one doing and performing his own, and abstaining from
what is not his own?

I think not, he said.

But, I said, a temperate state will be a well-ordered state.

Of course, he replied.

Then temperance, I said, will not be doing one’s own business; not at least in this way, or doing things of this sort?

Clearly not.

Then, as I was just now saying, he who declared that temperance is a man doing his own business had another and a hidden meaning;

Do you admit, as I was just now saying, that all craftsmen make or do something?

I do.

And do they make or do their own business only, or that of others also?

They make or do that of others also.

And are they temperate, seeing that they make not for themselves or their own business only?

Why not? he said.

No objection on my part, I said, but there may be a difficulty on his who proposes as a definition of temperance, ‘doing one’s own business,’
and then says that there is no reason why those who do the business of others should not be temperate.

Nay, said he; did I ever acknowledge that those who do the business of others are temperate? I said, those who make, not those who do.

What! I asked; do you mean to say that doing and making are not the same?

He tries to save himself by new distinctions.

No more, he replied, than making or working are the same; thus much I have learned from Hesiod, who says that ‘work is no disgrace.’ But I
conceive him to have distinguished making from doing and work; and, while admitting that the making anything might sometimes become a dis-
grace, when the employment was not honourable, to have thought that work was never any disgrace at all. For things nobly and usefully made
he called works; and such makings he called workings, and doings; and he must be supposed to have called such things only man’s proper busi-
ness, and what is hurtful, not his business: and in that sense Hesiod, and any other wise man, may be reasonably supposed to call him wise
who does his own work.

O Critias, I said, no sooner had you opened your mouth, than I pretty well knew that you would call that which is proper to a man, and that
which is his own, good; and that the makings (ποιήσεις) of the good you would call doings (πράξεις), for I am no stranger to the
endless distinctions which Prodicus draws about names. Now I have no objection to your giving names any signification which you please, if
you will only tell me what you mean by them. Please then to begin again, and be a little plainer. Do you mean that this doing or making, or
whatever is the word which you would use, of good actions, is temperance?

I do, he said.

Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate?

Yes, he said;

Fourth definition: Temperance is the doing of good actions.

Well, he answered; I mean to say, that he who does evil, and not good, is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and not evil:
for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing of good actions.

And you may be very likely right in what you are saying; but I am curious to know whether you imagine that temperate men are ignorant of their
own temperance?

I do not think so, he said.

And yet were you not saying, just now, that craftsmen might be temperate in doing an-other’s work, as well as in doing their own?

I was, he replied; but what is your drift?

The Delphic motto, ‘Know thyself,’ which he explains as meaning ‘Be temperate.’

I have no particular drift, but I wish that you would tell me whether a physician who cures a patient may do good to himself and good to another
also?

I think that he may.

And he who does so does his duty?

Yes.

And does not he who does his duty act temperately or wisely?

Yes, he acts wisely.

But must the physician necessarily know when his treatment is likely to prove beneficial, and when not? or must the craftsman necessarily
know when he is likely to be benefited, and when not to be benefited, by the work which he is doing?

I suppose not.

Then, I said, he may sometimes do good or harm, and not know what he is himself doing, and yet, in doing good, as you say, he has done temper-
ately or wisely. Was not that your statement?

Yes.

Then, as would seem, in doing good, he may act wisely or temperately, and be wise or temperate, but not know his own wisdom or temperance?

Fifth definition: Temperance is self-knowledge.

rather than admit that a man can be temperate or wise who does not know himself; and I am not ashamed to confess that I was in error. For self-
knowledge would certainly be maintained by me to be the very essence of knowledge, and in this I agree with him who dedicated the inscription,
‘Know thyself!’ at Delphi. That word, if I am not mistaken, is put there as a sort of salutation which the god addresses to those who enter the
temple; as much as to say that the ordinary salutation of ‘Hail!’ is not right, and that the exhortation ‘Be temperate!’ would be a far better way
of saluting one another. The notion of him who dedicated the inscription was, as I believe, that the god speaks to those who enter his temple, not
as men speak; but, when a worshipper enters, the first word which he hears is ‘Be temperate!’

Yes, I said, Critias; but you come to me as though I professed to know about the ques-tions which I ask, and as though I could, if I only would, a-
gree with you2. Whereas the fact is that I enquire with you into the truth of that which is advanced from time to time, just because I do not know;

But temperance is also a science of something.

I am reflecting, I replied, and discover that temperance, or wisdom, if implying a knowledge of anything, must be a science, and a science of some-
thing.

Yes, he said; the science of itself.

Is not medicine, I said, the science of health?

True.

And suppose, I said, that I were asked by you what is the use or effect of medicine, which is this science of health, I should answer that medicine
is of very great use in producing health, which, as you will admit, is an excellent effect.

Granted.

What then is the result of it?

And if you were to ask me, what is the result or effect of architecture, which is the science of building, I should say houses, and so of other arts,
which all have their different results. Now I want you, Critias, to answer a similar question about temperance, or wisdom, which, according to you,
is the science of itself. Admitting this view, I ask of you, what good work, worthy of the name wise, does temperance or wisdom, which is the science
of itself, effect? Answer me.

No material result any more than in the abstract sciences.

That is not the true way of pursuing the enquiry, Socrates, he said; for wisdom is not like the other sciences, any more than they are like one another: but you proceed as if they were alike. For tell me, he said, what result is there of computation or geometry, in the same sense as a house is the result of building, or a garment of weaving, or any other work of any other art? Can you show me any such result of them? You cannot.

But still abstract sciences have a subject-matter.
That is true, I said; but still each of these sciences has a subject which is different from the science. I can show you that the art of computation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical relations to themselves and to each other. Is not that true?

Yes, he said.

And the odd and even numbers are not the same with the art of computation?

They are not.

The art of weighing, again, has to do with lighter and heavier; but the art of weighing is one thing, and the heavy and the light another. Do you admit that?

Yes.

Now, I want to know, what is that which is not wisdom, and of which wisdom is the science?