Seite - 229 - in The Complete Plato

CALLICLES: Well said, Socrates; and please to observe how ready I am to praise you when you talk sense. SOCRATES: Think and tell me whether you would approve of another view of mine: To me every man appears to be most the friend of him who is most like to him—like to like, as ancient sages say: Would you not agree to this? CALLICLES: I should. SOCRATES: But when the tyrant is rude and uneducated, he may be expected to fear any one who is his superior in virtue, and will never be able to be perfectly friendly with him. CALLICLES: That is true. SOCRATES: Neither will he be the friend of any one who is greatly his inferior, for the tyrant will despise him, and will never seriously regard him as a friend. CALLICLES: That again is true. SOCRATES: Then the only friend worth mentioning, whom the tyrant can have, will be one who is of the same character, and has the same likes and dislikes, and is at the same time willing to be subject and subservient to him; he is the man who will have power in the state, and no one will injure him with impunity:—is not that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And if a young man begins to ask how he may become great and formidable, this would seem to be the way—he will accustom himself, from his youth upward, to feel sorrow and joy on the same occasions as his master, and will contrive to be as like him as possible? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And in this way he will have accomplished, as you and your friends would say, the end of becoming a great man and not suffering injury? CALLICLES: Very true. SOCRATES: But will he also escape from doing injury? Must not the very opposite be true,—if he is to be like the tyrant in his injustice, and to have influence with him? Will he not rather contrive to do as much wrong as possible, and not be punished? CALLICLES: True. SOCRATES: And by the imitation of his master and by the power which he 229