Page - 45 - in The Complete Plato

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’? 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? 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? You monster! I said; this is what Critias, or some philosopher has told you. Some one else, then, said Critias; for certainly I have not. But what matter, said Charmides, from whom I heard this? No matter at all, I replied; for the point is not who said the words, but whether they are true or not. There you are in the right, Socrates, he replied. To be sure, I said; yet I doubt whether we shall ever be able to discover their truth or falsehood; for they are a kind of riddle. What makes you think so? he said. Because, I said, he who uttered them seems to me to have meant one thing, and said another. Is the scribe, for example, to be regarded as doing nothing when he reads or writes? I should rather think that he was doing something. And does the scribe write or read, or teach you boys to write or read, your 45