Page - 206 - in The Complete Plato

exceed that of some, and be less than that of others, and if he be the weakest of all, he being the best of all will have the smallest share of all, Callicles:— am I not right, my friend? CALLICLES: You talk about meats and drinks and physicians and other nonsense; I am not speaking of them. SOCRATES: Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better? Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And ought not the better to have a larger share? CALLICLES: Not of meats and drinks. SOCRATES: I understand: then, perhaps, of coats—the skilfullest weaver ought to have the largest coat, and the greatest number of them, and go about clothed in the best and finest of them? CALLICLES: Fudge about coats! SOCRATES: Then the skilfullest and best in making shoes ought to have the advantage in shoes; the shoemaker, clearly, should walk about in the largest shoes, and have the greatest number of them? CALLICLES: Fudge about shoes! What nonsense are you talking? SOCRATES: Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would say that the wise and good and true husbandman should actually have a larger share of seeds, and have as much seed as possible for his own land? CALLICLES: How you go on, always talking in the same way, Socrates! SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, and also about the same things. CALLICLES: Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if this had to do with our argument. SOCRATES: But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior and wiser in order to claim a larger share; will you neither accept a suggestion, nor offer one? CALLICLES: I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by superiors not cobblers or cooks, but wise politicians who understand the administration of a state, and who are not only wise, but also valiant and able to carry out their designs, and not the men to faint from want of soul. SOCRATES: See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge against you is from that which you bring against me, for you reproach me with always saying the same; but I reproach you with never saying the same 206