Page - 1016 - in The Complete Plato
Image of the Page - 1016 -
Text of the Page - 1016 -
means to make the return?
Certainly not.
When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not
mean to include that case?
Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a
friend, and never evil.
You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the
receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt—that is
what you would imagine him to say?
Yes.
And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them?
To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them; and an enemy,
as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him—that is to
say, evil.
Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken
darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the
giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt.
That must have been his meaning, he said.
By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is given
by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to
us?
He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to
human bodies.
And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what?
Seasoning to food.
And what is that which justice gives, and to whom?
If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding
instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to
enemies.
That is his meaning, then?
I think so.
And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in
time of sickness?
1016
back to the
book The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Title
- The Complete Plato
- Author
- Plato
- Date
- ~347 B.C.
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Pages
- 1612
- Keywords
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Categories
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International