PHILEBUS (continued 1)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plato and Jowett, Benjamin
PROTARCHUS: Explain.
SOCRATES: The ridiculous is in short the specific name which is used to describe the vicious form of a certain habit; and of vice in general it is that kind which is most at variance with the inscription at Delphi.
PROTARCHUS: You mean, Socrates, 'Know thyself.'
SOCRATES: I do; and the opposite would be, 'Know not thyself.'
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And now, O Protarchus, try to divide this into three.
PROTARCHUS: Indeed I am afraid that I cannot.
SOCRATES: Do you mean to say that I must make the division for you?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, and what is more, I beg that you will.
SOCRATES: Are there not three ways in which ignorance of self may be shown?
PROTARCHUS: What are they?
SOCRATES: In the first place, about money; the ignorant may fancy himself richer than he is.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is a very common error.
SOCRATES: And still more often he will fancy that he is taller or fairer than he is, or that he has some other advantage of person which he really has not.
PROTARCHUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: And yet surely by far the greatest number err about the goods of the mind; they imagine themselves to be much better men than they are.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is by far the commonest delusion.
SOCRATES: And of all the virtues, is not wisdom the one which the mass of mankind are always claiming, and which most arouses in them a spirit of contention and lying conceit of wisdom?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And may not all this be truly called an evil condition?
PROTARCHUS: Very evil.
SOCRATES: But we must pursue the division a step further, Protarchus, if we would see in envy of the childish sort a singular mixture of pleasure and pain.
PROTARCHUS: How can we make the further division which you suggest?
SOCRATES: All who are silly enough to entertain this lying conceit of themselves may of course be divided, like the rest of mankind, into two classes—one having power and might; and the other the reverse.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let this, then, be the principle of division; those of them who are weak and unable to revenge themselves, when they are laughed at, may be truly called ridiculous, but those who can defend themselves may be more truly described as strong and formidable; for ignorance in the powerful is hateful and horrible, because hurtful to others both in reality and in fiction, but powerless ignorance may be reckoned, and in truth is, ridiculous.
PROTARCHUS: That is very true, but I do not as yet see where is the admixture of pleasures and pains.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let us examine the nature of envy.
PROTARCHUS: Proceed.
SOCRATES: Is not envy an unrighteous pleasure, and also an unrighteous pain?
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: There is nothing envious or wrong in rejoicing at the misfortunes of enemies?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: But to feel joy instead of sorrow at the sight of our friends' misfortunes—is not that wrong?
PROTARCHUS: Undoubtedly.
SOCRATES: Did we not say that ignorance was always an evil?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the three kinds of vain conceit in our friends which we enumerated—the vain conceit of beauty, of wisdom, and of wealth, are ridiculous if they are weak, and detestable when they are powerful: May we not say, as I was saying before, that our friends who are in this state of mind, when harmless to others, are simply ridiculous?
PROTARCHUS: They are ridiculous.
SOCRATES: And do we not acknowledge this ignorance of theirs to be a misfortune?