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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 own names only, or did you write your enemies' names as
well as your own and your friends'?
As much one as the other.
And was there anything meddling or intemperate in this?
Certainly not.
And yet if reading and writing are the same as doing, you were doing
what was not your own business?
But they are the same as doing.
And the healing art, my friend, and building, and weaving, and doing
anything whatever which is done by art,-these all clearly come under
the head of doing?
Certainly.
And do you think that a state would be well ordered by a law which
compelled every man to weave and wash his own coat, and make his own
shoes, and his own flask and strigil, and other implements, on this
principle of every one doing and performing his own, and abstaining
from what is not his own?
I think not, he said.
But, I said, a temperate state will be a well ordered state.
Of course, he replied.
Then temperance, I said, will not be doing one's own business; not
at least in this way, or doing things of this sort?
Clearly not.
Then, as I was just now saying, he who declared that temperance is a
man doing his own business had another and a hidden meaning; for I
do not think that he could have been such a fool as to mean this.
Was he a fool who told you, Charmides?
Nay, he replied, I certainly thought him a very wise man.
Then I am quite certain that he put forth his definition as a
riddle, thinking that no one would know the meaning of the words
"doing his own business."
I dare say, he replied.
And what is the meaning of a man doing his own business? Can you
tell me?
Indeed, I cannot; and I should not wonder if the man himself who
used this phrase did not understand what he was saying. Whereupon he
laughed slyly, and looked at Critias.
Critias had long been showing uneasiness, for he felt that he had
a reputation to maintain with Charmides and the rest of the company.
He had, however, hitherto managed to restrain himself; but now he
could no longer forbear, and I am convinced of the truth of the
suspicion which I entertained at the time, that Charmides had heard
this answer about temperance from Critias. And Charmides, who did
not want to answer himself, but to make Critias answer, tried to
stir him up. He went on pointing out that he had been refuted, at
which Critias grew angry, and appeared, as I thought, inclined to
quarrel with him; just as a poet might quarrel with an actor who
spoiled his poems in repeating them; so he looked hard at him and
said--
Do you imagine, Charmides, that the author of this definition of
temperance did not understand the meaning of his own words, because
you do not understand them?
Why, at his age, I said, most excellent Critias, he can hardly be
expected to understand; but you, who are older, and have studied,
may well be assumed to know the meaning of them; and therefore, if you
agree with him, and accept his definition of temperance, I would
much rather argue with you than with him about the truth or
falsehood of the definition.
I entirely agree, said Critias, and accept the definition.
Very good, I said; and now let me repeat my question-Do you admit,
as I was just now saying, that all craftsmen make or do something?
I do.
And do they make or do their own business only, or that of others
also?
They make or do that of others also.
And are they temperate, seeing that they make not for themselves
or their own business only?
Why not? he said.
No objection on my part, I said, but there may be a difficulty on
his who proposes as a definition of temperance, "doing one's own
business," and then says that there is no reason why those who do
the business of others should not be temperate.
Nay, said he; did I ever acknowledge that those who do the
business of others are temperate? I said, those who make, not those
who do.
What! I asked; do you mean to say that doing and making are not
the same?
No more, he replied, than making or working are the same; thus
much I have learned from Hesiod, who says that "work is no
disgrace." Now do you imagine that if he had meant by working and
doing such things as you were describing, he would have said that
there was no disgrace in them-for example, in the manufacture of
shoes, or in selling pickles, or sitting for hire in a house of
ill-fame? That, Socrates, is not to be supposed: but I conceive him to
have distinguished making from doing and work; and, while admitting
that the making anything might sometimes become a disgrace, when the
employment was not honourable, to have thought that work was never any
disgrace at all. For things nobly and usefully made he called works;
and such makings he called workings, and doings; and he must be
supposed to have called such things only man's proper business, and
what is hurtful, not his business: and in that sense Hesiod, and any
other wise man, may be reasonably supposed to call him wise who does
his own work.
O Critias, I said, no sooner had you opened your mouth, than I
pretty well knew that you would call that which is proper to a man,
and that which is his own, good; and that the markings of the good you
would call doings, for I am no stranger to the endless distinctions
which Prodicus draws about names. Now I have no objection to your
giving names any signification which you please, if you will only tell
me what you mean by them. Please then to begin again, and be a
little plainer. Do you mean that this doing or making, or whatever
is the word which you would use, of good actions, is temperance?
I do, he said.
Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate?
Yes, he said; and you, friend, would agree.
No matter whether I should or not; just now, not what I think, but
what you are saying, is the point at issue.
Well, he answered; I mean to say, that he who does evil, and not
good, is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and
not evil: for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing of
good actions.
And you may be very likely right in what you are saying; but I am
curious to know whether you imagine that temperate men are ignorant of
their own temperance?
I do not think so, he said.
And yet were you not saying, just now, that craftsmen might be
temperate in doing another's work, as well as in doing their own?
I was, he replied; but what is your drift?
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