Charmides

“But now,” I said, “you see that no knowledge of this kind has turned up anywhere.”

“I see,” he said.

172b“Well then,” I said, “is this the good that temperance has, as we are now finding it to be, knowing knowledge and the lack of knowledge: that whoever has it will learn more easily whatever else he learns, and everything will appear more clearly to him, since in addition to each thing he learns he has a view of the knowledge as well; and that he will examine others better about the things he himself has learned, while those who examine without it will do so more feebly and poorly? Is it some such things as these, my friend, 172c that we shall get out of temperance, while we have been looking at something greater, and seeking for it to be greater than it is?”

“Perhaps that is how it is,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said. “And perhaps our search has been to no useful purpose. I infer this because some strange things come to light about temperance, if it is of this kind. For let us see, if you like, granting both that it is possible to know knowledge, and, as for what we laid down at the start that temperance is, knowing what one knows and what one does not know, let us not 172d take that away from it, but grant it. And having granted all this, let us look still better at whether, if it is of that kind, it will benefit us at all. For what we were saying just now, that temperance would be a great good if it were of that kind, as the guide of the management of household and of city, I don’t think, Critias, we were right to agree to.”

“How so?” said he.

“Because,” I said, “we too easily agreed that it would be a great good for men if each of us did what we knew, and handed over what we did not know to others who did know it.”¹