ONE:Xenophon has recorded another dialogue in which a young man named Euthydmus, who was also in training for a statesman, and who, as he supposed, had learned a great deal more out of books than Socrates could teach him, is brought to see how little he knows about ethical science. He is asked, Can a man be a good citizen without being just? No, he cannot.Can Euthydmus tell what acts are just? Yes, certainly, and also what are unjust.Under which head does he put such actions as lying, deceiving, harming, enslaving?Under the head of injustice.But suppose a hostile people are treated in the various manners specified, is that unjust?No, but it was understood that only ones friends were meant.Well, if a general encourages his own army by false statements, or a father deceives his child into taking medicine, or your friend seems likely to commit suicide, and you purloin a deadly weapon from him, is that unjust?No, we must add for the purpose of harming to our definition. Socrates, however, does not stop here, but goes on cross-examining until the unhappy student is reduced to a state of hopeless bewilderment and shame. He is then brought to perceive the necessity of self-knowledge, which is explained to mean knowledge of ones own powers. As a further exercise Euthydmus is put through his facings on the subject of good and evil. Health, wealth, strength, wisdom and beauty are mentioned as unquestionable goods. Socrates shows, in the style long afterwards imitated by Juvenal, that141 they are only means towards an end, and may be productive of harm no less than good.Happiness at any rate is an unquestionable good.Yes, unless we make it consist of questionable goods like those just enumerated.91
