The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 214 pages of information about The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates.

The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 214 pages of information about The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates.
begin to be disheartened, if he make them believe that a great reinforcement is coming to him, and by that stratagem inspires fresh courage into the soldiers, under what head shall we put this lie?” “Under the head of justice,” answered Euthydemus.  “And when a child will not take the physic that he has great need of, and his father makes it be given him in a mess of broth, and by that means the child recovers his health, to which shall we ascribe this deceit?” “To justice likewise.”  “And if a man, who sees his friend in despair, and fears he will kill himself, hides his sword from him, or takes it out of his hands by force, what shall we say of this violence?” “That it is just,” replied Euthydemus.  “Observe what you say,” continued Socrates; “for it follows from your answers that we are not always obliged to live with our friends uprightly, and without any deceit, as we agreed we were.”  “No; certainly we are not, and if I may be permitted to retract what I said, I change my opinion very freely.”  “It is better,” said Socrates, “to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.  But there is still one point which we must not pass over without inquiry, and this relates to those whose deceits are prejudicial to their friends; for I ask you, which are most unjust, they who with premeditate design cheat their friends, or they who do it through inadvertency?” “Indeed,” said Euthydemus, “I know not what to answer, nor what to believe, for you have so fully refuted what I have said, that what appeared to me before in one light appears to me now in another.  Nevertheless, I will venture to say that he is the most unjust who deceives his friend deliberately.”  “Do you think,” said Socrates, “that one may learn to be just and honest, as well as we learn to read and write?” “I think we may.”  “Which,” added Socrates, “do you take to be the most ignorant, he who reads wrong on purpose, or he who reads wrong because he can read no better?” “The last of them,” answered Euthydemus; “for the other who mistakes for pleasure need not mistake when he pleases.”  “Then,” inferred Socrates, “he who reads wrong deliberately knows how to read; but he who reads wrong without design is an ignorant man.”  “You say true.”  “Tell me likewise,” pursued Socrates, “which knows best what ought to be done, and what belongs to justice, he who lies and cheats with premeditate design, or he who deceives without intention to deceive?” “It is most plain,” said Euthydemus, “that it is he who deceives with premeditate design.”  “But you said,” replied Socrates, “that he who can read is more learned than he who cannot read?” “I did so.”  “Therefore he who best knows which are the duties of justice is more just than he that knows them not.”  “It seems to be so,” answered Euthydemus, “and I know not well how I came to say what I did.”  “Indeed,” said Socrates, “you often change your opinion, and contradict what you say; and what would you yourself think of any man who pretended to tell the truth, and yet never said the same thing; who, in pointing out to you the same road, should show you sometimes east, sometimes west, and who, in telling the same sum, should find more money at one time than another; what would you think of such a man?” “He would make all men think,” answered Euthydemus, “that he knew nothing of what he pretended to know.”

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The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.