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ALCIBIADES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then the art which takes care of each thing is different from that which takes care of the belongings of each thing?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Then in taking care of what belongs to you, you do not take care of yourself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: For the art which takes care of our belongings appears not to be the same as that which takes care of ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: And now let me ask you what is the art with which we take care of ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: I cannot say.
SOCRATES: At any rate, thus much has been admitted, that the art is not one which makes any of our possessions, but which makes ourselves better?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But should we ever have known what art makes a shoe better, if we did not know a shoe?
ALCIBIADES: Impossible.
SOCRATES: Nor should we know what art makes a ring better, if we did not know a ring?
ALCIBIADES: That is true.
SOCRATES: And can we ever know what art makes a man better, if we do not know what we are ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: Impossible.
SOCRATES: And is self-knowledge such an easy thing, and was he to be lightly esteemed who inscribed the text on the temple at Delphi? Or is self-knowledge a difficult thing, which few are able to attain?
ALCIBIADES: At times I fancy, Socrates, that anybody can know himself; at other times the task appears to be very difficult.
SOCRATES: But whether easy or difficult, Alcibiades, still there is no other way; knowing what we are, we shall know how to take care of ourselves, and if we are ignorant we shall not know.
ALCIBIADES: That is true.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let us see in what way the self-existent can be discovered by us; that will give us a chance of discovering our own existence, which otherwise we can never know.
ALCIBIADES: You say truly.
SOCRATES: Come, now, I beseech you, tell me with whom you are conversing?—with whom but with me?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: As I am, with you?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: That is to say, I, Socrates, am talking?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And Alcibiades is my hearer?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And I in talking use words?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And talking and using words have, I suppose, the same meaning?
ALCIBIADES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And the user is not the same as the thing which he uses?
ALCIBIADES: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I will explain; the shoemaker, for example, uses a square tool, and a circular tool, and other tools for cutting?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: But the tool is not the same as the cutter and user of the tool?
ALCIBIADES: Of course not.
SOCRATES: And in the same way the instrument of the harper is to be distinguished from the harper himself?
ALCIBIADES: It is.
SOCRATES: Now the question which I asked was whether you conceive the user to be always different from that which he uses?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: Then what shall we say of the shoemaker? Does he cut with his tools only or with his hands?
ALCIBIADES: With his hands as well.
SOCRATES: He uses his hands too?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And does he use his eyes in cutting leather?
ALCIBIADES: He does.
SOCRATES: And we admit that the user is not the same with the things which he uses?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then the shoemaker and the harper are to be distinguished from the hands and feet which they use?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And does not a man use the whole body?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And that which uses is different from that which is used?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Then a man is not the same as his own body?
ALCIBIADES: That is the inference.
SOCRATES: What is he, then?
ALCIBIADES: I cannot say.
SOCRATES: Nay, you can say that he is the user of the body.
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the user of the body is the soul?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, the soul.
SOCRATES: And the soul rules?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Let me make an assertion which will, I think, be universally admitted.
ALCIBIADES: What is it?
SOCRATES: That man is one of three things.
ALCIBIADES: What are they?
SOCRATES: Soul, body, or both together forming a whole.
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But did we not say that the actual ruling principle of the body is man?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, we did.
SOCRATES: And does the body rule over itself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: It is subject, as we were saying?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then that is not the principle which we are seeking?
ALCIBIADES: It would seem not.
SOCRATES: But may we say that the union of the two rules over the body, and consequently that this is man?
ALCIBIADES: Very likely.
SOCRATES: The most unlikely of all things; for if one of the members is subject, the two united cannot possibly rule.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But since neither the body, nor the union of the two, is man, either man has no real existence, or the soul is man?
ALCIBIADES: Just so.
SOCRATES: Is anything more required to prove that the soul is man?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not; the proof is, I think, quite sufficient.
SOCRATES: And if the proof, although not perfect, be sufficient, we shall be satisfied;—more precise proof will be supplied when we have discovered that which we were led to omit, from a fear that the enquiry would be too much protracted.
ALCIBIADES: What was that?
SOCRATES: What I meant, when I said that absolute existence must be first considered; but now, instead of absolute existence, we have been considering the nature of individual existence, and this may, perhaps, be sufficient; for surely there is nothing which may be called more properly ourselves than the soul?
ALCIBIADES: There is nothing.
