ise who can give advice, but does not
know whether or when it is better to carry out the advice?

ALCIBIADES: Decidedly not.

SOCRATES: Nor again, I suppose, a person who knows the art of war, but
does not know whether it is better to go to war or for how long?

ALCIBIADES: No.

SOCRATES: Nor, once more, a person who knows how to kill another or to
take away his property or to drive him from his native land, but not
when it is better to do so or for whom it is better?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: But he who understands anything of the kind and has at the
same time the knowledge of the best course of action:--and the best and
the useful are surely the same?--

ALCIBIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES:--Such an one, I say, we should call wise and a useful adviser
both of himself and of the city. What do you think?

ALCIBIADES: I agree.

SOCRATES: And if any one knows how to ride or to shoot with the bow or
to box or to wrestle, or to engage in any other sort of contest or to
do anything whatever which is in the nature of an art,--what do you call
him who knows what is best according to that art? Do you not speak of
one who knows what is best in riding as a good rider?

ALCIBIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And in a similar way you speak of a good boxer or a good
flute-player or a good performer in any other art?

ALCIBIADES: True.

SOCRATES: But is it necessary that the man who is clever in any of these
arts should be wise also in general? Or is there a difference between
the clever artist and the wise man?

ALCIBIADES: All the difference in the world.

SOCRATES: And what sort of a state do you think that would be which was
composed of good archers and flute-players and athletes and masters in
other arts, and besides them of those others about whom we spoke, who
knew how to go to war and how to kill, as well as of orators puffed
up with political pride, but in which not one of them all had this
knowledge of the best, and there was no one who could tell when it was
better to apply any of these arts or in regard to whom?

ALCIBIADES: I should call such a state bad, Socrates.

SOCRATES: You certainly would when you saw each of them rivalling the
other and esteeming that of the greatest importance in the state,

'Wherein he himself most excelled.' (Euripides, Antiope.) --I mean that
which was best in any art, while he was entirely ignorant of what was
best for himself and for the state, because, as I think, he trust