particular science of the good under
her control, and in this way will benefit us.

And will wisdom give health? I said; is not this rather the effect of
medicine? Or does wisdom do the work of any of the other arts,--do they
not each of them do their own work? Have we not long ago asseverated
that wisdom is only the knowledge of knowledge and of ignorance, and of
nothing else?

That is obvious.

Then wisdom will not be the producer of health.

Certainly not.

The art of health is different.

Yes, different.

Nor does wisdom give advantage, my good friend; for that again we have
just now been attributing to another art.

Very true.

How then can wisdom be advantageous, when giving no advantage?

That, Socrates, is certainly inconceivable.

You see then, Critias, that I was not far wrong in fearing that I could
have no sound notion about wisdom; I was quite right in depreciating
myself; for that which is admitted to be the best of all things would
never have seemed to us useless, if I had been good for anything at
an enquiry. But now I have been utterly defeated, and have failed to
discover what that is to which the imposer of names gave this name of
temperance or wisdom. And yet many more admissions were made by us than
could be fairly granted; for we admitted that there was a science of
science, although the argument said No, and protested against us; and we
admitted further, that this science knew the works of the other sciences
(although this too was denied by the argument), because we wanted to
show that the wise man had knowledge of what he knew and did not know;
also we nobly disregarded, and never even considered, the impossibility
of a man knowing in a sort of way that which he does not know at all;
for our assumption was, that he knows that which he does not know;
than which nothing, as I think, can be more irrational. And yet, after
finding us so easy and good-natured, the enquiry is still unable to
discover the truth; but mocks us to a degree, and has gone out of its
way to prove the inutility of that which we admitted only by a sort
of supposition and fiction to be the true definition of temperance or
wisdom: which result, as far as I am concerned, is not so much to be
lamented, I said. But for your sake, Charmides, I am very sorry--that
you, having such beauty and such wisdom and temperance of soul, should
have no profit or good in life from your wisdom and temperance. And
still more am I gri