sty, Discretion,
Wisdom, without completely exhausting by all these terms the various
associations of the word. It may be described as 'mens sana in corpore
sano,' the harmony or due proportion of the higher and lower elements
of human nature which 'makes a man his own master,' according to the
definition of the Republic. In the accompanying translation the word has
been rendered in different places either Temperance or Wisdom, as the
connection seemed to require: for in the philosophy of Plato (Greek)
still retains an intellectual element (as Socrates is also said to have
identified (Greek) with (Greek): Xen. Mem.) and is not yet relegated to
the sphere of moral virtue, as in the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle.

The beautiful youth, Charmides, who is also the most temperate of
human beings, is asked by Socrates, 'What is Temperance?' He answers
characteristically, (1) 'Quietness.' 'But Temperance is a fine and noble
thing; and quietness in many or most cases is not so fine a thing as
quickness.' He tries again and says (2) that temperance is modesty.
But this again is set aside by a sophistical application of Homer:
for temperance is good as well as noble, and Homer has declared that
'modesty is not good for a needy man.' (3) Once more Charmides makes
the attempt. This time he gives a definition which he has heard, and of
which Socrates conjectures that Critias must be the author: 'Temperance
is doing one's own business.' But the artisan who makes another man's
shoes may be temperate, and yet he is not doing his own business; and
temperance defined thus would be opposed to the division of labour which
exists in every temperate or well-ordered state. How is this riddle to
be explained?

Critias, who takes the place of Charmides, distinguishes in his
answer between 'making' and 'doing,' and with the help of a misapplied
quotation from Hesiod assigns to the words 'doing' and 'work' an
exclusively good sense: Temperance is doing one's own business;--(4) is
doing good.

Still an element of knowledge is wanting which Critias is readily
induced to admit at the suggestion of Socrates; and, in the spirit of
Socrates and of Greek life generally, proposes as a fifth definition,
(5) Temperance is self-knowledge. But all sciences have a subject:
number is the subject of arithmetic, health of medicine--what is the
subject of temperance or wisdom? The answer is that (6) Temperance is
the knowledge of what a man knows and of what