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Socrates. For you, humanly speaking, are not involved in the necessity of dying tomorrow, and therefore present conditions would not lead your judgment astray. Now say, do you not think we were correct in saying that we ought not to esteem all the opinions of men, but some and not others, and not those of all men, but only of some? What do you think? Is not this true?
47
Crito. It is.
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Socrates. Then we ought to esteem the good opinions and not the bad ones?
47
Crito. Yes.
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Socrates. And the good ones are those of the wise and the bad ones those of the foolish?
47
Crito. Of course.
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Socrates. Come then, what used we to say about this? If a man is an athlete and makes that his business, does he pay attention to every man’s praise and blame and opinion or to those of one man only who is a physician or a trainer?
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Crito. To those of one man only.
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Socrates. Then he ought to fear the blame and welcome the praise of that one man and not of the multitude.
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Crito. Obviously.
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Socrates. And he must act and exercise and eat and drink as the one man who is his director and who knows the business thinks best rather than as all the others think.
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Crito. That is true.
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Socrates. Well then; if he disobeys the one man and disregards his opinion and his praise, but regards words of the many who have no special knowledge, will he not come to harm?
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Crito. Of course he will.
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Socrates. And what is this harm? In what direction and upon what part of the one who disobeys does it act?
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Crito. Evidently upon his body; for that is what it ruins.
