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Alc. Well, but on my word, I was not ignorant: no, I clearly understood that I was being wronged.
110
Soc. So you thought you knew, even as a child, it seems, what was just and unjust.
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Alc. I did; and I knew too.
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Soc. At what sort of time did you discover it? For surely it was not while you thought you knew.
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Alc. No, indeed.
110
Soc. Then when did you think you were ignorant? Consider; I believe you will fail to find such a time.
110
Alc. Upon my word, Socrates, I really cannot say.
110
Soc. So you do not know it by discovery.
110
Alc. Not at all, apparently.
110
Soc. But you said just now that you did not know it by learning either; and if you neither discovered nor learnt it, how do you come to know it, and whence?
110
Alc. Well, perhaps that answer I gave you was not correct, that I knew it by my own discovery.
110
Soc. Then how was it done?
110
Alc. I learnt it, I suppose, in the same way as everyone else.
110
Soc. Back we come to the same argument. From whom? Please tell me.
110
Alc. From the many.
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Soc. They are no very serious teachers with whom you take refuge, if you ascribe it to the many!
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Alc. Why, are they not competent to teach?
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Soc. Not how to play, or not to play, draughts; and yet that, I imagine, is a slight matter compared with justice. What? Do you not think so?
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Alc. Yes.
110
Soc. Then if they are unable to teach the slighter, can they teach the more serious matter?
110
Alc. I think so: at any rate, there are many other things that they are able to teach, more serious than draughts.
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Soc. What sort of things?
111
Alc. For instance, it was from them that I learnt to speak Greek, and I could not say who was my teacher, but can only ascribe it to the same people who, you say, are not serious teachers.
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Soc. Ah, gallant sir, the many may be good teachers of that, and they can justly be praised for their teaching of such subjects.
111
Alc. And why?
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Soc. Because in those subjects they have the equipment proper to good teachers.
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Alc. What do you mean by that?
