Kitap 4
2.31
Well, said Socrates, I may assume, I take it, that you know what things are good and what are evil?Of course, for if I don’t know so much as that, I must be worse than a slave.Come then, state them for my benefit.Well, that’s a simple matter. First health in itself is, I suppose, a good, sickness an evil. Next the various causes of these two conditions — meat, drink, habits — are good or evil according as they promote health or sickness.
2.32
Then health and sickness too must be good when their effect is good, and evil when it is evil.But when can health possibly be the cause of evil, or sickness of good?Why, in many cases; for instance, a disastrous campaign or a fatal voyage: the able-bodied who go are lost, the weaklings who stay behind are saved.True; but you see, in the successful adventures too the able-bodied take part, the weaklings are left behind.Then since these bodily conditions sometimes lead to profit, and sometimes to loss, are they any more good than evil?No, certainly not; at least so it appears from the argument.
2.33
But wisdom now, Socrates, — that at any rate is indisputably a good thing; for what is there that a wise man would not do better than a fool?Indeed! have you not heard how Daedalus was seized by Minos because of his wisdom, and was forced to be his slave, and was robbed of his country and his liberty, and essaying to escape with his son, lost the boy and could not save himself, but was carried off to the barbarians and again lived as a slave there?That is the story, of course.And have you not heard the story of Palamedes? Surely, for all the poets sing of him, how that he was envied for his wisdom and done to death by Odysseus.Another well-known tale!And how many others, do you suppose, have been kidnapped on account of their wisdom, and haled off to the great King’s court, and live in slavery there?
