YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not understand.
STRANGER: Let me put the matter in another way: I suppose that you would
consider courage to be a part of virtue?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly I should.
STRANGER: And you would think temperance to be different from courage;
and likewise to be a part of virtue?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: I shall venture to put forward a strange theory about them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: That they are two principles which thoroughly hate one another
and are antagonistic throughout a great part of nature.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How singular!
STRANGER: Yes, very--for all the parts of virtue are commonly said to be
friendly to one another.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Then let us carefully investigate whether this is universally
true, or whether there are not parts of virtue which are at war with their
kindred in some respect.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me how we shall consider that question.
STRANGER: We must extend our enquiry to all those things which we consider
beautiful and at the same time place in two opposite classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Explain; what are they?
STRANGER: Acuteness and quickness, whether in body or soul or in the
movement of sound, and the imitations of them which painting and music
supply, you must have praised yourself before now, or been present when
others praised them.
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