CHAPTER XIX.

CHARMIDES.

Scene and personages of the dialogue. Crowded palæstra. Emotions of Sokrates 153

Question, What is Temperance? addressed by Sokrates to the temperate Charmides. Answer, It is a kind of sedateness or slowness 154

But Temperance is a fine or honourable thing, and slowness is, in many or most cases, not fine or honourable, but the contrary. Temperance cannot be slowness _ib._

Second answer. Temperance is a variety of the feeling of shame. Refuted by Sokrates _ib._

Third answer. Temperance consists in doing one's own business. Defended by Kritias. Sokrates pronounces it a riddle, and refutes it. Distinction between making and doing 155

Fourth answer, by Kritias. Temperance consists in self-knowledge. _ib._

Questions of Sokrates thereupon. What good does self-knowledge procure for us? What is the object known, in this case? Answer: There is no object of knowledge, distinct from the knowledge itself 156

Sokrates doubts the possibility of any knowledge, without a given _cognitum_ as its object. Analogies to prove that knowledge of knowledge is impossible 156

All knowledge must be relative to some object 157

All properties are relative--every thing in nature has its characteristic property with reference to something else _ib._

Even if cognition of cognition were possible, cognition of non-cognition would be impossible. A man may know what he knows, but he cannot know what he is ignorant of. He knows the fact _that_ he knows: but he does not know how much he knows, and how much he does not know 158

Temperance, therefore, as thus defined, would be of little or no value 159

But even granting the possibility of that which has just been denied, still Temperance would be of little value. Suppose that all separate work were well performed, by special practitioners, we should not attain our end--Happiness _ib._

Which of the varieties of knowledge contributes most to well-doing or happiness? That by which we know good and evil 160

Without the science of good and evil, the other special science will be of little or of no service. Temperance is not the science of good and evil, and is of little service 161

Sokrates confesses to entire failure in his research. He cannot find out what temperance is: although several concessions have been made which cannot be justified _ib._

Temperance is and must be a good thing: but Charmides cannot tell whether he is temperate or not; since what temperance is remains unknown 162

Expressions both from Charmides and Kritias of praise and devotion to Sokrates, at the close of the dialogue. Dramatic ornament throughout _ib._

The Charmides is an excellent specimen of Dialogues of Search. Abundance of guesses and tentatives, all ultimately disallowed 163

Trial and Error, the natural process of the human mind. Plato stands alone in bringing to view and dramatising this part of the mental process. Sokrates accepts for himself the condition of conscious ignorance 164

Familiar words--constantly used, with much earnest feeling, but never understood nor defined--ordinary phenomenon in human society 165

Different ethical points of view in different Platonic dialogues 167

Self-knowledge is here declared to be impossible _ib._

In other dialogues, Sokrates declares self-knowledge to be essential and inestimable. Necessity for the student to have presented to him dissentient points of view _ib._

Courage and Temperance are shown to have no distinct meaning, except as founded on the general cognizance of good and evil 168

Distinction made between the special sciences and the science of Good and Evil. Without this last, the special sciences are of no use _ib._

Knowledge, always relative to some object known. Postulate or divination of a Science of Teleology 169

Courage and Temperance, handled both by Plato and by Aristotle. Comparison between the two 170