The conversation of Sokrates with the youth Kleinias is remarkable for its plainness and simplicity. His purpose is to implant or inflame in the youth the aspiration and effort towards wisdom or knowledge (φιλοσοφία, in its etymological sense). “You, like every one else, wish to do well or to be happy. The way to be happy is, to have many good things. Every one knows this: every one knows too, that among these good things, wealth is an indisputable item:[28] likewise health, beauty, bodily activity, good birth, power over others, honour in our city, temperance, justice, courage, wisdom, &c. Good fortune does not count as a distinct item, because it resolves itself into wisdom.[29] — But it is not enough to have all these good things: we must not only have them but use them: moreover, we must use them not wrongly, but rightly. If we use them wrongly, they will not produce their appropriate consequences. They will even make us more miserable than if we had them not, because the possession of them will prompt us to be active and meddlesome: whereas, if we have them not, we shall keep in the back-ground and do little.[30] But to use these good things rightly, depends upon wisdom, knowledge, intelligence. It thus appears that the enumerated items are not really good, except on the assumption that they are under the guidance of intelligence: if they are under the guidance of ignorance, they are not good; nay, they even produce more harm than good, since they are active instruments in the service of a foolish master.[31]
[28] Plato, Euthydêm. p. 279 A. ἀγαθὰ δὲ ποῖα ἄρα τῶν ὄντων τυγχάνει ἡμῖν ὄντα; ἢ οὐ χαλεπὸν οὐδὲ σεμνοῦ ἀνδρὸς πάνυ τι οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἔοικεν εἶναι εὑρεῖν; πᾶς γὰρ ἂν ἡμῖν εἴποι ὅτι τὸ πλουτεῖν ἀγαθόν;
[29] Plato, Euthydêm. pp. 279-280.
[30] Plato, Euthydêm. p. 281 C. ἧττον δὲ κακῶς πράττων, ἄθλιος ἧττον ἂν εἴη.
[31] Plato, Euthyd. p. 282 E. If we compare this with p. 279 C-D we shall see that the argument of Sokrates is open to the exception which he himself takes in the case of εὐτυχία — δὶς ταὐτὰ λέγειν. Wisdom is counted twice over.
But intelligence — of what? It must be such intelligence, or such an art, as will include both the making of what we want, and the right use of it when made.
“But what intelligence do we want for the purpose? Is it all intelligence? Or is there any one single variety of intelligence, by the possession of which we shall become good and happy?[32] Obviously, it must be must be such as will be profitable to us.[33] We have seen that there is no good in possessing wealth — that we should gain nothing by knowing how to acquire wealth or even to turn stones into gold, unless we at the same time knew how to use it rightly. Nor should we gain any thing by knowing how to make ourselves healthy, or even immortal, unless we knew how to employ rightly our health or immortality. We want knowledge or intelligence, of such a nature, as to include both acting, making, or construction and rightly using what we have done, made, or constructed.[34] The makers of lyres and flutes may be men of skill, but they cannot play upon the instruments which they have made: the logographers compose fine discourses, but hand them over for others to deliver. Even masters in the most distinguished arts — such as military commanders, geometers, arithmeticians, astronomers, &c., do not come up to our requirement. They are all of them varieties under the general class hunters: they find and seize, but hand over what they have seized for others to use. The hunter, when he has caught or killed game, hands it over to the cook; the general, when he has taken a town, delivers it to the political leader or minister: the geometer makes over his theorems to be employed by the dialectician or comprehensive philosopher.[35]
[32] Plato, Euthydêm. p. 282 E. Sokrates here breaks off the string of questions to Kleinias, but resumes them, p. 288 D.
[33] Plato, Euthydêm. p. 288 D. τίνα ποτ’ οὖν ἂν κτησάμενοι ἐπιστήμην ὀρθῶς κτησαίμεθα; ἆρ’ οὐ τοῦτο μὲν ἁπλοῦν, ὅτι ταύτην ἥτις ἡμᾶς ὀνήσει;
[34] Plato, Euthyd. p. 289 B. τοιαύτης τινὸς ἄρ’ ἡμῖν ἐπιστήμης δεῖ, ἐν ᾗ συμπέπτωκεν ἅμα τό τε ποιεῖν καὶ τὸ ἐπίστασθαι χρῆσθαι ᾧ ἂν ποιῇ.