y opinion, I say, the poet spoke both well and prudently; but if you
have anything to say in answer to him, speak out.

ALCIBIADES: It is difficult, Socrates, to oppose what has been well
said. And I perceive how many are the ills of which ignorance is the
cause, since, as would appear, through ignorance we not only do, but
what is worse, pray for the greatest evils. No man would imagine that
he would do so; he would rather suppose that he was quite capable of
praying for what was best: to call down evils seems more like a curse
than a prayer.

SOCRATES: But perhaps, my good friend, some one who is wiser than either
you or I will say that we have no right to blame ignorance thus rashly,
unless we can add what ignorance we mean and of what, and also to whom
and how it is respectively a good or an evil?

ALCIBIADES: How do you mean? Can ignorance possibly be better than
knowledge for any person in any conceivable case?

SOCRATES: So I believe:--you do not think so?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And yet surely I may not suppose that you would ever wish to
act towards your mother as they say that Orestes and Alcmeon and others
have done towards their parent.

ALCIBIADES: Good words, Socrates, prithee.

SOCRATES: You ought not to bid him use auspicious words, who says that
you would not be willing to commit so horrible a deed, but rather him
who affirms the contrary, if the act appear to you unfit even to be
mentioned. Or do you think that Orestes, had he been in his senses and
knew what was best for him to do, would ever have dared to venture on
such a crime?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Nor would any one else, I fancy?

ALCIBIADES: No.

SOCRATES: That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the
best and does not know what is best?

ALCIBIADES: So I think, at least.

SOCRATES: And both to the person who is ignorant and everybody else?

ALCIBIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Let us take another case. Suppose that you were suddenly to
get into your head that it would be a good thing to kill Pericles, your
kinsman and guardian, and were to seize a sword and, going to the doors
of his house, were to enquire if he were at home, meaning to slay only
him and no one else:--the servants reply, 'Yes': (Mind, I do not mean
that you would really do such a thing; but there is nothing, you think,
to prevent a man who is ignorant of the best, having occasionally the
whim that what is worst is best?