ALCIBIADES: No.)

SOCRATES:--If, then, you went indoors, and seeing him, did not know him,
but thought that he was some one else, would you venture to slay him?

ALCIBIADES: Most decidedly not (it seems to me). (These words are
omitted in several MSS.)

SOCRATES: For you designed to kill, not the first who offered, but
Pericles himself?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And if you made many attempts, and each time failed to
recognize Pericles, you would never attack him?

ALCIBIADES: Never.

SOCRATES: Well, but if Orestes in like manner had not known his mother,
do you think that he would ever have laid hands upon her?

ALCIBIADES: No.

SOCRATES: He did not intend to slay the first woman he came across, nor
any one else's mother, but only his own?

ALCIBIADES: True.

SOCRATES: Ignorance, then, is better for those who are in such a frame
of mind, and have such ideas?

ALCIBIADES: Obviously.

SOCRATES: You acknowledge that for some persons in certain cases the
ignorance of some things is a good and not an evil, as you formerly
supposed?

ALCIBIADES: I do.

SOCRATES: And there is still another case which will also perhaps
appear strange to you, if you will consider it? (The reading is here
uncertain.)

ALCIBIADES: What is that, Socrates?

SOCRATES: It may be, in short, that the possession of all the sciences,
if unaccompanied by the knowledge of the best, will more often than not
injure the possessor. Consider the matter thus:--Must we not, when we
intend either to do or say anything, suppose that we know or ought to
know that which we propose so confidently to do or say?

ALCIBIADES: Yes, in my opinion.

SOCRATES: We may take the orators for an example, who from time to
time advise us about war and peace, or the building of walls and the
construction of harbours, whether they understand the business in
hand, or only think that they do. Whatever the city, in a word, does to
another city, or in the management of her own affairs, all happens by
the counsel of the orators.

ALCIBIADES: True.

SOCRATES: But now see what follows, if I can (make it clear to you).
(Some words appear to have dropped out here.) You would distinguish the
wise from the foolish?

ALCIBIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES: The many are foolish, the few wise?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And you use both the terms, 'wise' and 'foolish,' in reference
to something?

ALCIBIADES: I do.

SOCRATES: Would you call a person w