SOC. Imagine, then, a man or a woman, who has all possible wealth and power and health, and the fulfillment of the desires you pronounced; and then imagine another one, who has but a necessary portion of the same, in order to maintain existence. Which of these do you consider will be the happiest?
ALP. I have heard that this is a question that you love to banter around, Socrates; but I will not give you the answer I know you have stored up, and which you know that I know. My answer is simple, and it is the man or woman who has fulfilled those desires that will be the happiest – and tell me not that it is whichever of them is the wisest. For a wise man would never be poor.
SOC. Then are all poor people unwise and ignorant?
SOC. And likewise wanting in power, and health and good family and reputation?
SOC. Must they all then be likewise unhappy?
SOC. Does it follow that all wealthy people are then wise?
ALP. It does, Socrates, it does; as their wealth is the fruit of a wise use of life.
SOC. And, therefore, they are happy?
SOC. And does it then follow that all poor people are most unhappy?
ALP. It does, as I have already said.
SOC. So, this unhappiness that the poor suffer, is this the product then of unfulfilled desires, such as those you have espoused?
ALP. It is, and very much so.
SOC. But I see before us a puzzling equation, which has been trying to voice itself throughout our investigation.
ALP. I am not surprised, Socrates; but go on then, give it some air if you so wish.
SOC. Thank you, my friend, and I will, as I suspect that it is veiled behind your own assertions, given with such alacrity.
SOC. Does it, then, equate that those who have fulfilled the most of their desires therefore, being happy, acquire a greater portion of good to themselves? And that those who have fulfilled only a necessary portion of the desires you hold, thereby acquire or continue to enjoy only a necessary portion of good? Is this an equation you would assent to as being accurate?
ALP. I would, Socrates, as far as it goes.
SOC. Then the wealthy, the healthy, the renowned, the well-born and the powerful are all of them good?
ALP. They are, and also they are happy.
SOC. And the poor, the infirm, the unknown, the lowly born and the singular are all of them not
good?
ALP. They may be good to a certain degree, but it is an impotent good.
SOC. And do you say further that this same ratio can be applied to wisdom? So that the poor and those others are also unwise, and that the wealthy and their fellows are wise?
ALP. I do so say, and repeat.
SOC. But what of beauty; is it the same process with this?
SOC. So that the poor and the others are not beautiful, but the wealthy and the desire-fulfilled are?
ALP. That is the case I support and have observed.
SOC. In summing up, my friend, your argument, it is that all poor people and those others are not only unhappy, but likewise they are evil, ignorant, ugly and impotent. And that all wealthy people, and the others, are happy, good, wise and beautiful.
ALP. That is, Socrates, my argument.
SOC. What then, Alphaeus, if a man or a woman, poor from birth, on a sudden acquires very substantial wealth; does this same person, on a sudden, also acquire substantial happiness?
SOC. And this together with goodness and wisdom and beauty?
ALP. You are trying to entrap me, Socrates.
SOC. But no, Alphaeus, as you have already entrapped yourself. Yet answer the question, whether the sudden acquisition of abundant wealth, or power, or health, or fame, likewise bestows the equally sudden abundance of goodness, happiness, beauty and wisdom, and other such excellences.
ALP. Enough of this, Socrates; I have patronized your argument from respect to Telamon, when I would have left some time ago if alone. You talk of extremes and exceptions and miss the normal and the common, to which I look in assessing any person.
SOC. Yet, good man, if you do not answer this question, both Telamon here and I, and in truth all who ask such questions, will know not where to turn, or who to ask, if those such as you refuse the opportunity to answer upon subjects about which you are certain.
ALP. Then I will answer, in recognition of my good friend here, that such a sudden acquisition and fulfillment of desires would at the least provide the opportunity for the acquisition of such goodness, wisdom and beauty as you propose.
SOC. Thank you, and I believe that there is one last question which should seal the circle, so to speak, and reveal to us the heart of the matter.
ALP. Then ask it, Socrates, and do not delay, as my time here is now getting short.
SOC. It is simple, and it is this; would the sudden removal of wealth and health and those other fulfilled desires you champion, cause the sudden removal also of happiness, and goodness, wisdom and beauty? Consider this, Alphaeus, and whether you believe it to be true.
ALP. (standing up in silence for long moments) Talk not to me of belief, man, for knowledge is my calling, not belief!
SOC. There are many of the present time, and there will be many more in the future, who profess to know certain things, having been schooled in the ways of detailed convincement and thesis; yet at the same time do not believe what they speak of, or write about, or claim to know. So, in deference to you, Alphaeus, I will alter the question this way: do you then know this to be true?
ALP. By the dog, how you infuriate me! I will co-operate no more with your semantic gymnastics, Socrates, as you are plainly involved only with your own self-justification and defence for a way of life that you are trapped in, by your own lack of practical wisdom. You are an idiot and full with mania, and see not that those theoretic virtues you embrace so much are of no worth at all to those who have not fulfilled the desires I have strenuously and exhaustingly explained. I condemn you as a hack, as you will soon be condemned as a conjuror. Come, Telamon, we are leaving this place!
(Telamon then raises himself to one knee, and looks into the eyes of Socrates, who bows his head slowly.)
TEL. I think not, Alphaeus, for I cannot leave with these conflicting thoughts racing in me unresolved.
ALP. But they are resolved, Telamon, they are! The doubts have been sown by Socrates here, and they are his doubts, not yours, and certainly they are not mine.
TEL. But I own them to be mine now, my friend.
ALP. Then I must leave you both with them like some ill-disciplined nursery, as I am due in the court of Alampis in but a little time. Farewell, until later, Telamon; and good-bye, Socrates.
(Alphaeus departs. Socrates is silent, his head still bowed low and deep in thought.)
TEL. Socrates, my friend, why do you sit so? Are you troubled by what we have just heard?
SOC. (after a long pause) No, good Telamon, I am not; and I sit here so because of a voice I seem to hear and that prompts me to be quiet, to be still and to see.
TEL. Is, then, our conversation over, and would you rather that I retired now with Alphaeus?
SOC. This, our conversation, concerns a subject of greatest moment, and not the one that appears now as obvious.
TEL. What subject do you mean, and how is it not obvious?
SOC. It has been standing in front of us, like some doe blending in with its surroundings, and is only obvious and visible to a hunter.
TEL. Is it the nature of happiness that you see, and which is blended with the confusions we have heard?
SOC. It is, and barely behind it I survey its sire. Do you wish to pursue this, with all the stealth and guile that we can muster?
TEL. I do so very much, and follow you.
SOC. By the huntress then, Telamon my friend, let us hunt, and together with her close upon our
prey.
TEL. Only lead and show me the tracks.
SOC. What think you of the happiness promoted just now?
TEL. I almost think the opposite to that which I have held for years.
SOC. And what is this opposite that you now hold close?
TEL. That true happiness cannot be generated from the fulfillment of those desires which we lately considered; and that far from being satiable and dignified they appear to be boundless and base on their own, leading only to a form of happiness both temporary and contingent.
SOC. What then, do you perceive other desires not lately mentioned, that admit of some bound and more worth?
TEL. No, I do not perceive them, but suspect that they must exist, for those so recently described now appear to be insufficient for the purpose of attaining true happiness.
SOC. Yet, Telamon, those desires so well pronounced just now, may not be as boundless or base as they presently appear to you; but that they are just the trees that obscure our prey, and if we look well to them, and to that, they will reveal even more than they obscure, and we will see the difference clearly.
SOC. Do you not remember the rumour from those celebrations, of which I know you were an auditor in your young manhood – that from the bosom of the mother of life are two great fountains formed, being the one of soul and the other of virtue?
TEL. I hear, and now remember, as if waking from a nocturnal dream.
SOC. And that from those ample fountains all souls and all virtues are nourished.
TEL. I hear it again, yet anew.
SOC. So that each is nourished from both, as to be nurtured together, being for the one the life and for the other the excellence.
TEL. It is indeed so said and is a mystery.
SOC. It is. Then let us continue to hunt, my good friend, with the truth of her mystery before us.
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