CRITO
Plato's Crito
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43
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:
Socrates, Crito.
SCENE: The Prison of Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why have you come at this hour, Crito? it must be quite
early?
CRITO: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: What is the exact time?
CRITO: The dawn is breaking.
SOCRATES: I wonder that the keeper of the prison would let you in.
CRITO: He knows me, because I often come, Socrates; moreover, I have
done him a kindness.
SOCRATES: And are you only just arrived?
CRITO: No, I came some time ago.
SOCRATES: Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at once
awakening me?
CRITO: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great
trouble and unrest as you are—indeed I should not: I have been
watching with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason
I did not awake you, because I wished to minimize the pain. I have
always thought you to be of a happy disposition; but never did I see
anything like the easy, tranquil manner in which you bear this
calamity.
SOCRATES: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to
be repining at the approach of death.
CRITO: And yet other old men find themselves in similar misfortunes,
and age does not prevent them from repining.
SOCRATES: That is true. But you have not told me why you come at
this early hour.
CRITO: I come to bring you a message which is sad and painful; not,
as I believe, to yourself, but to all of us who are your friends,
and saddest of all to me.
SOCRATES: What? Has the ship come from Delos, on the arrival of
which I am to die?
CRITO: No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she will probably
be here to-day, as persons who have come from Sunium tell me that
they have left her there; and therefore to-morrow, Socrates, will be
the last day of your life.
SOCRATES: Very well, Crito; if such is the will of God, I am
willing; but my belief is that there will be a delay of a day.
44
CRITO: Why do you think so?
SOCRATES: I will tell you. I am to die on the day after the arrival
of the ship?
CRITO: Yes; that is what the authorities say.
SOCRATES: But I do not think that the ship will be here until
to-morrow; this I infer from a vision which I had last night, or
rather only just now, when you fortunately allowed me to sleep.
CRITO: And what was the nature of the vision?
SOCRATES: There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, fair and
comely, clothed in bright raiment, who called to me and said: O
Socrates,
‘The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go.’ 3
CRITO: What a singular dream, Socrates!
SOCRATES: There can be no doubt about the meaning, Crito, I think.
CRITO: Yes; the meaning is only too clear. But, oh! my beloved
Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape.
For if you die I shall not only lose a friend who can never be
replaced, but there is another evil: people who do not know you and
me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to
give money, but that I did not care. Now, can there be a worse
disgrace than this—that I should be thought to value money more than
the life of a friend? For the many will not be persuaded that I
wanted you to escape, and that you refused.
SOCRATES: But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion
of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth
considering, will think of these things truly as they occurred.
CRITO: But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be
regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the
greatest evil to anyone who has lost their good opinion.
SOCRATES: I only wish it were so, Crito; and that the many could do
the greatest evil; for then they would also be able to do the
greatest good—and what a fine thing this would be! But in reality
they can do neither; for they cannot make a man either wise or
foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance.
CRITO: Well, I will not dispute with you; but please to tell me,
Socrates, whether you are not acting out of regard to me and your
other friends: are you not afraid that if you escape from prison we
may get into trouble with the informers for having stolen you away,
and lose either the whole or a great part of our property; or that
even a worse evil may happen to us? 45 Now, if you fear on
our account, be at ease; for in order to save you, we ought surely
to run this, or even a greater risk; be persuaded, then, and do as I
say.
SOCRATES: Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, but by no
means the only one.
CRITO: Fear not—there are persons who are willing to get you out of
prison at no great cost; and as for the informers, they are far from
being exorbitant in their demands—a little money will satisfy them.
My means, which are certainly ample, are at your service, and if you
have a scruple about spending all mine, here are strangers who will
give you the use of theirs; and one of them, Simmias the Theban, has
brought a large sum of money for this very purpose; and Cebes and
many others are prepared to spend their money in helping you to
escape. I say, therefore, do not hesitate on our account, and do not
say, as you did in the court 4 that you will have a difficulty in
knowing what to do with yourself anywhere else. For men will love
you in other places to which you may go, and not in Athens only;
there are friends of mine in Thessaly, if you like to go to them,
who will value and protect you, and no Thessalian will give you any
trouble. Nor can I think that you are at all justified, Socrates, in
betraying your own life when you might be saved; in acting thus you
are playing into the hands of your enemies, who are hurrying on your
destruction. And further I should say that you are deserting your
own children; for you might bring them up and educate them; instead
of which you go away and leave them, and they will have to take
their chance; and if they do not meet with the usual fate of
orphans, there will be small thanks to you. No man should bring
children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in
their nurture and education. But you appear to be choosing the
easier part, not the better and manlier, which would have been more
becoming in one who professes to care for virtue in all his actions,
like yourself. And indeed, I am ashamed not only of you, but of us
who are your friends, when I reflect that the whole business will be
attributed entirely to our want of courage. The trial need never
have come on, or might have been managed differently; and this last
act, or crowning folly, will seem to have occurred through our
negligence and 46 cowardice, who might have saved you, if
we had been good for anything; and you might have saved yourself,
for there was no difficulty at all. See now, Socrates, how sad and
discreditable are the consequences, both to us and you. Make up your
mind then, or rather have your mind already made up, for the time of
deliberation is over, and there is only one thing to be done, which
must be done this very night, and, if we delay at all, will be no
longer practicable or possible; I beseech you therefore, Socrates,
be persuaded by me, and do as I say.
SOCRATES: Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but
if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the danger; and therefore
we ought to consider whether I shall or shall not do as you say. For
I am and always have been one of those natures who must be guided by
reason, whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to
me to be the best; and now that this chance has befallen me, I
cannot repudiate my own words: the principles which I have hitherto
honoured and revered I still honour, and unless we can at once find
other and better principles, I am certain not to agree with you; no,
not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more
imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children
with hobgoblin terrors. 5 What will be the fairest way of
considering the question? Shall I return to your old argument about
the opinions of men?—we were saying that some of them are to be
regarded, and others not. Now were we right in maintaining this
before I was condemned? And has the argument which was once good now
proved to be talk for the sake of talking—mere childish nonsense?
That is what I want to consider with your help, Crito:—whether,
under my present circumstances, the argument appears to be in any
way different or not; and is to be allowed by me or disallowed. That
argument, which, as I believe, is maintained by many persons of
authority, was to the effect, as I was saying, that the opinions of
some men are to be regarded, and of other men not to be regarded.
Now you, Crito, are not going to die to-morrow—at least, there is no
human probability of this— 47 and therefore you are
disinterested and not liable to be deceived by the circumstances in
which you are placed. Tell me then, whether I am right in saying
that some opinions, and the opinions of some men only, are to be
valued, and that other opinions, and the opinions of other men, are
not to be valued. I ask you whether I was right in maintaining this?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The good are to be regarded, and not the bad?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the opinions of the wise are good, and the opinions of
the unwise are evil?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what was said about another matter? Is the pupil who
devotes himself to the practice of gymnastics supposed to attend to
the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of one man
only—his physician or trainer, whoever he may be?
CRITO: Of one man only.
SOCRATES: And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the praise of
that one only, and not of the many?
CRITO: Clearly so.
SOCRATES: And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in the
way which seems good to his single master who has understanding,
rather than according to the opinion of all other men put together?
CRITO: True.
SOCRATES: And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval
of the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no
understanding, will he not suffer evil?
CRITO: Certainly he will.
SOCRATES: And what will the evil be, whither tending and what
affecting, in the disobedient person?
CRITO: Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed by the
evil.
SOCRATES: Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things
which we need not separately enumerate? In questions of just and
unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our
present consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and
to fear them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding?
ought we not to fear and reverence him more than all the rest of the
world: and if we desert him shall we not destroy and injure that
principle in us which may be assumed to be improved by justice and
deteriorated by injustice—there is such a principle?
CRITO: Certainly there is, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Take a parallel instance:—if, acting under the advice of
those who have no understanding, we destroy that which is improved
by health and is deteriorated by disease, would life be worth
having? And that which has been destroyed is—the body?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Could we live, having an evil and corrupted body?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man
be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by
injustice? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it 48 may
be in man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be
inferior to the body?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: More honourable than the body?
CRITO: Far more.
SOCRATES: Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of
us; but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and
unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you
begin in error when you advise that we should regard the opinion of
the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and
dishonourable.—‘Well,’ someone will say, ‘but the many can kill us.’
CRITO: Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer.
SOCRATES: And it is true; but still I find with surprise that the
old argument is unshaken as ever. And I should like to know whether
I may say the same of another proposition—that not life, but a good
life, is to be chiefly valued?
CRITO: Yes, that also remains unshaken.
SOCRATES: And a good life is equivalent to a just and honourable
one—that holds also?
CRITO: Yes, it does.
SOCRATES: From these premises I proceed to argue the question
whether I ought or ought not to try and escape without the consent
of the Athenians: and if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will
make the attempt; but if not, I will abstain. The other
considerations which you mention, of money and loss of character and
the duty of educating one’s children, are, I fear, only the
doctrines of the multitude, who would be as ready to restore people
to life, if they were able, as they are to put them to death—and
with as little reason. But now, since the argument has thus far
prevailed, the only question which remains to be considered is
whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or in suffering
others to aid in our escape and paying them in money and thanks, or
whether in reality we shall not do rightly; and if the latter, then
death or any other calamity which may ensue on my remaining here
must not be allowed to enter into the calculation.
CRITO: I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we
proceed?
SOCRATES: Let us consider the matter together, and do you either
refute me if you can, and I will be convinced; or else cease, my
dear friend, from repeating to me that I ought to escape against the
wishes of the Athenians: for I highly value your attempts to
persuade me to do so, but I may not be persuaded against my own
better judgment. 49 And now please to consider my first
position, and try how you can best answer me.
CRITO: I will.
SOCRATES: Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do
wrong, or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not
to do wrong, or is doing wrong always evil and dishonourable,
as I was just now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by
us? Are all our former admissions which were made within a few days
to be thrown away? And have we, at our age, been earnestly
discoursing with one another all our life long only to discover that
we are no better than children? Or, in spite of the opinion of the
many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, shall we
insist on the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always
an evil and dishonour to him who acts unjustly? Shall we say so or
not?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we must do no wrong?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor, when injured, injure in return, as the many imagine;
for we must injure no one at all? 6
CRITO: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Again, Crito, may we do evil?
CRITO: Surely not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the
morality of the many—is that just or not?
CRITO: Not just.
SOCRATES: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?
CRITO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to
anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would
have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are
saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be
held, by any considerable number of persons; and those who are
agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common
ground, and can only despise one another when they see how widely
they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my
first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off
evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the premise of our
argument? Or do you decline and dissent from this? For so I have
ever thought, and continue to think; but, if you are of another
opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain
of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.
CRITO: You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.
SOCRATES: Then I will go on to the next point, which may be put in
the form of a question:—Ought a man to do what he admits to be
right, or ought he to betray the right?
CRITO: He ought to do what he thinks right.
SOCRATES: But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving
the prison against the will of the Athenians, 50 do I wrong
any? or rather do I not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do
I not desert the principles which were acknowledged by us to be
just—what do you say?
CRITO: I cannot tell, Socrates; for I do not know.
SOCRATES: Then consider the matter in this way:—Imagine that I am
about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which
you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me:
‘Tell us, Socrates,’ they say; ‘what are you about? are you not
going by an act of yours to overturn us—the laws, and the whole
state, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a state can
subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no
power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals?’ What
will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Anyone, and
especially a rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on behalf of
the law which requires a sentence to be carried out. He will argue
that this law should not be set aside; and shall we reply, ‘Yes; but
the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence.’ Suppose I
say that?
CRITO: Very good, Socrates.
SOCRATES: ‘And was that our agreement with you?’ the law would
answer; ‘or were you to abide by the sentence of the state?’ And if
I were to express my astonishment at their words, the law would
probably add: ‘Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes—you
are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us,—What
complaint have you to make against us which justifies you in
attempting to destroy us and the state? In the first place did we
not bring you into existence? Your father married your mother by our
aid and begat you. Say whether you have any objection to urge
against those of us who regulate marriage?’ None, I should reply.
‘Or against those of us who after birth regulate the nurture and
education of children, in which you also were trained? Were not the
laws, which have the charge of education, right in commanding your
father to train you in music and gymnastic?’ Right, I should reply.
‘Well then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and
educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our
child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if this is
true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you
have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. 51 Would
you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to your
father or your master, if you had one, because you have been struck
or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands? You
would not say this. And because we think right to destroy you, do
you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your
country as far as in you lies? Will you, O professor of true virtue,
pretend that you are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you
failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher
and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be
regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? also
to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even
more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not persuaded,
to be obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with
imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence;
and if she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow
as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank,
but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place,
he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must
change their view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to
his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.’
What answer shall we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly,
or do they not?
CRITO: I think that they do.
SOCRATES: Then the laws will say: ‘Consider, Socrates, if we are
speaking truly that in your present attempt you are going to do us
an injury. For, having brought you into the world, and nurtured and
educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every
good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by
the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he
has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our
acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with
him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Anyone
who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a
colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his
property. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order
justice and administer the state, and still remains, has entered
into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he
who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong; first, because in
disobeying us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are
the authors of his education; 52 thirdly, because he has
made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands;
and the neither obeys them nor convinces us that our
commands are unjust; and we do not rudely impose them, but
give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us;—that is what
we offer, and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to
which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you
accomplish your intentions; you, above all other Athenians.’
Suppose now I ask, why I rather than anybody else? they will justly
retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the
agreement. ‘There is clear proof,’ they will say, ‘Socrates, that we
and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have
been the most constant resident in the city, which, as you never
leave, you may be supposed to love. 7 For you never went out of the
city either to see the games, except once when you went to the
Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military
service; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any
curiosity to know other states or their laws: your affections did
not go beyond us and our state; we were your especial favourites,
and you acquiesced in our government of you; and here in this city
you begat your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction.
Moreover, you might in the course of the trial, if you had liked,
have fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let
you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you
preferred death to exile, 8 and that you were not unwilling to die.
And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect
to us the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what
only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back
upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And
first of all answer this very question: Are we right in saying that
you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word
only? Is that true or not?’ How shall we answer, Crito? Must we not
assent?
CRITO: We cannot help it, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then will they not say: ‘You, Socrates, are breaking the
covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not
in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but after you
have had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were
at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our
covenants appeared to you to be unfair. 53 You had your
choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, both
which states are often praised by you for their good government, or
to some other Hellenic or foreign state. Whereas you, above all
other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the state, or, in other
words, of us, her laws (and who would care about a state which has
no laws?), that you never stirred out of her; the halt, the blind,
the maimed were not more stationary in her than you were. And now
you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you
will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping
out of the city.
‘For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way,
what good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? That
your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship,
or will lose their property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself,
if you fly to one of the neighbouring cities, as, for example,
Thebes or Megara, both of which are well governed, will come to them
as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and
all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter
of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the
justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter
of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and
foolish portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered
cities and virtuous men? and is existence worth having on these
terms? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them,
Socrates? And what will you say to them? What you say here about
virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things
among men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. But if you go
away from well-governed states to Crito’s friends in Thessaly, where
there is great disorder and licence, they will be charmed to hear
the tale of your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous
particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or
some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the manner is of runaways;
but will there be no one to remind you that in your old age you were
not ashamed to violate the most sacred laws from a miserable desire
of a little more life? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good
temper; but if they are out of temper you will hear many degrading
things; you will live, but how?—as the flatterer of all men, and the
servant of all men; and doing what?—eating and drinking in Thessaly,
having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. 54
And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and virtue? Say
that you wish to live for the sake of your children—you want to
bring them up and educate them—will you take them into Thessaly and
deprive them of Athenian citizenship? Is this the benefit which you
will confer upon them? Or are you under the impression that they
will be better cared for and educated here if you are still alive,
although absent from them; for your friends will take care of them?
Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will
take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world
that they will not take care of them? Nay; but if they who call
themselves friends are good for anything, they will—to be sure they
will.
‘Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of
life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice
first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world
below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or
holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as
Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer
of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth,
returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the
covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging
those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say,
yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with
you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below,
will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done
your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.’
This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my
ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that
voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing
any other. And I know that anything more which you may say will be
vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
CRITO: I have nothing to say, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Leave me then, Crito, to fulfil the will of God, and to
follow whither he leads.
1. See Phaedrus
2. See Prose Works
3. Homer, Iliad, IX
4. Cp. Apology
5. Cp. Apology
6. Cp. Republic
7. Cp. Phaedrus
8. Cp. Apology
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