[331c]
said I. “But speaking of this very thing, justice, are we to
affirm thus without qualification1 that it is truth-telling
and paying back what one has received from anyone, or may these very actions
sometimes be just and sometimes unjust? I mean, for example, as everyone I
presume would admit, if one took over weapons from a friend who was in his
right mind and then the lender should go mad and demand them back, that we
ought not to return them in that case and that he who did so return them
would not be acting justly—nor yet would he who chose to speak
nothing but the truth
1 It is Platonic Doctrine that no act is per se good or bad. Plat. Sym. 181a. This opens the door to casuistry, Xen. Mem. 4.2.12, Cic. De offic. 3.25. For the argument cf. Xen. Mem. 4.2.18, Cic. De offic. 3.25. For the proverb, “a knife to a child” or a madman cf. Athen. 5.52, Iambl. Protrep. 18k, Jebb's Bentley , p. 69, where Jebb misses Bentley's allusion to it.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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