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[507a] And the orderly one is temperate? Most necessarily. So the temperate soul is good. For my part, I can find nothing to say in objection to this, my dear Callicles; but if you can, do instruct me.

Callicles
Proceed, good sir.

Socrates
I say, then, that if the temperate soul is good, one that is in the opposite state to this sensible1 one is bad; and that was the senseless and dissolute one. Certainly. And further, the sensible man will do what is fitting as regards both gods and men; for he could not be sensible if he did what was unfitting. That must needs be so. And again, when he does what is fitting


1 The argument here makes use of a more literal meaning of σώφρων—“sound-minded” (verging on “conscientious,” as in what immediately follows).

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.

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