Or can you imagine a wish which wishes for no good, Well then, this science of which we are speaking is a sci-but only for itself and all other wishes?
ence of something, and is of a nature to be a science of I should answer, No.
something?
Or would you say that there is a love which is not the Yes.
love of beauty, but of itself and of other loves?
Just as that which is greater is of a nature to be greater I should not.
than something else? (Socrates is intending to show that Or did you ever know of a fear which fears itself or other science differs from the object of science, as any other rela-20
“Charmides” – Plato
tive differs from the object of relation. But where there is that which is heavier will also be lighter, and that which is comparison—greater, less, heavier, lighter, and the like—a older will also be younger: and the same of other things; relation to self as well as to other things involves an abso-that which has a nature relative to self will retain also the lute contradiction; and in other cases, as in the case of the nature of its object: I mean to say, for example, that hear-senses, is hardly conceivable. The use of the genitive after ing is, as we say, of sound or voice. Is that true?
the comparative in Greek, creates an unavoidable obscu-Yes.
rity in the translation.)
Then if hearing hears itself, it must hear a voice; for there Yes.
is no other way of hearing.
Which is less, if the other is conceived to be greater?
Certainly.