The Real “Good”
Flex. This, therefore, is not yet known to thee, what it is to be good, and yet you talk about what being “better” means. How hast thou reached to the comparative, when as yet thou hast not learned the positive? But how dost thou know that thy forefathers were good? By what mark canst thou make that clear?
Grym. What! do you deny that they were good?
Flex. I did not know them! How can I then assert anything of their goodness either way? By what method of reasoning canst thou prove that they were good?
Grym. Because every one says so of them; but why, I beg, do you ask me all these vexatious questions?
Flex. These questions are not vexatious, but necessary, so that thou canst understand what thou art inquiring from me.
Grym. Confine your answer, I beg, to a few words.
Flex. Many words are necessary to explain that of which you have so crass an ignorance. But since you are so fastidious, I will speak more briefly than the matter, in itself so great, demands to have said of it. Look at me whilst I expound it. Who are the people who are to be called learned? Are they not those who have learning? or are they the rich? or those who have money?
Grym. Undoubtedly, those who have learning.
Flex. Who, then, are the good? Are they not those who have what is good?
Grym. Clearly so.
Flex. Let us dismiss now the idea of riches, for they are not in themselves really good. If they were, then many people would be found to be better than your father. Merchants and usurers would then surpass honest and wise men in goodness.
Grym. Thus it seems, as you say.