Order in house, ship and body
SocratesLet us see, then, examining it calmly in this way, whether any of them has been such a man. Come now: the good man, the one who speaks with a view to what is best—isn’t it that whatever he says he will say not at random, but looking to something? Just as all the other craftsmen too, each with a view to his own work, do not choose at random what they apply, but apply it so that the thing each is working on may take on some form. For instance, if you want to look at painters, builders, shipwrights, all the other craftsmen—whichever of them you want—see how each of them puts each thing he puts into a certain arrangement, and compels one part to fit and suit the other, until the whole is composed as a thing arranged and ordered; and indeed both the other craftsmen and those we were speaking of just now, the ones concerned with the body, trainers and doctors, order the body, I suppose, and arrange it. Do we agree that this is so, or don’t we?
CalliclesLet it be so.
SocratesSo a house that has arrangement and order would be good, and one in disarray bad?
CalliclesI do say so.
SocratesThen a ship likewise?
CalliclesYes.
SocratesAnd surely we say the same of our bodies too?
CalliclesCertainly.
SocratesAnd what of the soul? Will it be good if it has disarray, or if it has arrangement and a certain order?
CalliclesGiven what went before, one must agree to this too.
SocratesThen what is the name for what comes to be in the body from arrangement and order?
CalliclesYou mean health and strength, perhaps.