And yet
being ruled by pleasures
is called self-indulgence. Nevertheless they conquer
pleasures because they are conquered by other pleasures. Now this is about what
I said just now, that they are self-restrained by a kind of
self-indulgence.So it
seems.My dear Simmias, I
suspect that this is not the right way to purchase virtue, by exchanging
pleasures for pleasures, and pains for pains, and fear for fear, and greater for
less, as if they were coins, but the only right coinage, for which all those
things
must be exchanged and by means of and
with which all these things are to be bought and sold, is in fact wisdom; and
courage and self-restraint and justice and, in short, true virtue exist only
with wisdom, whether pleasures and fears and other things of that sort are added
or taken away. And virtue which consists in the exchange of such things for each
other without wisdom, is but a painted imitation of virtue and is really slavish
and has nothing healthy or true in it; but truth is in fact a purification
from all these things, and self-restraint
and justice and courage and wisdom itself are a kind of purification. And I
fancy that those men who established the mysteries were not unenlightened, but
in reality had a hidden meaning when they said long ago that whoever goes
uninitiated and unsanctified to the other world will lie in the mire, but he who
arrives there initiated and purified will dwell with the gods. For as they say
in the mysteries, the thyrsus-bearers are many, but the mystics few;
and these mystics are, I believe, those
who have been true philosophers. And I in my life have, so far as I could, left
nothing undone, and have striven in every way to make myself one of them. But
whether I have striven aright and have met with success, I believe I shall know
clearly, when I have arrived there, very soon, if it is God’s will. This then,
Simmias and Cebes, is the defence I offer to show that it is reasonable for me
not to be grieved or troubled at leaving you and the rulers I have here,
because I believe that there, no less
than here, I shall find good rulers and friends. If now I am more successful in
convincing you by my defence than I was in convincing my Athenian judges, it is
well.