Memorabilia

How do they beget children badly then, if, as may well happen, the fathers are good men and the mothers good women?Surely because it is not enough that the two parents should be good. They must also be in full bodily vigour: unless you suppose that those who are in full vigour are no more efficient as parents than those who have not yet reached that condition or have passed it.Of course that is unlikely.Which are the better then?Those who are in full vigour, clearly.Consequently those who are not in full vigour are not competent to become parents?It is improbable, of course.In that case then, they ought not to have children?Certainly not.Therefore those who produce children in such circumstances produce them wrongly?I think so.Who then will be bad fathers and mothers, if not they?I agree with you there too.

Again, is not the duty of requiting benefits universally recognised by law?Yes, but this law too is broken.Then does not a man pay forfeit for the breach of that law too, in the gradual loss of good friends and the necessity of hunting those who hate him? Or is it not true that, whereas those who benefit an acquaintance are good friends to him, he is hated by them for his ingratitude, if he makes no return, and then, because it is most profitable to enjoy the acquaintance of such men, he hunts them most assiduously?Assuredly, Socrates, all this does suggest the work of the gods. For laws that involve in themselves punishment meet for those who break them, must, I think, be framed by a better legislator than man.

Then, Hippias, do you think that the gods ordain what is just or what is otherwise?Not what is otherwise — of course not; for if a god ordains not that which is just, surely no other legislator can do so.Consequently, Hippias, the gods too accept the identification of just and lawful.By such words and actions he encouraged Justice in those who resorted to his company.

He did also try to make his companions efficient in affairs, as I will now show. For holding that it is good for anyone who means to do honourable work to have self-control, he made it clear to his companions, in the first place, that he had been assiduous in self-discipline;[*](Cyropaedia VIII. i. 32.) moreover, in his conversation he exhorted his companions to cultivate self-control above all things.

Thus he bore in mind continually the aids to virtue, and put all his companions in mind of them. I recall in particular the substance of a conversation that he once had with Euthydemus on self-control.Tell me, Euthydemus, he said, do you think that freedom is a noble and splendid possession both for individuals and for communities?Yes, I think it is, in the highest degree.

Then do you think that the man is free who is ruled by bodily pleasures and is unable to do what is best because of them?By no means.Possibly, in fact, to do what is best appears to you to be freedom, and so you think that to have masters who will prevent such activity is bondage?I am sure of it.

You feel sure then that the incontinent are bond slaves?Of course, naturally.And do you think that the incontinent are merely prevented from doing what is most honourable, or are also forced to do what is most dishonourable?I think that they are forced to do that just as much as they are prevented from doing the other.

What sort of masters are they, in your opinion, who prevent the best and enforce the worst?The worst possible, of course.And what sort of slavery do you believe to be the worst?Slavery to the worst masters, I think.The worst slavery, therefore, is the slavery endured by the incontinent?I think so.

As for Wisdom, the greatest blessing, does not incontinence exclude it and drive men to the opposite? Or don’t you think that incontinence prevents them from attending to useful things and understanding them, by drawing them away to things pleasant, and often so stuns their perception of good and evil that they choose the worse instead of the better?That does happen.

With Prudence, Euthydemus, who, shall we say, has less to do than the incontinent? For I presume that the actions prompted by prudence and incontinence are exact opposites?I agree with that too.To caring for what is right is there any stronger hindrance, do you think, than incontinence?Indeed I do not.And do you think there can be aught worse for a man than that which causes him to choose the harmful rather than the useful, and persuades him to care for the one and to be careless of the other, and forces him to do the opposite of what prudence dictates?Nothing.