Memorabilia

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.

And is it not likely that self-control causes actions the opposite of those that are due to incontinence?Certainly.Then is not the cause of the opposite actions presumably a very great blessing?Yes, presumably.Consequently we may presume, Euthydemus, that self-control is a very great blessing to a man?We may presume so, Socrates.

Has it ever occurred to you, Euthydemus — ?What?That though pleasure is the one and only goal to which incontinence is thought to lead men, she herself cannot bring them to it, whereas nothing produces pleasure so surely as self-control?How so?Incontinence will not let them endure hunger or thirst or desire or lack of sleep, which are the sole causes of pleasure in eating and drinking and sexual indulgence, and in resting and sleeping, after a time of waiting and resistance until the moment comes when these will give the greatest possible satisfaction; and thus she prevents them from experiencing any pleasure worthy to be mentioned in the most elementary and recurrent forms of enjoyment. But self-control alone causes them to endure the sufferings I have named, and therefore she alone causes them to experience any pleasure worth mentioning in such enjoyments.What you say is entirely true.

Moreover, the delights of learning something good and excellent, and of studying some of the means whereby a man knows how to regulate his body well and manage his household successfully, to be useful to his friends and city and to defeat his enemies — knowledge that yields not only very great benefits but very great pleasures — these are the delights of the self-controlled; but the incontinent have no part in them. For who, should we say, has less concern with these than he who has no power of cultivating them because all his serious purposes are centred in the pleasures that lie nearest?

Socrates, said Euthydemus, I think you mean that he who is at the mercy of the bodily pleasures has no concern whatever with virtue in any form.Yes, Euthydemus; for how can an incontinent man be any better than the dullest beast? How can he who fails to consider the things that matter most, and strives by every means to do the things that are most pleasant, be better than the stupidest of creatures? No, only the self-controlled have power to consider the things that matter most, and, sorting them out after their kind, by word and deed alike to prefer the good and reject the evil.

And thus, he said, men become supremely good and happy and skilled in discussion. The very word discussion, according to him, owes its name to the practice of meeting together for common deliberation,[*](The etymological point, διαλέγω, classify, implying διαλέγομαι, discuss, is lost in the English.) sorting, discussing things after their kind: and therefore one should be ready and prepared for this and be zealous for it; for it makes for excellence, leadership and skill in discussion.