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restraint them ; atod should b © capable-, by his courage and talents , of ministering to his desires , and satisfying them , however great they may be , Btat of this thb many are incapable ; and therefore do they censure such conflict , to hide their own impotence ; and pretend that self-indulgence is a vM thing s and because they are not capable of ministering to their
own appetites , they praise temperance and justice from mere unmanliYiess . For : in reality , to those who are bom to a throne , or who arc capable , by their natural endowments , of raising themselves to despotic power , what can be more ignoble or more contemptible than self-con * troul ? Should those who have the means of enjoying every pleasure without hinderance from anybody , erect the law of the many , and their braise and blame , into a master over themselves ? They would be well
off in' good truth , by your nobleness , and your justice , and your selfrestraint , if they were prevented by it from giving any preference to their friends over their enemies , although possessing absolute power in the state . The truth ( which you say is your object ) is , that luxury and self-indulgence , if our means be adequate , are real virtue and happiness : and all other virtue and happiness are mere pretence , and human devices , and conventions contrary to nature / 4
You keep your promise / replied Socrates , * to be frank with me ; for you plainly speak out , what other people think , but do not like to say * I beg you not to relax , until it is clearly established , according to what rale we ought to live . You say that we ought not to restrain our desires , but allowing them to be as violent as possible , we should provide the means of their gratification ; and that this is virtue . * C . ' I do . ' S . * The common saying then , that those are happy who want nothing ,
is incorrect ** C . * Stones , and the dead , would by this account be the happiest . ' S . 4 But even on your theory , life is a troublesome thing . Some poet of old compared the soul to a pitcher , and that of a fool to a pitcher which leaks at the bottom , and is unable to hold anything : implying that a continent and contented life is preferable to an insatiable and self-indulgent one . But I suppose you are not very likely to be convinced by an old song . ' C * Your last observation has more truth in 4
it . * S . I will give you another illustration from the same source . Let us typify the life of the temperate and that of the self-indulgent , by the image of two persons , each of whom has a large number of pitchers . The one has them all sound , and filled with honey , and wine , and milk , and many other things : the streams which supply these different liquids being scanty , and the supply being obtainable only by prodigious labour . The one , having filled his pitchers , has no more trouble , nor any occasion
to turn tfny further streams into his cellar . The other has it in his power , like the first , to obtain the supply , though with great difficulty ; out his vessels are leaky and unsound , and he is obliged to employ night and day in 'filling them , or suffer the most dreadful torture . Such being the lives of the temperate and the intemperate man , do I convince you thdt the former is more eligible than the latte * V C . You do not
con-Vitfoenve : Fo * the first uian , when he has filled his pitchers , has no lontor any t > Jeasute but lives ,. as I said before , like a stone , inanimate , \ tribtt nftftheV pleasure nor P * in - Pleasure oonsiata in having as great a stream aft poifcible always pouring in . & ' Then if much is poured in , much must run out , and the leaks must be very large V C . Certainly .
Untitled Article
808 Pfato ' i Dialogues ; the Gorgias .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1834, page 808, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2639/page/62/
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