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Section 68

"Is this not sufficient proof for you," Socrates said, "that if you see a man aggrieved when he is about to die, he was not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body? And this same man is probably also a lover of money, or a lover of honor, or both." "It is exactly as you say," he replied. "Now, Simmias," he said, "does not the virtue called courage belong especially to men of this philosophic disposition?" "Absolutely," he said. "And moderation—what the multitude calls moderation, the ability not to be swept away by desires, but to treat them lightly and properly—does this not belong only to those who most despise the body and live in philosophy?" "Necessarily," he said. "If you care to consider the courage and moderation of all other men, you will find it absurd." "How so, Socrates?" "You know that everyone else considers death one of the great evils?" "Indeed they do," he said. "Then when the brave among them endure death, they endure it out of fear of greater evils." "True." "Therefore, everyone except philosophers is brave through fear and dread. But it is surely absurd for a man to be brave through fear and cowardice." "Certainly." "What about their moderate men? Do they not suffer the same thing? Are they not moderate through a kind of self-indulgence? Though we say this is impossible, their foolish moderation still suffers from exactly this condition. Because they fear being deprived of certain pleasures, and desire them strongly, they abstain from some pleasures because they are mastered by others. They call being ruled by pleasures self-indulgence; yet they conquer certain pleasures only by being conquered by others. This is just what was said right now: they are somehow made moderate by self-indulgence." "So it seems." "My blessed Simmias, this may not be the correct exchange for virtue: exchanging pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, fears for fears, greater for smaller, like coins. But there is only one valid coin for which all these things must be exchanged: wisdom. And all things bought and sold for this, and with this, are in truth courage, moderation, justice, and in short, true virtue—whether pleasures and fears and all such things are added to or taken away from it. But if these are separated from wisdom and exchanged for one another, such virtue is a shadow-painting, truly slave-like, with nothing sound or true in it. But the truth is in reality a purification from all such things, and moderation, justice, courage, and wisdom itself are a kind of purification ritual. And perhaps those who established the mysteries for us were not insignificant men, but were long ago speaking in riddles when they said that whoever arrives in Hades uninitiated and unpurified will lie in mud, but the one who arrives purified and initiated will dwell with the gods."