f a temperate man is
not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether
things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure when he
ought; and therefore, Callicles, the temperate man, being, as we have
described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other than a
perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than well and
perfectly whatever he does; and he who does well must of necessity be
happy and blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable: now
this latter is he whom you were applauding--the intemperate who is
the opposite of the temperate. Such is my position, and these things I
affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that he
who desires to be happy must pursue and practise temperance and run
away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him: he had better
order his life so as not to need punishment; but if either he or any
of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of
punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if
he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought
to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both
of himself and of the state, acting so that he may have temperance and
justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be
unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire satisfy them leading a
robber's life. Such a one is the friend neither of God nor man, for he
is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is
also incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that
communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice bind
together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is
therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend.
But although you are a philosopher you seem to me never to have observed
that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men; you think
that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care about
geometry.--Well, then, either the principle that the happy are made
happy by the possession of justice and temperance, and the miserable
miserable by the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is
granted, what will be the consequences? All the consequences which I
drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was in
earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and
h