ue where there has not
been vice?

CRITIAS: I think that we have.

SOCRATES: But then it would seem that the antecedents without which a
thing cannot exist are not necessarily useful to it. Otherwise ignorance
would appear useful for knowledge, disease for health, and vice for
virtue.

Critias still showed great reluctance to accept any argument which
went to prove that all these things were useless. I saw that it was as
difficult to persuade him as (according to the proverb) it is to boil
a stone, so I said: Let us bid 'good-bye' to the discussion, since we
cannot agree whether these things are useful and a part of wealth or
not. But what shall we say to another question: Which is the happier and
better man,--he who requires the greatest quantity of necessaries for
body and diet, or he who requires only the fewest and least? The answer
will perhaps become more obvious if we suppose some one, comparing the
man himself at different times, to consider whether his condition is
better when he is sick or when he is well?

CRITIAS: That is not a question which needs much consideration.

SOCRATES: Probably, I said, every one can understand that health is a
better condition than disease. But when have we the greatest and the
most various needs, when we are sick or when we are well?

CRITIAS: When we are sick.

SOCRATES: And when we are in the worst state we have the greatest and
most especial need and desire of bodily pleasures?

CRITIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And seeing that a man is best off when he is least in need of
such things, does not the same reasoning apply to the case of any two
persons, of whom one has many and great wants and desires, and the other
few and moderate? For instance, some men are gamblers, some drunkards,
and some gluttons: and gambling and the love of drink and greediness are
all desires?

CRITIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: But desires are only the lack of something: and those who have
the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none
or very slight ones?

CRITIAS: Certainly I consider that those who have such wants are bad,
and that the greater their wants the worse they are.

SOCRATES: And do we think it possible that a thing should be useful for
a purpose unless we have need of it for that purpose?

CRITIAS: No.

SOCRATES: Then if these things are useful for supplying the needs of the
body, we must want them for that purpose?

CRITIAS: That is my opinion.

SOCRAT