irited element also.

Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour,
when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company
of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which
wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest
degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and
they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is
best for each one is also most natural to him?

Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural.

And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there
is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their
own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which
they are capable?

Exactly.

But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in
attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a
pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own?

True.

And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and
reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure?

Yes.

And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance
from law and order?

Clearly.

And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest
distance? Yes.

And the royal and orderly desires are nearest?

Yes.

Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural
pleasure, and the king at the least?

Certainly.

But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most
pleasantly?

Inevitably.

Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them?

Will you tell me?

There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious: now
the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious; he
has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode
with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure
of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure.

How do you mean?

I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the
oligarch; the democrat was in the middle?

Yes.

And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an
image of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure
of the oligarch?

He will.

And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count as one royal
and aristocratical?

Yes, he is third.

The