sion, desire; under which last is comprehended avarice as well as
sensual appetite, while passion includes ambition, party-feeling, love
of reputation. Reason, again, is solely directed to the attainment of
truth, and careless of money and reputation. In accordance with the
difference of men's natures, one of these three principles is in the
ascendant, and they have their several pleasures corresponding to them.
Interrogate now the three natures, and each one will be found praising
his own pleasures and depreciating those of others. The money-maker will
contrast the vanity of knowledge with the solid advantages of wealth.
The ambitious man will despise knowledge which brings no honour; whereas
the philosopher will regard only the fruition of truth, and will call
other pleasures necessary rather than good. Now, how shall we decide
between them? Is there any better criterion than experience and
knowledge? And which of the three has the truest knowledge and the
widest experience? The experience of youth makes the philosopher
acquainted with the two kinds of desire, but the avaricious and the
ambitious man never taste the pleasures of truth and wisdom. Honour he
has equally with them; they are 'judged of him,' but he is 'not judged
of them,' for they never attain to the knowledge of true being. And his
instrument is reason, whereas their standard is only wealth and honour;
and if by reason we are to judge, his good will be the truest. And so we
arrive at the result that the pleasure of the rational part of the soul,
and a life passed in such pleasure is the pleasantest. He who has a
right to judge judges thus. Next comes the life of ambition, and, in the
third place, that of money-making.

Twice has the just man overthrown the unjust--once more, as in an
Olympian contest, first offering up a prayer to the saviour Zeus, let
him try a fall. A wise man whispers to me that the pleasures of the wise
are true and pure; all others are a shadow only. Let us examine this:
Is not pleasure opposed to pain, and is there not a mean state which
is neither? When a man is sick, nothing is more pleasant to him than
health. But this he never found out while he was well. In pain he
desires only to cease from pain; on the other hand, when he is in an
ecstasy of pleasure, rest is painful to him. Thus rest or cessation
is both pleasure and pain. But can that which is neither become both?
Again, pleasure and pain are motions, and the absence of th