o being.

Very good, he said.

Is not this the way--he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical
father who has trained him in his own habits?

Exactly.

And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are
of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are
called unnecessary?

Obviously.

Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the
necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures?

I should.

Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of
which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly so,
because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and
what is necessary, and cannot help it.

True.

We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary?

We are not.

And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his
youth upwards--of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in
some cases the reverse of good--shall we not be right in saying that
all these are unnecessary?

Yes, certainly.

Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have
a general notion of them?

Very good.

Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments,
in so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the
necessary class?

That is what I should suppose.

The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it
is essential to the continuance of life?

Yes.

But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for
health?

Certainly.

And the desire which goes beyond this, or more delicate food, or other
luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and
trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul
in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary?

Very true.

May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money
because they conduce to production?

Certainly.

And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds
good?

True.

And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures
and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires,
whereas he who was subject o the necessary only was miserly and
oligarchical?

Very true.

Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the
oligarchical: the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process.

What is the p