l. For many who live
frugally before they fall in love become prodigal when that passion gets
the mastery over them; insomuch that after having wasted their estates,
they are reduced to gain their bread by methods they would have been
ashamed of before. What hinders then, but that a man, who has been once
temperate, should be so no longer, and that he who has led a good life at
one time should not do so at another? I should think, therefore, that
the being of all virtues, and chiefly of temperance, depends on the
practice of them: for lust, that dwells in the same body with the soul,
incites it continually to despise this virtue, and to find out the
shortest way to gratify the senses only.

Thus, whilst Alcibiades and Critias conversed with Socrates, they were
able, with so great an assistance, to tame their inclinations; but after
they had left him, Critias, being retired into Thessaly, ruined himself
entirely in the company of some libertines; and Alcibiades, seeing
himself courted by several women of quality, because of his beauty, and
suffering himself to be corrupted by soothing flatterers, who made their
court to him, in consideration of the credit he had in the city and with
the allies; in a word, finding himself respected by all the Athenians,
and that no man disputed the first rank with him, began to neglect
himself, and acted like a great wrestler, who takes not the trouble to
exercise himself, when he no longer finds an adversary who dares to
contend with him.

If we would examine, therefore, all that has happened to them; if we
consider how much the greatness of their birth, their interest, and their
riches, had puffed up their minds; if we reflect on the ill company they
fell into, and the many opportunities they had of debauching themselves,
can we be surprised that, after they had been so long absent from
Socrates, they arrived at length to that height of insolence to which
they have been seen to arise? If they have been guilty of crimes, the
accuser will load Socrates with them, and not allow him to be worthy of
praise, for having kept them within the bounds of their duty during their
youth, when, in all appearance, they would have been the most disorderly
and least governable. This, however, is not the way we judge of other
things; for whoever pretended that a musician, a player on the lute, or
any other person that teaches, after he has made a good scholar, ought to
be blamed for his growing more