Conversations of Socrates by Xenophon

Author:Xenophon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary Collections, Essays, Philosophy, History & Surveys, Ancient & Classical, Literary Criticism
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2004-02-05T05:31:15+00:00

5

I shall now tell how he made his associates more efficient. Believing that self-discipline was a good thing for anyone to have who intended to achieve a creditable result, in the first place he let his companions see clearly that he himself kept the strictest training that anyone could; and in the second place, in his conversation he used to urge his companions on to self-discipline above all. He was constantly mindful himself, and was always reminding his companions, of the things that are conducive to moral goodness; and I know that he once had a discussion about self-discipline with Euthydemus to the following effect.

‘Tell me, Euthydemus,’ he said, ‘do you think that liberty is a fine and splendid possession both for an individual and for a State?’

‘Yes, beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt.’

‘If a man is governed by the pleasures of the body and because of them cannot act as is best, do you think that he is a free man?’

‘Far from it.’

‘Presumably you say that because you think it is the mark of a free man to act in the best way; and consequently to have masters who prevent you from so acting is slavish.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘So it seems to you that those who have no self-discipline are absolutely slavish.’

‘It does indeed, naturally.’

‘Do you think that these people are merely prevented from acting in the best way, or that they are actually forced to do the most disgraceful things?’

‘In my opinion, they arejust as much compelled to do the one as they are prevented from doing the other.’

‘And what sort of masters do you think those are who prevent the best actions and compel the worst?’

‘Surely the worst possible.’

‘And what do you consider to be the worst form of slavery?’

‘I think it is slavery under the worst masters.’

‘So self-indulgent people endure the worst form of slavery?’

‘That is my opinion.’

‘Don’t you think that self-indulgence debars people from wisdom, which is the greatest good, and drives them into the opposite state? Don’t you think that, by dragging them off in pursuit of pleasure, it prevents them from studying and apprehending their real interests; and that it often confuses their perception of good and bad and makes them choose the worse instead of the better?’

‘That does happen.’

‘And who, Euthydemus, can we say has less concern with self-discipline than the self-indulgent man? For surely the effects of self-discipline and self-indulgence are directly opposed.’

‘I admit that too.’

‘Do you think that anything is more likely to hinder one from devoting oneself to the proper objects than self-indulgence?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Do you think there is anything worse for a man than that which makes him choose what is bad for him instead of what is good, and persuades him to cultivate the former and disregard the latter, and compels him to behave in the opposite way to that which is adopted by disciplined people?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘Isn’t it likely that self-discipline brings results for those who practise it, which are opposite to those of self-indulgence?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Isn’t it also likely that the cause of these opposite results is supremely good?’

‘Yes, it is.

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