And, like his father, he keeps under the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called by us unnecessary. The argument will be clearer if we here distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures. I should like to do that. Necessary pleasures are those of which we cannot get rid, and which benefit us when they are satisfied; both kinds are rightly called necessary, because our nature is necessarily attracted to them. True. And therefore we are not wrong in calling them necessary ? We are not. 559 Again, as to the desires which a man may get rid of, if he makes that his object when young, the presence of which, 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, as 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, first as beneficial, and also as needed for the support of life? Yes. But the condiments are only necessary as being good for health? Certainly. And the desire which goes beyond this of viands of a less simple kind, 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 right. May we not say that these spend and the other desires make money, because they are of use with a view to production? Certainly. And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good? True. And the drone of which we were speaking meant him who was surfeited in pleasures and desires of this sort, and was governed by the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was governed by the necessary was miserly and oligarchical? Very true, he said. Again, I said, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the oligarchical: the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process. What? When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has come to associate with fierce and cunning natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure, then, as you may imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the democratical. That, he said, is the inevitable result. And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so the young man also changes by a class of desires from without assisting a class of those within, that which is akin and alike again helping that which is akin and alike. Certainly. And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical side, whether the influence of friends or kindred, advising or 560 rebuking him, then there arises a faction and an opposite faction, and the result is a civil war. Certainly. And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished; a spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul and order is restored. Yes, he said, that sometimes happens. And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out fresh ones spring up, which are like them; they have never known a parent's discipline, and this makes them fierce and Yes, he said, that often occurs. numerous. They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with him, breed and muster in him? 15 Very true. At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they perceive to be void of all fair accomplishments and pursuits and of every true word, which are the best guardians and sentinels in the minds of men dear to the gods. None better. False and boastful words and conceits grow up instead of them, and take the same position in him? Yes, he said; indeed they do. And so the young man returns into the country of the lotuseaters, 16 and takes up his abode there in the face of all men, and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the vain conceits shut the gate of the king's fastness; they will not allow the new ally to pass. And if ambassadors, venerable for their age, come and parley, they refuse to listen to them; there is a battle and they win: then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them. They affirm temperance to be unmanliness, and her also they contemptuously eject; and they pretend that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness; and, with a company of vain appetites at their heels, they drive them beyond the border. Yes, with right good will. And when they have made a sweep of the soul of him who is now in their power, and is being initiated by them in great mysteries, 17 the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array, having garlands on their heads, with a great company, while they hymn their praises and call them by sweet names; inso 15" When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. "-Luke xi. 24-26. 16 According to Homeric legend, Odysseus in his wanderings came to a land whose people ate only the fruit and blossom of a plant called the lotus. Those who tasted this food wished to remain there forever and lost all desire for home. "Whoever tasted once of that sweet food Wished not to see his native country more, Upon the lotus, never to return." See Tennyson's "Lotus Eaters." -BRYANT'S HOMER. lence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and 561 waste magnificence, and impudence courage. In this way the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. Yes, he said, that is obviously the way. When the change has been made he lives on, spending his money and labor and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much intoxicated with passion, when he gets older, after the tumult of freedom has mostly passed away-supposing that he then re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself up to their successors in that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one that offers and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another, and is very impartial in his encouragement of them all. Very true, he said. Neither does he receive or admit into the fortress any true word of advice; if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honor some and curtail and reduce others whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as honorable as another. Why, yes, he said; that is the sort of man, and that is his way of behaving. Yes, I said, he lives through the day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he is for total abstinence, and tries to get thin; then, again, he is at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is at politics, and starts to his feet and says and does anything that may turn up; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or 17 In allusion to the religious mysteries. See Symposium, note 32. of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither order nor law; and this is the way of him-this he terms joy and freedom and happiness. Yes, he said, there is liberty, equality, and fraternity enough in him. Yes, I said; he may be described as "A man so various that he seems to be He is, like the State, a rare being, and has many forms. And many a man and many a woman will emulate him, and many a constitution and many an example of life is contained in him. That is true. Let him then be set over against democracy; he may 562 truly be called the democratic man. Let that be his place, he said. And now comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have to consider. Quite true, he said. Say then, my friend, how does tyranny arise-out of democracy of course ? Clearly. And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same way as democracy from oligarchy-I mean, after a sort ? How is that? The good which oligarchy proposed was excess of wealth; in this oligarchy originated. Am I not right ? Yes. And the insatiable desire of wealth, and the neglect of all other things for the sake of money-getting, was also the ruin of oligarchy? True. And democracy has a notion of good, the insatiable desire of which also brought her to an end? What notion of good? Freedom, I replied; that, as people often say, is best in a democracy--and, therefore, in a democracy only will the freedom of nature deign to dwell. Why, said he, that is very often said. And, I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of |