And so 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, the change in him is visible enough.
After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time
on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones;
but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits,
when years have elapsed, and the heyday of passion is over--
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 which comes first and wins the turn;
and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another;
he despises none of them but encourages them all equally.
Very true, he said.
Neither does he receive or let pass 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 honour some and chastise and master
the others--whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head
and says that they are all alike, and that one is as good as another.
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