In the same manner, likewise, he encouraged his hearers by the following
arguments to support hunger and thirst, to resist the temptations of
love, to fly from laziness, and inure themselves to all manner of
fatigues. For, being told that one of them lived too luxuriously, he
asked him this question: "If you were entrusted, Aristippus, with the
education of two young men, one to be a prince and the other a private
man, how would you educate them? Let us begin with their nourishment, as
being the foundation of all." "It is true," said Aristippus, "that
nourishment is the foundation of our life, for a man must soon die if he
be not nourished." "You would accustom both of them," said Socrates, "to
eat and drink at a certain hour?" "It is likely I should?" "But which
of the two," said Socrates, "would you teach to leave eating before he
was satisfied, to go about some earnest business?" "Him, without doubt,"
answered Aristippus, "whom I intended to render capable to govern, to the
end that under him the affairs of the Republic might not suffer by
delay." "Which of the two," continued Socrates, "would you teach to
abstain from drinking when he was thirsty, to sleep but little, to go
late to bed, to rise early, to watch whole nights, to live chastely, to
get the better of his favourite inclinations, and not to avoid fatigues,
but expose himself freely to them?" "The same still," replied
Aristippus. "And if there be any art that teaches to overcome our
enemies, to which of the two is it rather reasonable to teach it?" "To
him to," said Aristippus, "for without that art all the rest would avail
him nothing." "I believe," said Socrates, "that a man, who has been
educated in this manner, would not suffer himself to be so easily
surprised by his enemies as the most part of animals do. For some perish
by their gluttony, as those whom we allure with a bait, or catch by
offering them to drink, and who fall into the snares, notwithstanding
their fears and distrust. Others perish through their lasciviousness, as