And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both? Quite so, he replied. And is not courage, Simmias, a quality which is specially characteristic of the philosopher? Certainly. [Sidenote: He alone possesses the true secret of virtue, which in ordinary men is merely based on a calculation of lesser and greater evils.] There is temperance again, which even by the vulgar is supposed to consist in the control and regulation of the passions, and in the sense of superiority to them—is not temperance a virtue belonging to those only who despise the body, and who pass their lives in philosophy? Most assuredly. For the courage and temperance of other men, if you will consider them, are really a contradiction. [Sidenote: _The exchange of virtue._] How so? Well, he said, you are aware that death is regarded by men in general as a great evil. Very true, he said. And do not courageous men face death because they are afraid of yet greater evils? That is quite true. [Sidenote: Ordinary men are courageous only from cowardice; temperate from intemperance.] Then all but the philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing. Very true. And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate because they are intemperate—which might seem to be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For there are pleasures which they are afraid of losing; and in their desire to keep them, they abstain from some pleasures, because they are overcome by others and although to be conquered by pleasure is called by men intemperance, to 69 them the conquest of pleasure consists in being conquered by pleasure. And that is what I mean by saying that, in a sense, they are made temperate through intemperance. Such appears to be the case. [Sidenote: True virtue is inseparable from wisdom.] [Sidenote: _The incredulity of Cebes._] [Sidenote: The thyrsus-bearers and the mystics.]