And thus the moral of the tale about our being puppets will not have been lost, and the meaning of the expression 'superior or inferior to a man's self' will become clearer; and the individual, attaining to right reason in this matter of pulling the strings of the puppet, should live according to its rule; while the city, receiving the same from some god or from one who has knowledge of these things, should embody it in a law, to be her guide in her dealings with herself and with other states.

In this way virtue and vice will be more clearly distinguished by us.

And when they have become clearer, education and other institutions will in like manner become clearer; and in particular that question of convivial entertainment, which may seem, perhaps, to have been a very trifling matter, and to have taken a great many more words than were necessary.
CLEINIAS: Perhaps, however, the theme may turn out not to be unworthy of the length of discourse.
ATHENIAN: Very good; let us proceed with any enquiry which really bears on our present object.
CLEINIAS: Proceed.
ATHENIAN: Suppose that we give this puppet of ours drink,--what will be the effect on him?
CLEINIAS: Having what in view do you ask that question?
ATHENIAN: Nothing as yet; but I ask generally, when the puppet is brought to the drink, what sort of result is likely to follow.

I will endeavour to explain my meaning more clearly: what I am now asking is this--Does the drinking of wine heighten and increase pleasures and pains, and passions and loves?
CLEINIAS: Very greatly.
ATHENIAN: And are perception and memory, and opinion and prudence, heightened and increased?
Do not these qualities entirely desert a man if he becomes saturated with drink?
CLEINIAS: Yes, they entirely desert him.
ATHENIAN: Does he not return to the state of soul in which he was when a young child?
CLEINIAS: He does.
ATHENIAN: Then at that time he will have the least control over himself?
CLEINIAS: The least.
ATHENIAN: And will he not be in a most wretched plight?
CLEINIAS: Most wretched.
ATHENIAN: Then not only an old man but also a drunkard becomes a second time a child?
CLEINIAS: Well said, Stranger.
ATHENIAN: Is there any argument which will prove to us that we ought to encourage the taste for drinking instead of doing all we can to avoid it?
CLEINIAS: I suppose that there is; you at any rate, were just now saying that you were ready to maintain such a doctrine.
ATHENIAN: True, I was; and I am ready still, seeing that you have both declared that you are anxious to hear me.
CLEINIAS: To be sure we are, if only for the strangeness of the paradox, which asserts that a man ought of his own accord to plunge into utter degradation.
ATHENIAN: Are you speaking of the soul?
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And what would you say about the body, my friend?
Are you not surprised at any one of his own accord bringing upon himself deformity, leanness, ugliness, decrepitude?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Yet when a man goes of his own accord to a doctor's shop, and takes medicine, is he not aware that soon, and for many days afterwards, he will be in a state of body which he would die rather than accept as the permanent condition of his life?
Are not those who train in gymnasia, at first beginning reduced to a state of weakness?
CLEINIAS: Yes, all that is well known.
ATHENIAN: Also that they go of their own accord for the sake of the subsequent benefit?
CLEINIAS: Very good.
ATHENIAN: And we may conceive this to be true in the same way of other practices?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And the same view may be taken of the pastime of drinking wine, if we are right in supposing that the same good effect follows?
CLEINIAS: To be sure.
ATHENIAN: If such convivialities should turn out to have any advantage equal in importance to that of gymnastic, they are in their very nature to be preferred to mere bodily exercise, inasmuch as they have no accompaniment of pain.
CLEINIAS: True; but I hardly think that we shall be able to discover any such benefits to be derived from them.
ATHENIAN: That is just what we must endeavour to show.

And let me ask you a question:--Do we not distinguish two kinds of fear, which are very different?
CLEINIAS: What are they?
ATHENIAN: There is the fear of expected evil.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And there is the fear of an evil reputation; we are afraid of being thought evil, because we do or say some dishonourable thing, which fear we and all men term shame.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: These are the two fears, as I called them; one of which is the opposite of pain and other fears, and the opposite also of the greatest and most numerous sort of pleasures.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And does not the legislator and every one who is good for anything, hold this fear in the greatest honour?
This is what he terms reverence, and the confidence which is the reverse of this he terms insolence; and the latter he always deems to be a very great evil both to individuals and to states.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Does not this kind of fear preserve us in many important ways?
What is there which so surely gives victory and safety in war?
For there are two things which give victory--confidence before enemies, and fear of disgrace before friends.
CLEINIAS: There are.
ATHENIAN: Then each of us should be fearless and also fearful; and why we should be either has now been determined.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And when we want to make any one fearless, we and the law bring him face to face with many fears.
CLEINIAS: Clearly.
ATHENIAN: And when we want to make him rightly fearful, must we not introduce him to shameless pleasures, and train him to take up arms against them, and to overcome them?
Or does this principle apply to courage only, and must he who would be perfect in valour fight against and overcome his own natural character,--since if he be unpractised and inexperienced in such conflicts, he will not be half the man which he might have been,--and are we to suppose, that with temperance it is otherwise, and that he who has never fought with the shameless and unrighteous temptations of his pleasures and lusts, and conquered them, in earnest and in play, by word, deed, and act, will still be perfectly temperate?
CLEINIAS: A most unlikely supposition.
ATHENIAN: Suppose that some God had given a fear-potion to men, and that the more a man drank of this the more he regarded himself at every draught as a child of misfortune, and that he feared everything happening or about to happen to him; and that at last the most courageous of men utterly lost his presence of mind for a time, and only came to himself again when he had slept off the influence of the draught.
CLEINIAS: But has such a draught, Stranger, ever really been known among men?
ATHENIAN: No; but, if there had been, might not such a draught have been of use to the legislator as a test of courage?
Might we not go and say to him, 'O legislator, whether you are legislating for the Cretan, or for any other state, would you not like to have a touchstone of the courage and cowardice of your citizens ?' CLEINIAS: 'I should,' will be the answer of every one.
ATHENIAN: 'And you would rather have a touchstone in which there is no risk and no great danger than the reverse ?' CLEINIAS: In that proposition every one may safely agree.
ATHENIAN: 'And in order to make use of the draught, you would lead them amid these imaginary terrors, and prove them, when the affection of fear was working upon them, and compel them to be fearless, exhorting and admonishing them; and also honouring them, but dishonouring any one who will not be persuaded by you to be in all respects such as you command him; and if he underwent the trial well and manfully, you would let him go unscathed; but if ill, you would inflict a punishment upon him?
Or would you abstain from using the potion altogether, although you have no reason for abstaining ?' CLEINIAS: He would be certain, Stranger, to use the potion.
ATHENIAN: This would be a mode of testing and training which would be wonderfully easy in comparison with those now in use, and might be applied to a single person, or to a few, or indeed to any number; and he would do well who provided himself with the potion only, rather than with any number of other things, whether he preferred to be by himself in solitude, and there contend with his fears, because he was ashamed to be seen by the eye of man until he was perfect; or trusting to the force of his own nature and habits, and believing that he had been already disciplined sufficiently, he did not hesitate to train himself in company with any number of others, and display his power in conquering the irresistible change effected by the draught--his virtue being such, that he never in any instance fell into any great unseemliness, but was always himself, and left off before he arrived at the last cup, fearing that he, like all other men, might be overcome by the potion.
CLEINIAS: Yes, Stranger, in that last case, too, he might equally show his self-control.
ATHENIAN: Let us return to the lawgiver, and say to him:--'Well, lawgiver, there is certainly no such fear-potion which man has either received from the Gods or himself discovered; for witchcraft has no place at our board.