Kitap 4
5.3
Then do you think that the man is free who is ruled by bodily pleasures and is unable to do what is best because of them?By no means.Possibly, in fact, to do what is best appears to you to be freedom, and so you think that to have masters who will prevent such activity is bondage?I am sure of it.
5.4
You feel sure then that the incontinent are bond slaves?Of course, naturally.And do you think that the incontinent are merely prevented from doing what is most honourable, or are also forced to do what is most dishonourable?I think that they are forced to do that just as much as they are prevented from doing the other.
5.5
What sort of masters are they, in your opinion, who prevent the best and enforce the worst?The worst possible, of course.And what sort of slavery do you believe to be the worst?Slavery to the worst masters, I think.The worst slavery, therefore, is the slavery endured by the incontinent?I think so.
5.6
As for Wisdom, the greatest blessing, does not incontinence exclude it and drive men to the opposite? Or don’t you think that incontinence prevents them from attending to useful things and understanding them, by drawing them away to things pleasant, and often so stuns their perception of good and evil that they choose the worse instead of the better?That does happen.
5.7
With Prudence, Euthydemus, who, shall we say, has less to do than the incontinent? For I presume that the actions prompted by prudence and incontinence are exact opposites?I agree with that too.To caring for what is right is there any stronger hindrance, do you think, than incontinence?Indeed I do not.And do you think there can be aught worse for a man than that which causes him to choose the harmful rather than the useful, and persuades him to care for the one and to be careless of the other, and forces him to do the opposite of what prudence dictates?Nothing.
