21
They cannot bear to be detected in any relaxation, or any departure from their principles: but, poor men, they lead a Tantalus life of it in consequence, and when they do get a chance of sinning without being found out, they drink down pleasure by the bucketful. Depend on it, if some one would make them a present of Gyges’s ring of invisibility, or Hades’s cap, they would cut the acquaintance of toil without further ceremony, and elbow their way into the presence of Pleasure; they would all be Dionysiuses then. As long as Dionysius was well, he thought that there was some good in all this talk about endurance; but when he fell ill, and found out what pain really was, he perceived that his body was of another school than the Porch, and held quite other tenets: he was converted, realized that he was flesh and blood, and from that day ceased to behave as if he were made of marble; he knew now that the man who talks nonsense about the iniquity of pleasure But toys with words: his thoughts are bent elsewhither.
21
And now, gentlemen, I leave you to your vote.
22
Not yet! Let me ask him a few questions.
22
Yes? I am ready.
22
You hold toil to be an evil?
22
I do.
22
And pleasure a good?
22
Unquestionably.
22
Do you recognize the distinction between differentia and indifferentia? between praeposita and rejecta?
22
Why, certainly.
22
Madan, this discussion must cease; the jury say they do not understand word-chopping. They will now give their votes, Porch. Ah; I should have won, if I could have tried him with my third figure of self-evidents.
22
Who wins?
22
Unanimous verdict for Pleasure.
22
1 appeal to Zeus.
22
By all means. Next case, Hermes.
23
Luxury v. Virtue, re Aristippus; Aristippus must appear in person.
23
I ought to speak first. Aristippus is mine; his words and his deeds alike proclaim him mine.
23
On the contrary, any one who will observe his garlands and his purple robes and his perfumes will agree that he is mine.
