Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless—how shall we know who speaks truly?
I cannot myself tell, he said.
Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason?
There cannot be a better, he said.
Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain?
The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted—or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted—the sweetness of learning and knowing truth.
Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience?
Yes, very great.
Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom?
Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only.
His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than anyone?
Far better.
And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience?
Certainly.
Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher?
What faculty?
Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest.
Yes.
And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument?
Certainly.
If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy?
Assuredly.
Or if honour or victory or courage, in that case the judgment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest?
Clearly.
But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges—