646–647
Athenian
Ath. If then this practice should be shown to be quite as beneficial for us as bodily training, certainly at the outset it is superior to it, in so far as it is not, like bodily training, accompanied by pain.
Clinias
Clin. That is true; but I should be surprised if we succeeded in discovering in it any benefit.
Athenian
Ath. That is precisely the point which we must at once try to make plain. Tell me now: can we discern two kinds of fear, of which the one is nearly the opposite of the other?
Clinias
Clin. What kinds do you mean?
25
Athenian
Ath. These: when we expect evils to occur, we fear them.
Athenian
Ath. And often we fear reputation, when we think we shall gain a bad repute for doing or saying something base; and this fear we (like everybody else, I imagine) call shame.
Athenian
Ath. These are the two fears I was meaning; and of these the second is opposed to pains and to all other objects of fear, and opposed also to the greatest and most numerous pleasures.i.e. shame, which is fear of disgrace, induces fortitude under pain and the power of resisting vicious pleasures.
Athenian
Ath. Does not, then, the lawgiver, and every man who is worth anything, hold this kind of fear in the highest honor, and name it modesty; and to the confidence which is opposed to it does he not give the name immodesty, and pronounce it to be for all, both publicly and privately, a very great evil?
5
Clinias
Clin. Quite right.