will also tell it of the absent. — Kriton: What evidence? — Aristotle: Do you not agree that the right way in seeking the truth is what Sokrates said? — Kriton: And what did he say? — Aristotle: I am told that he said, Whenever you are in difficulty about a question, give it two alternatives, one of which must necessarily be true; then proceed till one of the two is refuted, for with the refutation of the one alternative will come the establishment of the other. — Kriton: Yes, I have observed that he acted thus in difficult investigations. Now what evidence have you about the nature of the present and absent? — Aristotle: Do you not grant that there is nothing outside knowledge and its contrary? — Kriton: I must do so. — Aristotle: Do you grant that things are bettered only by their like, and damaged only by what is unlike them? — Kriton: Undoubtedly. — Aristotle: Then do you not see that if the recompense of knowledge be not like it, it must be the contrary of it? And, if it be the contrary of knowledge, then the recompense of the wise will be ignorance, and the recompense of the seeing blindness, and the recompense of well-doing ill-doing? Now such as this would not be a recompense but a punishment. Then whoever bears the burden of knowledge must allow that he will gain no recompense for it. This judgment being false, the opposite of it is true. The recompense for seeing will be sight; for well-doing, good; for seeking wisdom, finding wisdom — Kriton: You have forced me to agree that knowledge will be rewarded and ignorance punished. — Aristotle: l£ you are satisfied that the recompense of the ignorant is the reverse of the recompense of the wise-otherwise the reward of blindness would be sight and that of goodness badness, and that of hating wisdom obtaining wisdom. Now such a view or doctrine must be false in the eyes of him who has borne the labour of pursuing knowledge in the hope of the reward thereof, and in order to avoid the penalty of ignorance. This opinion being proved false makes the opposite necessarily true. — Kriton: This argument applies as forcibly to me, since I have borne the burden of the searcher
