after knowledge with a view to the reward thereof, and have avoided ignorance fearing its penalty. But what will you say if I withdraw this concession, and deny that knowledge is rewarded and ignorance punished? — Aristotle: Then what induces you to discuss and to argue with me? The desire for the benefit of knowledge and the endeavour to avoid the harm of ignorance or something else? — Kriton: Nay, desire for the benefit of knowledge and the endeavour to avoid the harm of ignorance induce me to do this. — Aristotle: Then you have acknowledged that knowledge is beneficial and ignorance detrimental. Now a reward is not other than beneficial, and a penalty is not other than detrimental. — Kriton: I acknowledge that wisdom is beneficial during life, not after death. — Aristotle: What is the advantage of knowledge during life? A pleasant life or increase of knowledge? — Kriton: I granted the value of knowledge, and I have seen that knowledge is detrimental to the pleasures of life; it necessarily follows that the advantage of knowledge must be in the next world. — Aristotle: If you doubt the benefits accruing to the wise in the next world, while knowledge precludes the enjoyment of this world, it is impossible for you to assert that know· ledge is of value in either world. — Kriton: I see that if I grant that knowledge is beneficial, I must acknowledge that it is so in the next world. I will now deny that it possesses any advantage, in order to be able to deny that it is of advantage in the next world. — Aristotle: Do you not then prefer hearing, seeing, and understanding to blindness, deafness, and folly? — Kriton: Yes. — Aristotle: Do you prefer them for the sake of some advantage or not? — Kriton: For the sake of some advantage. — Aristotle: Once again then you have acknowledged that there is some advantage; and you have the same conclusion forced on you as before. — Kriton: I have ever acknowledged the value of knowledge, so long as I live, in respect of the comfort and peace that I gain from it, and the pain of ignorance that I am freed from; but I know of no other benefit therefrom. — Aristotle: Then is there anything else beyond this which is otherwise
