Philebus - Part 2

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_ SOCRATES: Let us next assume that in the soul herself there is an antecedent hope of pleasure which is sweet and refreshing, and an expectation of pain, fearful and anxious.

PROTARCHUS: Yes; this is another class of pleasures and pains, which is of the soul only, apart from the body, and is produced by expectation.

SOCRATES: Right; for in the analysis of these, pure, as I suppose them to be, the pleasures being unalloyed with pain and the pains with pleasure, methinks that we shall see clearly whether the whole class of pleasure is to be desired, or whether this quality of entire desirableness is not rather to be attributed to another of the classes which have been mentioned; and whether pleasure and pain, like heat and cold, and other things of the same kind, are not sometimes to be desired and sometimes not to be desired, as being not in themselves good, but only sometimes and in some instances admitting of the nature of good.

PROTARCHUS: You say most truly that this is the track which the investigation should pursue.

SOCRATES: Well, then, assuming that pain ensues on the dissolution, and pleasure on the restoration of the harmony, let us now ask what will be the condition of animated beings who are neither in process of restoration nor of dissolution. And mind what you say: I ask whether any animal who is in that condition can possibly have any feeling of pleasure or pain, great or small?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then here we have a third state, over and above that of pleasure and of pain?

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And do not forget that there is such a state; it will make a great difference in our judgment of pleasure, whether we remember this or not. And I should like to say a few words about it.

PROTARCHUS: What have you to say?

SOCRATES: Why, you know that if a man chooses the life of wisdom, there is no reason why he should not live in this neutral state.

PROTARCHUS: You mean that he may live neither rejoicing nor sorrowing?

SOCRATES: Yes; and if I remember rightly, when the lives were compared, no degree of pleasure, whether great or small, was thought to be necessary to him who chose the life of thought and wisdom.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly, we said so.

SOCRATES: Then he will live without pleasure; and who knows whether this may not be the most divine of all lives?

PROTARCHUS: If so, the gods, at any rate, cannot be supposed to have either joy or sorrow.

SOCRATES: Certainly not--there would be a great impropriety in the assumption of either alternative. But whether the gods are or are not indifferent to pleasure is a point which may be considered hereafter if in any way relevant to the argument, and whatever is the conclusion we will place it to the account of mind in her contest for the second place, should she have to resign the first.

PROTARCHUS: Just so.

SOCRATES: The other class of pleasures, which as we were saying is purely mental, is entirely derived from memory.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I must first of all analyze memory, or rather perception which is prior to memory, if the subject of our discussion is ever to be properly cleared up.

PROTARCHUS: How will you proceed?

SOCRATES: Let us imagine affections of the body which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and leave her unaffected; and again, other affections which vibrate through both soul and body, and impart a shock to both and to each of them.

PROTARCHUS: Granted.

SOCRATES: And the soul may be truly said to be oblivious of the first but not of the second?

PROTARCHUS: Quite true.

SOCRATES: When I say oblivious, do not suppose that I mean forgetfulness in a literal sense; for forgetfulness is the exit of memory, which in this case has not yet entered; and to speak of the loss of that which is not yet in existence, and never has been, is a contradiction; do you see?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then just be so good as to change the terms.

PROTARCHUS: How shall I change them?

SOCRATES: Instead of the oblivion of the soul, when you are describing the state in which she is unaffected by the shocks of the body, say unconsciousness.

PROTARCHUS: I see.

SOCRATES: And the union or communion of soul and body in one feeling and motion would be properly called consciousness?

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: Then now we know the meaning of the word?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And memory may, I think, be rightly described as the preservation of consciousness?

PROTARCHUS: Right.

SOCRATES: But do we not distinguish memory from recollection?

PROTARCHUS: I think so.

SOCRATES: And do we not mean by recollection the power which the soul has of recovering, when by herself, some feeling which she experienced when in company with the body?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And when she recovers of herself the lost recollection of some consciousness or knowledge, the recovery is termed recollection and reminiscence?

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: There is a reason why I say all this.

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: I want to attain the plainest possible notion of pleasure and desire, as they exist in the mind only, apart from the body; and the previous analysis helps to show the nature of both.

PROTARCHUS: Then now, Socrates, let us proceed to the next point.

SOCRATES: There are certainly many things to be considered in discussing the generation and whole complexion of pleasure. At the outset we must determine the nature and seat of desire.

PROTARCHUS: Ay; let us enquire into that, for we shall lose nothing.

SOCRATES: Nay, Protarchus, we shall surely lose the puzzle if we find the answer.

PROTARCHUS: A fair retort; but let us proceed.

SOCRATES: Did we not place hunger, thirst, and the like, in the class of desires?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And yet they are very different; what common nature have we in view when we call them by a single name?

PROTARCHUS: By heavens, Socrates, that is a question which is not easily answered; but it must be answered.

SOCRATES: Then let us go back to our examples.

PROTARCHUS: Where shall we begin?

SOCRATES: Do we mean anything when we say 'a man thirsts'?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: We mean to say that he 'is empty'?

PROTARCHUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And is not thirst desire?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, of drink.

SOCRATES: Would you say of drink, or of replenishment with drink?

PROTARCHUS: I should say, of replenishment with drink.

SOCRATES: Then he who is empty desires, as would appear, the opposite of what he experiences; for he is empty and desires to be full?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly so.

SOCRATES: But how can a man who is empty for the first time, attain either by perception or memory to any apprehension of replenishment, of which he has no present or past experience?

PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: And yet he who desires, surely desires something?

PROTARCHUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: He does not desire that which he experiences, for he experiences thirst, and thirst is emptiness; but he desires replenishment?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Then there must be something in the thirsty man which in some way apprehends replenishment?

PROTARCHUS: There must.

SOCRATES: And that cannot be the body, for the body is supposed to be emptied?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: The only remaining alternative is that the soul apprehends the replenishment by the help of memory; as is obvious, for what other way can there be?

PROTARCHUS: I cannot imagine any other.

SOCRATES: But do you see the consequence?

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: That there is no such thing as desire of the body.

PROTARCHUS: Why so?

SOCRATES: Why, because the argument shows that the endeavour of every animal is to the reverse of his bodily state.

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the impulse which leads him to the opposite of what he is experiencing proves that he has a memory of the opposite state.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the argument, having proved that memory attracts us towards the objects of desire, proves also that the impulses and the desires and the moving principle in every living being have their origin in the soul.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: The argument will not allow that our body either hungers or thirsts or has any similar experience.

PROTARCHUS: Quite right.

SOCRATES: Let me make a further observation; the argument appears to me to imply that there is a kind of life which consists in these affections.

PROTARCHUS: Of what affections, and of what kind of life, are you speaking?

SOCRATES: I am speaking of being emptied and replenished, and of all that relates to the preservation and destruction of living beings, as well as of the pain which is felt in one of these states and of the pleasure which succeeds to it.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And what would you say of the intermediate state?

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean by 'intermediate'?

SOCRATES: I mean when a person is in actual suffering and yet remembers past pleasures which, if they would only return, would relieve him; but as yet he has them not. May we not say of him, that he is in an intermediate state?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Would you say that he was wholly pained or wholly pleased?

PROTARCHUS: Nay, I should say that he has two pains; in his body there is the actual experience of pain, and in his soul longing and expectation.

SOCRATES: What do you mean, Protarchus, by the two pains? May not a man who is empty have at one time a sure hope of being filled, and at other times be quite in despair?

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And has he not the pleasure of memory when he is hoping to be filled, and yet in that he is empty is he not at the same time in pain?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then man and the other animals have at the same time both pleasure and pain?

PROTARCHUS: I suppose so.

SOCRATES: But when a man is empty and has no hope of being filled, there will be the double experience of pain. You observed this and inferred that the double experience was the single case possible.

PROTARCHUS: Quite true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Shall the enquiry into these states of feeling be made the occasion of raising a question?

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: Whether we ought to say that the pleasures and pains of which we are speaking are true or false? or some true and some false?

PROTARCHUS: But how, Socrates, can there be false pleasures and pains?

SOCRATES: And how, Protarchus, can there be true and false fears, or true and false expectations, or true and false opinions?

PROTARCHUS: I grant that opinions may be true or false, but not pleasures.

SOCRATES: What do you mean? I am afraid that we are raising a very serious enquiry.

PROTARCHUS: There I agree.

SOCRATES: And yet, my boy, for you are one of Philebus' boys, the point to be considered, is, whether the enquiry is relevant to the argument.

PROTARCHUS: Surely.

SOCRATES: No tedious and irrelevant discussion can be allowed; what is said should be pertinent.

PROTARCHUS: Right.

SOCRATES: I am always wondering at the question which has now been raised.

PROTARCHUS: How so?

SOCRATES: Do you deny that some pleasures are false, and others true?

PROTARCHUS: To be sure I do.

SOCRATES: Would you say that no one ever seemed to rejoice and yet did not rejoice, or seemed to feel pain and yet did not feel pain, sleeping or waking, mad or lunatic?

PROTARCHUS: So we have always held, Socrates.

SOCRATES: But were you right? Shall we enquire into the truth of your opinion?

PROTARCHUS: I think that we should.

SOCRATES: Let us then put into more precise terms the question which has arisen about pleasure and opinion. Is there such a thing as opinion?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And such a thing as pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And an opinion must be of something?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And a man must be pleased by something?

PROTARCHUS: Quite correct.

SOCRATES: And whether the opinion be right or wrong, makes no difference; it will still be an opinion?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And he who is pleased, whether he is rightly pleased or not, will always have a real feeling of pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Yes; that is also quite true.

SOCRATES: Then, how can opinion be both true and false, and pleasure true only, although pleasure and opinion are both equally real?

PROTARCHUS: Yes; that is the question.

SOCRATES: You mean that opinion admits of truth and falsehood, and hence becomes not merely opinion, but opinion of a certain quality; and this is what you think should be examined?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And further, even if we admit the existence of qualities in other objects, may not pleasure and pain be simple and devoid of quality?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: But there is no difficulty in seeing that pleasure and pain as well as opinion have qualities, for they are great or small, and have various degrees of intensity; as was indeed said long ago by us.

PROTARCHUS: Quite true.

SOCRATES: And if badness attaches to any of them, Protarchus, then we should speak of a bad opinion or of a bad pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Quite true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And if rightness attaches to any of them, should we not speak of a right opinion or right pleasure; and in like manner of the reverse of rightness?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And if the thing opined be erroneous, might we not say that the opinion, being erroneous, is not right or rightly opined?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And if we see a pleasure or pain which errs in respect of its object, shall we call that right or good, or by any honourable name?

PROTARCHUS: Not if the pleasure is mistaken; how could we?

SOCRATES: And surely pleasure often appears to accompany an opinion which is not true, but false?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly it does; and in that case, Socrates, as we were saying, the opinion is false, but no one could call the actual pleasure false.

SOCRATES: How eagerly, Protarchus, do you rush to the defence of pleasure!

PROTARCHUS: Nay, Socrates, I only repeat what I hear.

SOCRATES: And is there no difference, my friend, between that pleasure which is associated with right opinion and knowledge, and that which is often found in all of us associated with falsehood and ignorance?

PROTARCHUS: There must be a very great difference, between them.

SOCRATES: Then, now let us proceed to contemplate this difference.

PROTARCHUS: Lead, and I will follow.

SOCRATES: Well, then, my view is--

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: We agree--do we not?--that there is such a thing as false, and also such a thing as true opinion?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And pleasure and pain, as I was just now saying, are often consequent upon these--upon true and false opinion, I mean.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And do not opinion and the endeavour to form an opinion always spring from memory and perception?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Might we imagine the process to be something of this nature?

PROTARCHUS: Of what nature?

SOCRATES: An object may be often seen at a distance not very clearly, and the seer may want to determine what it is which he sees.

PROTARCHUS: Very likely.

SOCRATES: Soon he begins to interrogate himself.

PROTARCHUS: In what manner?

SOCRATES: He asks himself--'What is that which appears to be standing by the rock under the tree?' This is the question which he may be supposed to put to himself when he sees such an appearance.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: To which he may guess the right answer, saying as if in a whisper to himself--'It is a man.'

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: Or again, he may be misled, and then he will say--'No, it is a figure made by the shepherds.'

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if he has a companion, he repeats his thought to him in articulate sounds, and what was before an opinion, has now become a proposition.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: But if he be walking alone when these thoughts occur to him, he may not unfrequently keep them in his mind for a considerable time.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: Well, now, I wonder whether you would agree in my explanation of this phenomenon.

PROTARCHUS: What is your explanation?

SOCRATES: I think that the soul at such times is like a book.

PROTARCHUS: How so?

SOCRATES: Memory and perception meet, and they and their attendant feelings seem to almost to write down words in the soul, and when the inscribing feeling writes truly, then true opinion and true propositions which are the expressions of opinion come into our souls--but when the scribe within us writes falsely, the result is false.

PROTARCHUS: I quite assent and agree to your statement.

SOCRATES: I must bespeak your favour also for another artist, who is busy at the same time in the chambers of the soul.

PROTARCHUS: Who is he?

SOCRATES: The painter, who, after the scribe has done his work, draws images in the soul of the things which he has described.

PROTARCHUS: But when and how does he do this?

SOCRATES: When a man, besides receiving from sight or some other sense certain opinions or statements, sees in his mind the images of the subjects of them;--is not this a very common mental phenomenon?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And the images answering to true opinions and words are true, and to false opinions and words false; are they not?

PROTARCHUS: They are.

SOCRATES: If we are right so far, there arises a further question.

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: Whether we experience the feeling of which I am speaking only in relation to the present and the past, or in relation to the future also?

PROTARCHUS: I should say in relation to all times alike.

SOCRATES: Have not purely mental pleasures and pains been described already as in some cases anticipations of the bodily ones; from which we may infer that anticipatory pleasures and pains have to do with the future?

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And do all those writings and paintings which, as we were saying a little while ago, are produced in us, relate to the past and present only, and not to the future?

PROTARCHUS: To the future, very much.

SOCRATES: When you say, 'Very much,' you mean to imply that all these representations are hopes about the future, and that mankind are filled with hopes in every stage of existence?

PROTARCHUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: Answer me another question.

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: A just and pious and good man is the friend of the gods; is he not?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly he is.

SOCRATES: And the unjust and utterly bad man is the reverse?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And all men, as we were saying just now, are always filled with hopes?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions which exist in the minds of each of us?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the fancies of hope are also pictured in us; a man may often have a vision of a heap of gold, and pleasures ensuing, and in the picture there may be a likeness of himself mightily rejoicing over his good fortune.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And may we not say that the good, being friends of the gods, have generally true pictures presented to them, and the bad false pictures?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: The bad, too, have pleasures painted in their fancy as well as the good; but I presume that they are false pleasures.

PROTARCHUS: They are.

SOCRATES: The bad then commonly delight in false pleasures, and the good in true pleasures?

PROTARCHUS: Doubtless.

SOCRATES: Then upon this view there are false pleasures in the souls of men which are a ludicrous imitation of the true, and there are pains of a similar character?

PROTARCHUS: There are.

SOCRATES: And did we not allow that a man who had an opinion at all had a real opinion, but often about things which had no existence either in the past, present, or future?

PROTARCHUS: Quite true.

SOCRATES: And this was the source of false opinion and opining; am I not right?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And must we not attribute to pleasure and pain a similar real but illusory character?

PROTARCHUS: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean to say that a man must be admitted to have real pleasure who is pleased with anything or anyhow; and he may be pleased about things which neither have nor have ever had any real existence, and, more often than not, are never likely to exist.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, that again is undeniable.

SOCRATES: And may not the same be said about fear and anger and the like; are they not often false?

PROTARCHUS: Quite so.

SOCRATES: And can opinions be good or bad except in as far as they are true or false?

PROTARCHUS: In no other way.

SOCRATES: Nor can pleasures be conceived to be bad except in so far as they are false.

PROTARCHUS: Nay, Socrates, that is the very opposite of truth; for no one would call pleasures and pains bad because they are false, but by reason of some other great corruption to which they are liable.

SOCRATES: Well, of pleasures which are corrupt and caused by corruption we will hereafter speak, if we care to continue the enquiry; for the present I would rather show by another argument that there are many false pleasures existing or coming into existence in us, because this may assist our final decision.

PROTARCHUS: Very true; that is to say, if there are such pleasures.

SOCRATES: I think that there are, Protarchus; but this is an opinion which should be well assured, and not rest upon a mere assertion.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: Then now, like wrestlers, let us approach and grasp this new argument.

PROTARCHUS: Proceed.

SOCRATES: We were maintaining a little while since, that when desires, as they are termed, exist in us, then the body has separate feelings apart from the soul--do you remember?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, I remember that you said so.

SOCRATES: And the soul was supposed to desire the opposite of the bodily state, while the body was the source of any pleasure or pain which was experienced.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Then now you may infer what happens in such cases.

PROTARCHUS: What am I to infer?

SOCRATES: That in such cases pleasures and pains come simultaneously; and there is a juxtaposition of the opposite sensations which correspond to them, as has been already shown.

PROTARCHUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And there is another point to which we have agreed.

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: That pleasure and pain both admit of more and less, and that they are of the class of infinites.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly, we said so.

SOCRATES: But how can we rightly judge of them?

PROTARCHUS: How can we?

SOCRATES: Is it our intention to judge of their comparative importance and intensity, measuring pleasure against pain, and pain against pain, and pleasure against pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, such is our intention, and we shall judge of them accordingly.

SOCRATES: Well, take the case of sight. Does not the nearness or distance of magnitudes obscure their true proportions, and make us opine falsely; and do we not find the same illusion happening in the case of pleasures and pains?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, and in a degree far greater.

SOCRATES: Then what we are now saying is the opposite of what we were saying before.

PROTARCHUS: What was that?

SOCRATES: Then the opinions were true and false, and infected the pleasures and pains with their own falsity.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: But now it is the pleasures which are said to be true and false because they are seen at various distances, and subjected to comparison; the pleasures appear to be greater and more vehement when placed side by side with the pains, and the pains when placed side by side with the pleasures.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly, and for the reason which you mention.

SOCRATES: And suppose you part off from pleasures and pains the element which makes them appear to be greater or less than they really are: you will acknowledge that this element is illusory, and you will never say that the corresponding excess or defect of pleasure or pain is real or true.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Next let us see whether in another direction we may not find pleasures and pains existing and appearing in living beings, which are still more false than these.

PROTARCHUS: What are they, and how shall we find them?

SOCRATES: If I am not mistaken, I have often repeated that pains and aches and suffering and uneasiness of all sorts arise out of a corruption of nature caused by concretions, and dissolutions, and repletions, and evacuations, and also by growth and decay?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, that has been often said.

SOCRATES: And we have also agreed that the restoration of the natural state is pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Right.

SOCRATES: But now let us suppose an interval of time at which the body experiences none of these changes.

PROTARCHUS: When can that be, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Your question, Protarchus, does not help the argument.

PROTARCHUS: Why not, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Because it does not prevent me from repeating mine.

PROTARCHUS: And what was that?

SOCRATES: Why, Protarchus, admitting that there is no such interval, I may ask what would be the necessary consequence if there were?

PROTARCHUS: You mean, what would happen if the body were not changed either for good or bad?

SOCRATES: Yes.

PROTARCHUS: Why then, Socrates, I should suppose that there would be neither pleasure nor pain.

SOCRATES: Very good; but still, if I am not mistaken, you do assert that we must always be experiencing one of them; that is what the wise tell us; for, say they, all things are ever flowing up and down.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, and their words are of no mean authority.

SOCRATES: Of course, for they are no mean authorities themselves; and I should like to avoid the brunt of their argument. Shall I tell you how I mean to escape from them? And you shall be the partner of my flight.

PROTARCHUS: How?

SOCRATES: To them we will say: 'Good; but are we, or living things in general, always conscious of what happens to us--for example, of our growth, or the like? Are we not, on the contrary, almost wholly unconscious of this and similar phenomena?' You must answer for them.

PROTARCHUS: The latter alternative is the true one.

SOCRATES: Then we were not right in saying, just now, that motions going up and down cause pleasures and pains?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: A better and more unexceptionable way of speaking will be--

PROTARCHUS: What?

SOCRATES: If we say that the great changes produce pleasures and pains, but that the moderate and lesser ones do neither.

PROTARCHUS: That, Socrates, is the more correct mode of speaking.

SOCRATES: But if this be true, the life to which I was just now referring again appears.

PROTARCHUS: What life?

SOCRATES: The life which we affirmed to be devoid either of pain or of joy.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: We may assume then that there are three lives, one pleasant, one painful, and the third which is neither; what say you?

PROTARCHUS: I should say as you do that there are three of them.

SOCRATES: But if so, the negation of pain will not be the same with pleasure.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then when you hear a person saying, that always to live without pain is the pleasantest of all things, what would you understand him to mean by that statement?

PROTARCHUS: I think that by pleasure he must mean the negative of pain.

SOCRATES: Let us take any three things; or suppose that we embellish a little and call the first gold, the second silver, and there shall be a third which is neither.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: Now, can that which is neither be either gold or silver?

PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: No more can that neutral or middle life be rightly or reasonably spoken or thought of as pleasant or painful.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And yet, my friend, there are, as we know, persons who say and think so.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And do they think that they have pleasure when they are free from pain?

PROTARCHUS: They say so.

SOCRATES: And they must think or they would not say that they have pleasure.

PROTARCHUS: I suppose not.

SOCRATES: And yet if pleasure and the negation of pain are of distinct natures, they are wrong.

PROTARCHUS: But they are undoubtedly of distinct natures.

SOCRATES: Then shall we take the view that they are three, as we were just now saying, or that they are two only--the one being a state of pain, which is an evil, and the other a cessation of pain, which is of itself a good, and is called pleasant?

PROTARCHUS: But why, Socrates, do we ask the question at all? I do not see the reason.

SOCRATES: You, Protarchus, have clearly never heard of certain enemies of our friend Philebus.

PROTARCHUS: And who may they be?

SOCRATES: Certain persons who are reputed to be masters in natural philosophy, who deny the very existence of pleasure.

PROTARCHUS: Indeed!

SOCRATES: They say that what the school of Philebus calls pleasures are all of them only avoidances of pain.

PROTARCHUS: And would you, Socrates, have us agree with them?

SOCRATES: Why, no, I would rather use them as a sort of diviners, who divine the truth, not by rules of art, but by an instinctive repugnance and extreme detestation which a noble nature has of the power of pleasure, in which they think that there is nothing sound, and her seductive influence is declared by them to be witchcraft, and not pleasure. This is the use which you may make of them. And when you have considered the various grounds of their dislike, you shall hear from me what I deem to be true pleasures. Having thus examined the nature of pleasure from both points of view, we will bring her up for judgment.

PROTARCHUS: Well said.

SOCRATES: Then let us enter into an alliance with these philosophers and follow in the track of their dislike. I imagine that they would say something of this sort; they would begin at the beginning, and ask whether, if we wanted to know the nature of any quality, such as hardness, we should be more likely to discover it by looking at the hardest things, rather than at the least hard? You, Protarchus, shall answer these severe gentlemen as you answer me.

PROTARCHUS: By all means, and I reply to them, that you should look at the greatest instances.

SOCRATES: Then if we want to see the true nature of pleasures as a class, we should not look at the most diluted pleasures, but at the most extreme and most vehement?

PROTARCHUS: In that every one will agree.

SOCRATES: And the obvious instances of the greatest pleasures, as we have often said, are the pleasures of the body?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And are they felt by us to be or become greater, when we are sick or when we are in health? And here we must be careful in our answer, or we shall come to grief.

PROTARCHUS: How will that be?

SOCRATES: Why, because we might be tempted to answer, 'When we are in health.'

PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is the natural answer.

SOCRATES: Well, but are not those pleasures the greatest of which mankind have the greatest desires?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And do not people who are in a fever, or any similar illness, feel cold or thirst or other bodily affections more intensely? Am I not right in saying that they have a deeper want and greater pleasure in the satisfaction of their want?

PROTARCHUS: That is obvious as soon as it is said.

SOCRATES: Well, then, shall we not be right in saying, that if a person would wish to see the greatest pleasures he ought to go and look, not at health, but at disease? And here you must distinguish:--do not imagine that I mean to ask whether those who are very ill have more pleasures than those who are well, but understand that I am speaking of the magnitude of pleasure; I want to know where pleasures are found to be most intense. For, as I say, we have to discover what is pleasure, and what they mean by pleasure who deny her very existence.

PROTARCHUS: I think I follow you.

SOCRATES: You will soon have a better opportunity of showing whether you do or not, Protarchus. Answer now, and tell me whether you see, I will not say more, but more intense and excessive pleasures in wantonness than in temperance? Reflect before you speak.

PROTARCHUS: I understand you, and see that there is a great difference between them; the temperate are restrained by the wise man's aphorism of 'Never too much,' which is their rule, but excess of pleasure possessing the minds of fools and wantons becomes madness and makes them shout with delight.

SOCRATES: Very good, and if this be true, then the greatest pleasures and pains will clearly be found in some vicious state of soul and body, and not in a virtuous state.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And ought we not to select some of these for examination, and see what makes them the greatest?

PROTARCHUS: To be sure we ought.

SOCRATES: Take the case of the pleasures which arise out of certain disorders.

PROTARCHUS: What disorders?

SOCRATES: The pleasures of unseemly disorders, which our severe friends utterly detest.

PROTARCHUS: What pleasures?

SOCRATES: Such, for example, as the relief of itching and other ailments by scratching, which is the only remedy required. For what in Heaven's name is the feeling to be called which is thus produced in us?--Pleasure or pain?

PROTARCHUS: A villainous mixture of some kind, Socrates, I should say.

SOCRATES: I did not introduce the argument, O Protarchus, with any personal reference to Philebus, but because, without the consideration of these and similar pleasures, we shall not be able to determine the point at issue.

PROTARCHUS: Then we had better proceed to analyze this family of pleasures.

SOCRATES: You mean the pleasures which are mingled with pain?

PROTARCHUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: There are some mixtures which are of the body, and only in the body, and others which are of the soul, and only in the soul; while there are other mixtures of pleasures with pains, common both to soul and body, which in their composite state are called sometimes pleasures and sometimes pains.

PROTARCHUS: How is that?

SOCRATES: Whenever, in the restoration or in the derangement of nature, a man experiences two opposite feelings; for example, when he is cold and is growing warm, or again, when he is hot and is becoming cool, and he wants to have the one and be rid of the other;--the sweet has a bitter, as the common saying is, and both together fasten upon him and create irritation and in time drive him to distraction.

PROTARCHUS: That description is very true to nature.

SOCRATES: And in these sorts of mixtures the pleasures and pains are sometimes equal, and sometimes one or other of them predominates?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Of cases in which the pain exceeds the pleasure, an example is afforded by itching, of which we were just now speaking, and by the tingling which we feel when the boiling and fiery element is within, and the rubbing and motion only relieves the surface, and does not reach the parts affected; then if you put them to the fire, and as a last resort apply cold to them, you may often produce the most intense pleasure or pain in the inner parts, which contrasts and mingles with the pain or pleasure, as the case may be, of the outer parts; and this is due to the forcible separation of what is united, or to the union of what is separated, and to the juxtaposition of pleasure and pain.

PROTARCHUS: Quite so.

SOCRATES: Sometimes the element of pleasure prevails in a man, and the slight undercurrent of pain makes him tingle, and causes a gentle irritation; or again, the excessive infusion of pleasure creates an excitement in him,--he even leaps for joy, he assumes all sorts of attitudes, he changes all manner of colours, he gasps for breath, and is quite amazed, and utters the most irrational exclamations.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: He will say of himself, and others will say of him, that he is dying with these delights; and the more dissipated and good-for-nothing he is, the more vehemently he pursues them in every way; of all pleasures he declares them to be the greatest; and he reckons him who lives in the most constant enjoyment of them to be the happiest of mankind.

PROTARCHUS: That, Socrates, is a very true description of the opinions of the majority about pleasures.

SOCRATES: Yes, Protarchus, quite true of the mixed pleasures, which arise out of the communion of external and internal sensations in the body; there are also cases in which the mind contributes an opposite element to the body, whether of pleasure or pain, and the two unite and form one mixture. Concerning these I have already remarked, that when a man is empty he desires to be full, and has pleasure in hope and pain in vacuity. But now I must further add what I omitted before, that in all these and similar emotions in which body and mind are opposed (and they are innumerable), pleasure and pain coalesce in one.

PROTARCHUS: I believe that to be quite true. _

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