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.
SOCRATES: There still remains one other sort of admixture of pleasures and pains.
PROTARCHUS: What is that?
SOCRATES: The union which, as we were saying, the mind often experiences of purely mental feelings.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Why, do we not speak of anger, fear, desire, sorrow, love, emulation, envy, and the like, as pains which belong to the soul only?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And shall we not find them also full of the most wonderful pleasures? need I remind you of the anger
'Which stirs even a wise man to violence, And is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb?'
And you remember how pleasures mingle with pains in lamentation and bereavement?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, there is a natural connexion between them.
SOCRATES: And you remember also how at the sight of tragedies the spectators smile through their tears?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly I do.
SOCRATES: And are you aware that even at a comedy the soul experiences a mixed feeling of pain and pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: I do not quite understand you.
SOCRATES: I admit, Protarchus, that there is some difficulty in recognizing this mixture of feelings at a comedy.
PROTARCHUS: There is, I think.
SOCRATES: And the greater the obscurity of the case the more desirable is the examination of it, because the difficulty in detecting other cases of mixed pleasures and pains will be less.
PROTARCHUS: Proceed.
SOCRATES: I have just mentioned envy; would you not call that a pain of the soul?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And yet the envious man finds something in the misfortunes of his neighbours at which he is pleased?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And ignorance, and what is termed clownishness, are surely an evil?
PROTARCHUS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: From these considerations learn to know the nature of the ridiculous.
PROTARCHUS: Explain.
SOCRATES: The ridiculous is in short the specific name which is used to describe the vicious form of a certain habit; and of vice in general it is that kind which is most at variance with the inscription at Delphi.
PROTARCHUS: You mean, Socrates, 'Know thyself.'
SOCRATES: I do; and the opposite would be, 'Know not thyself.'
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And now, O Protarchus, try to divide this into three.
PROTARCHUS: Indeed I am afraid that I cannot.
SOCRATES: Do you mean to say that I must make the division for you?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, and what is more, I beg that you will.
SOCRATES: Are there not three ways in which ignorance of self may be shown?
PROTARCHUS: What are they?
SOCRATES: In the first place, about money; the ignorant may fancy himself richer than he is.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is a very common error.
SOCRATES: And still more often he will fancy that he is taller or fairer than he is, or that he has some other advantage of person which he really has not.
PROTARCHUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: And yet surely by far the greatest number err about the goods of the mind; they imagine themselves to be much better men than they are.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is by far the commonest delusion.
SOCRATES: And of all the virtues, is not wisdom the one which the mass of mankind are always claiming, and which most arouses in them a spirit of contention and lying conceit of wisdom?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And may not all this be truly called an evil condition?
PROTARCHUS: Very evil.
SOCRATES: But we must pursue the division a step further, Protarchus, if we would see in envy of the childish sort a singular mixture of pleasure and pain.
PROTARCHUS: How can we make the further division which you suggest?
SOCRATES: All who are silly enough to entertain this lying conceit of themselves may of course be divided, like the rest of mankind, into two classes—one having power and might; and the other the reverse.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let this, then, be the principle of division; those of them who are weak and unable to revenge themselves, when they are laughed at, may be truly called ridiculous, but those who can defend themselves may be more truly described as strong and formidable; for ignorance in the powerful is hateful and horrible, because hurtful to others both in reality and in fiction, but powerless ignorance may be reckoned, and in truth is, ridiculous.
PROTARCHUS: That is very true, but I do not as yet see where is the admixture of pleasures and pains.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let us examine the nature of envy.
PROTARCHUS: Proceed.
SOCRATES: Is not envy an unrighteous pleasure, and also an unrighteous pain?
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: There is nothing envious or wrong in rejoicing at the misfortunes of enemies?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: But to feel joy instead of sorrow at the sight of our friends' misfortunes—is not that wrong?
PROTARCHUS: Undoubtedly.
SOCRATES: Did we not say that ignorance was always an evil?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the three kinds of vain conceit in our friends which we enumerated—the vain conceit of beauty, of wisdom, and of wealth, are ridiculous if they are weak, and detestable when they are powerful: May we not say, as I was saying before, that our friends who are in this state of mind, when harmless to others, are simply ridiculous?
PROTARCHUS: They are ridiculous.
SOCRATES: And do we not acknowledge this ignorance of theirs to be a misfortune?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And do we feel pain or pleasure in laughing at it?
PROTARCHUS: Clearly we feel pleasure.
SOCRATES: And was not envy the source of this pleasure which we feel at the misfortunes of friends?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then the argument shows that when we laugh at the folly of our friends, pleasure, in mingling with envy, mingles with pain, for envy has been acknowledged by us to be mental pain, and laughter is pleasant; and so we envy and laugh at the same instant.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the argument implies that there are combinations of pleasure and pain in lamentations, and in tragedy and comedy, not only on the stage, but on the greater stage of human life; and so in endless other cases.
PROTARCHUS: I do not see how any one can deny what you say, Socrates, however eager he may be to assert the opposite opinion.
SOCRATES: I mentioned anger, desire, sorrow, fear, love, emulation, envy, and similar emotions, as examples in which we should find a mixture of the two elements so often named; did I not?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: We may observe that our conclusions hitherto have had reference only to sorrow and envy and anger.
PROTARCHUS: I see.
SOCRATES: Then many other cases still remain?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And why do you suppose me to have pointed out to you the admixture which takes place in comedy? Why but to convince you that there was no difficulty in showing the mixed nature of fear and love and similar affections; and I thought that when I had given you the illustration, you would have let me off, and have acknowledged as a general truth that the body without the soul, and the soul without the body, as well as the two united, are susceptible of all sorts of admixtures of pleasures and pains; and so further discussion would have been unnecessary. And now I want to know whether I may depart; or will you keep me here until midnight? I fancy that I may obtain my release without many words;—if I promise that to-morrow I will give you an account of all these cases. But at present I would rather sail in another direction, and go to other matters which remain to be settled, before the judgment can be given which Philebus demands.
PROTARCHUS: Very good, Socrates; in what remains take your own course.
SOCRATES: Then after the mixed pleasures the unmixed should have their turn; this is the natural and necessary order.
PROTARCHUS: Excellent.
SOCRATES: These, in turn, then, I will now endeavour to indicate; for with the maintainers of the opinion that all pleasures are a cessation of pain, I do not agree, but, as I was saying, I use them as witnesses, that there are pleasures which seem only and are not, and there are others again which have great power and appear in many forms, yet are intermingled with pains, and are partly alleviations of agony and distress, both of body and mind.
PROTARCHUS: Then what pleasures, Socrates, should we be right in conceiving to be true?
SOCRATES: True pleasures are those which are given by beauty of colour and form, and most of those which arise from smells; those of sound, again, and in general those of which the want is painless and unconscious, and of which the fruition is palpable to sense and pleasant and unalloyed with pain.
PROTARCHUS: Once more, Socrates, I must ask what you mean.
SOCRATES: My meaning is certainly not obvious, and I will endeavour to be plainer. I do not mean by beauty of form such beauty as that of animals or pictures, which the many would suppose to be my meaning; but, says the argument, understand me to mean straight lines and circles, and the plane or solid figures which are formed out of them by turning-lathes and rulers and measurers of angles; for these I affirm to be not only relatively beautiful, like other things, but they are eternally and absolutely beautiful, and they have peculiar pleasures, quite unlike the pleasures of scratching. And there are colours which are of the same character, and have similar pleasures; now do you understand my meaning?
PROTARCHUS: I am trying to understand, Socrates, and I hope that you will try to make your meaning clearer.
SOCRATES: When sounds are smooth and clear, and have a single pure tone, then I mean to say that they are not relatively but absolutely beautiful, and have natural pleasures associated with them.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, there are such pleasures.
SOCRATES: The pleasures of smell are of a less ethereal sort, but they have no necessary admixture of pain; and all pleasures, however and wherever experienced, which are unattended by pains, I assign to an analogous class. Here then are two kinds of pleasures.
PROTARCHUS: I understand.
SOCRATES: To these may be added the pleasures of knowledge, if no hunger of knowledge and no pain caused by such hunger precede them.
PROTARCHUS: And this is the case.
SOCRATES: Well, but if a man who is full of knowledge loses his knowledge, are there not pains of forgetting?
PROTARCHUS: Not necessarily, but there may be times of reflection, when he feels grief at the loss of his knowledge.
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, but at present we are enumerating only the natural perceptions, and have nothing to do with reflection.
PROTARCHUS: In that case you are right in saying that the loss of knowledge is not attended with pain.
SOCRATES: These pleasures of knowledge, then, are unmixed with pain; and they are not the pleasures of the many but of a very few.
PROTARCHUS: Quite true.
SOCRATES: And now, having fairly separated the pure pleasures and those which may be rightly termed impure, let us further add to our description of them, that the pleasures which are in excess have no measure, but that those which are not in excess have measure; the great, the excessive, whether more or less frequent, we shall be right in referring to the class of the infinite, and of the more and less, which pours through body and soul alike; and the others we shall refer to the class which has measure.
PROTARCHUS: Quite right, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Still there is something more to be considered about pleasures.
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: When you speak of purity and clearness, or of excess, abundance, greatness and sufficiency, in what relation do these terms stand to truth?
PROTARCHUS: Why do you ask, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Because, Protarchus, I should wish to test pleasure and knowledge in every possible way, in order that if there be a pure and impure element in either of them, I may present the pure element for judgment, and then they will be more easily judged of by you and by me and by all of us.
PROTARCHUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: Let us investigate all the pure kinds; first selecting for consideration a single instance.
PROTARCHUS: What instance shall we select?
SOCRATES: Suppose that we first of all take whiteness.
PROTARCHUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: How can there be purity in whiteness, and what purity? Is that purest which is greatest or most in quantity, or that which is most unadulterated and freest from any admixture of other colours?
PROTARCHUS: Clearly that which is most unadulterated.
SOCRATES: True, Protarchus; and so the purest white, and not the greatest or largest in quantity, is to be deemed truest and most beautiful?
PROTARCHUS: Right.
SOCRATES: And we shall be quite right in saying that a little pure white is whiter and fairer and truer than a great deal that is mixed.
PROTARCHUS: Perfectly right.
SOCRATES: There is no need of adducing many similar examples in illustration of the argument about pleasure; one such is sufficient to prove to us that a small pleasure or a small amount of pleasure, if pure or unalloyed with pain, is always pleasanter and truer and fairer than a great pleasure or a great amount of pleasure of another kind.
PROTARCHUS: Assuredly; and the instance you have given is quite sufficient.
SOCRATES: But what do you say of another question:—have we not heard that pleasure is always a generation, and has no true being? Do not certain ingenious philosophers teach this doctrine, and ought not we to be grateful to them?
PROTARCHUS: What do they mean?
SOCRATES: I will explain to you, my dear Protarchus, what they mean, by putting a question.
PROTARCHUS: Ask, and I will answer.
SOCRATES: I assume that there are two natures, one self-existent, and the other ever in want of something.
PROTARCHUS: What manner of natures are they?
SOCRATES: The one majestic ever, the other inferior.
PROTARCHUS: You speak riddles.
SOCRATES: You have seen loves good and fair, and also brave lovers of them.
PROTARCHUS: I should think so.
SOCRATES: Search the universe for two terms which are like these two and are present everywhere.
PROTARCHUS: Yet a third time I must say, Be a little plainer, Socrates.
SOCRATES: There is no difficulty, Protarchus; the argument is only in play, and insinuates that some things are for the sake of something else (relatives), and that other things are the ends to which the former class subserve (absolutes).
PROTARCHUS: Your many repetitions make me slow to understand.
SOCRATES: As the argument proceeds, my boy, I dare say that the meaning will become clearer.
PROTARCHUS: Very likely.
SOCRATES: Here are two new principles.
PROTARCHUS: What are they?
SOCRATES: One is the generation of all things, and the other is essence.
PROTARCHUS: I readily accept from you both generation and essence.
SOCRATES: Very right; and would you say that generation is for the sake of essence, or essence for the sake of generation?
PROTARCHUS: You want to know whether that which is called essence is, properly speaking, for the sake of generation?
SOCRATES: Yes.
PROTARCHUS: By the gods, I wish that you would repeat your question.
SOCRATES: I mean, O my Protarchus, to ask whether you would tell me that ship-building is for the sake of ships, or ships for the sake of ship-building? and in all similar cases I should ask the same question.
PROTARCHUS: Why do you not answer yourself, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I have no objection, but you must take your part.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: My answer is, that all things instrumental, remedial, material, are given to us with a view to generation, and that each generation is relative to, or for the sake of, some being or essence, and that the whole of generation is relative to the whole of essence.
PROTARCHUS: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: Then pleasure, being a generation, must surely be for the sake of some essence?
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And that for the sake of which something else is done must be placed in the class of good, and that which is done for the sake of something else, in some other class, my good friend.
PROTARCHUS: Most certainly.
SOCRATES: Then pleasure, being a generation, will be rightly placed in some other class than that of good?
PROTARCHUS: Quite right.
SOCRATES: Then, as I said at first, we ought to be very grateful to him who first pointed out that pleasure was a generation only, and had no true being at all; for he is clearly one who laughs at the notion of pleasure being a good.
PROTARCHUS: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: And he would surely laugh also at those who make generation their highest end.
PROTARCHUS: Of whom are you speaking, and what do they mean?
SOCRATES: I am speaking of those who when they are cured of hunger or thirst or any other defect by some process of generation are delighted at the process as if it were pleasure; and they say that they would not wish to live without these and other feelings of a like kind which might be mentioned.
PROTARCHUS: That is certainly what they appear to think.
SOCRATES: And is not destruction universally admitted to be the opposite of generation?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then he who chooses thus, would choose generation and destruction rather than that third sort of life, in which, as we were saying, was neither pleasure nor pain, but only the purest possible thought.
PROTARCHUS: He who would make us believe pleasure to be a good is involved in great absurdities, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Great, indeed; and there is yet another of them.
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: Is there not an absurdity in arguing that there is nothing good or noble in the body, or in anything else, but that good is in the soul only, and that the only good of the soul is pleasure; and that courage or temperance or understanding, or any other good of the soul, is not really a good?—and is there not yet a further absurdity in our being compelled to say that he who has a feeling of pain and not of pleasure is bad at the time when he is suffering pain, even though he be the best of men; and again, that he who has a feeling of pleasure, in so far as he is pleased at the time when he is pleased, in that degree excels in virtue?
PROTARCHUS: Nothing, Socrates, can be more irrational than all this.
SOCRATES: And now, having subjected pleasure to every sort of test, let us not appear to be too sparing of mind and knowledge: let us ring their metal bravely, and see if there be unsoundness in any part, until we have found out what in them is of the purest nature; and then the truest elements both of pleasure and knowledge may be brought up for judgment.
PROTARCHUS: Right.
SOCRATES: Knowledge has two parts,—the one productive, and the other educational?