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.