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Philebus

P >> Plato >> Philebus




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 powerul 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.

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