PHILEBUS · 22

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.