Complete Works (100 page)

S
OCRATES
: Now, imagine three sorts of things, whichever you may like, [e] and because these are high-sounding names, let us call them gold, silver, and what is neither of the two.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Consider it done.

S
OCRATES
: Is there any way conceivable in which this third kind could turn out to be the same as one of our other two sorts, gold or silver?

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could it?

S
OCRATES
: That the middle kind of life could turn out to be either pleasant or painful would be the wrong thing to think, if anyone happened to think so, and it would be the wrong thing to say, if anyone should say so, according to the proper account of the matter?

P
ROTARCHUS
: No doubt.

S
OCRATES
: But we do find people who both think so and say so, my friend.
[44]

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: And do they really believe they experience pleasure when they are not in pain?

P
ROTARCHUS
: They say so, at any rate.

S
OCRATES
: They believe therefore that they are pleased at that time. Otherwise they would not say that they are.

P
ROTARCHUS
: It looks that way.

S
OCRATES
: But they hold a false judgment about pleasure, if in fact freedom from pain and pleasure each have a nature of their own.

P
ROTARCHUS
: But they do have their own.

S
OCRATES
: What decision shall we make? That there are three states in us, as we said just now, or that there are only two: pain being an evil in human [b] life, and liberation from pain, also called pleasure, being the good as such?

P
ROTARCHUS
: But why is it that we are asking ourselves this question now, Socrates? I don’t get the point.

S
OCRATES
: That is because you don’t really understand who the enemies of our Philebus here are.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What enemies do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: I mean people with a tremendous reputation in natural science who say that there are no such things as pleasures at all.

P
ROTARCHUS
: How so?

[c] S
OCRATES
: They hold that everything the followers of Philebus call pleasures are nothing but escape from pain.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Do you suggest we should believe them, Socrates, or what is it you want us to do?

S
OCRATES
: Not that, but to use them as seers who make their prophecies, not in virtue of any art but in virtue of a certain harshness in their nature. It is a nature not without nobility, but out of an inordinate hatred that they have conceived against the power of pleasure, they refuse to acknowledge anything healthy in it, even to the point that they regard its very attractiveness itself as witchcraft rather than pleasure. You may now make use of them [d] for our purposes, taking notice of the rest of their complaints that result from their harshness. After that you will hear what I, for my part, regard as true pleasures, so that through an examination of these two opposed points of view, we can reach a decision about the power of pleasure.

P
ROTARCHUS
: A fair proposal.

S
OCRATES
: Let us attach ourselves to them as to allies and follow their traces in the direction in which their dour arguments point us. I think they employ reasoning of this kind, starting from some such basic principle: If [e] we wanted to know the nature of any character, like that of hardness, would we get a better understanding if we looked at the hardest kinds of things rather than at what has a low degree of hardness? Now, it is your task, Protarchus, to answer these difficult people, just as you answered me.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Gladly, and my answer to them will be that I would look at hardness of the first degree.

S
OCRATES
: But again if we wanted to study the form of pleasure, to see
[45]
what kind of nature it has, in that case we ought not to look at low-level pleasures, but at those that are said to be the strongest and most intensive.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Everyone would grant you this point.

S
OCRATES
: Now, aren’t the most immediate and greatest among the pleasures the ones connected with the body, as we have often said?

P
ROTARCHUS
: No doubt.

S
OCRATES
: And is it the case that pleasures are more intensive or set in with greater intensity when people suffer from an illness than when they are healthy? We have to beware of a hasty answer here, lest we get tripped up. [b] Perhaps we might be inclined to affirm this rather for the healthy people?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite likely.

S
OCRATES
: But what about this? Are not those pleasures overwhelming which are also preceded by the greatest desires?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That is certainly true.

S
OCRATES
: And when people suffer from fever or any such disease, aren’t they more subject to thirst, chill, and whatever else continues to affect them through the body? Do they not feel greater deprivations, and also greater pleasures at their replenishment? Or shall we deny that this is true?

P
ROTARCHUS
: It seems undeniable as you explained it now.

[c] S
OCRATES
: Very well. Are we justified, then, if we claim that whoever wants to study the greatest pleasures should turn to sickness, not to health? Now, mind you, my question was not whether the very sick have
more
pleasures than healthy people; my concern is rather with the size and
intensity
of the condition when it takes place. Our task, as we said, is to comprehend both what its true nature is and how those conceive of it who deny that there is any such thing as pleasure at all.

P
ROTARCHUS
: I am following quite well what you say. [d]

S
OCRATES
: You might as well be its guide, Protarchus. Now, tell me. Do you recognize greater pleasures in a life given to excesses—I do not say more pleasures, but pleasures that exceed by their force and intensity—than in a moderate life? Think carefully about it before you answer.

P
ROTARCHUS
: I quite understand what you are after; I see indeed a huge difference. The moderate people somehow always stand under the guidance of the proverbial maxim “nothing too much” and obey it. But as to [e] foolish people and those given to debauchery, the excesses of their pleasures drive them near madness and to shrieks of frenzy.

S
OCRATES
: Good. But if this is how it stands, then it is obvious that it is in some vicious state of soul and body and not in virtue that the greatest pleasures as well as the greatest pains have their origin.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Obviously.

S
OCRATES
: So we must pick out some of them to find out what characteristic of theirs made us call them the greatest.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Necessarily.
[46]

S
OCRATES
: Now, look at the pleasures that go with these types of maladies, what kinds of conditions they are.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What types do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: Those pleasures of a rather repugnant type, which our harsh friends hate above all.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What kinds?

S
OCRATES
: For example, the relief from itching by rubbing, and all of that sort that needs no other remedy. But if this condition should befall us, what in heaven’s name should we call it, pleasure or pain?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That really would seem to be a mixed experience, with a bad component, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: I did not raise this question with the intention of alluding to [b] Philebus. But without a clarification of these pleasures and of those who cultivate them, we could hardly come to any resolution of our problem.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Then let us take up the whole tribe of these pleasures.

S
OCRATES
: You mean the ones that have that mixed nature?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Right.

S
OCRATES
: There are mixtures that have their origin in the body and are confined to the body; then, there are mixtures found in the soul, and they [c] are confined to the soul. But then we will also find mixtures of pleasures and pains in both soul and body, and at one time the combination of both will be called pleasure; at other times it will be called pain.

P
ROTARCHUS
: How so?

S
OCRATES
: When someone undergoes restoration or destruction he experiences two opposed conditions at once. He may feel hot while shivering or feel chilled while sweating. I suppose he will then want to retain one of these [d] conditions and get rid of the other. But if this so called bittersweet condition is hard to shake, it first causes irritation and later on turns into wild excitement.

P
ROTARCHUS
: A very accurate description.

S
OCRATES
: Now, isn’t it the case that some of those mixtures contain an even amount of pleasures and pain, while there is a preponderance of either of the two in others?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Right.

S
OCRATES
: Take the case that we just mentioned, of itching and scratching, as an example where the pains outweigh the pleasures. Now, when the [e] irritation and infection are inside and cannot be reached by rubbing and scratching, there is only a relief on the surface.
¹⁴
In case they treat these parts by exposing them to fire or its opposite—they go from one extreme to the other in their distress—they sometimes procure enormous pleasures. But sometimes this leads to a state inside that is opposite to that outside, with a mixture of pains and pleasures, whichever way the balance may turn, because this treatment disperses by force what was mixed together or
[47]
mixes together what was separate, so that pains arise besides the pleasures.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Necessarily.

S
OCRATES
: Now, in all those cases where the mixture contains a surplus of pleasure, the small admixture of pain gives rise only to a tickle and a mild irritation, while the predominant part of pleasure causes contractions of the body to the point of leaping and kicking, color changes of all sorts, distortion of features, and wild palpitations; it finally drives the person totally out of his mind, so that he shouts aloud like a madman.

[b] P
ROTARCHUS
: Very much so.

S
OCRATES
: And this state causes him and others to say of him that he is almost dying of these pleasures. And the more profligate and mindless he is, the more will he pursue them by any means possible, and he calls them supreme and considers as the happiest of all mortals whoever lives in continuous enjoyment of them, as much as that is possible.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Your description fits exactly the preconceptions of the common run of people, Socrates.

[c] S
OCRATES
: Yes, as far as concerns the pleasures that arise when there is a mixture of the external and internal state of the body, Protarchus. But take now the cases where the soul’s contributions are opposed to the body’s: When there is pain over and against pleasures, or pleasure against pain, both are finally joined in a mixed state. We have talked about them earlier and agreed that in these cases it is the deprivation that gives rise to the desire for replenishment, and while the expectation is pleasant, the deprivation itself is painful. When we discussed this we did not make any [d] special mention, as we do now, of the fact that, in the vast number of cases where soul and body are not in agreement, the final result is a single mixture that combines pleasure and pain.

P
ROTARCHUS
: I suspect that you are right.

S
OCRATES
: But here we are still left with one further kind of mixture of pleasure and pain.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Tell me what it is.

S
OCRATES
: The case, a common one, where the mixture is the product of affections within the soul itself, as we said before.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What was it again that we said?

S
OCRATES
: Take wrath, fear, longing, lamentations, love, jealousy, malice, [e] and other things like that; don’t you regard them as a kind of pain within the soul itself?

P
ROTARCHUS
: I certainly do.

S
OCRATES
: And don’t we find that they are full of marvellous pleasures? Or do we need the famous lines as a reminder about wrath:

… That can embitter even the wise
… But much sweeter than soft-flowing honey …
¹⁵

Similarly, in the case of lamentations and longing, aren’t there also pleasures
[48]
mixed in with the pain?

P
ROTARCHUS
: No need for further reminders; in all these cases it must be just as you said.

S
OCRATES
: And the same happens in those who watch tragedies: There is laughter mixed with the weeping, if you remember.

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could I forget?

S
OCRATES
: Now, look at our state of mind in comedy. Don’t you realize that it also involves a mixture of pleasure and pain?

P
ROTARCHUS
: I don’t quite see that yet.