Complete Works (96 page)

P
ROTARCHUS
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: As the first I count the unlimited, limit as the second, afterwards in third place comes the being which is mixed and generated out of those two. And no mistake is made if the cause of this mixture and [c] generation is counted as number four?

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could there be one?

S
OCRATES
: Now, let’s see, what is going to be our next point after this, and what concern of ours got us to this point? Was it not this? We were wondering whether second prize should be awarded to pleasure or to knowledge, wasn’t that it?
¹¹

P
ROTARCHUS
: It was indeed.

S
OCRATES
: On the basis of our fourfold distinction we may now perhaps be in a better position to come to a decision about the first and the second prize, the issue that started our whole debate.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Perhaps.

S
OCRATES
: Let us continue, then. We declared the life that combines [d] pleasure and knowledge the winner. Didn’t we?

P
ROTARCHUS
: We did.

S
OCRATES
: Should we not take a look at this life and see what it is and to which kind it belongs?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Nothing to prevent us.

S
OCRATES
: We will, I think, assign it to the third kind, for it is not a mixture of just two elements but of the sort where all that is unlimited is tied down by limit.
¹²
It would seem right, then, to make our victorious form of life part of that kind.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Very right.

[e] S
OCRATES
: That is settled, then. But how about your kind of life, Philebus, which is pleasant and unmixed? To which of the established kinds should it by right be assigned? But before you make your pronouncement, answer me the following question.

P
HILEBUS
: Just tell me!

S
OCRATES
: Do pleasure and pain have a limit, or are they of the sort that admit the more and less?

P
HILEBUS
: Certainly the sort that admit the more, Socrates! For how could pleasure be all that is good if it were not by nature boundless in plenty and increase?

[28]
S
OCRATES
: Nor would, on the other hand, pain be all that is bad, Philebus! So we have to search for something besides its unlimited character that would bestow on pleasures a share of the good. But take note that pleasure
¹³
is thereby assigned to the boundless. As to assigning intelligence, knowledge, and reason to one of our aforesaid kinds, how can we avoid the danger of blasphemy, Protarchus and Philebus? A lot seems to hinge on whether or not we give the right answer to this question.

[b] P
HILEBUS
: Really now, you are extolling your own god, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Just as you extoll that goddess of yours, Philebus. But the question needs an answer, nevertheless.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Socrates is right in this, Philebus; we must obey him.

P
HILEBUS
: Didn’t you choose to speak instead of me?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite. But now I am at a loss, and I entreat you, Socrates, to act as our spokesman, so that we do not misstate the case of your candidate and thus introduce a false note into the discussion.

[c] S
OCRATES
: Your obedient servant, Protarchus, especially since it is not a very difficult task. But did my playful exaltation really confuse you, as Philebus claims, when I asked to what kind reason and knowledge belonged?

P
ROTARCHUS
: It certainly did, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: It is easy to settle, nevertheless. For all the wise are agreed, in true self-exaltation, that reason is our king, both over heaven and earth. And perhaps they are justified. But let us go into the discussion of this class itself at greater length, if you have no objections.

[d] P
ROTARCHUS
: Discuss it in whichever way you like, Socrates, and don’t be apologetic about longwindedness; we will not lose patience.

S
OCRATES
: Well said. Let us proceed by taking up this question.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What question?

S
OCRATES
: Whether we hold the view that the universe and this whole world order are ruled by unreason and irregularity, as chance would have it, or whether they are not rather, as our forebears taught us, governed by reason and by the order of a wonderful intelligence.

P
ROTARCHUS
: How can you even think of a comparison here, Socrates? [e] What you suggest now is downright impious, I would say. The only account that can do justice to the wonderful spectacle presented by the cosmic order of sun, moon, and stars and the revolution of the whole heaven, is that reason arranges it all, and I for my part would never waver in saying or believing it.

S
OCRATES
: Is this what you want us to do, that we should not only conform to the view of earlier thinkers who professed this as the truth,
[29]
repeating without any risk what others have said, but that we should share their risk and blame if some formidable opponent denies it and argues that disorder rules?

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could I fail to want it?

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, now face up to the consequences of this position that we have to come to terms with.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Please tell me.

S
OCRATES
: We somehow discern that what makes up the nature of the bodies of all animals—fire, water, and air, “and earth!,” as storm-battered sailors say—are part of their composition.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Very much so. We are indeed battered by difficulties in [b] our discussion.

S
OCRATES
: Come, now, and realize that the following applies to all constituents that belong to us.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What is it?

S
OCRATES
: That the amount of each of these elements in us is small and insignificant, that it does not possess in the very least the purity or the power that is worthy of its nature. Take one example as an illustration representative for all. There is something called fire that belongs to us, and then again there is fire in the universe.

P
ROTARCHUS
: No doubt.

S
OCRATES
: And is not the fire that belongs to us small in amount, feeble [c] and poor, while the fire in the universe overwhelms us by its size and beauty and by the display of all its power?

P
ROTARCHUS
: What you say is very true.

S
OCRATES
: But what about this? Is the fire in the universe generated, nourished, and ruled by the fire that belongs to us, or is it not quite the reverse, that your heat and mine, and that in every animal, owe all this to the cosmic fire?

P
ROTARCHUS
: It is not even worth answering that question.

S
OCRATES
: Right. And I guess you will give the same answer about the [d] earth here in the animals when it is compared to earth in the universe, and likewise about the other elements I mentioned a little earlier. Is that your answer?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Who could answer differently without seeming insane?

S
OCRATES
: No one at all. But now see what follows. To the combination of all these elements taken as a unit we give the name “body,” don’t we?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

[e] S
OCRATES
: Now, realize that the same holds in the case of what we call the ordered universe. It will turn out to be a body in the same sense, since it is composed of the same elements.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What you say is undeniable.

S
OCRATES
: Does the body of the universe as a whole provide for the sustenance of what is body in our sphere, or is it the reverse, and the universe possesses and derives all the goods enumerated from ours?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That too is a question not worth asking, Socrates.

[30]
S
OCRATES
: But what about the following, is this also a question not worth asking?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Tell me what the question is.

S
OCRATES
: Of the body that belongs to us, will we not say that it has a soul?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite obviously that is what we will say.

S
OCRATES
: But where does it come from, unless the body of the universe which has the same properties as ours, but more beautiful in all respects, happens to possess a soul?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Clearly from nowhere else.

S
OCRATES
: We surely cannot maintain this assumption, with respect to [b] our four classes (limit, the unlimited, their mixture, and their cause—which is present in everything): that this cause is recognized as all-encompassing wisdom, since among us it imports the soul and provides training for the body and medicine for its ailments and in other cases order and restitution, but that it should fail to be responsible for the same things on a large scale in the whole universe (things that are, in addition, beautiful and pure), for the contrivance of what has so fair and wonderful a nature.

[c] P
ROTARCHUS
: That would make no sense at all.

S
OCRATES
: But if that is inconceivable, we had better pursue the alternative account and affirm, as we have said often, that there is plenty of the unlimited in the universe as well as sufficient limit, and that there is, above them, a certain cause, of no small significance, that orders and coordinates the years, seasons, and months, and which has every right to the title of wisdom and reason.

P
ROTARCHUS
: The greatest right.

S
OCRATES
: But there could be no wisdom and reason without a soul.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly not.

[d] S
OCRATES
: You will therefore say that in the nature of Zeus there is the soul of a king, as well as a king’s reason, in virtue of this power displayed by the cause, while paying tribute for other fine qualities in the other divinities, in conformity with the names by which they like to be addressed.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Very much so.

S
OCRATES
: Do not think that we have engaged in an idle discussion here, Protarchus, for it comes as a support for the thinkers of old who held the view that reason is forever the ruler over the universe.

P
ROTARCHUS
: It certainly does.

S
OCRATES
: It also has provided an answer to my query, that reason [e] belongs to that kind which is the cause of everything. But that was one of our four kinds. So there you already have the solution to our problem in your hands.

P
ROTARCHUS
: I have indeed, and quite to my satisfaction, although at first I did not realize that you were answering.

S
OCRATES
: Sometimes joking is a relief from seriousness.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Well said.

S
OCRATES
: By now, dear friend, we have arrived at a satisfactory explanation
[31]
of the class that reason belongs to and what power it has.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite so.

S
OCRATES
: And as to pleasure, it became apparent quite a while ago what class it belongs to.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Definitely.

S
OCRATES
: Let us firmly keep it in mind about both of them, that reason is akin to cause and is part of that family, while pleasure itself is unlimited and belongs to the kind that in and by itself neither possesses nor will ever possess a beginning, middle, or end.

P
ROTARCHUS
: We will keep it in mind, how could we help it? [b]

S
OCRATES
: After this we must next find out in what kind of thing each of them resides and what kind of condition makes them come to be when they do. Let us take pleasure first, for just as we searched for the class it belongs to first, so we start our present investigation with it. But again, we will not be able to provide a satisfactory examination of pleasure if we do not study it together with pain.

P
ROTARCHUS
: If that is the direction we have to take, then let’s go that way.

S
OCRATES
: Do you share my view about their generation?

P
ROTARCHUS
: What view? [c]

S
OCRATES
: Pleasure and pain seem to me by nature to arise together in the common kind.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Could you remind us once again, Socrates, which of those you mentioned you called the common kind?

S
OCRATES
: As far as I can, my most esteemed friend.

P
ROTARCHUS
: That is noble of you.

S
OCRATES
: By the common kind, we meant the one that was number three on our list of four.

P
ROTARCHUS
: You mean the one you introduced after the unlimited and the limited, the one that included health, and also harmony, I believe?

S
OCRATES
: Excellently stated. But now try to put your mind to this as [d] much as possible.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Just go on.

S
OCRATES
: What I claim is that when we find the harmony in living creatures disrupted, there will at the same time be a disintegration of their nature and a rise of pain.