Soc. But what do you say of another question : — have we not heard that pleasure is always a generation, and has no true being ? Do not certain ingenious philosophers teach this doctrine, and ought not we to be grateful to them ?
Pro. What do they mean ?
Soc. I will explain to you, my dear Protarchus, what they mean, by putting a question.
Pro. Ask, and I will answer.
Soc. I assume that there are two natures, one self-existent, and the other ever in want of something.
Pro. What manner of natures are they ?
Soc. The one majestic ever, the other inferior.
Pro. You speak riddles.
Soc. You have seen loves good and fair, and also brave lovers of them.
Pro. I should think so.
Soc. Search the universe for two terms which are like these two and are present everywhere.
Pro. Yet a third time I must say, Be a little plainer, Socrates.
Soc. There is no difficulty, Protarchus ; the argument is only in play, and insinuates that some things are for the sake of something else (relatives), and that other things are the ends to which the former class subserve (absolutes).
Pro. Your many repetitions make me slow to understand.
Soc. As the argument proceeds, my boy, I dare say that the meaning will become clearer.
Pro. Very likely.
Soc. Here are two new principles.
Pro. What are they ?
Soc. One is the generation of all things, and the other is essence.
Pro. I readily accept from you both generation and essence.
Soc. Very right ; and would you say that generation is for the sake of essence, or essence for the sake of generation ?
Pro. You want to know whether that which is called essence is, properly speaking, for the sake of generation ?
Soc. Yes.
Pro. By the gods, I wish that you would repeat your question.
Soc. I mean, O my Protarchus, to ask whether you would tell me that ship-building is for the sake of ships, or ships for the sake of ship-building ? and in all similar cases I should ask the same question.
Pro. Why do you not answer yourself, Socrates ?
Soc. I have no objection, but you must take your part.
Pro. Certainly.
Soc. My answer is, that all things instrumental, remedial, material, are given to us with a view to generation, and that each generation is relative to, or for the sake of, some being or essence, and that the whole of generation is relative to the whole of essence.
Pro. Assuredly.
Soc. Then pleasure, being a generation, must surely be for the sake of some essence ?
Pro. True.
Soc. And that for the sake of which something else is done must be placed in the class of good, and that which is done for the sake of something else, in some other class, my good friend.
Pro. Most certainly.
Soc. Then pleasure, being a generation, will be rightly placed in some other class than that of good ?
Pro. Quite right.
Soc. Then, as I said at first, we ought to be very grateful to him who first pointed out that pleasure was a generation only, and had no true being at all ; for he is clearly one who laughs at the notion of pleasure being a good.
Pro. Assuredly.
Soc. And he would surely laugh also at those who make generation their highest end.
Pro. Of whom are you speaking, and what do they mean ?
Soc. I am speaking of those who when they are cured of hunger or thirst or any other defect by some process of generation are delighted at the process as if it were pleasure ; and they say that they would not wish to live without these and other feelings of a like kind which might be mentioned.
Pro. That is certainly what they appear to think.
Soc. And is not destruction universally admitted to be the opposite of generation ?
Pro. Certainly.
Soc. Then he who chooses thus, would choose generation and destruction rather than that third sort of life, in which, as we were saying, was neither pleasure nor pain, but only the purest possible thought.
Pro. He who would make us believe pleasure to be a good is involved in great absurdities, Socrates.
Soc. Great, indeed ; and there is yet another of them.
Pro. What is it ?
Soc. Is there not an absurdity in arguing that there is nothing good or noble in the body, or in anything else, but that good is in the soul only, and that the only good of the soul is pleasure ; and that courage or temperance or understanding, or any other good of the soul, is not really a good ? — and is there not yet a further absurdity in our being compelled to say that he who has a feeling of pain and not of pleasure is bad at the time when he is suffering pain, even though he be the best of men ; and again, that he who has a feeling of pleasure, in so far as he is pleased at the time when he is pleased, in that degree excels in virtue ?
Pro. Nothing, Socrates, can be more irrational than all this.