I said : You would admit, Protagoras, that some men live well and others ill ?
He assented.
And do you think that a man lives well who lives in pain and grief ?
He does not.
But if he lives pleasantly to the end of his life, will he not in that case have lived well ?
He will.
Then to live pleasantly is a good, and to live unpleasantly an evil ?
Yes, he said, if the pleasure be good and honourable.
And do you, Protagoras, like the rest of the world, call some pleasant things evil and some painful things good ? — for I am rather disposed to say that things are good in as far as they are pleasant, if they have no consequences of another sort, and in as far as they are painful they are bad.
I do not know, Socrates, he said, whether I can venture to assert in that unqualified manner that the pleasant is the good and the painful the evil. Having regard not only to my present answer, but also to the whole of my life, I shall be safer, if I am not mistaken, in saying that there are some pleasant things which are not good, and that there are some painful things which are good, and some which are not good, and that there are some which are neither good nor evil.
And you would call pleasant, I said, the things which participate in pleasure or create pleasure ?
Certainly, he said.
Then my meaning is, that in as far as they are pleasant they are good ; and my question would imply that pleasure is a good in itself.
According to your favourite mode of speech, Socrates, “Let us reflect about this,” he said ; and if the reflection is to the point, and the result proves that pleasure and good are really the same, then we will agree ; but if not, then we will argue.
And would you wish to begin the enquiry ?
I said ; or shall I begin ?
You ought to take the lead, he said ; for you are the author of the discussion.