pleasures

(407b) “Whither haste ye, O men ? Yea, verily ye know not that ye are doing none of the things ye ought, seeing that ye spend your whole energy on wealth and the acquiring of it ; while as to your sons to whom ye will bequeath it, ye neglect to ensure that they shall understand how to use it justly, and ye find for them no teachers of justice, if so be that it is teachable — or if it be a matter of training and practice, instructors who can efficiently practice and train them — nor have ye even begun by reforming yourselves in this respect. Yet when ye perceive that ye yourselves and your children, though adequately instructed in letters and music and gymnastic — (407c) which ye, forsooth, regard as a complete education in virtue — are in consequence none the less vicious in respect of wealth, how is it that ye do not contemn this present mode of education nor search for teachers who will put an end to this your lack of culture ? Yet truly it is because of this dissonance and sloth, and not because of failure to keep in step with the lyre that brother with brother and city with city clash together without measure or harmony (407d) and are at strife, and in their warring perpetrate and suffer the uttermost horrors. But ye assert that the unjust are unjust not because of their lack of education and lack of knowledge but voluntarily, while on the other hand ye have the face to affirm that injustice is a foul thing, and hateful to Heaven. Then how, pray, could any man voluntarily choose an evil of such a kind ? Any man, you reply, who is mastered by his PLEASURES. But is not this condition also involuntary, if the act of mastering be voluntary ? Thus in every way the argument proves that unjust action is involuntary, and that every man privately (407e) and all the cities publicly ought to pay more attention than they do now to this matter.” CLEITOPHON

Socrates : But it seems to me that I am so eager to know that I cannot wait for you while you delay ; for I believe I have just now found a way out. Just see; how would it help us towards our goal if we were to say that that is beautiful which makes us feel joy ; I do not mean all PLEASURES, but that which makes us feel joy through hearing and sight ? (298a) For surely beautiful human beings, Hippias, and all decorations and paintings and works of sculpture which are beautiful, delight us when we see them ; and beautiful sounds and music in general and speeches and stories do the same thing, so that if we were to reply to that impudent fellow, “My excellent man, the beautiful is that which is pleasing through hearing and sight,” don’t you think that we should put a stop to his impudence ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Hippias : Certainly, by all means, Socrates, we shall say that there are very great PLEASURES in the other things also. GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : “Why, then,” he will say, “if they are PLEASURES no less than the others, (299a) do you take from them this designation and deprive them of being beautiful ?” “Because,” we shall say, “everybody would laugh at us if we should say that eating is not pleasant but is beautiful, and that a pleasant odor is not pleasant but is beautiful ; and as to the act of sexual love, we should all, no doubt, contend that it is most pleasant, but that one must, if he perform it, do it so that no one else shall see, because it is most repulsive to see.” If we say this, Hippias, “I too understand,” he will perhaps say, “that you have all along been ashamed to say that these PLEASURES are beautiful, (299b) because they do not seem so to people ; but that is not what I asked, what seems to most people to be beautiful, but what is so.” We shall, then, I fancy, say, as we suggested, “We say that that part of the pleasant which comes by sight and hearing is beautiful.” Do you think the statement is of any use, Hippias, or shall we say something else ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : “Does, then,” he will say, “any pleasant thing whatsoever differ from any pleasant thing whatsoever by this, by being pleasant ? I ask not whether any pleasure is greater or smaller or more or less, but whether it differs by just this very thing, by the fact that one of the PLEASURES is a pleasure and the other is not a pleasure.” “We do not think so.” Do we ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : “Is it not,” then, he will say, “for some other reason than because they are PLEASURES that you chose these PLEASURES out from the other PLEASURES (299e) — it was because you saw some quality in both, since they have something different from the others, in view of which you say that they are beautiful ? For the reason why that which is pleasant through sight is beautiful, is not, I imagine, because it is through sight ; for if that were the cause of its being beautiful, the other pleasure, that through hearing, would not be beautiful ; it certainly is not pleasure through sight.” Shall we say “What you say is true” ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : If, then, these PLEASURES are both affected in any way collectively, but each individually is not so affected, it is not by this affection that they would be beautiful. GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Is it, then, for this reason, because each is a pleasure and both are PLEASURES, that they would be beautiful ? Or would all other PLEASURES be for this reason no less beautiful than they ? For we saw, if you remember, that they were no less PLEASURES. GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : But for this reason, because these PLEASURES were through sight and hearing, it was said that they are beautiful. GREATER HIPPIAS

Socrates : “Then tell us again,” he will say, “from the beginning, (303e) since you failed this time ; what do you say that this ‘beautiful’, belonging to both the PLEASURES, is, on account of which you honored them before the rest and called them beautiful ?” It seems to me, Hippias, inevitable that we say that these are the most harmless and the best of PLEASURES, both of them collectively and each of them individually ; or have you anything else to suggest, by which they excel the rest ? GREATER HIPPIAS

Then I should say to them, in my name and yours : Do you think them evil for any other reason, except because they end in pain and rob us of other PLEASURES : — there again they would agree ? PROTAGORAS

“Then you think that pain is an evil and pleasure is a good : and even pleasure you deem an evil, when it robs you of greater PLEASURES than it gives, or causes pains greater than the pleasure. If, however, you call pleasure an evil in relation to some other end or standard, you will be able to show us that standard. But you have none to show.” PROTAGORAS

“And have you not a similar way of speaking about pain ? You call pain a good when it takes away greater pains than those which it has, or gives PLEASURES greater than the pains : then if you have some standard other than pleasure and pain to which you refer when you call actual pain a good, you can show what that is. But you cannot.” PROTAGORAS

Suppose again, I said, that the world says to me : “Why do you spend many words and speak in many ways on this subject ?” Excuse me, friends, I should reply ; but in the first place there is a difficulty in explaining the meaning of the expression “overcome by pleasure” ; and the whole argument turns upon this. And even now, if you see any possible way in which evil can be explained as other than pain, or good as other than pleasure, you may still retract. Are you satisfied, then, at having a life of pleasure which is without pain ? If you are, and if you are unable to show any good or evil which does not end in pleasure and pain, hear the consequences : — If what you say is true, then the argument is absurd which affirms that a man often does evil knowingly, when he might abstain, because he is seduced and overpowered by pleasure ; or again, when you say that a man knowingly refuses to do what is good because he is overcome at the moment by pleasure. And that this is ridiculous will be evident if only we give up the use of various names, such as pleasant and painful, and good and evil. As there are two things, let us call them by two names — first, good and evil, and then pleasant and painful. Assuming this, let us go on to say that a man does evil knowing that he does evil. But some one will ask, Why ? Because he is overcome, is the first answer. And by what is he overcome ? the enquirer will proceed to ask. And we shall not be able to reply “By pleasure,” for the name of pleasure has been exchanged for that of good. In our answer, then, we shall only say that he is overcome. “By what ?” he will reiterate. By the good, we shall have to reply ; indeed we shall. Nay, but our questioner will rejoin with a laugh, if he be one of the swaggering sort, “That is too ridiculous, that a man should do what he knows to be evil when he ought not, because he is overcome by good. Is that, he will ask, because the good was worthy or not worthy of conquering the evil ?” And in answer to that we shall clearly reply, Because it was not worthy ; for if it had been worthy, then he who, as we say, was overcome by pleasure, would not have been wrong. “But how,” he will reply, “can the good be unworthy of the evil, or the evil of the good ?” Is not the real explanation that they are out of proportion to one another, either as greater and smaller, or more and fewer ? This we cannot deny. And when you speak of being overcome — “what do you mean,” he will say, “but that you choose the greater evil in exchange for the lesser good ?” Admitted. And now substitute the names of pleasure and pain for good and evil, and say, not as before, that a man does what is evil knowingly, but that he does what is painful knowingly, and because he is overcome by pleasure, which is unworthy to overcome. What measure is there of the relations of pleasure to pain other than excess and defect, which means that they become greater and smaller, and more and fewer, and differ in degree ? For if any one says : “Yes, Socrates, but immediate pleasure differs widely from future pleasure and pain” — To that I should reply : And do they differ in anything but in pleasure and pain ? There can be no other measure of them. And do you, like a skilful weigher, put into the balance the PLEASURES and the pains, and their nearness and distance, and weigh them, and then say which outweighs the other. If you weigh PLEASURES against PLEASURES, you of course take the more and greater ; or if you weigh pains against pains, you take the fewer and the less ; or if PLEASURES against pains, then you choose that course of action in which the painful is exceeded by the pleasant, whether the distant by the near or the near by the distant ; and you avoid that course of action in which the pleasant is exceeded by the painful. Would you not admit, my friends, that this is true ? I am confident that they cannot deny this. PROTAGORAS

Well then, my friends, I say to them ; seeing that the salvation of human life has been found to consist in the right choice of PLEASURES and pains, — in the choice of the more and the fewer, and the greater and the less, and the nearer and remoter, must not this measuring be a consideration of their excess and defect and equality in relation to each other ? PROTAGORAS

The nature of that art or science will be a matter of future consideration ; but the existence of such a science furnishes a demonstrative answer to the question which you asked of me and Protagoras. At the time when you asked the question, if you remember, both of us were agreeing that there was nothing mightier than knowledge, and that knowledge, in whatever existing, must have the advantage over pleasure and all other things ; and then you said that pleasure often got the advantage even over a man who has knowledge ; and we refused to allow this, and you rejoined : O Protagoras and Socrates, what is the meaning of being overcome by pleasure if not this ? — tell us what you call such a state : — if we had immediately and at the time answered “Ignorance,” you would have laughed at us. But now, in laughing at us, you will be laughing at yourselves : for you also admitted that men err in their choice of PLEASURES and pains ; that is, in their choice of good and evil, from defect of knowledge ; and you admitted further, that they err, not only from defect of knowledge in general, but of that particular knowledge which is called measuring. And you are also aware that the erring act which is done without knowledge is done in ignorance. This, therefore, is the meaning of being overcome by pleasure ; — ignorance, and that the greatest. And our friends Protagoras and Prodicus and Hippias declare that they are the physicians of ignorance ; but you, who are under the mistaken impression that ignorance is not the cause, and that the art of which I am speaking cannot be taught, neither go yourselves, nor send your children, to the Sophists, who are the teachers of these things — you take care of your money and give them none ; and the result is, that you are the worse off both in public and private life : — Let us suppose this to be our answer to the world in general : And now I should like to ask you, Hippias, and you, Prodicus, as well as Protagoras (for the argument is to be yours as well as ours), whether you think that I am speaking the truth or not ? PROTAGORAS

Soc. That was my meaning when I said that I was to blame in having put my question badly, and that this was the reason of your answering badly. For I meant to ask you not only about the courage of heavy-armed soldiers, but about the courage of cavalry and every other style of soldier ; and not only who are courageous in war, but who are courageous in perils by sea, and who in disease, or in poverty, or again in politics, are courageous ; and not only who are courageous against pain or fear, but mighty to contend against desires and PLEASURES, either fixed in their rank or turning upon their enemy. There is this sort of courage — is there not, Laches ? LACHES

Soc. And all these are courageous, but some have courage in PLEASURES, and some in pains : some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions, as I should imagine. LACHES

— I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is, that without buying them, and without their being given to him, he carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and superior. And this is true, as you may ascertain, if you will leave philosophy and go on to higher things : for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life. Even if a man has good parts, still, if he carries philosophy into later life, he is necessarily ignorant of all those things which a gentleman and a person of honour ought to know ; he is inexperienced in the laws of the State, and in the language which ought to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether private or public, and utterly ignorant of the PLEASURES and desires of mankind and of human character in general. And people of this sort, when they betake themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as I imagine the politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of philosophy. For, as Euripides says, GORGIAS

Soc. A simple thing enough ; just what is commonly said, that a man should be temperate and master of himself, and ruler of his own PLEASURES and passions. GORGIAS

Cal. Quite so, Socrates ; and they are really fools, for how can a man be happy who is the servant of anything ? On the contrary, I plainly assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them ; but when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain ; and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and being unable to satisfy their PLEASURES, they praise temperance and justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally the son of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than temperance — to a man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every good, and has no one to stand in his way, and yet has admitted custom and reason and the opinion of other men to be lords over him ? — must not he be in a miserable plight whom the reputation of justice and temperance hinders from giving more to his friends than to his enemies, even though he be a ruler in his city ? Nay, Socrates, for you profess to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this : — that luxury and intemperance and licence, if they be provided with means, are virtue and happiness — all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to nature, foolish talk of men, nothing worth. GORGIAS

Soc. Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these topics, or he who says without any qualification that all who feel pleasure in whatever manner are happy, and who admits of no distinction between good and bad PLEASURES ? And I would still ask, whether you say that pleasure and good are the same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a good ? GORGIAS

Soc. Why, do you not remember saying that the good were good because good was present with them, and the evil because evil ; and that PLEASURES were goods and pains evils ? GORGIAS

Soc. And are not these PLEASURES or goods present to those who rejoice — if they do rejoice ? GORGIAS

Cal. I have been listening and making admissions to you, Socrates ; and I remark that if a person grants you anything in play, you, like a child, want to keep hold and will not give it back. But do you really suppose that I or any other human being denies that some PLEASURES are good and others bad ? GORGIAS

Soc. Alas, Callicles, how unfair you are ! you certainly treat me as if I were a child, sometimes saying one thing, and then another, as if you were meaning to deceive me. And yet I thought at first that you were my friend, and would not have deceived me if you could have helped. But I see that I was mistaken ; and now I suppose that I must make the best of a bad business, as they said of old, and take what I can get out of you. — Well, then, as I understand you to say, I may assume that some PLEASURES are good and others evil ? GORGIAS

Soc. Take, for example, the bodily PLEASURES of eating and drinking, which were just now mentioning — you mean to say that those which promote health, or any other bodily excellence, are good, and their opposites evil ? GORGIAS

Soc. And ought we not to choose and use the good PLEASURES and pains ? GORGIAS

Soc. But can every man choose what PLEASURES are good and what are evil, or must he have art or knowledge of them in detail ? GORGIAS

Soc. Then I will proceed, and ask whether you also agree with me, and whether you think that I spoke the truth when I further said to Gorgias and Polus that cookery in my opinion is only an experience, and not an art at all ; and that whereas medicine is an art, and attends to the nature and constitution of the patient, and has principles of action and reason in each case, cookery in attending upon pleasure never regards either the nature or reason of that pleasure to which she devotes herself, but goes straight to her end, nor ever considers or calculates anything, but works by experience and routine, and just preserves the recollection of what she has usually done when producing pleasure. And first, I would have you consider whether I have proved what I was saying, and then whether there are not other similar processes which have to do with the soul — some of them processes of art, making a provision for the soul’s highest interest — others despising the interest, and, as in the previous case, considering only the pleasure of the soul, and how this may be acquired, but not considering what PLEASURES are good or bad, and having no other aim but to afford gratification, whether good or bad. In my opinion, Callicles, there are such processes, and this is the sort of thing which I term flattery, whether concerned with the body or the soul, or whenever employed with a view to pleasure and without any consideration of good and evil. And now I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with us in this notion, or whether you differ. GORGIAS

And will not the temperate man do what is proper, both in relation to the gods and to men ; — for he would not be temperate if he did not ? Certainly he will do what is proper. In his relation to other men he will do what is just ; See and in his relation to the gods he will do what is holy ; and he who does what is just and holy must be just and holy ? Very true. And must he not be courageous ? for the duty of a temperate man is not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether things or men or PLEASURES or pains, and patiently to endure when he ought ; and therefore, Callicles, the temperate man, being, as we have described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other than a perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than well and perfectly whatever he does ; and he who does well must of necessity be happy and blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable : now this latter is he whom you were applauding — the intemperate who is the opposite of the temperate. Such is my position, and these things I affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that he who desires to be happy must pursue and practise temperance and run away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him : he had better order his life so as not to need punishment ; but if either he or any of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both of himself and of the state, acting so that he may have temperance and justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire satisfy them leading a robber’s life. Such ; one is the friend neither of God nor man, for he is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend. But although you are a philosopher you seem to me never to have observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men ; you think that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care about geometry. — Well, then, either the principle that the happy are made happy by the possession of justice and temperance, and the miserable the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is granted, what will be the consequences ? All the consequences which I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was in earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he should use his rhetoric — all those consequences are true. And that which you thought that Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, viz., that, to do injustice, if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in that degree worse ; and the other position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias admitted out of modesty, that he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge of justice, has also turned out to be true. GORGIAS

Soc. And I too shall be treated in the same way, as I well know, if I am brought before the court. For I shall not be able to rehearse to the people the PLEASURES which I have procured for them, and which, although I am not disposed to envy either the procurers or enjoyers of them, are deemed by them to be benefits and advantages. And if any one says that I corrupt young men, and perplex their minds, or that I speak evil of old men, and use bitter words towards them, whether in private or public, it is useless for me to reply, as I truly might : — “All this I do for the sake of justice, and with a view to your interest, my judges, and to nothing else.” And therefore there is no saying what may happen to me. GORGIAS

herein is an excellent proof of her tenderness — that she walks not upon the hard but upon the soft. Let us adduce a similar proof of the tenderness of Love ; for he walks not upon the earth, nor yet upon skulls of men, which are not so very soft, but in the hearts and souls of both god, and men, which are of all things the softest : in them he walks and dwells and makes his home. Not in every soul without exception, for Where there is hardness he departs, where there is softness there he dwells ; and nestling always with his feet and in all manner of ways in the softest of soft places, how can he be other than the softest of all things ? Of a truth he is the tenderest as well as the youngest, and also he is of flexile form ; for if he were hard and without flexure he could not enfold all things, or wind his way into and out of every soulsoul of man undiscovered. And a proof of his flexibility and symmetry of form is his grace, which is universally admitted to be in an especial manner the attribute of Love ; ungrace and love are always at war with one another. The fairness of his complexion is revealed by his habitation among the flowers ; for he dwells not amid bloomless or fading beauties, whether of body or soul or aught else, but in the place of flowers and scents, there he sits and abides. Concerning the beauty of the god I have said enough ; and yet there remains much more which I might say. Of his virtue I have now to speak : his greatest glory is that he can neither do nor suffer wrong to or from any god or any man ; for he suffers not by force if he suffers ; force comes not near him, neither when he acts does he act by force. For all men in all things serve him of their own free will, and where there is voluntary agreement, there, as the laws which are the lords of the city say, is justice. And not only is he just but exceedingly temperate, for Temperance is the acknowledged ruler of the PLEASURES and desires, and no pleasure ever masters Love ; he is their master and they are his servants ; and if he conquers them he must be temperate indeed. As to courage, even the God of War is no match for him ; he is the captive and Love is the lord, for love, the love of Aphrodite, masters him, as the tale runs ; and the master is stronger than the servant. And if he conquers the bravest of all others, he must be himself the bravest. SYMPOSIUM

All this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love. And I remember her once saying to me, “What is the cause, Socrates, of love, and the attendant desire ? See you not how all animals, birds, as well as beasts, in their desire of procreation, are in agony when they take the infection of love, which begins with the desire of union ; whereto is added the care of offspring, on whose behalf the weakest are ready to battle against the strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them, and will, let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to maintain their young. Man may be supposed to act thus from reason ; but why should animals have these passionate feelings ? Can you tell me why ?” Again I replied that I did not know. She said to me : “And do you expect ever to become a master in the art of love, if you do not know this ?” “But I have told you already, Diotima, that my ignorance is the reason why I come to you ; for I am conscious that I want a teacher ; tell me then the cause of this and of the other mysteries of love.” “Marvel not,” she said, “if you believe that love is of the immortal, as we have several times acknowledged ; for here again, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal : and this is only to be attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of the old. Nay even in the life, of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity : a man is called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation — hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body are always changing. Which is true not only of the body, but also of the soul, whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, PLEASURES, pains, fears, never remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and going ; and equally true of knowledge, and what is still more surprising to us mortals, not only do the sciences in general spring up and decay, so that in respect of them we are never the same ; but each of them individually experiences a like change. For what is implied in the word ‘recollection,’ but the departure of knowledge, which is ever being forgotten, and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law of succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving another new and similar existence behind unlike the divine, which is always the same and not another ? And in this way, Socrates, the mortal body, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality ; but the immortal in another way. Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring ; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality.” SYMPOSIUM

And what do you say of another question, my friend, about which I should like to have your opinion, and the answer to which will probably throw light on our present inquiry : Do you think that the philosopher ought to care about the PLEASURES — if they are to be called PLEASURES — of eating and drinking ? PHAEDO

And what do you say of the PLEASURES of love — should he care about them ? PHAEDO

Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of opinion that a life which has no bodily PLEASURES and no part in them is not worth having ; but that he who thinks nothing of bodily PLEASURES is almost as though he were dead. PHAEDO

And are not the temperate exactly in the same case ? They are temperate because they are intemperate — which may seem to be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For there are PLEASURES which they must have, and are afraid of losing ; and therefore they abstain from one class of PLEASURES because they are overcome by another : and whereas intemperance is defined as “being under the dominion of pleasure,” they overcome only because they are overcome by pleasure. And that is what I mean by saying that they are temperate through intemperance. PHAEDO

Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin for which all things ought to exchange ? — and that is wisdom ; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or PLEASURES or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her ? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her ; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are a purgation of them. And I conceive that the founders of the mysteries had a real meaning and were not mere triflers when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For “many,” as they say in the mysteries, “are the thyrsus bearers, but few are the mystics,” — meaning, as I interpret the words, the true philosophers. In the number of whom I have been seeking, according to my ability, to find a place during my whole life ; whether I have sought in a right way or not, and whether I have succeeded or not, I shall truly know in a little while, if God will, when I myself arrive in the other world : that is my belief. And now, Simmias and Cebes, I have answered those who charge me with not grieving or repining at parting from you and my masters in this world ; and I am right in not repining, for I believe that I shall find other masters and friends who are as good in the world below. But all men cannot believe this, and I shall be glad if my words have any more success with you than with the judges of the Athenians. PHAEDO

But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of the body always, and is in love with and fascinated by the body and by the desires and PLEASURES of the body, until she is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and see and taste and use for the purposes of his lusts — the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy — do you suppose that such a soul as this will depart pure and unalloyed ? PHAEDO

I will tell you, he said. The lovers of knowledge are conscious that their souls, when philosophy receives them, are simply fastened and glued to their bodies : the soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her own nature ; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance ; and philosophy, seeing the terrible nature of her confinement, and that the captive through desire is led to conspire in her own captivity (for the lovers of knowledge are aware that this was the original state of the soul, and that when she was in this state philosophy received and gently counseled her, and wanted to release her, pointing out to her that the eye is full of deceit, and also the ear and other senses, and persuading her to retire from them in all but the necessary use of them and to be gathered up and collected into herself, and to trust only to herself and her own intuitions of absolute existence, and mistrust that which comes to her through others and is subject to vicissitude) — philosophy shows her that this is visible and tangible, but that what she sees in her own nature is intellectual and invisible. And the soul of the true philosopher thinks that she ought not to resist this deliverance, and therefore abstains from PLEASURES and desires and pains and fears, as far as she is able ; reflecting that when a man has great joys or sorrows or fears or desires he suffers from them, not the sort of evil which might be anticipated — as, for example, the loss of his health or property, which he has sacrificed to his lusts — but he has suffered an evil greater far, which is the greatest and worst of all evils, and one of which he never thinks. PHAEDO

Certainly not ! For not in that way does the soul of a philosopher reason ; she will not ask philosophy to release her in order that when released she may deliver herself up again to the thraldom of PLEASURES and pains, doing a work only to be undone again, weaving instead of unweaving her Penelope’s web. But she will make herself a calm of passion and follow Reason, and dwell in her, beholding the true and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence derive nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to be freed from human ills. Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing. PHAEDO

I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true — a man of sense ought hardly to say that. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true. The venture is a glorious one, and he ought to comfort himself with words like these, which is the reason why lengthen out the tale. Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who has cast away the PLEASURES and ornaments of the body as alien to him, and rather hurtful in their effects, and has followed after the PLEASURES of knowledge in this life ; who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth — in these arrayed she is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her time comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls. Soon I must drink the poison ; and I think that I had better repair to the bath first, in order that the women may not have the trouble of washing my body after I am dead. PHAEDO

There are some soft of animals, such as flatterers, who are dangerous and, mischievous enough, and yet nature has mingled a temporary pleasure and grace in their composition. You may say that a courtesan is hurtful, and disapprove of such creatures and their practices, and yet for the time they are very pleasant. But the lover is not only hurtful to his love ; he is also an extremely disagreeable companion. The old proverb says that “birds of a feather flock together” ; I suppose that equality of years inclines them to the same PLEASURES, and similarity begets friendship ; yet you may have more than enough even of this ; and verily constraint is always said to be grievous. Now the lover is not only unlike his beloved, but he forces himself upon him. For he is old and his love is young, and neither day nor night will he leave him if he can help ; necessity and the sting of desire drive him on, and allure him with the pleasure which he receives from seeing, hearing, touching, perceiving him in every way. And therefore he is delighted to fasten upon him and to minister to him. But what pleasure or consolation can the beloved be receiving all this time ? Must he not feel the extremity of disgust when he looks at an old shrivelled face and the remainder to match, which even in a description is disagreeable, and quite detestable when he is forced into daily contact with his lover ; moreover he is jealously watched and guarded against everything and everybody, and has to hear misplaced and exaggerated praises of himself, and censures equally inappropriate, which are intolerable when the man is sober, and, besides being intolerable, are published all over the world in all their indelicacy and wearisomeness when he is drunk. PHAEDRUS

During this process the whole soul is all in a state of ebullition and effervescence, — which may be compared to the irritation and uneasiness in the gums at the time of cutting teeth, — bubbles up, and has a feeling of uneasiness and tickling ; but when in like manner the soul is beginning to grow wings, the beauty of the beloved meets her eye and she receives the sensible warm motion of particles which flow towards her, therefore called emotion (imeros), and is refreshed and warmed by them, and then she ceases from her pain with joy. But when she is parted from her beloved and her moisture fails, then the orifices of the passage out of which the wing shoots dry up and close, and intercept the germ of the wing ; which, being shut up with the emotion, throbbing as with the pulsations of an artery, pricks the aperture which is nearest, until at length the entire soul is pierced and maddened and pained, and at the recollection of beauty is again delighted. And from both of them together the soul is oppressed at the strangeness of her condition, and is in a great strait and excitement, and in her madness can neither sleep by night nor abide in her place by day. And wherever she thinks that she will behold the beautiful one, thither in her desire she runs. And when she has seen him, and bathed herself in the waters of beauty, her constraint is loosened, and she is refreshed, and has no more pangs and pains ; and this is the sweetest of all PLEASURES at the time, and is the reason why the soul of the lover will never forsake his beautiful one, whom he esteems above all ; he has forgotten mother and brethren and companions, and he thinks nothing of the neglect and loss of his property ; the rules and proprieties of life, on which he formerly prided himself, he now despises, and is ready to sleep like a servant, wherever he is allowed, as near as he can to his desired one, who is the object of his worship, and the physician who can alone assuage the greatness of his pain. And this state, my dear imaginary youth to whom I am talking, is by men called love, and among the gods has a name at which you, in your simplicity, may be inclined to mock ; there are two lines in the apocryphal writings of Homer in which the name occurs. One of them is rather outrageous, and not altogether metrical. They are as follows : PHAEDRUS

Phaedr. Need we ? For what should a man live if not for the PLEASURES of discourse ? Surely not for the sake of bodily PLEASURES, which almost always have previous pain as a condition of them, and therefore are rightly called slavish. PHAEDRUS

The most important of the affections which concern the whole body remains to be considered — that is, the cause of pleasure and pain in the perceptions of which I have been speaking, and in all other things which are perceived by sense through the parts of the body, and have both pains and PLEASURES attendant on them. Let us imagine the causes of every affection, whether of sense or not, to be of the following nature, remembering that we have already distinguished between the nature which is easy and which is hard to move ; for this is the direction in which we must hunt the prey which we mean to take. A body which is of a nature to be easily moved, on receiving an impression however slight, spreads abroad the motion in a circle, the parts communicating with each other, until at last, reaching the principle of mind, they announce the quality of the agent. But a body of the opposite kind, being immobile, and not extending to the surrounding region, merely receives the impression, and does not stir any of the neighbouring parts ; and since the parts do not distribute the original impression to other parts, it has no effect of motion on the whole animal, and therefore produces no effect on the patient. This is true of the bones and hair and other more earthy parts of the human body ; whereas what was said above relates mainly to sight and hearing, because they have in them the greatest amount of fire and air. Now we must conceive of pleasure and pain in this way. An impression produced in us contrary to nature and violent, if sudden, is painful ; and, again, the sudden return to nature is pleasant ; but a gentle and gradual return is imperceptible and vice versa. On the other hand the impression of sense which is most easily produced is most readily felt, but is not accompanied by Pleasure or pain ; such, for example, are the affections of the sight, which, as we said above, is a body naturally uniting with our body in the day-time ; for cuttings and burnings and other affections which happen to the sight do not give pain, nor is there pleasure when the sight returns to its natural state ; but the sensations are dearest and strongest according to the manner in which the eye is affected by the object, and itself strikes and touches it ; there is no violence either in the contraction or dilation of the eye. But bodies formed of larger particles yield to the agent only with a struggle ; and then they impart their motions to the whole and cause pleasure and pain — pain when alienated from their natural conditions, and pleasure when restored to them. Things which experience gradual withdrawings and emptyings of their nature, and great and sudden replenishments, fail to perceive the emptying, but are sensible of the replenishment ; and so they occasion no pain, but the greatest pleasure, to the mortal part of the soul, as is manifest in the case of perfumes. But things which are changed all of a sudden, and only gradually and with difficulty return to their own nature, have effects in every way opposite to the former, as is evident in the case of burnings and cuttings of the body. TIMAEUS

Such is the manner in which diseases of the body arise ; the disorders of the soul, which depend upon the body, originate as follows. We must acknowledge disease of the mind to be a want of intelligence ; and of this there are two kinds ; to wit, madness and ignorance. In whatever state a man experiences either of them, that state may be called disease ; and excessive pains and PLEASURES are justly to be regarded as the greatest diseases to which the soul is liable. For a man who is in great joy or in great pain, in his unseasonable eagerness to attain the one and to avoid the other, is not able to see or to hear anything rightly ; but he is mad, and is at the time utterly incapable of any participation in reason. He who has the seed about the spinal marrow too plentiful and overflowing, like a tree overladen with fruit, has many throes, and also obtains many PLEASURES in his desires and their offspring, and is for the most part of his life deranged, because his PLEASURES and pains are so very great ; his soul is rendered foolish and disordered by his body ; yet he is regarded not as one diseased, but as one who is voluntarily bad, which is a mistake. The truth is that the intemperance of love is a disease of the soul due chiefly to the moisture and fluidity which is produced in one of the elements by the loose consistency of the bones. And in general, all that which is termed the incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach under the idea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter for reproach. For no man is voluntarily bad ; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. And in the case of pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from the body. For where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander about in the body, and find no exit or escape, but are pent up within and mingle their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are blended, with them, they produce all sorts of diseases, more or fewer, and in every degree of intensity ; and being carried to the three places of the soul, whichever they may severally assail, they create infinite varieties of ill-temper and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, and also of forgetfulness and stupidity. Further, when to this evil constitution of body evil forms of government are added and evil discourses are uttered in private as well as in public, and no sort of instruction is given in youth to cure these evils, then all of us who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our control. In such cases the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather than the educated. But however that may be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies, and learning, to avoid vice and attain virtue ; this, however, is part of another subject. TIMAEUS

Soc. The awe which I always feel, Protarchus, about the names of the gods is more than human — it exceeds all other fears. And now I would not sin against Aphrodite by naming her amiss ; let her be called what she pleases. But Pleasure I know to be manifold, and with her, as I was just now saying, we must begin, and consider what her nature is. She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one ; and yet surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance — that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom ? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these opposite PLEASURES are severally alike ! PHILEBUS

Soc. Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour ; — in so far as colours are colours, there is no difference between them ; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white : or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under one class ; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things ; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar opposition among PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. Why, I shall reply, that dissimilar as they are, you apply to them a now predicate, for you say that all pleasant things are good ; now although no one can argue that pleasure is not pleasure, he may argue, as we are doing, that PLEASURES are oftener bad than good ; but you call them all good, and at the same time are compelled, if you are pressed, to acknowledge that they are unlike. And so you must tell us what is the identical quality existing alike in good and bad PLEASURES, which makes. you designate all of them as good. PHILEBUS

Pro. Not in so far as they are PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. That is a return to the old position, Protarchus, and so we are to say (are we ?) that there is no difference in PLEASURES, but that they are all alike ; and the examples which have just been cited do not pierce our dull minds, but we go on arguing all the same, like the weakest and most inexperienced reasoners ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Ask me whether wisdom and science and mind, and those other qualities which I, when asked by you at first what is the nature of the good, affirmed to be good, are not in the same case with the PLEASURES of which you spoke. PHILEBUS

Soc. The sciences are a numerous class, and will be found to present great differences. But even admitting that, like the PLEASURES, they are opposite as well as different, should I be worthy of the name of dialectician if, in order to avoid this difficulty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference between one science and another ; — would not the argument founder and disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape drowning by clinging to a fallacy ? PHILEBUS

Pro. May none of this befall us, except the deliverance ! Yet I like the even-handed justice which is applied to both our arguments. Let us assume, then, that there are many and diverse PLEASURES, and many and different sciences. PHILEBUS

Soc. And there will cease to be any need of distinguishing the kinds of PLEASURES, as I am inclined to think, but this will appear more clearly as we proceed. PHILEBUS

Soc. Would you choose, Protarchus, to live all your life long in the enjoyment of the greatest PLEASURES ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Living thus, you would always throughout your life enjoy the greatest PLEASURES ? PHILEBUS

Soc. I omit ten thousand other things, such as beauty and health and strength, and the many beauties and high perfections of the soul : O my beautiful Philebus, the goddess, methinks, seeing the universal wantonness and wickedness of all things, and that there was in them no limit to PLEASURES and self-indulgence, devised the limit of law and order, whereby, as you say, Philebus, she torments, or as I maintain, delivers the soul — What think you, Protarchus ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Here then is one kind of PLEASURES and pains originating severally in the two processes which we have described ? PHILEBUS

Pro. Yes ; this is another class of PLEASURES and pains, which is of the soul only, apart from the body, and is produced by expectation. PHILEBUS

Soc. Right ; for in the analysis of these, pure, as I suppose them to be, the PLEASURES being unalloyed with pain and the pains with pleasure, methinks that we shall see clearly whether the whole class of pleasure is to be desired, or whether this quality of entire desirableness is not rather to be attributed to another of the classes which have been mentioned ; and whether pleasure and pain, like heat and cold, and other things of the same kind, are not sometimes to be desired and sometimes not to be desired, as being not in themselves good, but only sometimes and in some instances admitting of the nature of good. PHILEBUS

Soc. The other class of PLEASURES, which as we were saying is purely mental, is entirely derived from memory. PHILEBUS

Soc. I mean when a person is in actual suffering and yet remembers past PLEASURES which, if they would only return, would relieve him ; but as yet he has them not. May we not say of him, that he is in an intermediate state ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Whether we ought to say that the PLEASURES and pains of which we are speaking are true or false ? or some true and some false ? PHILEBUS

Pro. But how, Socrates, can there be false PLEASURES and pains ? PHILEBUS

Pro. I grant that opinions may be true or false, but not PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. Do you deny that some PLEASURES are false, and others true ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Have not purely mental PLEASURES and pains been described already as in some cases anticipations of the bodily ones ; from which we may infer that anticipatory PLEASURES and pains have to do with the future ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And the fancies of hope are also pictured in us ; a man may often have a vision of a heap of gold, and PLEASURES ensuing, and in the picture there may be a likeness of himself mightily rejoicing over his good fortune. PHILEBUS

Soc. The bad, too, have PLEASURES painted in their fancy as well as the good ; but I presume that they are false PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. The bad then commonly delight in false PLEASURES, and the good in true PLEASURES ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Then upon this view there are false PLEASURES in the souls of men which are a ludicrous imitation of the true, and there are pains of a similar character ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Nor can PLEASURES be conceived to be bad except in so far as they are false. PHILEBUS

Pro. Nay, Socrates, that is the very opposite of truth ; for no one would call PLEASURES and pains bad because they are false, but by reason of some other great corruption to which they are liable. PHILEBUS

Soc. Well, of PLEASURES which are and caused by corruption we will hereafter speak, if we care to continue the enquiry ; for the present I would rather show by another argument that there are many false PLEASURES existing or coming into existence in us, because this may assist our final decision. PHILEBUS

Pro. Very true ; that is to say, if there are such PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. Well, take the case of sight. Does not the nearness or distance of magnitudes obscure their true proportions, and make us opine falsely ; and do we not find the same illusion happening in the case of PLEASURES and pains ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Then the opinions were true and false, and infected the PLEASURES and pains with their own falsity. PHILEBUS

Soc. 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. PHILEBUS

Soc. 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. PHILEBUS

Soc. 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. PHILEBUS

Soc. Then we were not right in saying, just now, that motions going up and down cause PLEASURES and pains ? PHILEBUS

Soc. If we say that the great changes produce PLEASURES and pains, but that the moderate and lesser ones do neither. PHILEBUS

Soc. They say that what the school of Philebus calls PLEASURES are all of them only avoidances of pain. PHILEBUS

Soc. Why, no, I would rather use them as a sort of diviners, who divine the truth, not by rules of art, but by an instinctive repugnance and extreme detestation which a noble nature has of the power of pleasure, in which they think that there is nothing sound, and her seductive influence is declared by them to be witchcraft, and not pleasure. This is the use which you may make of them. And when you have considered the various grounds of their dislike, you shall hear from me what I deem to be true PLEASURES. Having thus examined the nature of pleasure from both points of view, we will bring her up for judgment. PHILEBUS

Soc. Then if we want to see the true nature of PLEASURES as a class, we should not look at the most diluted PLEASURES, but at the most extreme and most vehement ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And the obvious instances of the greatest PLEASURES, as we have often said, are the PLEASURES of the body ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Well, but are not those PLEASURES the greatest of which mankind have the greatest desires ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Well, then, shall we not be right in saying, that if a person would wish to see the greatest PLEASURES he ought to go and look, not at health, but at discase ? And here you must distinguish : — do not imagine that I mean to ask whether those who are very ill have more PLEASURES than those who are well, but understand that I am speaking of the magnitude of pleasure ; I want to know where PLEASURES are found to be most intense. For, as I say, we have to discover what is pleasure, and what they mean by pleasure who deny her very existence. PHILEBUS

Soc. You will soon have a better opportunity of showing whether you do or not, Protarchus. Answer now, and tell me whether you see, I will not say more, but more intense and excessive PLEASURES in wantonness than in temperance ? Reflect before you speak. PHILEBUS

Soc. Very good, and if this be true, then the greatest PLEASURES and pains will clearly be found in some vicious state of soul and body, and not in a virtuous state. PHILEBUS

Soc. Take the case of the PLEASURES which arise out of certain disorders. PHILEBUS

Soc. The PLEASURES of unseemly disorders, which our severe friends utterly detest. PHILEBUS

Pro. What PLEASURES ? PHILEBUS

Soc. I did not introduce the argument, O Protarchus, with any personal reference to Philebus, but because, without the consideration of these and similar PLEASURES, we shall not be able to determine the point at issue. PHILEBUS

Pro. Then we had better proceed to analyze this family of PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soe. You mean the PLEASURES which are mingled with pain ? PHILEBUS

Soc. There are some mixtures which are of the body, and only in the body, and others which are of the soul, and only in the soul ; while there are other mixtures of PLEASURES with pains, common both to soul and body, which in their composite state are called sometimes PLEASURES and sometimes pains. PHILEBUS

Soc. And in these sorts of mixtures the PLEASURES and pains are sometimes equal, and sometimes one or other of them predominates ? PHILEBUS

Soc. He will say of himself, and others will of him, that he is dying with these delights ; and the more dissipated and good-for-nothing he is, the more vehemently he pursues them in every way ; of all PLEASURES he declares them to be the greatest ; and he reckons him who lives in the most constant enjoyment of them to be the happiest of mankind. PHILEBUS

Pro. That, Socrates, is a very true description of the opinions of the majority about PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. Yes, Protarchus, quite true of the mixed PLEASURES, which arise out of the communion of external and internal sensations in the body ; there are also cases in which the mind contributes an, opposite element to the body, whether of pleasure or pain, and the two unite and form one mixture. Concerning these I have already remarked, that when a man is empty he desires to be full, and has pleasure in hope and pain in vacuity. But now I must further add what I omitted before, that in all these and similar emotions in which body and mind are opposed (and they are innumerable), pleasure and pain coalesce in one. PHILEBUS

Soc. There still remains one other sort of admixture of PLEASURES and pains. PHILEBUS

Soc. And shall we not find them also full of the most wonderful PLEASURES ? need I remind you of the anger PHILEBUS

And is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb ? And you remember how PLEASURES mingle with pains in lamentation and bereavement ? PHILEBUS

Soc. And the greater the obscurity of the case the more desirable the examination of it because the difficulty in detecting other cases of mixed PLEASURES and pains will be less. PHILEBUS

Pro. That is very true, but I do not as yet see where is the admixture of PLEASURES and pains. PHILEBUS

Soc. And why do you suppose me to have pointed out to you the admixture which takes place in comedy ? Why but to convince you that there was no difficulty in showing the mixed nature of fear and love and similar affections ; and I thought that when I had given you the illustration, you would have let me off, and have acknowledged as a general truth that the body without the soul, and the soul without the body, as well as the two united, are susceptible of all sorts of admixtures of PLEASURES and pains ; and so further discussion would have been unnecessary. And now I want to know whether I may depart ; or will you keep me here until midnight ? I fancy that I may obtain my release without many words ; — if I promise that to-morrow I will give you an account of all these cases. But at present I would rather sail in another direction, and go to other matters which remain to be settled, before the judgment can be given which Philebus demands. PHILEBUS

Soc. Then after the mixed PLEASURES the unmixed should have their turn ; this is the natural and necessary order. PHILEBUS

Soc. These, in turn, then, I will now endeavour to indicate ; for with the maintainers of the opinion that all PLEASURES are a cessation of pain, I do not agree, but, as I was saying, I use them as witnesses, that there are PLEASURES which seem only and are not, and there are others again which have great power and appear in many forms, yet are intermingled with pains, and are partly alleviations of agony and distress, both of body and mind. PHILEBUS

Pro. Then what PLEASURES, Socrates, should we be right in conceiving to be true ? PHILEBUS

Soc. True PLEASURES are those which are given by beauty of colour and form, and most of of those which arise from smells ; those of sound, again, and in general those of which the want is painless and unconscious, and of which the fruition is palpable to sense and pleasant and unalloyed with pain. PHILEBUS

Soc. My meaning is certainly not obvious, and I will endeavour to be plainer. I do not mean by beauty of form such beauty as that of animals or pictures, which the many would suppose to be my meaning ; but, says the argument, understand me to mean straight lines and circles, and the plane solid figures which are formed out of them by turning-lathes and rulers and measurers of angles ; for these I affirm to be not only relatively beautiful, like other things, but they are eternally and absolutely beautiful, and they have peculiar PLEASURES, quite unlike the PLEASURES of scratching. And there are colours which are of the same character, and have similar PLEASURES ; now do you understand my meaning ? PHILEBUS

Soc. When sounds are smooth and clear, and have a single pure tone, then I mean to say that they are not relatively but absolutely beautiful, and have natural PLEASURES associated with them. PHILEBUS

Pro. Yes, there are such PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. The PLEASURES of smell are of a less ethereal sort, but they have no necessary admixture of pain ; and all PLEASURES, however and wherever experienced, which are unattended by pains, I assign to an analogous class. Here then are two kinds of PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. To these may be added the PLEASURES of knowledge, if no hunger of knowledge and no pain caused by such hunger precede them. PHILEBUS

Soc. These PLEASURES of knowledge, then, are unmixed with pain ; and they are not the PLEASURES of the many but of a very few. PHILEBUS

Soc. And now, having fairly separated the pure PLEASURES and those which may be rightly termed impure, let us further add to our description of them, that the PLEASURES which are in excess have no measure, but that those which are not in excess have measure ; the great, the excessive, whether more or less frequent, we shall be right in referring to the class of the infinite, and of the more and less, which pours through body and soul alike ; and the others we shall refer to the class which has measure. PHILEBUS

Soc. Still there is something more to be considered about PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. There is no need of adducing many similar examples in illustration of the argument about PLEASURES ; one such is sufficient to prove to us that a small pleasure or a small amount of pleasure, if pure or unalloyed with pain. is always pleasanter and truer and fairer than a great pleasure or a great amount of pleasure of another kind. PHILEBUS

Soc. There — I have let him in, and now I must return to the fountain of pleasure. For we were not permitted to begin by mingling in a single stream the true portions of both according to our original intention ; but the love of all knowledge constrained us to let all the sciences flow in together before the PLEASURES. PHILEBUS

Soc. And now the time has come for us to consider about the PLEASURES also, whether we shall in like manner let them go all at once, or at first only the true ones. PHILEBUS

Soc. Let them flow, then ; and now, if there are any necessary PLEASURES, as there were arts and sciences necessary, must we not mingle them ? PHILEBUS

Pro. Yes, the necessary PLEASURES should certainly be allowed to mingle. PHILEBUS

Soc. The knowledge of the arts has been admitted to be innocent and useful always ; and if we say of PLEASURES in like manner that all of them are good and innocent for all of us at all times, we must let them all mingle ? PHILEBUS

Soc. Tell us, O beloved — shall we call you PLEASURES or by some other name ? — would you rather live with or without wisdom ? I am of opinion that they would certainly answer as follows : PHILEBUS

Soc. Very true. And now let us go back and interrogate wisdom and mind : Would you like to have any PLEASURES in the mixture ? And they will reply : — “What PLEASURES do you mean ?” PHILEBUS

Soc. And we shall take up our parable and say : Do you wish to have the greatest and most vehement PLEASURES for your companions in addition to the true ones ? “Why, Socrates,” they will say, “how can we ? seeing that they are the source of ten thousand hindrances to us ; they trouble the souls of men, which are our habitation, with their madness ; they prevent us from coming to the birth, and are commonly the ruin of the children which are born to us, causing them to be forgotten and unheeded ; but the true and pure PLEASURES, of which you spoke, know to be of our family, and also those PLEASURES which accompany health and temperance, and which every Virtue, like a goddess has in her train to follow her about wherever she goes, — mingle these and not the others ; there would be great want of sense in any one who desires to see a fair and perfect mixture, and to find in it what is the highest good in man and in the universe, and to divine what is the true form of good — there would be great want of sense in his allowing the PLEASURES, which are always in the company of folly and vice, to mingle with mind in the cup.” — Is not this a very rational and suitable reply, which mind has made, both on her own behalf, as well as on the behalf of memory and true opinion ? PHILEBUS

Pro. There is no need to pause, for the difference between them is palpable ; pleasure is the veriest impostor in the world ; and it is said that in the PLEASURES of love, which appear to be the greatest, perjury is excused by the gods ; for PLEASURES, like children, have not the least particle of reason in them ; whereas mind is either the same as truth, or the most like truth, and the truest. PHILEBUS

Pro. But when we see some one indulging in PLEASURES, perhaps in the greatest of PLEASURES, the ridiculous or disgraceful nature of the action makes us ashamed ; and so we put them out of sight, and consign them to darkness, under the idea that they ought not to meet the eye of day. PHILEBUS

Soc. The fifth class are the PLEASURES which were defined by us as painless, being the pure PLEASURES of the soul herself, as we termed them, which accompany, some the sciences, and some the senses. PHILEBUS

Soc. But not first ; no, not even if all the oxen and horses and animals in the world by their pursuit of enjoyment proclaim her to be so ; — although the many trusting in them, as diviners trust in birds, determine that PLEASURES make up the good of life, and deem the lusts of animals to be better witnesses than the inspirations of divine philosophy. PHILEBUS

Ath. You ought to have said, Stranger — The Cretan laws are with reason famous among the Hellenes ; for they fulfil the object of laws, which is to make those who use them happy ; and they confer every sort of good. Now goods are of two kinds : there are human and there are divine goods, and the human hang upon the divine ; and the state which attains the greater, at the same time acquires the less, or, not having the greater, has neither. Of the lesser goods the first is health, the second beauty, the third strength, including swiftness in running and bodily agility generally, and the fourth is wealth, not the blind god (Pluto), but one who is keen of sight, if only he has wisdom for his companion. For wisdom is chief and leader of the divine dass of goods, and next follows temperance ; and from the union of these two with courage springs justice, and fourth in the scale of virtue is courage. All these naturally take precedence of the other goods, and this is the order in which the legislator must place them, and after them he will enjoin the rest of his ordinances on the citizens with a view to these, the human looking to the divine, and the divine looking to their leader mind. Some of his ordinances will relate to contracts of marriage which they make one with another, and then to the procreation and education of children, both male and female ; the duty of the lawgiver will be to take charge of his citizens, in youth and age, and at every time of life, and to give them punishments and rewards ; and in reference to all their intercourse with one another, he ought to consider their pains and PLEASURES and desires, and the vehemence of all their passions ; he should keep a watch over them, and blame and praise them rightly by the mouth of the laws themselves. Also with regard to anger and terror, and the other perturbations of the soul, which arise out of misfortune, and the deliverances from them which prosperity brings, and the experiences which come to men in diseases, or in war, or poverty, or the opposite of these ; in all these states he should determine and teach what is the good and evil of the condition of each. In the next place, the legislator has to be careful how the citizens make their money and in what way they spend it, and to have an eye to their mutual contracts and dissolutions of contracts, whether voluntary or involuntary : he should see how they order all this, and consider where justice as well as injustice is found or is wanting in their several dealings with one another ; and honour those who obey the law, and impose fixed penalties on those who disobey, until the round of civil life is ended, and the time has come for the consideration of the proper funeral rites and honours of the dead. And the lawgiver reviewing his work, will appoint guardians to preside over these things — some who walk by intelligence, others by true opinion only, and then mind will bind together all his ordinances and show them to be in harmony with temperance and justice, and not with wealth or ambition. This is the spirit, Stranger, in which I was and am desirous that you should pursue the subject. And I want to know the nature of all these things, and how they are arranged in the laws of Zeus, as they are termed, and in those of the Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus gave ; and how the order of them is discovered to his eyes, who has experience in laws gained either by study or habit, although they are far from being self-evident to the rest of mankind like ourselves. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. Excellent, O Lacedaemonian Stranger. But how ought we to define courage ? Is it to be regarded only as a combat against fears and pains, or also against desires and PLEASURES, and against flatteries ; which exercise such a tremendous power, that they make the hearts even of respectable citizens to melt like wax ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. Then let me once more ask, what institutions have you in either of your states which give a taste of PLEASURES, and do not avoid them any more than they avoid pains ; but which set a person in the midst of them, and compel or induce him by the prospect of reward to get the better of them ? Where is an ordinance about pleasure similar to that about pain to be found in your laws ? Tell me what there is of this nature among you : — What is there which makes your citizen equally brave against pleasure and pain, conquering what they ought to conquer, and superior to the enemies who are most dangerous and nearest home ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. Very good ; however, I am not going to say anything against your laws until to the best of my ability I have examined them, but I am going to raise doubts about them. For you are the only people known to us, whether Greek or barbarian, whom the legislator commanded to eschew all great PLEASURES and amusements and never to touch them ; whereas in the matter of pains or fears which we have just been discussing, he thought that they who from infancy had always avoided pains and fears and sorrows, when they were compelled to face them would run away from those who were hardened in them, and would become their subjects. Now the legislator ought to have considered that this was equally true of pleasure ; he should have said to himself, that if our citizens are from their youth upward unacquainted with the greatest PLEASURES, and unused to endure amid the temptations of pleasure, and are not disciplined to refrain from all things evil, the sweet feeling of pleasure will overcome them just as fear would overcome the former class ; and in another, and even a worse manner, they will be the slaves of those who are able to endure amid PLEASURES, and have had the opportunity of enjoying them, they being often the worst of mankind. One half of their souls will be a slave, the other half free ; and they will not be worthy to be called in the true sense men and freemen. Tell me whether you assent to my words ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. There seems to be a difficulty, Stranger, with regard to states, in making words and facts coincide so that there can be no dispute about them. As in the human body, the regimen which does good in one way does harm in another ; and we can hardly say that any one course of treatment is adapted to a particular constitution. Now the gymnasia and common meals do a great deal of good, and yet they are a source of evil in civil troubles ; as is shown in the case of the Milesian, and Boeotian, and Thurian youth, among whom these institutions seem always to have had a tendency to degrade the ancient and natural custom of love below the level, not only of man, but of the beasts. The charge may be fairly brought against your cities above all others, and is true also of most other states which especially cultivate gymnastics. Whether such matters are to be regarded jestingly or seriously, I think that the pleasure is to be deemed natural which arises out of the intercourse between men and women ; but that the intercourse of men with men, or of women with women, is contrary to nature, and that the bold attempt was originally due to unbridled lust. The Cretans are always accused of having invented the story of Ganymede and Zeus because they wanted to justify themselves in the enjoyment of unnatural PLEASURES by the practice of the god whom they believe to have been their lawgiver. Leaving the story, we may observe that any speculation about laws turns almost entirely on pleasure and pain, both in states and in individuals : these are two fountains which nature lets flow, and he who draws from them where and when, and as much as he ought, is happy ; and this holds of men and animals — of individuals as well as states ; and he who indulges in them ignorantly and at the wrong time, is the reverse of happy. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. According to my view, any one who would be good at anything must practise that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and earnest, in its several branches : for example, he who is to be a good builder, should play at building children’s houses ; he who is to be a good husbandman, at tilling the ground ; and those who have the care of their education should provide them when young with mimic tools. They should learn beforehand the knowledge which they will afterwards require for their art. For example, the future carpenter should learn to measure or apply the line in play ; and the future warrior should learn riding, or some other exercise, for amusement, and the teacher should endeavour to direct the children’s inclinations and PLEASURES, by the help of amusements, to their final aim in life. The most important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be guided to the love of that sort of excellence in which when he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected. Do you agree with me thus far ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. Nothing as yet ; but I ask generally, when the puppet is brought to the drink, what sort of result is likely to follow. I will endeavour to explain my meaning more clearly : what I am now asking is this — Does the drinking of wine heighten and increase PLEASURES and pains, and passions and loves ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. These are the two fears, as I called them ; one of which is the opposite of pain and other fears, and the opposite also of the greatest and most numerous sort of PLEASURES. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. And when we want to make him rightly fearful, must we not introduce him to shameless PLEASURES, and train him to take up arms against them, and to overcome them ? Or does this principle apply to courage only, and must he who would be perfect in valour fight against and overcome his own natural character — since if he be unpractised and inexperienced in such conflicts, he will not be half the man which he might have been — and are we to suppose, that with temperance it is otherwise, and that he who has never fought with the shameless and unrighteous temptations of his PLEASURES and lusts, and conquered them, in earnest and in play, by word, deed, and act, will still be perfectly temperate ? LAWS BOOK I

Cle. But do you really imagine, Stranger, that this is the way in which poets generally compose in States at the present day ? As far as I can observe, except among us and among the Lacedaemonians, there are no regulations like those of which you speak ; in other places novelties are always being introduced in dancing and in music, generally not under the authority of any law, but at the instigation of lawless PLEASURES ; and these PLEASURES are so far from being the same, as you describe the Egyptian to be, or having the same principles, that they are never the same. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. I should say that if a city seriously means to adopt the practice of drinking under due regulation and with a view to the enforcement of temperance, and in like manner, and on the same principle, will allow of other PLEASURES, designing to gain the victory over them in this way all of them may be used. But if the State makes drinking an amusement only, and whoever likes may drink whenever he likes, and with whom he likes, and add to this any other indulgences, I shall never agree or allow that this city or this man should practise drinking. I would go further than the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and am disposed rather to the law of the Carthaginians, that no one while he is on a campaign should be allowed to taste wine at all, but that he should drink water during all that time, and that in the city no slave, male or female, should ever drink wine ; and that no magistrates should drink during their year of office, nor should pilots of vessels or judges while on duty taste wine at all, nor any one who is going to hold a consultation about any matter of importance ; nor in the daytime at all, unless in consequence of exercise or as medicine ; nor again at night, when any one, either man or woman, is minded to get children. There are numberless other cases also in which those who have good sense and good laws ought not to drink wine, so that if what I say is true, no city will need many vineyards. Their husbandry and their way of life in general will follow an appointed order, and their cultivation of the vine will be the most limited and the least common of their employments. And this, Stranger, shall be the crown of my discourse about wine, if you agree. LAWS BOOK II

Ath. Any more than our pattern wise man, whom we exhibited as having his PLEASURES and pains in accordance with and corresponding to true reason, can be intemperate ? LAWS BOOK III

Ath. I will do as you suggest. There is a tradition of the happy life of mankind in days when all things were spontaneous and abundant. And of this the reason is said to have been as follows : — Cronos knew what we ourselves were declaring, that no human nature invested with supreme power is able to order human affairs and not overflow with insolence and wrong. Which reflection led him to appoint not men but demigods, who are of a higher and more divine race, to be the kings and rulers of our cities ; he did as we do with flocks of sheep and other tame animals. For we do not appoint oxen to be the lords of oxen, or goats of goats ; but we ourselves are a superior race, and rule over them. In like manner God, in his love of mankind, placed over us the demons, who are a superior race, and they with great case and pleasure to themselves, and no less to us, taking care us and giving us peace and reverence and order and justice never failing, made the tribes of men happy and united. And this tradition, which is true, declares that cities of which some mortal man and not God is the ruler, have no escape from evils and toils. Still we must do all that we can to imitate the life which is said to have existed in the days of Cronos, and, as far as the principle of immortality dwells in us, to that we must hearken, both in private and public life, and regulate our cities and houses according to law, meaning by the very term “law,” the distribution of mind. But if either a single person or an oligarchy or a democracy has a soul eager after PLEASURES and desires — wanting to be filled with them, yet retaining none of them, and perpetually afflicted with an endless and insatiable disorder ; and this evil spirit, having first trampled the laws under foot, becomes the master either of a state or of an individual — then, as I was saying, salvation is hopeless. And now, Cleinias, we have to consider whether you will or will not accept this tale of mine. LAWS BOOK IV

Enough has now been said of divine matters, both as touching the practices which men ought to follow, and as to the sort of persons who they ought severally to be. But of human things we have not as yet spoken, and we must ; for to men we are discoursing and not to Gods. Pleasures and pains and desires are a part of human nature, and on them every mortal being must of necessity hang and depend with the most eager interest. And therefore we must praise the noblest life, not only as the fairest in appearance, but as being one which, if a man will only taste, and not, while still in his youth, desert for another, he will find to surpass also in the very thing which we all of us desire — I mean in having a greater amount of pleasure and less of pain during the whole of life. And this will be plain, if a man has a true taste of them, as will be quickly and clearly seen. But what is a true taste ? That we have to learn from the argument — the point being what is according to nature, and what is not according to nature. One life must be compared with another, the more pleasurable with the more painful, after this manner : — We desire to have pleasure, but we neither desire nor choose pain ; and the neutral state we are ready to take in exchange, not for pleasure but for pain ; and we also wish for less pain and greater pleasure, but less pleasure and greater pain we do not wish for ; and an equal balance of either we cannot venture to assert that we should desire. And all these differ or do not differ severally in number and magnitude and intensity and equality, and in the opposites of these when regarded as objects of choice, in relation to desire. And such being the necessary order of things, we wish for that life in which there are many great and intense elements of pleasure and pain, and in which the PLEASURES are in excess, and do not wish for that in which the opposites exceed ; nor, again, do we wish for that in which the clements of either are small and few and feeble, and the pains exceed. And when, as I said before, there is a balance of pleasure and pain in life, this is to be regarded by us as the balanced life ; while other lives are preferred by us because they exceed in what we like, or are rejected by us because they exceed in what we dislike. All the lives of men may be regarded by us as bound up in these, and we must also consider what sort of lives we by nature desire. And if we wish for any others, I say that we desire them only through some ignorance and inexperience of the lives which actually exist. LAWS BOOK V

Now, what lives are they, and how many in which, having searched out and beheld the objects of will and desire and their opposites, and making of them a law, choosing, I say, the dear and the pleasant and the best and noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible ? Let us say that the temperate life is one kind of life, and the rational another, and the courageous another, and the healthful another ; and to these four let us oppose four other lives — the foolish, the cowardly, the intemperate, the diseased. He who knows the temperate life will describe it as in all things gentle, having gentle pains and gentle PLEASURES, and placid desires and loves not insane ; whereas the intemperate life is impetuous in all things, and has violent pains and PLEASURES, and vehement and stinging desires, and loves utterly insane ; and in the temperate life the PLEASURES exceed the pains, but in the intemperate life the pains exceed the PLEASURES in greatness and number and frequency. Hence one of the two lives is naturally and necessarily more pleasant and the other more painful, and he who would live pleasantly cannot possibly choose to live intemperately. And if this is true, the inference clearly is that no man is voluntarily intemperate ; but that the whole multitude of men lack temperance in their lives, either from ignorance, or from want of self-control, or both. And the same holds of the diseased and healthy life ; they both have PLEASURES and pains, but in health the pleasure exceeds the pain, and in sickness the pain exceeds the pleasure. Now our intention in choosing the lives is not that the painful should exceed, but the life in which pain is exceeded by pleasure we have determined to be the more pleasant life. And we should say that the temperate life has the elements both of pleasure and pain fewer and smaller and less frequent than the intemperate, and the wise life than the foolish life, and the life of courage than the life of cowardice ; one of each pair exceeding in pleasure and the other in pain, the courageous surpassing the cowardly, and the wise exceeding the foolish. And so the one dass of lives exceeds the other class in pleasure ; the temperate and courageous and wise and healthy exceed the cowardly and foolish and intemperate and diseased lives ; and generally speaking, that which has any virtue, whether of body or soul, is pleasanter than the vicious life, and far superior in beauty and rectitude and excellence and reputation, and causes him who lives accordingly to be infinitely happier than the opposite. LAWS BOOK V

Ath. I see that among men all things depend upon three wants and desires, of which the end is virtue, if they are rightly led by them, or the opposite if wrongly. Now these are eating and drinking, which begin at birth — every animal has a natural desire for them, and is violently excited, and rebels against him who says that he must not satisfy all his PLEASURES and appetites, and get rid of all the corresponding pains — and the third and greatest and sharpest want and desire breaks out last, and is the fire of sexual lust, which kindles in men every species of wantonness and madness. And these three disorders we must endeavour to master by the three great principles of fear and law and right reason ; turning them away from that which is called pleasantest to the best, using the Muses and the Gods who preside over contests to extinguish their increase and influx. LAWS BOOK VI

And now, assuming children of both sexes to have been born, it will be proper for us to consider, in the next place, their nurture and education ; this cannot be left altogether unnoticed, and yet may be thought a subject fitted rather for precept and admonition than for law. In private life there are many little things, not always apparent, arising out of the PLEASURES and pains and desires of individuals, which run counter to the intention of the legislator, and make the characters of the citizens various and dissimilar : — this is an evil in states ; for by reason of their smallness and frequent occurrence, there would be an unseemliness and want of propriety in making them penal by law ; and if made penal, they are the destruction of the written law because mankind get the habit of frequently transgressing the law in small matters. The result is that you cannot legislate about them, and still less can you be silent. I speak somewhat darkly, but I shall endeavour also to bring my wares into the light of day, for I acknowledge that at present there is a want of clearness in what I am saying. LAWS BOOK VII

Cle. To be sure, Stranger — more especially if we could procure him a variety of PLEASURES. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. The point about which you and I differ is of great importance, and I hope that you, Megillus, will help to decide between us. For I maintain that the true life should neither seek for PLEASURES, nor, on the other hand, entirely avoid pains, but should embrace the middle state, which I just spoke of as gentle and benign, and is a state which we by some divine presage and inspiration rightly ascribe to God. Now, I say, he among men, too, who would be divine ought to pursue after this mean habit — he should not rush headlong into PLEASURES, for he will not be free from pains ; nor should we allow any one, young or old, male or female, to be thus given any more than ourselves, and least of all the newly-born infant, for in infancy more than at any other time the character is engrained by habit. Nay, more, if I were not afraid of appearing to be ridiculous, I would say that a woman during her year of pregnancy should of all women be most carefully tended, and kept from violent or excessive PLEASURES and pains, and should at that time cultivate gentleness and benevolence and kindness. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. Must we not, then, try in every possible way to prevent our youth from even desiring to imitate new modes either in dance or song ? nor must any one be allowed to offer them varieties of PLEASURES. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. But to honour with hymns and panegyrics those who are still alive is not safe ; a man should run his course, and make a fair ending, and then we will praise him ; and let praise be given equally to women as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue. The order of songs and dances shall be as follows : — There are many ancient musical compositions and dances which are excellent, and from these the newly-founded city may freely select what is proper and suitable ; and they shall choose judges of not less than fifty years of age, who shall make the selection, and any of the old poems which they deem sufficient they shall include ; any that are deficient or altogether unsuitable, they shall either utterly throw aside, or examine and amend, taking into their counsel poets and musicians, and making use of their poetical genius ; but explaining to them the wishes of the legislator in order that they may regulate dancing, music, and all choral strains, according to the mind of the judges ; and not allowing them to indulge, except in some few matters, their individual PLEASURES and fancies. Now the irregular strain of music is always made ten thousand times better by attaining to law and order, and rejecting the honeyed Muse — not however that we mean wholly to exclude pleasure, which is the characteristic of all music. And if a man be brought up from childhood to the age of discretion and maturity in the use of the orderly and severe music, when he hears the opposite he detests it, and calls it illiberal ; but if trained in the sweet and vulgar music, he deems the severer kind cold and displeasing. So that, as I was saying before, while he who hears them gains no more pleasure from the one than from the other, the one has the advantage of making those who are trained in it better men, whereas the other makes them worse. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. Enough of wrestling ; we will now proceed to speak of other movements of the body. Such motion may be in general called dancing, and is of two kinds : one of nobler figures, imitating the honourable, the other of the more ignoble figures, imitating the mean ; and of both these there are two further subdivisions. Of the serious, one kind is of those engaged in war and vehement action, and is the exercise of a noble person and a manly heart ; the other exhibits a temperate soul in the enjoyment of prosperity and modest PLEASURES, and may be truly called and is the dance of peace. The warrior dance is different from the peaceful one, and may be rightly termed Pyrrhic ; this imitates the modes of avoiding blows and missiles by dropping or giving way, or springing aside, or rising up or falling down ; also the opposite postures which are those of action, as, for example, the imitation of archery and the hurling of javelins, and of all sorts of blows. And when the imitation is of brave bodies and souls, and the action is direct and muscular, giving for the most part a straight movement to the limbs of the body — that, I say, is the true sort ; but the opposite is not right. In the dance of peace what we have to consider is whether a man bears himself naturally and gracefully, and after the manner of men who duly conform to the law. But before proceeding I must distinguish the dancing about which there is any doubt, from that about which there is no doubt. Which is the doubtful kind, and how are the two to be distinguished ? There are dances of the Bacchic sort, both those in which, as they say, they imitate drunken men, and which are named after the Nymphs, and Pan, and Silenuses, and Satyrs ; and also those in which purifications are made or mysteries celebrated — all this sort of dancing cannot be rightly defined as having either a peaceful or a warlike character, or indeed as having any meaning whatever and may, I think, be most truly described as distinct from the warlike dance, and distinct from the peaceful, and not suited for a city at all. There let it lie ; and so leaving it to lie, we will proceed to the dances of war and peace, for with these we are undoubtedly concerned. Now the unwarlike muse, which honours in dance the Gods and the sons of the Gods, is entirely associated with the consciousness of prosperity ; this class may be subdivided into two lesser classes, of which one is expressive of an escape from some labour or danger into good, and has greater PLEASURES, the other expressive of preservation and increase of former good, in which the pleasure is less exciting ; — in all these cases, every man when the pleasure is greater, moves his body more, and less when the pleasure is less ; and, again, if he be more orderly and has learned courage from discipline he waves less, but if he be a coward, and has no training or self-control, he makes greater and more violent movements, and in general when he is speaking or singing he is not altogether able to keep his body still ; and so out of the imitation of words in gestures the whole art of dancing has arisen. And in these various kinds of imitation one man moves in an orderly, another in a disorderly manner ; and as the ancients may be observed to have given many names which are according to nature and deserving of praise, so there is an excellent one which they have given to the dances of men who in their times of prosperity are moderate in their PLEASURES — the giver of names, whoever he was, assigned to them a very true, and poetical, and rational name, when he called them Emmeleiai, or dances of order, thus establishing two kinds of dances of the nobler sort, the dance of war which he called the Pyrrhic, and the dance of peace which he called Emmeleia, or the dance of order ; giving to each their appropriate and becoming name. These things the legislator should indicate in general outline, and the guardian of the law should enquire into them and search them out, combining dancing with music, and assigning to the several sacrificial feasts that which is suitable to them ; and when he has consecrated all of them in due order, he shall for the future change nothing, whether of dance or song. Thenceforward the city and the citizens shall continue to have the same PLEASURES, themselves being as far as possible alike, and shall live well and happily. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. Very likely ; I will endeavour to explain myself more clearly. When I came to the subject of education, I beheld young men and maidens holding friendly intercourse with one another. And there naturally arose in my mind a sort of apprehension — I could not help thinking how one is to deal with a city in which youths and maidens are well nurtured, and have nothing to do, and are not undergoing the excessive and servile toils which extinguish wantonness, and whose only cares during their whole life are sacrifices and festivals and dances. How, in such a state as this, will they abstain from desires which thrust many a man and woman into perdition ; and from which reason, assuming the functions of law, commands them to abstain ? The ordinances already made may possibly get the better of most of these desires ; the prohibition of excessive wealth is a very considerable gain in the direction of temperance, and the whole education of our youth imposes a law of moderation on them ; moreover, the eye of the rulers is required always to watch over the young, and never to lose sight of them ; and these provisions do, as far as human means can effect anything, exercise a regulating influence upon the desires in general. But how can we take precautions against the unnatural loves of either sex, from which innumerable evils have come upon individuals and cities ? How shall we devise a remedy and way of escape out of so great a danger ? Truly, Cleinias, here is a difficulty. In many ways Crete and Lacedaemon furnish a great help to those who make peculiar laws ; but in the matter of love, as we are alone, I must confess that they are quite against us. For if any one following nature should lay down the law which existed before the days of Laius, and denounce these lusts as contrary to nature, adducing the animals as a proof that such unions were monstrous, he might prove his point, but he would be wholly at variance with the custom of your states. Further, they are repugnant to a principle which we say that a legislator should always observe ; for we are always enquiring which of our enactments tends to virtue and which not. And suppose we grant that these loves are accounted by law to be honourable, or at least not disgraceful, in what degree will they contribute to virtue ? Will such passions implant in the soul of him who is seduced the habit of courage, or in the soul of the seducer the principle of temperance ? Who will ever believe this ? — or rather, who will not blame the effeminacy of him who yields to PLEASURES and is unable to hold out against them ? Will not all men censure as womanly him who imitates the woman ? And who would ever think of establishing such a practice by law ? Certainly no one who had in his mind the image of true law. How can we prove, that what I am saying is true ? He who would rightly consider these matters must see the nature of friendship and desire, and of these so-called loves, for they are of two kinds, and out of the two arises a third kind, having the same name ; and this similarity of name causes all the difficulty and obscurity. LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. Does not a little word extinguish all PLEASURES of that sort ? LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. Is a man more likely to abstain from the PLEASURES of love and to do what he is bidden about them, when his body is in a good condition, or when he is in an ill condition, and out of training ? LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. Our citizens should not allow PLEASURES to strengthen with indulgence, but should by toil divert the aliment and exuberance of them into other parts of the body ; and this will happen if no immodesty be allowed in the practice of love. Then they will be ashamed of frequent intercourse, and they will find pleasure, if seldom enjoyed, to be a less imperious mistress. They should not be found out doing anything of the sort. Concealment shall be honourable, and sanctioned by custom and made law by unwritten prescription ; on the other hand, to be detected shall be esteemed dishonourable, but not, to abstain wholly. In this way there will be a second legal standard of honourable and dishonourable, involving a second notion of right. Three principles will comprehend all those corrupt natures whom we call inferior to themselves, and who form but one dass, and will compel them not to transgress. LAWS BOOK VIII

Ath. There was a second consisting of PLEASURES and desires, and a third of hopes, which aimed at true opinion about the best. The latter being subdivided into three, we now get five sources of actions ; and for these five we will make laws of two kinds. LAWS BOOK IX

Enough has been said of murders violent and involuntary and committed in passion : we have now to speak of voluntary crimes done with injustice of every kind and with premeditation, through the influence of PLEASURES, and desires, and jealousies. LAWS BOOK IX

Ath. And, O most excellent and best of men, do I understand you to mean that they are careless because they are ignorant, and do not know that they ought to take care, or that they know, and yet like the meanest sort of men, knowing the better, choose the worse because they are overcome by PLEASURES and pains ? LAWS BOOK X

But if, after all, this is work for a future time, whereas immediate action is called for by the disorders of all sorts and kinds which arise every day from your state of civil strife, every man to whom Providence has given even a moderate share of right intelligence ought to know that in times of civil strife there is no respite from trouble till the victors make an end of feeding their grudge by combats and banishments and executions, and of wreaking their vengeance on their enemies. They should master themselves and, enacting impartial laws, framed not to gratify themselves more than the conquered party, should compel men to obey these by two restraining forces, respect and fear ; fear, because they are the masters and can display superior force ; respect, because they rise superior to PLEASURES and are willing and able to be servants to the laws. There is no other way save this for terminating the troubles of a city that is in a state of civil strife ; but a constant continuance of internal disorders, struggles, hatred and mutual distrust is the common lot of cities which are in that plight. LETTERS LETTER VII

Dion’s aspiration however was the same that I should say my own or that of any other right-minded man ought to be. With regard to his own power, his friends and his country the ideal of such a man would be to win the greatest power and honour by rendering the greatest services. And this end is not attained if a man gets riches for himself, his supporters and his country, by forming plots and getting together conspirators, being all the while a poor creature, not master of himself, overcome by the cowardice which fears to fight against PLEASURES ; nor is it attained if he goes on to kill the men of substance, whom he speaks of as the enemy, and to plunder their possessions, and invites his confederates and supporters to do the same, with the object that no one shall say that it is his fault, if he complains of being poor. The same is true if anyone renders services of this kind to the State and receives honours from her for distributing by decrees the property of the few among the many — or if, being in charge the affairs of a great State which rules over many small ones, he unjustly appropriates to his own State the possessions of the small ones. For neither a Dion nor any other man will, with his eyes open, make his way by steps like these to a power which will be fraught with destruction to himself and his descendants for all time ; but he will advance towards constitutional government and the framing of the justest and best laws, reaching these ends without executions and murders even on the smallest scale. LETTERS LETTER VII

You don’t come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought : If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For, let me tell you that the more the PLEASURES of the body fade away, the greater to me are the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not, then, deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men ; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together ; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says ; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is : I cannot eat, I cannot drink ; the PLEASURES of youth and love are fled away ; there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too, being old, and every other old man would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles — are you still the man you were ? Peace, he replied ; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak ; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom ; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men’s characters and tempers ; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Heaven forbid ! I said ; I would only ask you to be consistent ; or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd ; you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banqueter with a view to the PLEASURES of the table ; or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects ; he has only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already insured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as a ruler, whether in a State or in private life, could only regard the good of his flock or subjects ; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in States, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now : How would you arrange goods — are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless PLEASURES and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honorable, but grievous and toilsome ; and that the PLEASURES of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty ; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honor them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods : they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men’s doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man’s own or his ancestor’s sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts ; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost ; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod : THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual PLEASURES ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments — that is the third sort of test — and see what will be their behavior : like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into PLEASURES, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State ; he shall be honored in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honor, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain PLEASURES and desires ; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of “a man being his own master ;” and other traces of the same notion may be found in language. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Let me further note that the manifold and complex PLEASURES and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own PLEASURES and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another ; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul ; the other, with which he loves, and hungers, and thirsts, and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry PLEASURES and satisfactions ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to know their own functions, will rule over the concupiscent, which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable of gain ; over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness of bodily PLEASURES, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her own sphere, should attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her natural-born subjects, and overturn the whole life of man ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

And there is unity where there is community of PLEASURES and pains — where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying that they will have their PLEASURES and pains in common ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians ; they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about “mine” and “not mine ;” each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private PLEASURES and pains ; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same PLEASURES and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend toward a common end. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the PLEASURES of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasure — I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and the procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers, because I knew that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy and was difficult of attainment ; but that piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, for I had to discuss them all the same. The women and children are now disposed of, but the other question of the rulers must be investigated from the very beginning. We were saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers of their country, tried by the test of PLEASURES and pains, and neither in hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to lose their patriotism — he was to be rejected who failed, but he who always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner’s fire, was to be made a ruler, and to receive honors and rewards in life and after death. This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face ; not liking to stir the question which has now arisen. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labors and dangers and PLEASURES which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation which we did not mention — he must be exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, or will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity ; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad PLEASURES as well as good. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI

But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth ; and they had been severed from those sensual PLEASURES, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below — if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize ; they will spend that which is another man’s on the gratification of their desires, stealing their PLEASURES and running away like children from the law, their father : they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honored gymnastics more than music. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

And, like his father, he keeps under by force the PLEASURES which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called unnecessary ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary PLEASURES ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

Are not necessary PLEASURES those of which we cannot get rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us ? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

And of the PLEASURES of love, and all other PLEASURES, the same holds good ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in PLEASURES and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array, having garlands on their heads, and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names ; insolence they term “breeding,” and anarchy “liberty,” and waste “magnificence,” and impudence “courage.” And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary PLEASURES. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

After this he lives on, spending his money and labor and time on unnecessary PLEASURES quite as much as on necessary ones ; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of passion is over — supposing that he then readmits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself up to their successors — in that case he balances his PLEASURES and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn ; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another ; he despises none of them, but encourages them all equally. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice ; if anyone says to him that some PLEASURES are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honor some, and chastise and master the others — whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as good as another. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

Very true, I said ; and observe the point which I want to understand : Certain of the unnecessary PLEASURES and appetites I conceive to be unlawful ; everyone appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them — either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak ; while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father’s meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various PLEASURES. After this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the PLEASURES of a dissolute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of the soul, having Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy ; and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation, and there is in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought in madness to the full. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And as in himself there was a succession of PLEASURES, and the new got the better of the old and took away their rights, so he being younger will claim to have more than his father and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of the property, he will take a slice of theirs. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

He first takes their property, and when that fails, and PLEASURES are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer ; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the bodyguard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws and to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the dominion of Love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream only ; he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

It seems to me that to these three principles three PLEASURES correspond ; also three desires and governing powers. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

If we were to say that the loves and PLEASURES of this third part were concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall back on a single notion ; and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or money. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And are we to suppose, I said, that the philosopher sets any value on other PLEASURES in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure ? Does he not call the other PLEASURES necessary, under the idea that if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Since, then, the PLEASURES of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honorable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless — how shall we know who speaks truly ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the PLEASURES which we enumerated ? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage ; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other PLEASURES from his childhood upward : but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted — or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted — the sweetness of learning and knowing truth. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Again, has he greater experience of the PLEASURES of honor, or the lover of honor of the PLEASURES of wisdom ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Nay, he said, all three are honored in proportion as they attain their object ; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honor they all have experience of the PLEASURES of honor ; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

The only inference possible, he replied, is that PLEASURES which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of PLEASURES until they were ill. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Look at the other class of PLEASURES which have no antecedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

There are many of them : take as an example, the PLEASURES of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains ; they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain behind them. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Still, the more numerous and violent PLEASURES which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort — they are reliefs of pain. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And the anticipations of future PLEASURES and pains are of a like nature ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Their PLEASURES are mixed with pains — how can they be otherwise ? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are colored by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves ; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy, in ignorance of the truth. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honor, when they seek their PLEASURES under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the PLEASURES which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest PLEASURES in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth ; and they will have the PLEASURES which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest PLEASURES of which they are capable ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

There appear to be three PLEASURES, one genuine and two spurious : now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious ; he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave PLEASURES which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational PLEASURES, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter ; his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX