Philebus Part 23

PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: How can anything fixed be concerned with that which has no fixedness?

PROTARCHUS: How indeed?

SOCRATES: Then mind and science when employed about such changing things do not attain the highest truth?

PROTARCHUS: I should imagine not.

SOCRATES: And now let us bid farewell, a long farewell, to you or me or Philebus or Gorgias, and urge on behalf of the argument a single point.

PROTARCHUS: What point?

SOCRATES: Let us say that the stable and pure and true and unalloyed has to do with the things which are eternal and unchangeable and unmixed, or if not, at any rate what is most akin to them has; and that all other things are to be placed in a second or inferior cla.s.s.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And of the names expressing cognition, ought not the fairest to be given to the fairest things?

PROTARCHUS: That is natural.

SOCRATES: And are not mind and wisdom the names which are to be honoured most?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And these names may be said to have their truest and most exact application when the mind is engaged in the contemplation of true being?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And these were the names which I adduced of the rivals of pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Very true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: In the next place, as to the mixture, here are the ingredients, pleasure and wisdom, and we may be compared to artists who have their materials ready to their hands.

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And now we must begin to mix them?

PROTARCHUS: By all means.

SOCRATES: But had we not better have a preliminary word and refresh our memories?

PROTARCHUS: Of what?

SOCRATES: Of that which I have already mentioned. Well says the proverb, that we ought to repeat twice and even thrice that which is good.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well then, by Zeus, let us proceed, and I will make what I believe to be a fair summary of the argument.

PROTARCHUS: Let me hear.

SOCRATES: Philebus says that pleasure is the true end of all living beings, at which all ought to aim, and moreover that it is the chief good of all, and that the two names 'good' and 'pleasant' are correctly given to one thing and one nature; Socrates, on the other hand, begins by denying this, and further says, that in nature as in name they are two, and that wisdom partakes more than pleasure of the good. Is not and was not this what we were saying, Protarchus?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And is there not and was there not a further point which was conceded between us?

PROTARCHUS: What was it?

SOCRATES: That the good differs from all other things.

PROTARCHUS: In what respect?

SOCRATES: In that the being who possesses good always everywhere and in all things has the most perfect sufficiency, and is never in need of anything else.

PROTARCHUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: And did we not endeavour to make an imaginary separation of wisdom and pleasure, a.s.signing to each a distinct life, so that pleasure was wholly excluded from wisdom, and wisdom in like manner had no part whatever in pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: We did.

SOCRATES: And did we think that either of them alone would be sufficient?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And if we erred in any point, then let any one who will, take up the enquiry again and set us right; and a.s.suming memory and wisdom and knowledge and true opinion to belong to the same cla.s.s, let him consider whether he would desire to possess or acquire,--I will not say pleasure, however abundant or intense, if he has no real perception that he is pleased, nor any consciousness of what he feels, nor any recollection, however momentary, of the feeling,--but would he desire to have anything at all, if these faculties were wanting to him? And about wisdom I ask the same question; can you conceive that any one would choose to have all wisdom absolutely devoid of pleasure, rather than with a certain degree of pleasure, or all pleasure devoid of wisdom, rather than with a certain degree of wisdom?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not, Socrates; but why repeat such questions any more?

SOCRATES: Then the perfect and universally eligible and entirely good cannot possibly be either of them?

PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: Then now we must ascertain the nature of the good more or less accurately, in order, as we were saying, that the second place may be duly a.s.signed.

PROTARCHUS: Right.

SOCRATES: Have we not found a road which leads towards the good?

PROTARCHUS: What road?

SOCRATES: Supposing that a man had to be found, and you could discover in what house he lived, would not that be a great step towards the discovery of the man himself?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And now reason intimates to us, as at our first beginning, that we should seek the good, not in the unmixed life but in the mixed.