Philebus

And now, having obtained our classes, we may determine in which our conqueror life is to be placed: Clearly in the third or mixed class, in which the finite gives law to the infinite. And in which is pleasure to find a place? As clearly in the infinite or indefinite, which alone, as Protarchus thinks (who seems to confuse the infinite with the superlative), gives to pleasure the character of the absolute good. Yes, retorts Socrates, and also to pain the character of absolute evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that which imparts to pleasure the nature of the good. But where shall we place mind? That is a very serious and awful question, which may be prefaced by another. Is mind or chance the lord of the universe? All philosophers will say the first, and yet, perhaps, they may be only magnifying themselves. And for this reason I should like to consider the matter a little more deeply, even though some lovers of disorder in the world should ridicule my attempt.

Now the elements earth, air, fire, water, exist in us, and they exist in the cosmos; but they are purer and fairer in the cosmos than they are in us, and they come to us from thence. And as we have a soul as well as a body, in like manner the elements of the finite, the infinite, the union of the two, and the cause, are found to exist in us. And if they, like the elements, exist in us, and the three first exist in the world, must not the fourth or cause which is the noblest of them, exist in the world? And this cause is wisdom or mind, the royal mind of Zeus, who is the king of all, as there are other gods who have other noble attributes. Observe how well this agrees with the testimony of men of old, who affirmed mind to be the ruler of the universe. And remember that mind belongs to the class which we term the cause, and pleasure to the infinite or indefinite class. We will examine the place and origin of both.

What is the origin of pleasure? Her natural seat is the mixed class, in which health and harmony were placed. Pain is the violation, and pleasure the restoration of limit. There is a natural union of finite and infinite, which in hunger, thirst, heat, cold, is impaired – this is painful, but the return to nature, in which the elements are restored to their normal proportions, is pleasant. Here is our first class of pleasures. And another class of pleasures and pains are hopes and fears; these are in the mind only. And inasmuch as the pleasures are unalloyed by pains and the pains by pleasures, the examination of them may show us whether all pleasure is to be desired, or whether this entire desirableness is not rather the attribute of another class. But if pleasures and pains consist in the violation and restoration of limit, may there not be a neutral state, in which there is neither dissolution nor restoration? That is a further question, and admitting, as we must, the possibility of such a state, there seems to be no reason why the life of wisdom should not exist in this neutral state, which is, moreover, the state of the gods, who cannot, without indecency, be supposed to feel either joy or sorrow.

The second class of pleasures involves memory. There are affections which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and of these there is no consciousness, and therefore no memory. And there are affections which the body and soul feel together, and this feeling is termed consciousness. And memory is the preservation of consciousness, and reminiscence is the recovery of consciousness. Now the memory of pleasure, when a man is in pain, is the memory of the opposite of his actual bodily state, and is therefore not in the body, but in the mind. And there may be an intermediate state, in which a person is balanced between pleasure and pain; in his body there is want which is a cause of pain, but in his mind a sure hope of replenishment, which is pleasant. (But if the hope be converted into despair, he has two pains and not a balance of pain and pleasure.) Another question is raised: May not pleasures, like opinions, be true and false? In the sense of being real, both must be admitted to be true: nor can we deny that to both of them qualities may be attributed; for pleasures as well as opinions may be described as good or bad. And though we do not all of us allow that there are true and false pleasures, we all acknowledge that there are some pleasures associated with right opinion, and others with falsehood and ignorance. Let us endeavour to analyze the nature of this association.

Opinion is based on perception, which may be correct or mistaken. You may see a figure at a distance, and say first of all, 'This is a man,' and then say, 'No, this is an image made by the shepherds.' And you may affirm this in a proposition to your companion, or make the remark mentally to yourself. Whether the words are actually spoken or not, on such occasions there is a scribe within who registers them, and a painter who paints the images of the things which the scribe has written down in the soul, – at least that is my own notion of the process; and the words and images which are inscribed by them may be either true or false; and they may represent either past, present, or future. And, representing the future, they must also represent the pleasures and pains of anticipation – the visions of gold and other fancies which are never wanting in the mind of man. Now these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions, which are sometimes true, and sometimes false; for the good, who are the friends of the gods, see true pictures of the future, and the bad false ones. And as there may be opinion about things which are not, were not, and will not be, which is opinion still, so there may be pleasure about things which are not, were not, and will not be, which is pleasure still, – that is to say, false pleasure; and only when false, can pleasure, like opinion, be vicious. Against this conclusion Protarchus reclaims.

Leaving his denial for the present, Socrates proceeds to show that some pleasures are false from another point of view. In desire, as we admitted, the body is divided from the soul, and hence pleasures and pains are often simultaneous. And we further admitted that both of them belonged to the infinite class. How, then, can we compare them? Are we not liable, or rather certain, as in the case of sight, to be deceived by distance and relation? In this case the pleasures and pains are not false because based upon false opinion, but are themselves false. And there is another illusion: pain has often been said by us to arise out of the derangement – pleasure out of the restoration – of our nature. But in passing from one to the other, do we not experience neutral states, which although they appear pleasureable or painful are really neither? For even if we admit, with the wise man whom Protarchus loves (and only a wise man could have ever entertained such a notion), that all things are in a perpetual flux, still these changes are often unconscious, and devoid either of pleasure or pain. We assume, then, that there are three states – pleasureable, painful, neutral; we may embellish a little by calling them gold, silver, and that which is neither.

But there are certain natural philosophers who will not admit a third state. Their instinctive dislike to pleasure leads them to affirm that pleasure is only the absence of pain. They are noble fellows, and, although we do not agree with them, we may use them as diviners who will indicate to us the right track. They will say, that the nature of anything is best known from the examination of extreme cases, e.g. the nature of hardness from the examination of the hardest things; and that the nature of pleasure will be best understood from an examination of the most intense pleasures. Now these are the pleasures of the body, not of the mind; the pleasures of disease and not of health, the pleasures of the intemperate and not of the temperate. I am speaking, not of the frequency or continuance, but only of the intensity of such pleasures, and this is given them by contrast with the pain or sickness of body which precedes them. Their morbid nature is illustrated by the lesser instances of itching and scratching, respecting which I swear that I cannot tell whether they are a pleasure or a pain. (1) Some of these arise out of a transition from one state of the body to another, as from cold to hot; (2) others are caused by the contrast of an internal pain and an external pleasure in the body: sometimes the feeling of pain predominates, as in itching and tingling, when they are relieved by scratching; sometimes the feeling of pleasure: or the pleasure which they give may be quite overpowering, and is then accompanied by all sorts of unutterable feelings which have a death of delights in them. But there are also mixed pleasures which are in the mind only. For are not love and sorrow as well as anger 'sweeter than honey,' and also full of pain? Is there not a mixture of feelings in the spectator of tragedy? and of comedy also? 'I do not understand that last.' Well, then, with the view of lighting up the obscurity of these mixed feelings, let me ask whether envy is painful. 'Yes.' And yet the envious man finds something pleasing in the misfortunes of others? 'True.' And ignorance is a misfortune? 'Certainly.' And one form of ignorance is self-conceit – a man may fancy himself richer, fairer, better, wiser than he is? 'Yes.' And he who thus deceives himself may be strong or weak? 'He may.' And if he is strong we fear him, and if he is weak we laugh at him, which is a pleasure, and yet we envy him, which is a pain? These mixed feelings are the rationale of tragedy and comedy, and equally the rationale of the greater drama of human life. (There appears to be some confusion in this passage. There is no difficulty in seeing that in comedy, as in tragedy, the spectator may view the performance with mixed feelings of pain as well as of pleasure; nor is there any difficulty in understanding that envy is a mixed feeling, which rejoices not without pain at the misfortunes of others, and laughs at their ignorance of themselves. But Plato seems to think further that he has explained the feeling of the spectator in comedy sufficiently by a theory which only applies to comedy in so far as in comedy we laugh at the conceit or weakness of others. He has certainly given a very partial explanation of the ridiculous.) Having shown how sorrow, anger, envy are feelings of a mixed nature, I will reserve the consideration of the remainder for another occasion.

Next follow the unmixed pleasures; which, unlike the philosophers of whom I was speaking, I believe to be real. These unmixed pleasures are: (1) The pleasures derived from beauty of form, colour, sound, smell, which are absolutely pure; and in general those which are unalloyed with pain: (2) The pleasures derived from the acquisition of knowledge, which in themselves are pure, but may be attended by an accidental pain of forgetting; this, however, arises from a subsequent act of reflection, of which we need take no account. At the same time, we admit that the latter pleasures are the property of a very few. To these pure and unmixed pleasures we ascribe measure, whereas all others belong to the class of the infinite, and are liable to every species of excess. And here several questions arise for consideration: – What is the meaning of pure and impure, of moderate and immoderate? We may answer the question by an illustration: Purity of white paint consists in the clearness or quality of the white, and this is distinct from the quantity or amount of white paint; a little pure white is fairer than a great deal which is impure. But there is another question: – Pleasure is affirmed by ingenious philosophers to be a generation; they say that there are two natures – one self-existent, the other dependent; the one noble and majestic, the other failing in both these qualities. 'I do not understand.' There are lovers and there are loves. 'Yes, I know, but what is the application?' The argument is in play, and desires to intimate that there are relatives and there are absolutes, and that the relative is for the sake of the absolute; and generation is for the sake of essence. Under relatives I class all things done with a view to generation; and essence is of the class of good. But if essence is of the class of good, generation must be of some other class; and our friends, who affirm that pleasure is a generation, would laugh at the notion that pleasure is a good; and at that other notion, that pleasure is produced by generation, which is only the alternative of destruction. Who would prefer such an alternation to the equable life of pure thought? Here is one absurdity, and not the only one, to which the friends of pleasure are reduced. For is there not also an absurdity in affirming that good is of the soul only; or in declaring that the best of men, if he be in pain, is bad?

And now, from the consideration of pleasure, we pass to that of knowledge. Let us reflect that there are two kinds of knowledge – the one creative or productive, and the other educational and philosophical. Of the creative arts, there is one part purer or more akin to knowledge than the other. There is an element of guess-work and an element of number and measure in them. In music, for example, especially in flute-playing, the conjectural element prevails; while in carpentering there is more application of rule and measure. Of the creative arts, then, we may make two classes – the less exact and the more exact. And the exacter part of all of them is really arithmetic and mensuration. But arithmetic and mensuration again may be subdivided with reference either to their use in the concrete, or to their nature in the abstract – as they are regarded popularly in building and binding, or theoretically by philosophers. And, borrowing the analogy of pleasure, we may say that the philosophical use of them is purer than the other. Thus we have two arts of arithmetic, and two of mensuration. And truest of all in the estimation of every rational man is dialectic, or the science of being, which will forget and disown us, if we forget and disown her.

'But, Socrates, I have heard Gorgias say that rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of arts; and I should not like to quarrel either with him or you.' Neither is there any inconsistency, Protarchus, with his statement in what I am now saying; for I am not maintaining that dialectic is the greatest or usefullest, but only that she is the truest of arts; my remark is not quantitative but qualitative, and refers not to the advantage or repetition of either, but to the degree of truth which they attain – here Gorgias will not care to compete; this is what we affirm to be possessed in the highest degree by dialectic. And do not let us appeal to Gorgias or Philebus or Socrates, but ask, on behalf of the argument, what are the highest truths which the soul has the power of attaining. And is not this the science which has a firmer grasp of them than any other? For the arts generally are only occupied with matters of opinion, and with the production and action and passion of this sensible world. But the highest truth is that which is eternal and unchangeable. And reason and wisdom are concerned with the eternal; and these are the very claimants, if not for the first, at least for the second place, whom I propose as rivals to pleasure.