Page - 885 - in The Complete Plato

PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then the cause and what is subordinate to it in generation are not the same, but different? PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: Did not the things which were generated, and the things out of which they were generated, furnish all the three classes? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the creator or cause of them has been satisfactorily proven to be distinct from them,—and may therefore be called a fourth principle? PROTARCHUS: So let us call it. SOCRATES: Quite right; but now, having distinguished the four, I think that we had better refresh our memories by recapitulating each of them in order. PROTARCHUS: By all means. SOCRATES: Then the first I will call the infinite or unlimited, and the second the finite or limited; then follows the third, an essence compound and generated; and I do not think that I shall be far wrong in speaking of the cause of mixture and generation as the fourth. PROTARCHUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: And now what is the next question, and how came we hither? Were we not enquiring whether the second place belonged to pleasure or wisdom? PROTARCHUS: We were. SOCRATES: And now, having determined these points, shall we not be better able to decide about the first and second place, which was the original subject of dispute? PROTARCHUS: I dare say. SOCRATES: We said, if you remember, that the mixed life of pleasure and wisdom was the conqueror—did we not? PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: And we see what is the place and nature of this life and to what class it is to be assigned? PROTARCHUS: Beyond a doubt. 885