Page - 892 - in The Complete Plato

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. PROTARCHUS: You say most truly that this is the track which the investigation should pursue. SOCRATES: Well, then, assuming that pain ensues on the dissolution, and pleasure on the restoration of the harmony, let us now ask what will be the condition of animated beings who are neither in process of restoration nor of dissolution. And mind what you say: I ask whether any animal who is in that condition can possibly have any feeling of pleasure or pain, great or small? PROTARCHUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Then here we have a third state, over and above that of pleasure and of pain? PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And do not forget that there is such a state; it will make a great difference in our judgment of pleasure, whether we remember this or not. And I should like to say a few words about it. PROTARCHUS: What have you to say? SOCRATES: Why, you know that if a man chooses the life of wisdom, there is no reason why he should not live in this neutral state. PROTARCHUS: You mean that he may live neither rejoicing nor sorrowing? SOCRATES: Yes; and if I remember rightly, when the lives were compared, no degree of pleasure, whether great or small, was thought to be necessary to him who chose the life of thought and wisdom. PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly, we said so. SOCRATES: Then he will live without pleasure; and who knows whether this may not be the most divine of all lives? PROTARCHUS: If so, the gods, at any rate, cannot be supposed to have either joy or sorrow. SOCRATES: Certainly not—there would be a great impropriety in the 892