Page - 902 - in The Complete Plato

SOCRATES: And the images answering to true opinions and words are true, and to false opinions and words false; are they not? PROTARCHUS: They are. SOCRATES: If we are right so far, there arises a further question. PROTARCHUS: What is it? SOCRATES: Whether we experience the feeling of which I am speaking only in relation to the present and the past, or in relation to the future also? PROTARCHUS: I should say in relation to all times alike. SOCRATES: 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? PROTARCHUS: Most true. SOCRATES: And do all those writings and paintings which, as we were saying a little while ago, are produced in us, relate to the past and present only, and not to the future? PROTARCHUS: To the future, very much. SOCRATES: When you say, ‘Very much,’ you mean to imply that all these representations are hopes about the future, and that mankind are filled with hopes in every stage of existence? PROTARCHUS: Exactly. SOCRATES: Answer me another question. PROTARCHUS: What question? SOCRATES: A just and pious and good man is the friend of the gods; is he not? PROTARCHUS: Certainly he is. SOCRATES: And the unjust and utterly bad man is the reverse? PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: And all men, as we were saying just now, are always filled with hopes? PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions which exist in the minds of each of us? PROTARCHUS: Yes. 902