Page - 904 - in The Complete Plato

PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And can opinions be good or bad except in as far as they are true or false? PROTARCHUS: In no other way. SOCRATES: Nor can pleasures be conceived to be bad except in so far as they are false. PROTARCHUS: Nay, Socrates, that is the very opposite of truth; for no one would call pleasures and pains bad because they are false, but by reason of some other great corruption to which they are liable. SOCRATES: Well, of pleasures which are corrupt and caused by corruption we will hereafter speak, if we care to continue the enquiry; for the present I would rather show by another argument that there are many false pleasures existing or coming into existence in us, because this may assist our final decision. PROTARCHUS: Very true; that is to say, if there are such pleasures. SOCRATES: I think that there are, Protarchus; but this is an opinion which should be well assured, and not rest upon a mere assertion. PROTARCHUS: Very good. SOCRATES: Then now, like wrestlers, let us approach and grasp this new argument. PROTARCHUS: Proceed. SOCRATES: We were maintaining a little while since, that when desires, as they are termed, exist in us, then the body has separate feelings apart from the soul—do you remember? PROTARCHUS: Yes, I remember that you said so. SOCRATES: And the soul was supposed to desire the opposite of the bodily state, while the body was the source of any pleasure or pain which was experienced. PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: Then now you may infer what happens in such cases. PROTARCHUS: What am I to infer? SOCRATES: That in such cases pleasures and pains come simultaneously; and there is a juxtaposition of the opposite sensations which correspond to them, as has been already shown. 904