Page - 911 - in The Complete Plato

SOCRATES: Such, for example, as the relief of itching and other ailments by scratching, which is the only remedy required. For what in Heaven’s name is the feeling to be called which is thus produced in us?—Pleasure or pain? PROTARCHUS: A villainous mixture of some kind, Socrates, I should say. SOCRATES: I did not introduce the argument, O Protarchus, with any personal reference to Philebus, but because, without the consideration of these and similar pleasures, we shall not be able to determine the point at issue. PROTARCHUS: Then we had better proceed to analyze this family of pleasures. SOCRATES: You mean the pleasures which are mingled with pain? PROTARCHUS: Exactly. SOCRATES: There are some mixtures which are of the body, and only in the body, and others which are of the soul, and only in the soul; while there are other mixtures of pleasures with pains, common both to soul and body, which in their composite state are called sometimes pleasures and sometimes pains. PROTARCHUS: How is that? SOCRATES: Whenever, in the restoration or in the derangement of nature, a man experiences two opposite feelings; for example, when he is cold and is growing warm, or again, when he is hot and is becoming cool, and he wants to have the one and be rid of the other;—the sweet has a bitter, as the common saying is, and both together fasten upon him and create irritation and in time drive him to distraction. PROTARCHUS: That description is very true to nature. SOCRATES: And in these sorts of mixtures the pleasures and pains are sometimes equal, and sometimes one or other of them predominates? PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: Of cases in which the pain exceeds the pleasure, an example is afforded by itching, of which we were just now speaking, and by the tingling which we feel when the boiling and fiery element is within, and the rubbing and motion only relieves the surface, and does not reach the parts affected; then if you put them to the fire, and as a last resort apply cold to them, you may often produce the most intense pleasure or pain in the inner parts, which contrasts and mingles with the pain or pleasure, as the case may be, of the outer parts; and this is due to the forcible separation of what is united, or to the union of what is separated, and to the juxtaposition of pleasure and pain. 911