Page - 922 - in The Complete Plato

PROTARCHUS: He who would make us believe pleasure to be a good is involved in great absurdities, Socrates. SOCRATES: Great, indeed; and there is yet another of them. PROTARCHUS: What is it? SOCRATES: Is there not an absurdity in arguing that there is nothing good or noble in the body, or in anything else, but that good is in the soul only, and that the only good of the soul is pleasure; and that courage or temperance or understanding, or any other good of the soul, is not really a good?—and is there not yet a further absurdity in our being compelled to say that he who has a feeling of pain and not of pleasure is bad at the time when he is suffering pain, even though he be the best of men; and again, that he who has a feeling of pleasure, in so far as he is pleased at the time when he is pleased, in that degree excels in virtue? PROTARCHUS: Nothing, Socrates, can be more irrational than all this. SOCRATES: And now, having subjected pleasure to every sort of test, let us not appear to be too sparing of mind and knowledge: let us ring their metal bravely, and see if there be unsoundness in any part, until we have found out what in them is of the purest nature; and then the truest elements both of pleasure and knowledge may be brought up for judgment. PROTARCHUS: Right. SOCRATES: Knowledge has two parts,—the one productive, and the other educational? PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: And in the productive or handicraft arts, is not one part more akin to knowledge, and the other less; and may not the one part be regarded as the pure, and the other as the impure? PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Let us separate the superior or dominant elements in each of them. PROTARCHUS: What are they, and how do you separate them? SOCRATES: I mean to say, that if arithmetic, mensuration, and weighing be taken away from any art, that which remains will not be much. PROTARCHUS: Not much, certainly. SOCRATES: The rest will be only conjecture, and the better use of the senses which is given by experience and practice, in addition to a certain 922