Philebus

Soc. In saying that, did you bear in mind that the arts in general, and the men who devote themselves to them, make use of opinion and persistently investigate things which have to do with opinion? And even if they think they are studying nature, they are spending their lives in the study of the things of this world, the manner of their production, their action, and the forces to which they are subjected. Is not that true?

Pro. Yes, it is.

Soc. Such thinkers, then, toil to discover, not eternal verities, but transient productions of the present, the future, or the past?

Pro. Perfectly true.

Soc. And can we say that any of these things becomes certain, if tested by the touchstone of strictest truth, since none of them ever was, will be, or is in the same state?

Pro. Of course not.

Soc. How can we gain anything fixed whatsoever about things which have no fixedness whatsoever?

Pro. In no way, as it seems to me.

Soc. Then no mind or science which is occupied with them possesses the most perfect truth.

Pro. No, it naturally does not.

Soc. Then we must dismiss the thought of you and me and Gorgias and Philebus, and make this solemn declaration on the part of our argument.

Pro. What is the solemn declaration?

Soc. That fixed and pure and true and what we call unalloyed knowledge has to do with the things which are eternally the same without change or mixture, or with that which is most akin to them; and all other things are to be regarded as secondary and inferior.

Pro. Very true.

Soc. And of the names applied to such matters, it would be fairest to give the finest names to the finest things, would it not?

Pro. That is reasonable.

Soc. Are not mind, then, and wisdom the names which we should honor most?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. Then these names are applied most accurately and correctly to cases of contemplation of true being.

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And these are precisely the names which I brought forward in the first place as parties to our suit.

Pro. Yes, of course they are, Socrates.

Soc. Very well. As to the mixture of wisdom and pleasure, if anyone were to say that we are like artisans, with the materials before us from which to create our work, the simile would be a good one.

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And is it, then, our next task to try to make the mixture?

Pro. Surely.

Soc. Would it not be better first to repeat certain things and recall them to our minds?

Pro. What things?

Soc. Those which we mentioned before. I think the proverb we ought to repeat twice and even three times that which is good is an excellent one.

Pro. Surely.

Soc. Well then, in God’s name; I think this is the gist of our discussion.

Pro. What is it?

Soc. Philebus says that pleasure is the true goal of every living being and that all ought to aim at it, and that therefore this is also the good for all, and the two designations good and pleasant are properly and essentially one; Socrates, however, says that they are not one, but two in fact as in name, that the good and the pleasant differ from one another in nature, and that wisdom’s share in the good is greater than pleasure’s. Is not and was not that what was said, Protarchus?

Pro. Yes, certainly.

Soc. And furthermore, is not and was not this a point of agreement among us?

Pro. What?

Soc. That the nature of the good differs from all else in this respect.

Pro. In what respect?

Soc. That whatever living being possesses the good always, altogether, and in all ways, has no further need of anything, but is perfectly sufficient. We agreed to that?

Pro. We did.

Soc. And then we tried in thought to separate each from the other and apply them to individual lives, pleasure unmixed with wisdom and likewise wisdom which had not the slightest alloy of pleasure?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. And did we think then that either of them would be sufficient for any one?

Pro. By no means.

Soc. And if we made any mistake at that time, let any one now take up the question again. Assuming that memory, wisdom, knowledge, and true opinion belong to the same class, let him ask whether anyone would wish to have or acquire anything whatsoever without these not to speak of pleasure, be it never so abundant or intense, if he could have no true opinion that he is pleased, no knowledge whatsoever of what he has felt, and not even the slightest memory of the feeling. And let him ask in the same way about wisdom, whether anyone would wish to have wisdom without any, even the slightest, pleasure rather than with some pleasures, or all pleasures without wisdom rather than with some wisdom.

Pro. That is impossible, Socrates; it is useless to ask the same question over and over again.

Soc. Then the perfect, that which is to be desired by all and is altogether good, is neither of these?

Pro. Certainly not.

Soc. We must, then, gain a clear conception of the good, or at least an outline of it, that we may, as we said, know to what the second place is to be assigned.

Pro. Quite right.

Soc. And have we not found a road which leads to the good?

Pro. What road?

Soc. If you were looking for a particular man and first found out correctly where he lived, you would have made great progress towards finding him whom you sought.

Pro. Yes, certainly.

Soc. And just now we received an indication, as we did in the beginning, that we must seek the good, not in the unmixed, but in the mixed life.

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. Surely there is greater hope that the object of our search will be clearly present in the well mixed life than in the life which is not well mixed?

Pro. Far greater.

Soc. Let us make the mixture, Protarchus, with a prayer to the gods, to Dionysus or Hephaestus, or whoever he be who presides over the mixing.

Pro. By all means.

Soc. We are like wine-pourers, and beside us are fountains—that of pleasure may be likened to a fount of honey, and the sober, wineless fount of wisdom to one of pure, health-giving water—of which we must do our best to mix as well as possible.

Pro. Certainly we must.

Soc. Before we make the mixture, tell me: should we be most likely to succeed by mixing all pleasure with all wisdom?

Pro. Perhaps.

Soc. But that is not safe; and I think I can offer a plan by which we can make our mixture with less risk.

Pro. What is it?

Soc. We found, I believe, that one pleasure was greater than another and one art more exact than another?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And knowledge was of two kinds, one turning its eyes towards transitory things, the other towards things which neither come into being nor pass away, but are the same and immutable for ever. Considering them with a view to truth, we judged that the latter was truer than the former.

Pro. That is quite right.

Soc. Then what if we first mix the truest sections of each and see whether, when mixed together, they are capable of giving us the most adorable life, or whether we still need something more and different?