Republic

Would it surprise you, then, said I, if similarly men without experience of truth and reality hold unsound opinions about many other matters, and are so disposed towards pleasure and pain and the intermediate neutral condition that, when they are moved in the direction of the painful, they truly think themselves to be, and really are, in a state of pain, but, when they move from pain to the middle and neutral state, they intensely believe that they are approaching fulfillment and pleasure, and just as if, in ignorance of white, they were comparing grey with black,[*](Cf. Aristot. Met. 1011 b 30-31 and Eth. Nic. 1154 a 30 διὰ τὸ παρὰ τὸ ἐναντίον φαίνεσθαι.) so, being inexperienced in true pleasure, they are deceived by viewing painlessness in its relation to pain? No, by Zeus, he said, it would not surprise me, but far rather if it were not so. In this way, then, consider it.[*](The argument from the parallel of body and mind here belongs to what we have called confirmation. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 528, on Phaedo 78 B, The figurative use of repletion and nutrition is not to be pressed in proof of contradictions with the Philebus or Gorgias. Cf. Matthew v. 6 Hunger and thirst after righteousness.) Are not hunger and thirst and similar states inanitions or emptinesses[*](For κενώσεις Cf. Phileb. 35 B, 42 C-D, Tim. 65 A.) of the bodily habit? Surely. And is not ignorance and folly in turn a kind of emptiness of the habit of the soul? It is indeed. And he who partakes of nourishment[*](For the figure of nourishment of the soul Cf. Protag. 313 D, Phaedr. 248 B, and Soph. 223 E.) and he who gets, wisdom fills the void and is filled? Of course. And which is the truer filling and fulfillment, that of the less or of the more real being? Evidently that of the more real. And which of the two groups or kinds do you think has a greater part in pure essence, the class of foods, drinks, and relishes and nourishment generally, or the kind of true opinion,[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 517, on Meno 98 A-B.) knowledge and reason,[*](Different kinds of intelligence are treated as synonyms because for the present purpose their distinctions are irrelevant. Cf. 511 A, C, and D διάνοια. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 43 and p. 47, n. 339. Plato does not distinguish synonyms nor virtual synonyms for their own sake as Prodicus did. Cf. Protag. 358 A-B.) and, in sum, all the things that are more excellent[*](Cf. Symp. 209 A φρόνησίν τε καὶ τὴν ἄλλην ἀρετήν.)? Form your judgement thus. Which do you think more truly is, that which clings to what is ever like itself and immortal and to the truth, and that which is itself of such a nature and is born in a thing of that nature, or that which clings to what is mortal and never the same and is itself such and is born in such a thing? That which cleaves to what is ever the same far surpasses, he said. Does the essence of that which never abides the same partake of real essence any more than of knowledge? By no means. Or of truth and reality? Not of that, either. And if a thing has less of truth has it not also less of real essence or existence? Necessarily. And is it not generally true that the kinds concerned with the service of the body partake less of truth and reality than those that serve the soul? Much less. And do you not think that the same holds of the body itself in comparison with the soul? I do. Then is not that which is fulfilled of what more truly is, and which itself more truly is, more truly filled and satisfied than that which being itself less real is filled with more unreal things? Of course. If, then, to be filled with what befits nature is pleasure, then that which is more really filled with real things would more really and truly cause us to enjoy a true pleasure, while that which partakes of the less truly existent would be less truly and surely filled and would partake of a less trustworthy and less true pleasure. Most inevitably, he said.

Then those who have no experience of wisdom and virtue but are ever devoted to[*](For ξυνόντες see Blaydes on Aristoph. Clouds 1404.) feastings and that sort of thing are swept downward, it seems, and back again to the center, and so sway and roam[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 528, on Phaedo 79 C for πλανάω of error in thought. This is rather the errare of Lucretius ii. 10 and the post-Aristotelian schools.) to and fro throughout their lives, but they have never transcended all this and turned their eyes to the true upper region nor been wafted there, nor ever been really filled with real things, nor ever tasted[*](Cf. on 576 A ἄγευστος, and for the thought of the whole sentence cf. Dio Chrys. Or. xiii., Teubner, vol. i. p. 240.) stable and pure pleasure, but with eyes ever bent upon the earth[*](Cf. Milton, Comus, Ne’er looks to heaven amid its gorgeous feast, Rossetti, Nineveh, in fine, That set gaze never on the sky, etc. Cf. S. O. Dickermann, De Argumentis quibusdam ap. Xenophontem, Platonem, Aristotelem obviis e structura hominis et animalium petitis, Halle, 1909, who lists Plato’s Symp. 190 A, Rep. 586 A, Cratyl. 396 B, 409 C, Tim. 90 A, 91 E, and many other passages.) and heads bowed down over their tables they feast like cattle,[*](Cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1095 b 20 βοσκημάτων βίον. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 611, on Phileb., in fine.) grazing and copulating, ever greedy for more of these delights; and in their greed[*](Cf. 373 E, Phaedo 66 C ff., Berkeley, Siris 330 For these things men fight, cheat, and scramble.) kicking and butting one another with horns and hooves of iron they slay one another in sateless avidity, because they are vainly striving to satisfy with things that are not real the unreal and incontinent part[*](τὸ στέγον: Cf. Gorg. 493 B, Laws 714 A.) of their souls.You describe in quite oracular style,[*](Plato laughs at himself. Cf. 509 C and 540 B-C. The picturesque, allegorical style of oracles was proverbial. For χρησμῳδεῖν Cf. Crat. 396 D, Apol. 39 C, Laws 712 A.) Socrates, said Glaucon, the life of the multitude. And are not the pleasures with which they dwell inevitably commingled with pains, phantoms of true pleasure, illusions of scene-painting, so colored by contrary juxtaposition[*](Cf. on 584 A, p. 384, note a.) as to seem intense in either kind, and to beget mad loves of themselves in senseless souls, and to be fought for,[*](For περιμαχήτους cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1168 b 19, Eth. Eud. 1248 b 27, and on 521 A, p. 145, note e.) as Stesichorus says the wraith of Helen[*](For the Stesichorean legend that the real Helen remained in Egypt while only her phantom went to Troy Cf. Phaedr. 243 A-B, Eurip. Hel. 605 ff., Elect. 1282-1283, Isoc. Hel. 64, and Philologus 55, pp. 634 ff. Dümmler, Akademika p. 55, thinks this passage a criticism of Isoc. Helena 40. Cf. also Teichmüller, Lit. Fehden, i. pp. 113 ff. So Milton, Reason of Church Government, A lawny resemblance of her like that air-born Helena in the fables. For the ethical symbolism Cf. 520 C-D.) was fought for at Troy through ignorance of the truth? It is quite inevitable, he said, that it should be so. So, again, must not the like hold of the high-spirited element, whenever a man succeeds in satisfying that part of his nature—his covetousness of honor by envy, his love of victory by violence, his ill-temper by indulgence in anger, pursuing these ends without regard to consideration and reason? The same sort of thing, he said, must necessarily happen in this case too. Then, said I, may we not confidently declare that in both the gain-loving and the contentious part of our nature all the desires that wait upon knowledge and reason, and, pursuing their pleasures in conjunction with them,[*](Cf. Phaedo 69 B, and Theaet. 176 B μετὰ φρονήσεως.) take only those pleasures which reason approves,[*](ἐξηγῆται has a religious tone. See on ἐξηγητής427 C. Cf. 604 B.) will, since they follow truth, enjoy the truest[*](Cf. on 583 B, p. 380, note b.) pleasures, so far as that is possible for them, and also the pleasures that are proper to them and their own, if for everything that which is best may be said to be most its own[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 491, on Lysis 221 E.)? But indeed, he said, it is most truly its very own.