PLATO PHILEBUS 360 BC IN FIVE WEB-PAGE PARTS - PART FIVE TRANSLATED BY Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893) Benjamin Jowett was an English scholar, classicist and theologian. Noted as one of the greatest British educators of the 19th century, he was renowned for his translations of Plato and as an outstanding and influential tutor. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford. PLATO

Plato (Greek Pláton, "broad" 428/427 BC - 348/347 BC), was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science

PHILEBUS The Philebus composed between 360 and 347 BC, is among the last of the late Socratic dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Socrates is the primary speaker in Philebus, unlike in the other late dialogues. The other speakers are Philebus and Protarchus. The dialogue's central question concerns the relative value of pleasure and knowledge, and produces a model for thinking about how complex structures are developed. Socrates begins by summarizing the two sides of the dialogue: Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure for all who are able to partake of them, and that to all such who are or ever will be they are the most advantageous of all things. But he then goes on to dismiss both pleasure and knowledge as unsatisfactory, reasoning that the truly good life is one of a measured and sensible mixture of the two. The dialogue is generally considered to contain less humor than earlier dialogues, and to emphasize philosophy and speculation over drama and poetry. (wikipedia)

PHILEBUS
360 BC

SOCRATES: PROTARCHUS: PHILEBUS:




PROTARCHUS: You want to know whether that which is called essence is, properly speaking, for the sake of generation?

SOCRATES: Yes.

PROTARCHUS: By the gods, I wish that you would repeat your question.

SOCRATES: I mean, O my Protarchus, to ask whether you would tell me that ship-building is for the sake of ships, or ships for the sake of ship-building? and in all similar cases I should ask the same question.

PROTARCHUS: Why do you not answer yourself, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I have no objection, but you must take your part.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: My answer is, that all things instrumental, remedial, material, are given to us with a view to generation, and that each generation is relative to, or for the sake of, some being or essence, and that the whole of generation is relative to the whole of essence.

PROTARCHUS: Assuredly.

SOCRATES:

Then pleasure, being a generation, must surely be for the sake of some essence?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And that for the sake of which something else is done must be placed in the class of good, and that which is done for the sake of something else, in some other class, my good friend.

PROTARCHUS: Most certainly.

SOCRATES: Then pleasure, being a generation, will be rightly placed in some other class than that of good?

PROTARCHUS: Quite right.

SOCRATES: Then, as I said at first, we ought to be very grateful to him who first pointed out that pleasure was a generation only, and had no true being at all; for he is clearly one who laughs at the notion of pleasure being a good.

PROTARCHUS: Assuredly.

SOCRATES: And he would surely laugh also at those who make generation their highest end.

PROTARCHUS: Of whom are you speaking, and what do they mean?

SOCRATES: I am speaking of those who when they are cured of hunger or thirst or any other defect by some process of generation are delighted at the process as if it were pleasure; and they say that they would not wish to live without these and other feelings of a like kind which might be mentioned.

PROTARCHUS: That is certainly what they appear to think.

SOCRATES: And is not destruction universally admitted to be the opposite of generation?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then he who chooses thus, would choose generation and destruction rather than that third sort of life, in which, as we were saying, was neither pleasure nor pain, but only the purest possible thought.

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 power of guessing, which is commonly called art, and is perfected by attention and pains.

PROTARCHUS: Nothing more, assuredly.

SOCRATES: Music, for instance, is full of this empiricism; for sounds are harmonized, not by measure, but by skilful conjecture; the music of the flute is always trying to guess the pitch of each vibrating note, and is therefore mixed up with much that is doubtful and has little which is certain.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And the same will be found to hold good of medicine and husbandry and piloting and generalship.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: The art of the builder, on the other hand, which uses a number of measures and instruments, attains by their help to a greater degree of accuracy than the other arts.

PROTARCHUS: How is that?

SOCRATES: In ship-building and house-building, and in other branches of the art of carpentering, the builder has his rule, lathe, compass, line, and a most ingenious machine for straightening wood.

PROTARCHUS: Very true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then now let us divide the arts of which we were speaking into two kinds-the arts which, like music, are less exact in their results, and those which, like carpentering, are more exact.

PROTARCHUS: Let us make that division.

SOCRATES: Of the latter class, the most exact of all are those which we just now spoke of as primary.

PROTARCHUS: I see that you mean arithmetic, and the kindred arts of weighing and measuring.

SOCRATES: Certainly, Protarchus; but are not these also distinguishable into two kinds?

PROTARCHUS: What are the two kinds?

SOCRATES: In the first place, arithmetic is of two kinds, one of which is popular, and the other philosophical.

PROTARCHUS: How would you distinguish them?

SOCRATES: There is a wide difference between them, Protarchus; some arithmeticians reckon unequal units; as for example, two armies, two oxen, two very large things or two very small things. The party who are opposed to them insist that every unit in ten thousand must be the same as every other unit.

PROTARCHUS: Undoubtedly there is, as you say, a great difference among the votaries of the science; and there may be reasonably supposed to be two sorts of arithmetic.

SOCRATES: And when we compare the art of mensuration which is used in building with philosophical geometry, or the art of computation which is used in trading with exact calculation, shall we say of either of the pairs that it is one or two?

PROTARCHUS: On the analogy of what has preceded, I should be of opinion that they were severally two.

SOCRATES: Right; but do you understand why I have discussed the subject?

PROTARCHUS: I think so, but I should like to be told by you.

SOCRATES: The argument has all along been seeking a parallel to pleasure, and true to that original design, has gone on to ask whether one sort of knowledge is purer than another, as one pleasure is purer than another.

PROTARCHUS: Clearly; that was the intention.

SOCRATES: And has not the argument in what has preceded, already shown that the arts have different provinces, and vary in their degrees of certainty?

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And just now did not the argument first designate a particular art by a common term, thus making us believe in the unity of that art; and then again, as if speaking of two different things, proceed to enquire whether the art as pursed by philosophers, or as pursued by non philosophers, has more of certainty and purity?

PROTARCHUS: That is the very question which the argument is asking.

SOCRATES: And how, Protarchus, shall we answer the enquiry?

PROTARCHUS: O Socrates, we have reached a point at which the difference of clearness in different kinds of knowledge is enormous.

SOCRATES: Then the answer will be the easier.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly; and let us say in reply, that those arts into which arithmetic and mensuration enter, far surpass all others; and that of these the arts or sciences which are animated by the pure philosophic impulse are infinitely superior in accuracy and truth.

SOCRATES: Then this is your judgment; and this is the answer which, upon your authority, we will give to all masters of the art of misinterpretation?

PROTARCHUS: What answer?

SOCRATES: That there are two arts of arithmetic, and two of mensuration; and also several other arts which in like manner have this double nature, and yet only one name.

PROTARCHUS: Let us boldly return this answer to the masters of whom you speak, Socrates, and hope for good luck.

SOCRATES: We have explained what we term the most exact arts or sciences.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: And yet, Protarchus, dialectic will refuse to acknowledge us, if we do not award to her the first place.

PROTARCHUS: And pray, what is dialectic?

SOCRATES: Clearly the science which has to do with all that knowledge of which we are now speaking; for I am sure that all men who have a grain of intelligence will admit that the knowledge which has to do with being and reality, and sameness and unchangeableness, is by far the truest of all. But how would you decide this question, Protarchus?

PROTARCHUS: I have often heard Gorgias maintain, Socrates, that the art of persuasion far surpassed every other; this, as he says, is by far the best of them all, for to it all things submit, not by compulsion, but of their own free will. Now, I should not like to quarrel either with you or with him.

SOCRATES: You mean to say that you would like to desert, if you were not ashamed?

PROTARCHUS: As you please.

SOCRATES: May I not have led you into a misapprehension?

PROTARCHUS: How?

SOCRATES: Dear Protarchus, I never asked which was the greatest or best or usefullest of arts or sciences, but which had clearness and accuracy, and the greatest amount of truth, however humble and little useful an art. And as for Gorgias, if you do not deny that his art has the advantage in usefulness to mankind, he will not quarrel with you for saying that the study of which I am speaking is superior in this particular of essential truth; as in the comparison of white colours, a little whiteness, if that little be only pure, was said to be superior in truth to a great mass which is impure. And now let us give our best attention and consider well, not the comparative use or reputation of the sciences, but the power or faculty, if there be such, which the soul has of loving the truth, and of doing all things for the sake of it; let us search into the pure element of mind and intelligence, and then we shall be able to say whether the science of which I have been speaking is most likely to possess the faculty, or whether there be some other which has higher claims.

PROTARCHUS: Well, I have been considering, and I can hardly think that any other science or art has a firmer grasp of the truth than this.

SOCRATES: Do you say so because you observe that the arts in general and those engaged in them make use of opinion, and are resolutely engaged in the investigation of matters of opinion? Even he who supposes himself to be occupied with nature is really occupied with the things of this world, how created, how acting or acted upon. Is not this the sort of enquiry in which his life is spent?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: He is labouring, not after eternal being, but about things which are becoming, or which will or have become.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And can we say that any of these things which neither are nor have been nor will be unchangeable, when judged by the strict rule of truth, ever become certain?

PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: How can anything fixed be concerned with that which has no fixedness?

PROTARCHUS: How indeed?

SOCRATES: Then mind and science when employed about such changing things do not attain the highest truth?

PROTARCHUS: I should imagine not.

SOCRATES: And now let us bid farewell, a long farewell, to you or me or Philebus or Gorgias, and urge on behalf of the argument a single point.

PROTARCHUS: What point?

SOCRATES: Let us say that the stable and pure and true and unalloyed has to do with the things which are eternal and unchangeable and unmixed, or if not, at any rate what is most akin to them has; and that all other things are to be placed in a second or inferior class.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And of the names expressing cognition, ought not the fairest to be given to the fairest things?

PROTARCHUS: That is natural.

SOCRATES: And are not mind and wisdom the names which are to be honoured most?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And these names may be said to have their truest, and most exact application when the mind is engaged in the contemplation of true being?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And these were the names which I adduced of the rivals of pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Very true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: In the next place, as to the mixture, here are the ingredients, pleasure and wisdom, and we may be compared to artists who have their materials ready to their hands.

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And now we must begin to mix them?

PROTARCHUS: By all means.

SOCRATES: But had we not better have a preliminary word and refresh our memories?

PROTARCHUS: Of what?

SOCRATES: Of that which I have already mentioned. Well says the proverb, that we ought to repeat twice and even thrice that which is good.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well then, by Zeus, let us proceed, and I will make what I believe to be a fair summary of the argument.

PROTARCHUS: Let me hear.

SOCRATES: Philebus says that pleasure is the true end of all living beings, at which all ought to aim, and moreover that it is the chief good of all, and that the two names "good" and "pleasant" are correctly given to one thing and one nature; Socrates, on the other hand, begins by denying this, and further says, that in nature as in name they are two, and that wisdom partakes more than pleasure of the good. Is not and was not this what we were saying, Protarchus?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And is there not and was there not a further point which was conceded between us?

PROTARCHUS: What was it?

SOCRATES: That the good differs from all other things.

PROTARCHUS: In what respect?

SOCRATES: In that the being who possesses good always everywhere and in all things has the most perfect sufficiency, and is never in need of anything else.

PROTARCHUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: And did we not endeavour to make an imaginary separation of wisdom and pleasure, assigning to each a distinct life, so that pleasure was wholly excluded from wisdom, and wisdom in like manner had no part whatever in pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: We did.

SOCRATES: And did we think that either of them alone would be sufficient?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And if we erred in any point, then let any one who will, take up the enquiry again and set us right; and assuming memory and wisdom and knowledge and true opinion to belong to the same class, let him consider whether he would desire to possess or acquire-I will not say pleasure, however abundant or intense, if he has no real perception that he is pleased, nor any consciousness of what he feels, nor any recollection, however momentary, of the feeling,-but would he desire to have anything at all, if these faculties were wanting to him? And about wisdom I ask the same question; can you conceive that any one would choose to have all wisdom absolutely devoid of pleasure, rather than with a certain degree of pleasure, or all pleasure devoid of wisdom, rather than with a certain degree of wisdom?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not, Socrates; but why repeat such questions any more?

SOCRATES: Then the perfect and universally eligible and entirely good cannot possibly be either of them?

PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: Then now we must ascertain the nature of the good more or less accurately, in order, as we were saying, that the second place may be duly assigned.

PROTARCHUS: Right.

SOCRATES: Have we not found a road which leads towards the good?

PROTARCHUS: What road?

SOCRATES: Supposing that a man had to be found, and you could discover in what house he lived, would not that be a great step towards the discovery of the man himself?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And now reason intimates to us, as at our first beginning, that we should seek the good, not in the unmixed life but in the mixed.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: There is greater hope of finding that which we are seeking in the life which is well mixed than in that which is not?

PROTARCHUS: Far greater.

SOCRATES: Then now let us mingle, Protarchus, at the same time offering up a prayer to Dionysus or Hephaestus, or whoever is the god who presides over the ceremony of mingling.

PROTARCHUS: By all means.

SOCRATES: Are not we the cup-bearers? and here are two fountains which are flowing at our side: one, which is pleasure, may be likened to a fountain of honey; the other, wisdom, a sober draught in which no wine mingles, is of water unpleasant but healthful; out of these we must seek to make the fairest of all possible mixtures.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Tell me first;-should we be most likely to succeed if we mingled every sort of pleasure with every sort of wisdom?

PROTARCHUS: Perhaps we might.

SOCRATES: But I should be afraid of the risk, and I think that I can show a safer plan.

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: One pleasure was supposed by us to be truer than another, and one art to be more exact than another.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: There was also supposed to be a difference in sciences; some of them regarding only the transient and perishing, and others the permanent and imperishable and everlasting and immutable; and when judged by the standard of truth, the latter, as we thought, were truer than the former.

PROTARCHUS: Very good and right.

SOCRATES: If, then, we were to begin by mingling the sections of each class which have the most of truth, will not the union suffice to give us the loveliest of lives, or shall we still want some elements of another kind?

PROTARCHUS: I think that we ought to do what you suggest.

SOCRATES: Let us suppose a man who understands justice, and has reason as well as understanding about the true nature of this and of all other things.

PROTARCHUS: We will suppose such a man.

SOCRATES: Will he have enough of knowledge if he is acquainted only with the divine circle and sphere, and knows nothing of our human spheres and circles, but uses only divine circles and measures in the building of a house?

PROTARCHUS: The knowledge which is only superhuman, Socrates, is ridiculous in man.

SOCRATES: What do you mean? Do you mean that you are to throw into the cup and mingle the impure and uncertain art which uses the false measure and the false circle?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, we must, if any of us is ever to find his way home.

SOCRATES: And am I to include music, which, as, I was saying just now, is full of guesswork and imitation, and is wanting in purity?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, I think that you must, if human life is to be a life at all.

SOCRATES: Well, then, suppose that I give way, and, like a doorkeeper who is pushed and overborne by the mob, I open the door wide, and let knowledge of every sort stream in, and the pure mingle with the impure?

PROTARCHUS: I do not know, Socrates, that any great harm would come of having them all, if only you have the first sort.

SOCRATES: Well, then, shall I let them all flow into what Homer poetically terms "a meeting of the waters"?

PROTARCHUS: By all means.

SOCRATES: There-I have let him in, and now I must return to the fountain of pleasure. For we were not permitted to begin by mingling in a single stream the true portions of both according to our original intention; but the love of all knowledge constrained us to let all the sciences flow in together before the pleasures.

PROTARCHUS: Quite true.

SOCRATES: And now the time has come for us to consider about the pleasures also, whether we shall in like manner let them go all at once, or at first only the true ones.

PROTARCHUS: It will be by far the safer course to let flow the true ones first.

SOCRATES: Let them flow, then; and now, if there are any necessary pleasures, as there were arts and sciences necessary, must we not mingle them?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, the necessary pleasures should certainly be allowed to mingle.

SOCRATES: The knowledge of the arts has been admitted to be innocent and useful always; and if we say of pleasures in like manner that all of them are good and innocent for all of us at all times, we must let them all mingle?

PROTARCHUS: What shall we say about them, and what course shall we take?

SOCRATES: Do not ask me, Protarchus; but ask the daughters of pleasure and wisdom to answer for themselves.

PROTARCHUS: How?

SOCRATES: Tell us, O beloved-shall we call you pleasures or by some other name?-would you rather live with or without wisdom? I am of opinion that they would certainly answer as follows:

PROTARCHUS: How?

SOCRATES: They would answer, as we said before, that for any single class to be left by itself pure and isolated is not good, nor altogether possible; and that if we are to make comparisons of one class with another and choose, there is no better companion than knowledge of things in general, and likewise the perfect knowledge, if that may be, of ourselves in every respect.

PROTARCHUS: And our answer will be:-In that ye have spoken well.

SOCRATES: Very true. And now let us go back and interrogate wisdom and mind: Would you like to have any pleasures in the mixture? And they will reply:-"What pleasures do you mean?"

PROTARCHUS: Likely enough.

SOCRATES: And we shall take up our parable and say: Do you wish to have the greatest and most vehement pleasures for your companions in addition to the true ones? "Why, Socrates," they will say, "how can we? seeing that they are the source of ten thousand hindrances to us; they trouble the souls of men, which are our habitation, with their madness; they prevent us from coming to the birth, and are commonly the ruin of the children which are born to us, causing them to be forgotten and unheeded; but the true and pure pleasures, of which you spoke, know to be of our family, and also those pleasures which accompany health and temperance, and which every Virtue, like a goddess has in her train to follow her about wherever she goes,-mingle these and not the others; there would be great want of sense in any one who desires to see a fair and perfect mixture, and to find in it what is the highest good in man and in the universe, and to divine what is the true form of good-there would be great want of sense in his allowing the pleasures, which are always in the company of folly and vice, to mingle with mind in the cup."-Is not this a very rational and suitable reply, which mind has made, both on her own behalf, as well as on the behalf of memory and true opinion?

PROTARCHUS: Most certainly.

SOCRATES: And still there must be something more added, which is a necessary ingredient in every mixture.

PROTARCHUS: What is that?

SOCRATES: Unless truth enter into the composition, nothing can truly be created or subsist.

PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

SOCRATES: Quite impossible; and now you and Philebus must tell me whether anything is still wanting in the mixture, for to my way of thinking the argument is now completed, and may be compared to an incorporeal law, which is going to hold fair rule over a living body.

PROTARCHUS: I agree with you, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And may we not say with reason that we are now at the vestibule of the habitation of the good?

PROTARCHUS: I think that we are.

SOCRATES: What, then, is there in the mixture which is most precious, and which is the principal cause why such a state is universally beloved by all? When we have discovered it, we will proceed to ask whether this omnipresent nature is more akin to pleasure or to mind.

PROTARCHUS: Quite right; in that way we shall be better able to judge.

SOCRATES: And there is no difficulty in seeing the cause which renders any mixture either of the highest value or of none at all.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Every man knows it.

PROTARCHUS: What?

SOCRATES: He knows that any want of measure and symmetry in any mixture whatever must always of necessity be fatal, both to the elements and to the mixture, which is then not a mixture, but only a confused medley which brings confusion on the possessor of it.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And now the power of the good has retired into the region of the beautiful; for measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue all the world over.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Also we said that truth was to form an element in the mixture.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then, if we are not able to hunt the good with one idea only, with three we may catch our prey; Beauty, Symmetry, Truth are the three, and these taken together we may regard as the single cause of the mixture, and the mixture as being good by reason of the infusion of them.

PROTARCHUS: Quite right.

SOCRATES: And now, Protarchus, any man could decide well enough whether pleasure or wisdom is more akin to the highest good, and more honourable among gods and men.

PROTARCHUS: Clearly, and yet perhaps the argument had better be pursued to the end.

SOCRATES: We must take each of them separately in their relation to pleasure and mind, and pronounce upon them; for we ought to see to which of the two they are severally most akin.

PROTARCHUS: You are speaking of beauty, truth, and measure?

SOCRATES: Yes, Protarchus, take truth first, and, after passing in review mind, truth, pleasure, pause awhile and make answer to yourself-as to whether pleasure or mind is more akin to truth.

PROTARCHUS: There is no need to pause, for the difference between them is palpable; pleasure is the veriest impostor in the world; and it is said that in the pleasures of love, which appear to be the greatest, perjury is excused by the gods; for pleasures, like children, have not the least particle of reason in them; whereas mind is either the same as truth, or the most like truth, and the truest.

SOCRATES: Shall we next consider measure, in like manner, and ask whether pleasure has more of this than wisdom, or wisdom than pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Here is another question which may be easily answered; for I imagine that nothing can ever be more immoderate than the transports of pleasure, or more in conformity with measure than mind and knowledge.

SOCRATES: Very good; but there still remains the third test: Has mind a greater share of beauty than pleasure, and is mind or pleasure the fairer of the two?

PROTARCHUS: No one, Socrates, either awake or dreaming, ever saw or imagined mind or wisdom to be in aught unseemly, at any time, past, present, or future.

SOCRATES: Right.

PROTARCHUS: But when we see some one indulging in pleasures, perhaps in the greatest of pleasures, the ridiculous or disgraceful nature of the action makes us ashamed; and so we put them out of sight, and consign them to darkness, under the idea that they ought not to meet the eye of day.

SOCRATES: Then, Protarchus, you will proclaim everywhere, by word of mouth to this company, and by messengers bearing the tidings far and wide, that pleasure is not the first of possessions, nor yet the second, but that in measure, and the mean, and the suitable, and the like, the eternal nature has been found.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, that seems to be the result of what has been now said.

SOCRATES: In the second class is contained the symmetrical and beautiful and perfect or sufficient, and all which are of that family.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And if you reckon in the third dass mind and wisdom, you will not be far wrong, if I divine aright.

PROTARCHUS: I dare say.

SOCRATES: And would you not put in the fourth class the goods which we were affirming to appertain specially to the soul-sciences and arts and true opinions as we called them? These come after the third class, and form the fourth, as they are certainly more akin to good than pleasure is.

PROTARCHUS: Surely.

SOCRATES: The fifth class are the pleasures which were defined by us as painless, being the pure pleasures of the soul herself, as we termed them, which accompany, some the sciences, and some the senses.

PROTARCHUS: Perhaps.

SOCRATES: And now, as Orpheus says,

With the sixth generation cease the glory of my song.

Here, at the sixth award, let us make an end; all that remains is to set the crown on our discourse.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Then let us sum up and reassert what has been said, thus offering the third libation to the saviour Zeus.

PROTARCHUS: How?

SOCRATES: Philebus affirmed that pleasure was always and absolutely the good.

PROTARCHUS: I understand; this third libation, Socrates, of which you spoke, meant a recapitulation.

SOCRATES: Yes, but listen to the sequel; convinced of what I have just been saying, and feeling indignant at the doctrine, which is maintained, not by Philebus only, but by thousands of others, I affirmed that mind was far better and far more excellent, as an element of human life, than pleasure.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: But, suspecting that there were other things which were also better, I went on to say that if there was anything better than either, then I would claim the second place for mind over pleasure, and pleasure would lose the second place as well as the first.

PROTARCHUS: You did.

SOCRATES: Nothing could be more satisfactorily shown than the unsatisfactory nature of both of them.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: The claims both of pleasure and mind to be the absolute good have been entirely disproven in this argument, because they are both wanting in self-sufficiency and also in adequacy and perfection.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: But, though they must both resign in favour of another, mind is ten thousand times nearer and more akin to the nature of the conqueror than pleasure.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And, according to the judgment which has now been given, pleasure will rank fifth.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: But not first; no, not even if all the oxen and horses and animals in the world by their pursuit of enjoyment proclaim her to be so;-although the many trusting in them, as diviners trust in birds, determine that pleasures make up the good of life, and deem the lusts of animals to be better witnesses than the inspirations of divine philosophy.

PROTARCHUS: And now, Socrates, we tell you that the truth of what you have been saying is approved by the judgment of all of us.

SOCRATES: And will you let me go?

PROTARCHUS: There is a little which yet remains, and I will remind you of it, for I am sure that you will not be the first to go away from an argument.

-THE END-