Socrates: Then answer.
Protarchus: Ask.
Socrates: Would you choose, Protarchus, to live all your life long in the enjoyment of the greatest pleasures?
Protarchus: Certainly I should.
Socrates: Would you consider that there was still anything wanting to you if you had perfect pleasure?
Protarchus: Certainly not.
Socrates: Reflect; would you not want wisdom and intelligence and forethought, and similar qualities? would you not at any rate want sight?
Protarchus: Why should I? Having pleasure I should have all things.
Socrates: Living thus, you would always throughout your life enjoy the greatest pleasures?
Protarchus: I should.
Socrates: But if you had neither mind, nor memory, nor knowledge, nor true opinion, you would in the first place be utterly ignorant of whether you were pleased or not, because you would be entirely devoid of intelligence.
Protarchus: Certainly.
Socrates: And similarly, if you had no memory you would not recollect that you had ever been pleased, nor would the slightest recollection of the pleasure which you feel at any moment remain with you; and if you had no true opinion you would not think that you were pleased when you were; and if you had no power of calculation you would not be able to calculate on future pleasure, and your life would be the life, not of a man, but of an oyster or “pulmo marinus.” Could this be otherwise?
Protarchus: No.
Socrates: But is such a life eligible?
Protarchus: I cannot answer you, Socrates; the argument has taken away from me the power of speech.
Socrates: We must keep up our spirits;—let us now take the life of mind and examine it in turn.
Protarchus: And what is this life of mind?
Socrates: I want to know whether any one of us would consent to live, having wisdom and mind and knowledge and memory of all things, but having no sense of pleasure or pain, and wholly unaffected by these and the like feelings?
Protarchus: Neither life, Socrates, appears eligible to me, nor is likely, as I should imagine, to be chosen by anyone else.
Socrates: What would you say, Protarchus, to both of these in one, or to one that was made out of the union of the two?
Protarchus: Out of the union, that is, of pleasure with mind and wisdom?
Socrates: Yes, that is the life which I mean.
Protarchus: There can be no difference of opinion; not some but all would surely choose this third rather than either of the other two, and in addition to them.
Socrates: But do you see the consequence?