Protarchus: Why, Socrates, they are opposed in so far as they spring from opposite sources, but they are not in themselves opposite. For must not pleasure be of all things most absolutely like pleasure—that is, like itself?
Socrates: Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour;—in so far as colours are colours, there is no difference between them; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white: or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under one class; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar opposition among pleasures.
Protarchus: Very likely; but how will this invalidate the argument?
Socrates: Why, I shall reply, that dissimilar as they are, you apply to them a new predicate, for you say that all pleasant things are good; now although no one can argue that pleasure is not pleasure, he may argue, as we are doing, that pleasures are oftener bad than good; but you call them all good, and at the same time are compelled, if you are pressed, to acknowledge that they are unlike. And so you must tell us what is the identical quality existing alike in good and bad pleasures, which makes you designate all of them as good.
Protarchus: What do you mean, Socrates? Do you think that anyone who asserts pleasure to be the good, will tolerate the notion that some pleasures are good and others bad?
Socrates: And yet you will acknowledge that they are different from one another, and sometimes opposed?
Protarchus: Not in so far as they are pleasures.
Socrates: That is a return to the old position, Protarchus, and so we are to say (are we?) that there is no difference in pleasures, but that they are all alike; and the examples which have just been cited do not pierce our dull minds, but we go on arguing all the same, like the weakest and most inexperienced reasoners?
Protarchus: What do you mean?
Socrates: Why, I mean to say, that in self-defence I may, if I like, follow your example, and assert boldly that the two things most unlike are most absolutely alike; and the result will be that you and I will prove ourselves to be very tyros in the art of disputing; and the argument will be blown away and lost. Suppose that we put back, and return to the old position; then perhaps we may come to an understanding with one another.
Protarchus: How do you mean?
Socrates: Shall I, Protarchus, have my own question asked of me by you?
Protarchus: What question?
Socrates: Ask me whether wisdom and science and mind, and those other qualities which I, when asked by you at first what is the nature of the good, affirmed to be good, are not in the same case with the pleasures of which you spoke.
Protarchus: What do you mean?
Socrates: The sciences are a numerous class, and will be found to present great differences. But even admitting that, like the pleasures, they are opposite as well as different, should I be worthy of the name of dialectician if, in order to avoid this difficulty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference between one science and another;—would not the argument founder and disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape drowning by clinging to a fallacy?
Protarchus: May none of this befall us, except the deliverance! Yet I like the evenhanded justice which is applied to both our arguments. Let us assume, then, that there are many and diverse pleasures, and many and different sciences.
Socrates: And let us have no concealment, Protarchus, of the differences between my good and yours; but let us bring them to the light in the hope that, in the process of testing them, they may show whether pleasure is to be called the good, or wisdom, or some third quality; for surely we are not now simply contending in order that my view or that yours may prevail, but I presume that we ought both of us to be fighting for the truth.
Protarchus: Certainly we ought.
Socrates: Then let us have a more definite understanding and establish the principle on which the argument rests.
Protarchus: What principle?
Socrates: A principle about which all men are always in a difficulty, and some men sometimes against their will.
Protarchus: Speak plainer.
Socrates: The principle which has just turned up, which is a marvel of nature; for that one should be many or many one, are wonderful propositions; and he who affirms either is very open to attack.
Protarchus: Do you mean, when a person says that I, Protarchus, am by nature one and also many, dividing the single “me” into many “me’s,” and even opposing them as great and small, light and heavy, and in ten thousand other ways?