Philebus Part 26

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 l.u.s.ts 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.