do you
mean, he will say, but that you choose the greater evil in exchange
for the lesser good? This being the case, let us now substitute the
names of pleasure and pain, and say, not as before, that a man does
what is evil knowingly, but that he does what is painful knowingly,
and because he is overcome by pleasure, which is unworthy to overcome.
And what measure is there of the relations of pleasure to pain other
than excess and defect, which means that they become greater and
smaller, and more and fewer, and differ in degree? For if any one
says, Yes, Socrates, but immediate pleasure differs widely from future
pleasure and pain, to which I should reply: And do they differ in any
other way except by reason of pleasure and pain? There can be no other
measure of them. And do you, like a skilful weigher, put into the
balance the pleasures and the pains, near and distant, and weigh them,
and then say which outweighs the other? If you weigh pleasures against
pleasures, you of course take the more and greater; or if you weigh
pains against pains, you take the fewer and the less; or if pleasures
against pains, then you choose that course of action in which the
painful is exceeded by the pleasant, whether the distant by the near
or the near by the distant; and you avoid that course of action in
which the pleasant is exceeded by the painful. Would you not admit, my
friends, that this is true? I am confident that they can not deny
this.

He agreed with me.

Well then, I shall say, if you admit that, be so good as to answer me
a question: Do not the same magnitudes appear larger to your sight
when near, and smaller when at a distance. They will acknowledge that.
And the same holds of thickness and number; also sounds which are in
themselves equal are greater when near and lesser when at a distance.
They will grant that also. Now supposing that happiness consisted in
making and taking large things, what would be the saving principle of
human life? Would the art of measuring be the saving principle or
would the power of appearance? Is not the latter that deceiving art
which makes us wander up and down and take the things at one time of
which we repent at another, both in our actions and in our choice of
things great and small? But the art of measurement is that which would
do away with the effect of appearances, and, showing the truth, would
fain teach the soul at last to find rest in the truth, and would thus
save our life. W