an--it exceeds all other fears. And now I would
not sin against Aphrodite by naming her amiss; let her be called what
she pleases. But Pleasure I know to be manifold, and with her, as I was
just now saying, we must begin, and consider what her nature is. She
has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one; and yet
surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we
not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has
pleasure in his very temperance,--that the fool is pleased when he is
full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in
his wisdom? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these
opposite pleasures are severally alike!

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 any one 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 fro