m 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? (Probably corrupt.)

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 befal us, except the deliverance! Yet I
like the even-handed 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 t