emain with you; and if you
had no true opinion you would not think that you were pleased when you
were; and if you had no power of calculation you would not be able to
calculate on future pleasure, and your life would be the life, not of a
man, but of an oyster or 'pulmo marinus.' Could this be otherwise?

PROTARCHUS: No.

SOCRATES: But is such a life eligible?

PROTARCHUS: I cannot answer you, Socrates; the argument has taken away
from me the power of speech.

SOCRATES: We must keep up our spirits;--let us now take the life of mind
and examine it in turn.

PROTARCHUS: And what is this life of mind?

SOCRATES: I want to know whether any one of us would consent to live,
having wisdom and mind and knowledge and memory of all things, but
having no sense of pleasure or pain, and wholly unaffected by these and
the like feelings?

PROTARCHUS: Neither life, Socrates, appears eligible to me, nor is
likely, as I should imagine, to be chosen by any one else.

SOCRATES: What would you say, Protarchus, to both of these in one, or to
one that was made out of the union of the two?

PROTARCHUS: Out of the union, that is, of pleasure with mind and wisdom?

SOCRATES: Yes, that is the life which I mean.

PROTARCHUS: There can be no difference of opinion; not some but all
would surely choose this third rather than either of the other two, and
in addition to them.

SOCRATES: But do you see the consequence?

PROTARCHUS: To be sure I do. The consequence is, that two out of the
three lives which have been proposed are neither sufficient nor eligible
for man or for animal.

SOCRATES: Then now there can be no doubt that neither of them has the
good, for the one which had would certainly have been sufficient and
perfect and eligible for every living creature or thing that was able to
live such a life; and if any of us had chosen any other, he would have
chosen contrary to the nature of the truly eligible, and not of his own
free will, but either through ignorance or from some unhappy necessity.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly that seems to be true.

SOCRATES: And now have I not sufficiently shown that Philebus' goddess
is not to be regarded as identical with the good?

PHILEBUS: Neither is your 'mind' the good, Socrates, for that will be
open to the same objections.

SOCRATES: Perhaps, Philebus, you may be right in saying so of my 'mind';
but of the true, which is also the divine mind, far otherwise. However,
I will not at present