se points, shall we not be
better able to decide about the first and second place, which was the
original subject of dispute?

PROTARCHUS: I dare say.

SOCRATES: We said, if you remember, that the mixed life of pleasure and
wisdom was the conqueror--did we not?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And we see what is the place and nature of this life and to
what class it is to be assigned?

PROTARCHUS: Beyond a doubt.

SOCRATES: This is evidently comprehended in the third or mixed class;
which is not composed of any two particular ingredients, but of all the
elements of infinity, bound down by the finite, and may therefore be
truly said to comprehend the conqueror life.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And what shall we say, Philebus, of your life which is all
sweetness; and in which of the aforesaid classes is that to be placed?
Perhaps you will allow me to ask you a question before you answer?

PHILEBUS: Let me hear.

SOCRATES: Have pleasure and pain a limit, or do they belong to the class
which admits of more and less?

PHILEBUS: They belong to the class which admits of more, Socrates;
for pleasure would not be perfectly good if she were not infinite in
quantity and degree.

SOCRATES: Nor would pain, Philebus, be perfectly evil. And therefore the
infinite cannot be that element which imparts to pleasure some degree of
good. But now--admitting, if you like, that pleasure is of the nature
of the infinite--in which of the aforesaid classes, O Protarchus and
Philebus, can we without irreverence place wisdom and knowledge and
mind? And let us be careful, for I think that the danger will be very
serious if we err on this point.

PHILEBUS: You magnify, Socrates, the importance of your favourite god.

SOCRATES: And you, my friend, are also magnifying your favourite
goddess; but still I must beg you to answer the question.

PROTARCHUS: Socrates is quite right, Philebus, and we must submit to
him.

PHILEBUS: And did not you, Protarchus, propose to answer in my place?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly I did; but I am now in a great strait, and I must
entreat you, Socrates, to be our spokesman, and then we shall not say
anything wrong or disrespectful of your favourite.

SOCRATES: I must obey you, Protarchus; nor is the task which you impose
a difficult one; but did I really, as Philebus implies, disconcert you
with my playful solemnity, when I asked the question to what class mind
and knowledge belong?

PROTARCHUS: You