strength; whereas in that case I should not have admitted, any more than
in the other, that the able are strong, although I have admitted that
the strong are able. For there is a difference between ability and
strength; the former is given by knowledge as well as by madness or
rage, but strength comes from nature and a healthy state of the body.
And in like manner I say of confidence and courage, that they are not
the same; and I argue that the courageous are confident, but not all
the confident courageous. For confidence may be given to men by art, and
also, like ability, by madness and rage; but courage comes to them from
nature and the healthy state of the soul.

I said: You would admit, Protagoras, that some men live well and others
ill?

He assented.

And do you think that a man lives well who lives in pain and grief?

He does not.

But if he lives pleasantly to the end of his life, will he not in that
case have lived well?

He will.

Then to live pleasantly is a good, and to live unpleasantly an evil?

Yes, he said, if the pleasure be good and honourable.

And do you, Protagoras, like the rest of the world, call some pleasant
things evil and some painful things good?--for I am rather disposed to
say that things are good in as far as they are pleasant, if they have no
consequences of another sort, and in as far as they are painful they are
bad.

I do not know, Socrates, he said, whether I can venture to assert in
that unqualified manner that the pleasant is the good and the painful
the evil. Having regard not only to my present answer, but also to the
whole of my life, I shall be safer, if I am not mistaken, in saying that
there are some pleasant things which are not good, and that there are
some painful things which are good, and some which are not good, and
that there are some which are neither good nor evil.

And you would call pleasant, I said, the things which participate in
pleasure or create pleasure?

Certainly, he said.

Then my meaning is, that in as far as they are pleasant they are good;
and my question would imply that pleasure is a good in itself.

According to your favourite mode of speech, Socrates, 'Let us reflect
about this,' he said; and if the reflection is to the point, and the
result proves that pleasure and good are really the same, then we will
agree; but if not, then we will argue.

And would you wish to begin the enquiry? I said; or shall I begin?

You ought to take th