the chief minister of happiness.

To this, Pausanias, also a literary man and therefore indisposed to agree
with another, objected. "Phaedrus would be right," he said, "if there were
but one Eros. But there are two. Love is inseparable from Aphrodite. If
there were only one Aphrodite there would be only one love. But there are
two Aphrodites. Hence there must be two loves. One Aphrodite is Urania or
celestial, the other Pandemos or common. The divinities should all be
lauded. Still there is a distinction between these two. They vary as
actions do. Consider what we are now doing, drinking and talking. These
things in themselves are neither good nor evil. They become one or the
other in accordance with the way in which we do them. In the same manner,
not every love, but only that which is inherently altruistic, can be
called divine. The love inspired by Aphrodite Pandemos is essentially
common. It is such as appeals to vulgar natures. It is of the senses, not
of the soul. Intemperate persons experience this love, which seeks only
its own gross end. Whereas the love that comes of Aphrodite Urania has for
object the happiness and improvement of another."

With all of which Eryximachus agreed. Eryximachus was a physician,
consequently more naturalistic, and in agreeing he extended the duality of
love over all things, over plants and animals as well as over man,
claiming for it a universal influence in nature, science, and the arts,
expressing himself meanwhile substantially as follows:

In the human body there are two loves, confessedly different, as such
their desires are unlike, the desire of the healthy body being one thing,
that of the unhealthy something else. The skilful physician knows how to
separate them, how to convert one into the other, and reconcile their
hostile elements. In music there is the same reconciliation of opposites.
This is demonstrable by rhythm, which is composed of elements short and
long, and which, though differing, may be harmonized. The course of the
seasons is also an example of both principles. When the opposing forces,
sunlight and rain, heat and cold, blend harmoniously they bring fertility
and health, precisely as their discord has a counter influence. The
knowledge of love in relation to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies is
termed astronomy. Lastly, religion, through the knowledge which it has of
what is pious and what is impious, is love's intermediary between men and
gods.

Suc