Philebus (53)

Pro. Which shall we select?

Soc. Let us first, if agreeable to you, consider whiteness.

Pro. By all means.

Soc. How can we have purity in whiteness, and what purity? Is it the greatest and most widespread, or the most unmixed, that in which there is no trace of any other color?

Pro. Clearly it is the most unadulterated.

Soc. Right. Shall we not, then, Protarchus, declare that this, and not the most numerous or the greatest, is both the truest and the most beautiful of all whitenesses?

Pro. Quite right.

Soc. Then we shall be perfectly right in saying that a little pure white is whiter and more beautiful and truer than a great deal of mixed white.

Pro. Perfectly right.

Soc. Well then, we shall have no need of many such examples in our discussion of pleasure; we see well enough from this one that any pleasure, however small or infrequent, if uncontaminated with pain, is pleasanter and more beautiful than a great or often repeated pleasure without purity.

Pro. Most certainly; and the example is sufficient.

Soc. Here is another point. Have we not often heard it said of pleasure that it is always a process or generation and that there is no state or existence of pleasure? There are some clever people who try to prove this theory to us, and we ought to be grateful to them.

Pro. Well, what then?

Soc. I will explain this whole matter, Protarchus, by asking questions.

Pro. Go on; ask your questions.

Soc. There are two parts of existence, the one self-existent, the other always desiring something else.

Pro. What do you mean? What are these two?

Soc. The one is by nature more imposing, the other inferior.

Pro. Speak still more plainly.

Soc. We have seen beloved boys who are fair and good, and brave lovers of them.

Pro. Yes, no doubt of it.

Soc. Try to find another pair like these in all the relations we are speaking of.

Pro. Must I say it a third time? Please tell your meaning more plainly, Socrates.

Soc. It is no riddle, Protarchus; the talk is merely jesting with us and means that one part of existences always exists for the sake of something, and the other part is that for the sake of which the former is always coming into being.

Pro. I can hardly understand after all your repetition.