h we have often spoken, as well
as a presiding cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges years
and seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom and mind?

PROTARCHUS: Most justly.

SOCRATES: And wisdom and mind cannot exist without soul?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And in the divine nature of Zeus would you not say that there
is the soul and mind of a king, because there is in him the power of the
cause? And other gods have other attributes, by which they are pleased
to be called.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: Do not then suppose that these words are rashly spoken by us,
O Protarchus, for they are in harmony with the testimony of those who
said of old time that mind rules the universe.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And they furnish an answer to my enquiry; for they imply that
mind is the parent of that class of the four which we called the cause
of all; and I think that you now have my answer.

PROTARCHUS: I have indeed, and yet I did not observe that you had
answered.

SOCRATES: A jest is sometimes refreshing, Protarchus, when it interrupts
earnest.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: I think, friend, that we have now pretty clearly set forth the
class to which mind belongs and what is the power of mind.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the class to which pleasure belongs has also been long ago
discovered?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And let us remember, too, of both of them, (1) that mind was
akin to the cause and of this family; and (2) that pleasure is infinite
and belongs to the class which neither has, nor ever will have in
itself, a beginning, middle, or end of its own.

PROTARCHUS: I shall be sure to remember.

SOCRATES: We must next examine what is their place and under what
conditions they are generated. And we will begin with pleasure, since
her class was first examined; and yet pleasure cannot be rightly tested
apart from pain.

PROTARCHUS: If this is the road, let us take it.

SOCRATES: I wonder whether you would agree with me about the origin of
pleasure and pain.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean to say that their natural seat is in the mixed class.

PROTARCHUS: And would you tell me again, sweet Socrates, which of the
aforesaid classes is the mixed one?

SOCRATES: I will, my fine fellow, to the best of my ability.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: Let us then understand the mixed class to be that which we
placed third in