e clearly whether the whole class
of pleasure is to be desired, or whether this quality of entire
desirableness is not rather to be attributed to another of the classes
which have been mentioned; and whether pleasure and pain, like heat and
cold, and other things of the same kind, are not sometimes to be desired
and sometimes not to be desired, as being not in themselves good, but
only sometimes and in some instances admitting of the nature of good.

PROTARCHUS: You say most truly that this is the track which the
investigation should pursue.

SOCRATES: Well, then, assuming that pain ensues on the dissolution, and
pleasure on the restoration of the harmony, let us now ask what will
be the condition of animated beings who are neither in process of
restoration nor of dissolution. And mind what you say: I ask whether
any animal who is in that condition can possibly have any feeling of
pleasure or pain, great or small?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then here we have a third state, over and above that of
pleasure and of pain?

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And do not forget that there is such a state; it will make a
great difference in our judgment of pleasure, whether we remember this
or not. And I should like to say a few words about it.

PROTARCHUS: What have you to say?

SOCRATES: Why, you know that if a man chooses the life of wisdom, there
is no reason why he should not live in this neutral state.

PROTARCHUS: You mean that he may live neither rejoicing nor sorrowing?

SOCRATES: Yes; and if I remember rightly, when the lives were compared,
no degree of pleasure, whether great or small, was thought to be
necessary to him who chose the life of thought and wisdom.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly, we said so.

SOCRATES: Then he will live without pleasure; and who knows whether this
may not be the most divine of all lives?

PROTARCHUS: If so, the gods, at any rate, cannot be supposed to have
either joy or sorrow.

SOCRATES: Certainly not--there would be a great impropriety in the
assumption of either alternative. But whether the gods are or are not
indifferent to pleasure is a point which may be considered hereafter if
in any way relevant to the argument, and whatever is the conclusion
we will place it to the account of mind in her contest for the second
place, should she have to resign the first.

PROTARCHUS: Just so.

SOCRATES: The other class of pleasures, which as we were saying is
purely me