ng man often runs wild in his first
metaphysical enthusiasm, talking about analysis and synthesis to his
father and mother and the neighbours, hardly sparing even his dog. This
'one in many' is a revelation of the order of the world, which some
Prometheus first made known to our ancestors; and they, who were better
men and nearer the gods than we are, have handed it down to us. To know
how to proceed by regular steps from one to many, and from many to one,
is just what makes the difference between eristic and dialectic. And the
right way of proceeding is to look for one idea or class in all things,
and when you have found one to look for more than one, and for all that
there are, and when you have found them all and regularly divided a
particular field of knowledge into classes, you may leave the further
consideration of individuals. But you must not pass at once either from
unity to infinity, or from infinity to unity. In music, for example, you
may begin with the most general notion, but this alone will not make you
a musician: you must know also the number and nature of the intervals,
and the systems which are framed out of them, and the rhythms of the
dance which correspond to them. And when you have a similar knowledge of
any other subject, you may be said to know that subject. In speech again
there are infinite varieties of sound, and some one who was a wise man,
or more than man, comprehended them all in the classes of mutes, vowels,
and semivowels, and gave to each of them a name, and assigned them to
the art of grammar.

'But whither, Socrates, are you going? And what has this to do with the
comparative eligibility of pleasure and wisdom:' Socrates replies, that
before we can adjust their respective claims, we want to know the number
and kinds of both of them. What are they? He is requested to answer the
question himself. That he will, if he may be allowed to make one or two
preliminary remarks. In the first place he has a dreamy recollection of
hearing that neither pleasure nor knowledge is the highest good, for
the good should be perfect and sufficient. But is the life of pleasure
perfect and sufficient, when deprived of memory, consciousness,
anticipation? Is not this the life of an oyster? Or is the life of mind
sufficient, if devoid of any particle of pleasure? Must not the union of
the two be higher and more eligible than either separately? And is not
the element which makes this mixed life eligible more a