y whatever name he prefers to call them,
I will ask you, most excellent Prodicus, to answer in my sense of the
words.

Prodicus laughed and assented, as did the others.

Then, my friends, what do you say to this? Are not all actions
honourable and useful, of which the tendency is to make life painless
and pleasant? The honourable work is also useful and good?

This was admitted.

Then, I said, if the pleasant is the good, nobody does anything under
the idea or conviction that some other thing would be better and is also
attainable, when he might do the better. And this inferiority of a man
to himself is merely ignorance, as the superiority of a man to himself
is wisdom.

They all assented.

And is not ignorance the having a false opinion and being deceived about
important matters?

To this also they unanimously assented.

Then, I said, no man voluntarily pursues evil, or that which he thinks
to be evil. To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when
a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the
greater when he may have the less.

All of us agreed to every word of this.

Well, I said, there is a certain thing called fear or terror; and here,
Prodicus, I should particularly like to know whether you would agree
with me in defining this fear or terror as expectation of evil.

Protagoras and Hippias agreed, but Prodicus said that this was fear and
not terror.

Never mind, Prodicus, I said; but let me ask whether, if our former
assertions are true, a man will pursue that which he fears when he is
not compelled? Would not this be in flat contradiction to the admission
which has been already made, that he thinks the things which he fears
to be evil; and no one will pursue or voluntarily accept that which he
thinks to be evil?

That also was universally admitted.

Then, I said, these, Hippias and Prodicus, are our premisses; and I
would beg Protagoras to explain to us how he can be right in what he
said at first. I do not mean in what he said quite at first, for his
first statement, as you may remember, was that whereas there were five
parts of virtue none of them was like any other of them; each of them
had a separate function. To this, however, I am not referring, but to
the assertion which he afterwards made that of the five virtues four
were nearly akin to each other, but that the fifth, which was courage,
differed greatly from the others. And of this he gave me the followi