to get rid of their pain?

I have.

And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and
cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, is extolled by them
as the greatest pleasure?

Yes, he said; at the time they are pleased and well content to be at
rest.

Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be
painful?

Doubtless, he said.

Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be
pain?

So it would seem.

But can that which is neither become both?

I should say not.

And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not?

Yes.

But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion,
and in a mean between them?

Yes.

How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is
pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain?

Impossible.

This then is an appearance only and not a reality; that is to say, the
rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful,
and painful in comparison of what is pleasant; but all these
representations, when tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real
but a sort of imposition?

That is the inference.

Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and
you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure
is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.

What are they, he said, and where shall I find them?

There are many of them: take as an example the pleasures of smell, which
are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and
when they depart leave no pain behind them.

Most true, he said.

Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the
cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.

No.

Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul
through the body are generally of this sort--they are reliefs of pain.

That is true.

And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like
nature?

Yes.

Shall I give you an illustration of them?

Let me hear.

You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and
middle region?

I should.

And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would
he not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle
and sees whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the
upper region, if he has never seen the true upper world?