Philebus

Soc. Well then, in the case of sight, seeing things from too near at hand or from too great a distance obscures their real sizes and causes us to have false opinions; and does not this same thing happen in the case of pains and pleasures?

Pro. Yes, Socrates, even much more than in the case of sight.

Soc. Then our present conclusion is the opposite of what we said a little while ago.

Pro. To what do you refer?

Soc. A while ago these opinions, being false or true, imbued the pains and pleasures with their own condition of truth or falsehood.

Pro. Very true.

Soc. But now, because they are seen at various and changing distances and are compared with one another, the pleasures themselves appear greater and more intense by comparison with the pains, and the pains in turn, through comparison with the pleasures, vary inversely as they.

Pro. That is inevitable for the reasons you have given.

Soc. They both, then, appear greater and less than the reality. Now if you abstract from both of them this apparent, but unreal, excess or inferiority, you cannot say that its appearance is true, nor again can you have the face to affirm that the part of pleasure or pain which corresponds to this is true or real.

Pro. No, I cannot.

Soc. Next, then, we will see whether we may not in another direction come upon pleasures and pains still more false than these appearing and existing in living beings.

Pro. What pleasures and what method do you mean?

Soc. It has been said many times that pains and woes and aches and everything that is called by names of that sort are caused when nature in any instance is corrupted through combinations and dissolutions, fillings and emptyings, increases and diminutions.

Pro. Yes, that has been said many times.

Soc. And we agreed that when things are restored to their natural condition, that restoration is pleasure.

Pro. Right.

Soc. But when neither of these changes takes place in the body, what then?

Pro. When could that be the case, Socrates?

Soc. That question of yours is not to the point, Protarchus.

Pro. Why not?

Soc. Because you do not prevent my asking my own question again.

Pro. What question?

Soc. Why, Protarchus, I may say, granting that such a condition does not arise, what would be the necessary result if it did?

Pro. You mean if the body is not changed in either direction?

Soc. Yes.

Pro. It is clear, Socrates, that in that case there would never be either pleasure or pain.