Republic

No such remarks then will disconcert us or any whit the more make us believe that it is ever possible for the same thing at the same time in the same respect and the same relation to suffer, be, or do opposites. They will not me, I am sure, said he. All the same, said I, that we may not be forced to examine at tedious length the entire list of such contentions and convince ourselves that they are false, let us proceed on the hypothesis that this is so, with the understanding that, if it ever appear otherwise, everything that results from the assumption shall be invalidated. That is what we must do, he said. Will you not then, said I, set down as opposed to one another assent and dissent, and the endeavor after a thing to the rejection of it, and embracing to repelling—do not these and all things like these belong to the class of opposite actions or passions; it will make no difference which? None, said he, but they are opposites. What then, said I, of thirst and hunger and the appetites generally, and again consenting and willing, would you not put them all somewhere in the classes just described? Will you not say, for example, that the soul of one who desires either strives for that which he desires or draws towards its embrace what it wishes to accrue to it; or again, in so far as it wills that anything be presented to it, nods assent to itself thereon as if someone put the question, striving towards its attainment? I would say so, he said. But what of not-willing and not consenting nor yet desiring, shall we not put these under the soul’s rejection and repulsion from itself and generally into the opposite class from all the former? Of course. This being so, shall we say that the desires constitute a class and that the most conspicuous members of that class are what we call thirst and hunger? We shall, said he. Is not the one desire of drink, the other of food? Yes. Then in so far as it is thirst, would it be of anything more than that of which we say it is a desire in the soul? I mean is thirst thirst for hot drink or cold or much or little or in a word for a draught of any particular quality, or is it the fact that if heat is attached to the thirst it would further render the desire—a desire of cold, and if cold of hot? But if owing to the presence of muchness the thirst is much it would render it a thirst for much and if little for little. But mere thirst will never be desire of anything else than that of which it is its nature to be, mere drink, and so hunger of food. That is so, he said; each desire in itself is of that thing only of which it is its nature to be. The epithets belong to the quality—such or such.