45–46
Socrates
Soc. Presently, Protarchus, you will show that more clearly, for I want you to answer a question. Do you see greater pleasures—I do not mean greater in number, but greater in intensity and degree—in riotous living or in a life of self-restraint? Be careful about your reply.
Protarchus
Pro. I understand you, and I see that there is a great difference. For the self-restrained are always held in check by the advice of the proverbial expression nothing too much, which guides their actions; but intense pleasure holds sway over the foolish and dissolute even to the point of madness and makes them notorious.
Socrates
Soc. Good; and if that is true, it is clear that the greatest pleasures and the greatest pains originate in some depravity of soul and body, not in virtue.
15
Protarchus
Pro. Certainly.
Socrates
Soc. Then we must select some of these pleasures and see what there is about them which made us say that they are the greatest.
Protarchus
Pro. Yes, we must.
Socrates
Soc. Now see what there is about the pleasures which are related to certain diseases.
Protarchus
Pro. What diseases?
Socrates
Soc. Repulsive diseases which the philosophers of dislike whom we mentioned utterly abominate.
Protarchus
Pro. What are the pleasures?
5
Socrates
Soc. For instance, the relief of the itch and the like by scratching, no other treatment being required. For in Heaven’s name what shall we say the feeling is which we have in this case? Is it pleasure or pain?
Protarchus
Pro. I think, Socrates, it is a mixed evil.
