Dialogue

1502 Phileb|             been pleased, nor would the slightest recollection of the pleasure
1503 Phileb|               word is always insensibly slipping away from us, into pleasure,
1504 Phileb|            wetter, more, less, swifter, slower, greater, smaller, and all
1505 Phileb|              human mind, they have been slowly created by religion, by
1506 Phileb|               holiness and virtue. They slumber in the minds of most men,
1507 Phileb|               swifter, slower, greater, smaller, and all that in the preceding
1508 Phileb|               none of us will be of the smallest use in any enquiry.~PROTARCHUS:
1509 Phileb|               of those which arise from smells; those of sound, again,
1510 Phileb|                tragedies the spectators smile through their tears?~PROTARCHUS:
1511 Phileb|              for the palm, she has been smitten by the argument, and is
1512 Phileb|               SOCRATES: When sounds are smooth and clear, and have a single
1513 Phileb|             honey; the other, wisdom, a sober draught in which no wine
1514 Phileb|                perfect in idea than the societies of ancient times, but also
1515 Phileb|           characteristic expressions is softened. The array of the enemy
1516 Phileb|                 truth: neither will the soldier advance to the cannon’s
1517 Phileb|              measure and number, as the sole principle of good. The comparison
1518 Phileb|          disconcert you with my playful solemnity, when I asked the question
1519 Phileb|               circles, and the plane or solid figures which are formed
1520 Phileb|              difficulties had long been solved by common sense (‘solvitur
1521 Phileb|                solved by common sense (‘solvitur ambulando’); the fact of
1522 Phileb|                Aristotle, but we make a somewhat nearer approach to him in
1523 Phileb|        generation cease the glory of my song.’~Here, at the sixth award,
1524 Phileb|              them, if they are not mere sophisms and illusions, define and
1525 Phileb|              live neither rejoicing nor sorrowing?~SOCRATES: Yes; and if I
1526 Phileb|               father nor mother does he spare; no human being who has
1527 Phileb|             were affirming to appertain specially to the soul—sciences and
1528 Phileb|              ridiculous is in short the specific name which is used to describe
1529 Phileb|              the sight of tragedies the spectators smile through their tears?~
1530 Phileb|                 the most part before we speculate about them. And the use
1531 Phileb|               become subordinate to the speculative and philosophical. In the
1532 Phileb|               general design. As in the speeches of Thucydides, the multiplication
1533 Phileb|              knows nothing of our human spheres and circles, but uses only
1534 Phileb|           SOCRATES: We must keep up our spirits;—let us now take the life
1535 Phileb|             knowledge or pleasure, will spoil the discussion, and will
1536 Phileb|                you, Socrates, to be our spokesman, and then we shall not say
1537 Phileb|                 a noble Athenian youth, sprung from a family which had
1538 Phileb|           SOCRATES: Let us say that the stable and pure and true and unalloyed
1539 Phileb|                 lived in the successive stages or moments of metaphysical
1540 Phileb|               martyr will not go to the stake in order that he may promote
1541 Phileb|               degree; we obliterate the stamp which the authority of ages
1542 Phileb|                that which appears to be standing by the rock under the tree?’
1543 Phileb|                 idea of the divine mind stands to the supreme principle
1544 Phileb|                 of the moon, and of the stars and of the whole circle
1545 Phileb|                difficulty with which he started, of how the one could remain
1546 Phileb|               The doctrine is no longer stated in the forcible paradoxical
1547 Phileb|               influence on the minds of statesmen. In religion, again, nothing
1548 Phileb|       progressing, and are never in one stay); but definite quantity
1549 Phileb|                 morals: ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ ‘thou shalt speak the
1550 Phileb|             move, and we had better not stir him up with questions.~SOCRATES:
1551 Phileb|                 you of the anger~‘Which stirs even a wise man to violence,
1552 Phileb|              this common inheritance or stock of moral ideas? Their beginning,
1553       | stop
1554 Phileb|            applied to us; for truly the storm gathers over us, and we
1555 Phileb|                 water, air, and, as the storm-tossed sailor cries, ‘land’ (i.e.,
1556 Phileb|         argument, understand me to mean straight lines and circles, and the
1557 Phileb|              most ingenious machine for straightening wood.~PROTARCHUS: Very true,
1558 Phileb|        benevolent actions we can give a straightforward account by their tendency
1559 Phileb|                 but I am now in a great strait, and I must entreat you,
1560 Phileb|             after good has often lent a strange power to evil. And sometimes,
1561 Phileb|            greatest happiness principle strengthens our sense of positive duties
1562 Phileb|        unchangeable, when judged by the strict rule of truth ever become
1563 Phileb|            requirements? It can neither strike the imaginative faculty,
1564 Phileb|              that what they were always striving to overcome, and the power
1565 Phileb|                 Again, to us there is a strongly-marked distinction between a first
1566 Phileb|                 possession of them: the student is liable to grow weary
1567 Phileb|          Sophist, and the Statesman, as studies or preparations for longer
1568 Phileb|                 you for saying that the study of which I am speaking is
1569 Phileb|                members, be any longer a stumbling-block.~Plato’s difficulty seems
1570 Phileb|                mensuration again may be subdivided with reference either to
1571 Phileb|             three or some other number, subdividing each of these units, until
1572 Phileb|               of the Republic, not as a sublime science, coordinate with
1573 Phileb|               to which the former class subserve (absolutes).~PROTARCHUS:
1574 Phileb|                 can truly be created or subsist.~PROTARCHUS: Impossible.~
1575 Phileb|                of Three Persons and One Substance, and the like. The world
1576 Phileb|                 twice, there would be a substantial agreement between us.~SOCRATES:
1577 Phileb|               the word ‘measure’ he now substitutes the word ‘symmetry,’ as
1578 Phileb|              when he first tastes these subtleties, is delighted, and fancies
1579 Phileb|                here analysed with great subtlety. The mean or measure is
1580 Phileb|             should we be most likely to succeed if we mingled every sort
1581 Phileb|                 and civilization in all succeeding times. His grasp of it had
1582 Phileb|               and of the pleasure which succeeds to it.~PROTARCHUS: True.~
1583 Phileb|         holiness, wisdom, love, without succession of acts (ouch e genesis
1584 Phileb|              the flow of his ideas to a sudden inspiration. The interlocutor
1585 Phileb|                disappear when we do not suffer ourselves to be distracted
1586 Phileb|                the infinite must not be suffered to approach the many until
1587 Phileb|               share, and may be a great sufferer.~And now what objection
1588 Phileb|                 able to undergo similar sufferings, and like him stand fast
1589 Phileb|               truth, will not the union suffice to give us the loveliest
1590 Phileb|             cause of pleasure.~Socrates suggests that they shall have a first
1591 Phileb|                categories which are not summa genera, but heads or gradations
1592 Phileb|             what I believe to be a fair summary of the argument.~PROTARCHUS:
1593 Phileb|               said of this in the final summing up. The relation of the
1594 Phileb|                of the world, and of the sun, and of the moon, and of
1595 Phileb|                 knowledge which is only superhuman, Socrates, is ridiculous
1596 Phileb|           reason which he gives for the superiority of the pure science of number
1597 Phileb|           confuse the infinite with the superlative), gives to pleasure the
1598 Phileb|         technical language has begun to supersede and overgrow them. But the
1599 Phileb|             thought of others are alike superseded in the more general notion
1600 Phileb|               can more tend to mitigate superstition than the belief that the
1601 Phileb|                which the prejudices and superstitions of men may be brought:—whatever
1602 Phileb|                 back again, that he may support pleasure, of which he remains
1603 Phileb|        PROTARCHUS: What road?~SOCRATES: Supposing that a man had to be found,
1604 Phileb|              things?~PROTARCHUS: Such a supposition is quite unreasonable.~SOCRATES:
1605 Phileb|                motion only relieves the surface, and does not reach the
1606 Phileb|        whirlpools of controversies were surging in the chaos of thought,
1607 Phileb|                 partially with certain ‘surly or fastidious’ philosophers,
1608 Phileb|              and mensuration enter, far surpass all others; and that of
1609 Phileb|               the art of persuasion far surpassed every other; this, as he
1610 Phileb|              certainly, and in a degree surpassing all other things.~SOCRATES:
1611 Phileb|            regarding them. And both are surprised when they make the discovery,
1612 Phileb|                 listeners by whom he is surrounded, ‘Philebus’ boys’ as they
1613 Phileb|             well as the two united, are susceptible of all sorts of admixtures
1614 Phileb|                extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar
1615 Phileb|             Plato himself seems to have suspected that the continuance or
1616 Phileb|        PROTARCHUS: True.~SOCRATES: But, suspecting that there were other things
1617 Phileb|          scratching, respecting which I swear that I cannot tell whether
1618 Phileb|               of your life which is all sweetness; and in which of the aforesaid
1619 Phileb|           whereas the high and low, the swift and the slow are infinite
1620 Phileb|              drier, wetter, more, less, swifter, slower, greater, smaller,
1621 Phileb|                are the invention of the Syllogism, the conception of happiness
1622 Phileb|       everywhere, what eclecticisms and syncretisms and realisms and nominalisms
1623 Phileb|                transcendental sense, as synonymous with well-being. We have
1624 Phileb|          speaking of the analytical and synthetical processes may be compared
1625 Phileb|                at first is like a waxen tablet, adapted to receive them;
1626 Phileb|            refinement can we avoid some taint of bodily sense adhering
1627 Phileb|              and disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves
1628 Phileb|            learn morals, as we learn to talk, instinctively, from conversing
1629 Phileb|                metaphysical enthusiasm, talking about analysis and synthesis
1630 Phileb|                he will fancy that he is taller or fairer than he is, or
1631 Phileb|                young man, when he first tastes these subtleties, is delighted,
1632 Phileb|            considering and learning and teaching one another, which the gods
1633 Phileb|          spectators smile through their tears?~PROTARCHUS: Certainly I
1634 Phileb|              freshness and charm; and a technical language has begun to supersede
1635 Phileb|          upsipodes, ouranian di aithera teknothentes.~To satisfy an imaginative
1636 Phileb|               of an immoral act, say of telling a lie, which may often make
1637 Phileb|                Here, as Plato expressly tells us, he is ‘forging weapons
1638 Phileb|               Persons of an imaginative temperament will generally be dissatisfied
1639 Phileb|                the other hand, when the temptation is to speak falsely, to
1640 Phileb|                Why, because we might be tempted to answer, ‘When we are
1641 Phileb|               the one thousandth or one ten-thousandth part of human actions. This
1642 Phileb|               measures actions by their tendencies towards happiness? For an
1643 Phileb|                 truth, and he is always tending to see abstractions within
1644 Phileb|                 a state of intellectual tension, any more than capable of
1645 Phileb|              pleasure cannot be rightly tested apart from pain.~PROTARCHUS:
1646 Phileb|                 that, in the process of testing them, they may show whether
1647 Phileb|                this comparison by three tests—definiteness, comprehensiveness,
1648 Phileb|            morality accordingly, and be thankful to the great men who have
1649 Phileb|                 the Philebus, as in the Theaetetus and Cratylus, with irony
1650 Phileb|           acknowledge this ignorance of theirs to be a misfortune?~PROTARCHUS:
1651 Phileb|       importance attached by mankind to theological terms in other ages; for
1652 Phileb|               cause,’ a saying in which theology and philosophy are blended
1653 Phileb|                from an investigation of Theophrastus as well as Aristotle and
1654 Phileb|                building and binding, or theoretically by philosophers. And, borrowing
1655 Phileb|                of a new Prometheus, and therewith a blaze of light; and the
1656 Phileb|             legend is said to have been Theuth, observing that the human
1657 Phileb|                 man is indignant with a thief because he has not promoted
1658 Phileb|              which alone, as Protarchus thinks (who seems to confuse the
1659 Phileb|                must be something in the thirsty man which in some way apprehends
1660 Phileb|                 have revolted us by his thoroughness. The ‘guardianship of his
1661 Phileb|                by Philebus only, but by thousands of others, I affirmed that
1662 Phileb|                not extending to the one thousandth or one ten-thousandth part
1663 Phileb|                 This is the doctrine of Thrasymachus adapted to the public opinion
1664 Phileb|          discard.’ For it has been worn threadbare; and either alternative
1665 Phileb|              the best, and we playfully threatened that you should not be allowed
1666 Phileb|                to repeat twice and even thrice that which is good.~PROTARCHUS:
1667       | throughout
1668 Phileb|                you mean that you are to throw into the cup and mingle
1669 Phileb|           greatest light appeared to be thrown on the nature of ideas when
1670 Phileb|           design. As in the speeches of Thucydides, the multiplication of ideas
1671 Phileb|               by messengers bearing the tidings far and wide, that pleasure
1672 Phileb|               discovered,—then, and not till then, we may rest from division,
1673 Phileb|                of us there remains some tincture of affection, some desire
1674 Phileb|          undercurrent of pain makes him tingle, and causes a gentle irritation;
1675 Phileb|               mind length; we shall not tire of you.~SOCRATES: Very good;
1676 Phileb|                words;—if I promise that to-morrow I will give you an account
1677 Phileb|                 divine tyrant is a very tolerable governor of the universe.
1678 Phileb|           pleasure to be the good, will tolerate the notion that some pleasures
1679 Phileb|                  and have a single pure tone, then I mean to say that
1680 Phileb|                 in Ethics (Metaph.), he took the most obvious intellectual
1681 Phileb|                 of love is wanting; the topic is only introduced, as in
1682 Phileb|               discussion, in which some topics lightly passed over were
1683 Phileb|               as you say, Philebus, she torments, or as I maintain, delivers
1684 Phileb|               benevolence and self-love torture one half of our virtuous
1685 Phileb|                 as I conceive, the gods tossed among men by the hands of
1686 Phileb|               Philebus is devoid of any touch of Socratic irony, though
1687 Phileb|              them in the Parmenides. He touches on the same difficulties
1688 Phileb|           sciences, as in the Republic, towers dialectic, which is the
1689 Phileb|                 It is more easy to find traces of the Pythagoreans, Eleatics,
1690 Phileb|            computation which is used in trading with exact calculation,
1691 Phileb|                 more serious attacks on traditional beliefs which are often
1692 Phileb|                also how at the sight of tragedies the spectators smile through
1693 Phileb|              like a goddess, has in her train to follow her about wherever
1694 Phileb|              still further modifies the transcendentalism of the Phaedo. For he is
1695 Phileb|               law of self-preservation. Transfer the thought of happiness
1696 Phileb|               another, and therefore he transfers the one and many out of
1697 Phileb|          doctrine of utility must be so transfigured that it becomes altogether
1698 Phileb|              the chaos of thought, what transformations of the old philosophies
1699 Phileb|               becomes beauty. And if we translate his language into corresponding
1700 Phileb|                more immoderate than the transports of pleasure, or more in
1701 Phileb|             fancies that he has found a treasure of wisdom; in the first
1702 Phileb|            other subjects of which they treat in common, such as the nature
1703 Phileb|                 mental, which is hardly treated of elsewhere in Plato, is
1704 Phileb|           should rather be described as treating of the relations of pleasure
1705 Phileb|                 desire. Of the ideas he treats in the same sceptical spirit
1706 Phileb|          standing by the rock under the tree?’ This is the question which
1707 Phileb|                 about the properties of triangles. Unless we are looking for
1708 Phileb|               last limitation is a very trifling exception, and the happiness
1709 Phileb|         thousand hindrances to us; they trouble the souls of men, which
1710 Phileb|           division, and without further troubling ourselves about the endless
1711 Phileb|               be so;— although the many trusting in them, as diviners trust
1712 Phileb|                principle which has just turned up, which is a marvel of
1713 Phileb|              vice and crime.~Once more: turning from theory to practice
1714 Phileb|               are formed out of them by turning-lathes and rulers and measurers
1715 Phileb|                finding in them the true type both of human life and of
1716 Phileb|               own language, of being a ‘tyro in dialectics,’ when he
1717 Phileb|              prove ourselves to be very tyros in the art of disputing;
1718 Phileb|          affirmed by logicians to be an ultimate principle of the human mind,
1719 Phileb|                this is the absolute and unapproachable being. But this being is
1720 Phileb|              the gods, which may be not unaptly compared with the importance
1721 Phileb|                of ethics. But these two uncertainties at either end, en tois malista
1722 Phileb|               he remains to the end the uncompromising advocate. On the other hand,
1723 Phileb|            freedom; and the two are not unconnected with each other. But of
1724 Phileb|               Phaedrus he seems to pass unconsciously from the concrete to the
1725 Phileb|           qualities are in the concrete undefined; they are nevertheless real
1726 Phileb|                in a man, and the slight undercurrent of pain makes him tingle,
1727 Phileb|               their turn may be able to undergo similar sufferings, and
1728 Phileb|        ourselves, unless they have been undermined in us by false philosophy
1729 Phileb|                Let us suppose a man who understands justice, and has reason
1730 Phileb|              task upon you, when I have undertaken the whole charge of the
1731 Phileb|               development of the reason undisturbed by the emotions seems to
1732 Phileb|                 aches and suffering and uneasiness of all sorts arise out of
1733 Phileb|             SOCRATES: A better and more unexceptionable way of speaking will be—~
1734 Phileb|      distinction seems to arise from an unfair mode of regarding them;
1735 Phileb|              the four causes, contrasts unfavourably with Plato’s general discussion
1736 Phileb|             kneading them together, now unfolding and dividing them; he puzzles
1737 Phileb|            eminent in physics. There is unfortunately no school of Greek philosophy
1738 Phileb|          through ignorance or from some unhappy necessity.~PROTARCHUS: Certainly
1739 Phileb|           pleasure or pain, and the two unite and form one mixture. Concerning
1740 Phileb|                 wrong:—can there be any universality in the law which measures
1741 Phileb|               of creating; the abstract universals of which they are seeking
1742 Phileb|             limit; the unthinkable, the unknowable; of which nothing can be
1743 Phileb|               wine mingles, is of water unpleasant but healthful; out of these
1744 Phileb|                 left to the guidance of unreason and chance medley, or, on
1745 Phileb|             Such a supposition is quite unreasonable.~SOCRATES: Then if this
1746 Phileb|                these two statements are unreconciled. In like manner, the table
1747 Phileb|               best, whether rewarded or unrewarded. And this applies to others
1748 Phileb|           satisfactorily shown than the unsatisfactory nature of both of them.~
1749 Phileb|            should we seek to efface and unsettle them?~Bentham and Mr. Mill
1750 Phileb|            bravely, and see if there be unsoundness in any part, until we have
1751 Phileb|          philosophy would have remained unspoken. Yet to this day it is rare
1752 Phileb|                of measure or limit; the unthinkable, the unknowable; of which
1753 Phileb|             stone, or rather no thought unturned, now rolling up the many
1754 Phileb|               are often veiled under an unusual simplicity or irony are
1755 Phileb|             accompanied by all sorts of unutterable feelings which have a death
1756 Phileb|            mankind in general have been unwilling to acknowledge that ‘pleasure
1757 Phileb|             French Revolution, when the upper classes of a so-called Christian
1758 Phileb|              that of faith or love. The upright man of the world will desire
1759 Phileb|              third:~on nomoi prokeintai upsipodes, ouranian di aithera teknothentes.~
1760 Phileb|              Compare a similar argument urged by one of the latest defenders
1761 Phileb|                   so in the Philebus he urges the necessity of filling
1762 Phileb|                 from established law or usage; and that the non-detection
1763       | using
1764 Phileb|               of man has been more than usually active in thinking about
1765 Phileb|             principle. But we find that utilitarians do not agree among themselves
1766 Phileb|                were too great for human utterance and came down from heaven
1767 Phileb|                and is quite amazed, and utters the most irrational exclamations.~
1768 Phileb|                 expressing not absolute vacancy or negation, but only the
1769 Phileb|            pleasure in hope and pain in vacuity. But now I must further
1770 Phileb|                 of the world; the first vague impression of sense; the
1771 Phileb|             either? Then both of us are vanquished—are we not? But if this
1772 Phileb|               surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For
1773 Phileb|                again there are infinite varieties of sound, and some one who
1774 Phileb|                different provinces, and vary in their degrees of certainty?~
1775 Phileb|               of actions, and sometimes varying in successive sentences.
1776 Phileb|        good-for-nothing he is, the more vehemently he pursues them in every
1777 Phileb|                 beliefs which are often veiled under an unusual simplicity
1778 Phileb|               Socrates pursues the same vein of thought in the Protagoras,
1779 Phileb|               division. To say that the verb of existence is the copula,
1780 Phileb|                 hover for a time on the verge of a great truth, we have
1781 Phileb|               image of a full and empty vessel. But the truth is rather,
1782 Phileb|                  other affections which vibrate through both soul and body,
1783 Phileb|                 guess the pitch of each vibrating note, and is therefore mixed
1784 Phileb|          described under the image of a victim, into parts or members, ‘
1785 Phileb|         Pleasure or pain?~PROTARCHUS: A villainous mixture of some kind, Socrates,
1786 Phileb|                stirs even a wise man to violence, And is sweeter than honey
1787 Phileb|                  a man may often have a vision of a heap of gold, and pleasures
1788 Phileb|               pains of anticipation—the visions of gold and other fancies
1789 Phileb|              uncertainty about the word vitiates all the applications of
1790 Phileb|                mixed.~The cup is ready, waiting to be mingled, and here
1791 Phileb|              not feel pain, sleeping or waking, mad or lunatic?~PROTARCHUS:
1792 Phileb|                  SOCRATES: But if he be walking alone when these thoughts
1793 Phileb|       possessing the minds of fools and wantons becomes madness and makes
1794 Phileb|               he is cold and is growing warm, or again, when he is hot
1795 Phileb|                also attributed to them; warring against the Eristics as
1796 Phileb|              but, as I would rather not waste time in the enumeration
1797 Phileb|               of a philosopher, not the watchword of an army. For in human
1798 Phileb|                which at first is like a waxen tablet, adapted to receive
1799 Phileb|                  right’ is plainer), we weaken the absoluteness of our
1800 Phileb|              duties towards others, but weakens our recognition of their
1801 Phileb|                distorted, and generally weaker than their signification
1802 Phileb|          arguing all the same, like the weakest and most inexperienced reasoners? (
1803 Phileb|                 laugh at the conceit or weakness of others. He has certainly
1804 Phileb|               student is liable to grow weary of them, and soon discovers
1805 Phileb|               sense, as synonymous with well-being. We have already seen that
1806 Phileb|              country, in a good home. A well-educated child of ten years old already
1807 Phileb|        illustrated the contradiction by well-known examples taken from outward
1808 Phileb|               which were also better, I went on to say that if there
1809 Phileb|            SOCRATES: Add to them drier, wetter, more, less, swifter, slower,
1810       | whereby
1811 Phileb|               gain the first prize, but whichever of the two is more akin
1812 Phileb|           century B.C.; what eddies and whirlpools of controversies were surging
1813 Phileb|               answer, saying as if in a whisper to himself—‘It is a man.’~
1814 Phileb|             that a little pure white is whiter and fairer and truer than
1815       | whither
1816       | whoever
1817 Phileb|                universal wantonness and wickedness of all things, and that
1818 Phileb|               the experience of life to widen and deepen. The good is
1819 Phileb|            which a young man often runs wild in his first metaphysical
1820 Phileb|              and to understand that God wills the happiness, not of some
1821 Phileb|               sober draught in which no wine mingles, is of water unpleasant
1822 Phileb|                 richer, fairer, better, wiser than he is? ‘Yes.’ And he
1823 Phileb|              over us, and we are at our wit’s end.~SOCRATES: There is
1824 Phileb|               is declared by them to be witchcraft, and not pleasure. This
1825 Phileb|                 part. Philebus, who has withdrawn from the argument, is several
1826 Phileb|            Right.~SOCRATES: I am always wondering at the question which has
1827 Phileb|               in one body, and the like wonders. Socrates has long ceased
1828 Phileb|               machine for straightening wood.~PROTARCHUS: Very true,
1829 Phileb|                logical and metaphysical works which pass under the name
1830 Phileb|            variance with some desire or worldly interest of our own, or
1831 Phileb|               discard.’ For it has been worn threadbare; and either alternative
1832 Phileb|                SOCRATES: Then now, like wrestlers, let us approach and grasp
1833 Phileb|              feelings seem to almost to write down words in the soul,
1834 Phileb|               arise that Plato probably wrote shorter dialogues, such
1835       | ye
1836 Phileb|                 despise the body and is yearning all his life long for a
1837 Phileb|                system, like others, has yielded to the inevitable analysis.
1838 Phileb|               whether they are older or younger, or of his own age—that
1839 Phileb|                  On the other hand, the youthful group of listeners by whom