the two, and the cause, are found to exist in us. And if they, like the
elements, exist in us, and the three first exist in the world, must not the
fourth or cause which is the noblest of them, exist in the world? And this
cause is wisdom or mind, the royal mind of Zeus, who is the king of all, as
there are other gods who have other noble attributes. Observe how well
this agrees with the testimony of men of old, who affirmed mind to be the
ruler of the universe. And remember that mind belongs to the class which
we term the cause, and pleasure to the infinite or indefinite class. We
will examine the place and origin of both.
What is the origin of pleasure? Her natural seat is the mixed class, in
which health and harmony were placed. Pain is the violation, and pleasure
the restoration of limit. There is a natural union of finite and infinite,
which in hunger, thirst, heat, cold, is impaired - this is painful, but the
return to nature, in which the elements are restored to their normal
proportions, is pleasant. Here is our first class of pleasures. And
another class of pleasures and pains are hopes and fears; these are in the
mind only. And inasmuch as the pleasures are unalloyed by pains and the
pains by pleasures, the examination of them may show us whether all
pleasure is to be desired, or whether this entire desirableness is not
rather the attribute of another class. But if pleasures and pains consist
in the violation and restoration of limit, may there not be a neutral
state, in which there is neither dissolution nor restoration? That is a
further question, and admitting, as we must, the possibility of such a
state, there seems to be no reason why the life of wisdom should not exist
in this neutral state, which is, moreover, the state of the gods, who
cannot, without indecency, be supposed to feel either joy or sorrow.
The second class of pleasures involves memory. There are affections which
are extinguished before they reach the soul, and of these there is no
consciousness, and therefore no memory. And there are affections which the
body and soul feel together, and this feeling is termed consciousness. And
memory is the preservation of consciousness, and reminiscence is the
recovery of consciousness. Now the memory of pleasure, when a man is in
pain, is the memory of the opposite of his actual bodily state, and is
therefore not in the body, but in the mind. And there may be an
intermediate state, in which a person is balanced between pleasure and
pain; in his body there is want which is a cause of pain, but in his mind a
sure hope of replenishment, which is pleasant. (But if the hope be
converted into despair, he has two pains and not a balance of pain and
pleasure.) Another question is raised: May not pleasures, like opinions,
be true and false? In the sense of being real, both must be admitted to be
true: nor can we deny that to both of them qualities may be attributed;
for pleasures as well as opinions may be described as good or bad. And
though we do not all of us allow that there are true and false pleasures,
we all acknowledge that there are some pleasures associated with right
opinion, and others with falsehood and ignorance. Let us endeavour to
analyze the nature of this association.
Opinion is based on perception, which may be correct or mistaken. You may
see a figure at a distance, and say first of all, 'This is a man,' and then
say, 'No, this is an image made by the shepherds.' And you may affirm this
in a proposition to your companion, or make the remark mentally to
yourself. Whether the words are actually spoken or not, on such occasions
there is a scribe within who registers them, and a painter who paints the
images of the things which the scribe has written down in the soul, - at
least that is my own notion of the process; and the words and images which
are inscribed by them may be either true or false; and they may represent
either past, present, or future. And, representing the future, they must
also represent the pleasures and pains of anticipation - the visions of gold
and other fancies which are never wanting in the mind of man. Now these
hopes, as they are termed, are propositions, which are sometimes true, and
sometimes false; for the good, who are the friends of the gods, see true
pictures of the future, and the bad false ones. And as there may be
opinion about things which are not, were not, and will not be, which is
opinion still, so there may be pleasure about things which are not, were
not, and will not be, which is pleasure still, - that is to say, false
pleasure; and only when false, can pleasure, like opinion, be vicious.
Against this conclusion Protarchus reclaims.
Leaving his denial for the present, Socrates proceeds to show that some
pleasures are false from another point of view. In desire, as we admitted,
the body is divided from the soul, and hence pleasures and pains are often
simultaneous. And we further admitted that both of them belonged to the
infinite class. How, then, can we compare them? Are we not liable, or
rather certain, as in the case of sight, to be deceived by distance and
relation? In this case the pleasures and pains are not false because based
upon false opinion, but are themselves false. And there is another
illusion: pain has often been said by us to arise out of the derangement -
pleasure out of the restoration - of our nature. But in passing from one to
the other, do we not experience neutral states, which although they appear
pleasureable or painful are really neither? For even if we admit, with the
wise man whom Protarchus loves (and only a wise man could have ever
entertained such a notion), that all things are in a perpetual flux, still
these changes are often unconscious, and devoid either of pleasure or pain.
We assume, then, that there are three states - pleasureable, painful,
neutral; we may embellish a little by calling them gold, silver, and that
which is neither.
But there are certain natural philosophers who will not admit a third
state. Their instinctive dislike to pleasure leads them to affirm that
pleasure is only the absence of pain. They are noble fellows, and,
although we do not agree with them, we may use them as diviners who will
indicate to us the right track. They will say, that the nature of anything
is best known from the examination of extreme cases, e.g. the nature of
hardness from the examination of the hardest things; and that the nature of
pleasure will be best understood from an examination of the most intense
pleasures. Now these are the pleasures of the body, not of the mind; the
pleasures of disease and not of health, the pleasures of the intemperate
and not of the temperate. I am speaking, not of the frequency or
continuance, but only of the intensity of such pleasures, and this is given
them by contrast with the pain or sickness of body which precedes them.
Their morbid nature is illustrated by the lesser instances of itching and
scratching, respecting which I swear that I cannot tell whether they are a
pleasure or a pain. (1) Some of these arise out of a transition from one
state of the body to another, as from cold to hot; (2) others are caused by
the contrast of an internal pain and an external pleasure in the body:
sometimes the feeling of pain predominates, as in itching and tingling,
when they are relieved by scratching; sometimes the feeling of pleasure:
or the pleasure which they give may be quite overpowering, and is then
accompanied by all sorts of unutterable feelings which have a death of
delights in them. But there are also mixed pleasures which are in the mind
only. For are not love and sorrow as well as anger 'sweeter than honey,'
and also full of pain? Is there not a mixture of feelings in the spectator
of tragedy? and of comedy also? 'I do not understand that last.' Well,
then, with the view of lighting up the obscurity of these mixed feelings,
let me ask whether envy is painful. 'Yes.' And yet the envious man finds
something pleasing in the misfortunes of others? 'True.' And ignorance is
a misfortune? 'Certainly.' And one form of ignorance is self-conceit - a
man may fancy himself richer, fairer, better, wiser than he is? 'Yes.'
And he who thus deceives himself may be strong or weak? 'He may.' And if
he is strong we fear him, and if he is weak we laugh at him, which is a
pleasure, and yet we envy him, which is a pain? These mixed feelings are
the rationale of tragedy and comedy, and equally the rationale of the
greater drama of human life. (There appears to be some confusion in this
passage. There is no difficulty in seeing that in comedy, as in tragedy,
the spectator may view the performance with mixed feelings of pain as well
as of pleasure; nor is there any difficulty in understanding that envy is a
mixed feeling, which rejoices not without pain at the misfortunes of
others, and laughs at their ignorance of themselves. But Plato seems to
think further that he has explained the feeling of the spectator in comedy
sufficiently by a theory which only applies to comedy in so far as in
comedy we laugh at the conceit or weakness of others. He has certainly
given a very partial explanation of the ridiculous.) Having shown how
sorrow, anger, envy are feelings of a mixed nature, I will reserve the
consideration of the remainder for another occasion.
Next follow the unmixed pleasures; which, unlike the philosophers of whom I
was speaking, I believe to be real. These unmixed pleasures are: (1) The
pleasures derived from beauty of form, colour, sound, smell, which are
absolutely pure; and in general those which are unalloyed with pain: (2)
The pleasures derived from the acquisition of knowledge, which in
themselves are pure, but may be attended by an accidental pain of
forgetting; this, however, arises from a subsequent act of reflection, of
which we need take no account. At the same time, we admit that the latter
pleasures are the property of a very few. To these pure and unmixed
pleasures we ascribe measure, whereas all others belong to the class of the
infinite, and are liable to every species of excess. And here several
questions arise for consideration: - What is the meaning of pure and impure,
of moderate and immoderate? We may answer the question by an illustration:
Purity of white paint consists in the clearness or quality of the white,
and this is distinct from the quantity or amount of white paint; a little
pure white is fairer than a great deal which is impure. But there is
another question: - Pleasure is affirmed by ingenious philosophers to be a
generation; they say that there are two natures - one self-existent, the
other dependent; the one noble and majestic, the other failing in both
these qualities. 'I do not understand.' There are lovers and there are
loves. 'Yes, I know, but what is the application?' The argument is in
play, and desires to intimate that there are relatives and there are
absolutes, and that the relative is for the sake of the absolute; and
generation is for the sake of essence. Under relatives I class all things
done with a view to generation; and essence is of the class of good. But
if essence is of the class of good, generation must be of some other class;
and our friends, who affirm that pleasure is a generation, would laugh at
the notion that pleasure is a good; and at that other notion, that pleasure
is produced by generation, which is only the alternative of destruction.
Who would prefer such an alternation to the equable life of pure thought?
Here is one absurdity, and not the only one, to which the friends of
pleasure are reduced. For is there not also an absurdity in affirming that
good is of the soul only; or in declaring that the best of men, if he be in
pain, is bad?
And now, from the consideration of pleasure, we pass to that of knowledge.
Let us reflect that there are two kinds of knowledge - the one creative or
productive, and the other educational and philosophical. Of the creative
arts, there is one part purer or more akin to knowledge than the other.
There is an element of guess-work and an element of number and measure in
them. In music, for example, especially in flute-playing, the conjectural
element prevails; while in carpentering there is more application of rule
and measure. Of the creative arts, then, we may make two classes - the less
exact and the more exact. And the exacter part of all of them is really
arithmetic and mensuration. But arithmetic and mensuration again may be
subdivided with reference either to their use in the concrete, or to their
nature in the abstract - as they are regarded popularly in building and
binding, or theoretically by philosophers. And, borrowing the analogy of
pleasure, we may say that the philosophical use of them is purer than the
other. Thus we have two arts of arithmetic, and two of mensuration. And
truest of all in the estimation of every rational man is dialectic, or the
science of being, which will forget and disown us, if we forget and disown
her.
'But, Socrates, I have heard Gorgias say that rhetoric is the greatest and
usefullest of arts; and I should not like to quarrel either with him or
you.' Neither is there any inconsistency, Protarchus, with his statement
in what I am now saying; for I am not maintaining that dialectic is the
greatest or usefullest, but only that she is the truest of arts; my remark
is not quantitative but qualitative, and refers not to the advantage or
repetition of either, but to the degree of truth which they attain - here
Gorgias will not care to compete; this is what we affirm to be possessed in
the highest degree by dialectic. And do not let us appeal to Gorgias or
Philebus or Socrates, but ask, on behalf of the argument, what are the
highest truths which the soul has the power of attaining. And is not this
the science which has a firmer grasp of them than any other? For the arts
generally are only occupied with matters of opinion, and with the
production and action and passion of this sensible world. But the highest
truth is that which is eternal and unchangeable. And reason and wisdom are
concerned with the eternal; and these are the very claimants, if not for
the first, at least for the second place, whom I propose as rivals to
pleasure.
And now, having the materials, we may proceed to mix them - first
recapitulating the question at issue.
Philebus affirmed pleasure to be the good, and assumed them to be one
nature; I affirmed that they were two natures, and declared that knowledge
was more akin to the good than pleasure. I said that the two together were
more eligible than either taken singly; and to this we adhere. Reason
intimates, as at first, that we should seek the good not in the unmixed
life, but in the mixed.
The cup is ready, waiting to be mingled, and here are two fountains, one of
honey, the other of pure water, out of which to make the fairest possible
mixture. There are pure and impure pleasures - pure and impure sciences.
Let us consider the sections of each which have the most of purity and
truth; to admit them all indiscriminately would be dangerous. First we
will take the pure sciences; but shall we mingle the impure - the art which
uses the false rule and the false measure? That we must, if we are any of
us to find our way home; man cannot live upon pure mathematics alone. And
must I include music, which is admitted to be guess-work? 'Yes, you must,
if human life is to have any humanity.' Well, then, I will open the door
and let them all in; they shall mingle in an Homeric 'meeting of the
waters.' And now we turn to the pleasures; shall I admit them? 'Admit
first of all the pure pleasures; secondly, the necessary.' And what shall
we say about the rest? First, ask the pleasures - they will be too happy to
dwell with wisdom. Secondly, ask the arts and sciences - they reply that
the excesses of intemperance are the ruin of them; and that they would
rather only have the pleasures of health and temperance, which are the
handmaidens of virtue. But still we want truth? That is now added; and so
the argument is complete, and may be compared to an incorporeal law, which
is to hold fair rule over a living body. And now we are at the vestibule
of the good, in which there are three chief elements - truth, symmetry, and
beauty. These will be the criterion of the comparative claims of pleasure
and wisdom.
Which has the greater share of truth? Surely wisdom; for pleasure is the
veriest impostor in the world, and the perjuries of lovers have passed into
a proverb.
Which of symmetry? Wisdom again; for nothing is more immoderate than
pleasure.
Which of beauty? Once more, wisdom; for pleasure is often unseemly, and
the greatest pleasures are put out of sight.
Not pleasure, then, ranks first in the scale of good, but measure, and
eternal harmony.
Second comes the symmetrical and beautiful and perfect.
Third, mind and wisdom.
Fourth, sciences and arts and true opinions.
Fifth, painless pleasures.
Of a sixth class, I have no more to say. Thus, pleasure and mind may both
renounce the claim to the first place. But mind is ten thousand times
nearer to the chief good than pleasure. Pleasure ranks fifth and not
first, even though all the animals in the world assert the contrary.
...
From the days of Aristippus and Epicurus to our own times the nature of
pleasure has occupied the attention of philosophers. 'Is pleasure an evil?
a good? the only good?' are the simple forms which the enquiry assumed
among the Socratic schools. But at an early stage of the controversy
another question was asked: 'Do pleasures differ in kind? and are some
bad, some good, and some neither bad nor good?' There are bodily and there
are mental pleasures, which were at first confused but afterwards
distinguished. A distinction was also made between necessary and
unnecessary pleasures; and again between pleasures which had or had not
corresponding pains. The ancient philosophers were fond of asking, in the
language of their age, 'Is pleasure a "becoming" only, and therefore
transient and relative, or do some pleasures partake of truth and Being?'
To these ancient speculations the moderns have added a further question: -
'Whose pleasure? The pleasure of yourself, or of your neighbour, - of the
individual, or of the world?' This little addition has changed the whole
aspect of the discussion: the same word is now supposed to include two
principles as widely different as benevolence and self-love. Some modern
writers have also distinguished between pleasure the test, and pleasure the
motive of actions. For the universal test of right actions (how I know
them) may not always be the highest or best motive of them (why I do them).
Socrates, as we learn from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, first drew
attention to the consequences of actions. Mankind were said by him to act
rightly when they knew what they were doing, or, in the language of the
Gorgias, 'did what they would.' He seems to have been the first who
maintained that the good was the useful (Mem.). In his eagerness for
generalization, seeking, as Aristotle says, for the universal in Ethics
(Metaph.), he took the most obvious intellectual aspect of human action
which occurred to him. He meant to emphasize, not pleasure, but the
calculation of pleasure; neither is he arguing that pleasure is the chief
good, but that we should have a principle of choice. He did not intend to
oppose 'the useful' to some higher conception, such as the Platonic ideal,
but to chance and caprice. The Platonic Socrates pursues the same vein of
thought in the Protagoras, where he argues against the so-called sophist
that pleasure and pain are the final standards and motives of good and
evil, and that the salvation of human life depends upon a right estimate of
pleasures greater or less when seen near and at a distance. The testimony
of Xenophon is thus confirmed by that of Plato, and we are therefore
justified in calling Socrates the first utilitarian; as indeed there is no
side or aspect of philosophy which may not with reason be ascribed to him -
he is Cynic and Cyrenaic, Platonist and Aristotelian in one. But in the
Phaedo the Socratic has already passed into a more ideal point of view; and
he, or rather Plato speaking in his person, expressly repudiates the notion
that the exchange of a less pleasure for a greater can be an exchange of
virtue. Such virtue is the virtue of ordinary men who live in the world of
appearance; they are temperate only that they may enjoy the pleasures of
intemperance, and courageous from fear of danger. Whereas the philosopher
is seeking after wisdom and not after pleasure, whether near or distant:
he is the mystic, the initiated, who has learnt to despise the body and is
yearning all his life long for a truth which will hereafter be revealed to
him. In the Republic the pleasures of knowledge are affirmed to be
superior to other pleasures, because the philosopher so estimates them; and
he alone has had experience of both kinds. (Compare a similar argument
urged by one of the latest defenders of Utilitarianism, Mill's
Utilitarianism). In the Philebus, Plato, although he regards the enemies
of pleasure with complacency, still further modifies the transcendentalism
of the Phaedo. For he is compelled to confess, rather reluctantly,
perhaps, that some pleasures, i.e. those which have no antecedent pains,
claim a place in the scale of goods.
There have been many reasons why not only Plato but mankind in general have
been unwilling to acknowledge that 'pleasure is the chief good.' Either
they have heard a voice calling to them out of another world; or the life
and example of some great teacher has cast their thoughts of right and
wrong in another mould; or the word 'pleasure' has been associated in their
mind with merely animal enjoyment. They could not believe that what they
were always striving to overcome, and the power or principle in them which
overcame, were of the same nature. The pleasure of doing good to others
and of bodily self-indulgence, the pleasures of intellect and the pleasures
of sense, are so different: - Why then should they be called by a common
name? Or, if the equivocal or metaphorical use of the word is justified by
custom (like the use of other words which at first referred only to the
body, and then by a figure have been transferred to the mind), still, why
should we make an ambiguous word the corner-stone of moral philosophy? To
the higher thinker the Utilitarian or hedonist mode of speaking has been at
variance with religion and with any higher conception both of politics and
of morals. It has not satisfied their imagination; it has offended their
taste. To elevate pleasure, 'the most fleeting of all things,' into a
general idea seems to such men a contradiction. They do not desire to
bring down their theory to the level of their practice. The simplicity of
the 'greatest happiness' principle has been acceptable to philosophers, but
the better part of the world has been slow to receive it.
Before proceeding, we may make a few admissions which will narrow the field
of dispute; and we may as well leave behind a few prejudices, which
intelligent opponents of Utilitarianism have by this time 'agreed to
discard'. We admit that Utility is coextensive with right, and that no
action can be right which does not tend to the happiness of mankind; we
acknowledge that a large class of actions are made right or wrong by their
consequences only; we say further that mankind are not too mindful, but
that they are far too regardless of consequences, and that they need to
have the doctrine of utility habitually inculcated on them. We recognize
the value of a principle which can supply a connecting link between Ethics
and Politics, and under which all human actions are or may be included.
The desire to promote happiness is no mean preference of expediency to
right, but one of the highest and noblest motives by which human nature can
be animated. Neither in referring actions to the test of utility have we
to make a laborious calculation, any more than in trying them by other
standards of morals. For long ago they have been classified sufficiently
for all practical purposes by the thinker, by the legislator, by the
opinion of the world. Whatever may be the hypothesis on which they are
explained, or which in doubtful cases may be applied to the regulation of
them, we are very rarely, if ever, called upon at the moment of performing