Classification — unconscious and conscious.

Plato’s doctrine about classification is not necessarily connected with his Theory of Ideas.

We may here remark that Plato’s views as to the necessity of systematic classification, or of connecting the Summum Genus with individuals by intermediate stages of gradually decreasing generality — are not necessarily connected with his peculiar theory of Ideas as Self-existent objects, eternal and unchangeable. The two are indeed blended together in his own mind and language: but the one is quite separable from the other; and his remarks on classification are more perspicuous without his theory of Ideas than with it. Classification does not depend upon his hypothesis — That Ideas are not simply Concepts of the Reason, but absolute existences apart from the Reason (Entia Rationis apart from the Ratio) — and that these Ideas correspond to the words Unum, Multa definité, Multa indefinité, which are put together to compose the totality of what we see and feel in the Kosmos.

Applying this general doctrine (about the necessity of establishing subordinate classes as intermediate between the Genus and Individuals) to the particular subject debated between Sokrates and Protarchus — the next step in the procedure would naturally be, to distinguish the subordinate classes comprised first under the Genus Pleasure — next, under the Genus Intelligence (or Cognition). And so indeed the dialogue seems to promise22 in tolerably explicit terms.

Quadruple distribution of Existences. 1. The Infinite. 2. The Finient 3. Product of the two former. 4. Combining Cause or Agency.

But such promise is not realised. The dialogue takes a different turn, and recurs to the general distinction already brought to view between the Finient (Determinans) and the Infinite (Indeterminatum). We have it laid down that all existences in the universe are divided into four Genera: 1. The Infinite or Indeterminate. 2. The Finient or the Determinans. 3. The product of these two, mixed or compounded together Determinatum. 4. The Cause or Agency whereby they become mixed together. — Of these four, the first is a Genus, or is both One and Many, having numerous varieties, all agreeing in the possession of a perpetual More and Less (without any limit or positive quantity): that which is perpetually increasing or diminishing, more or less hot, cold, moist, great, &c., than any given positive standard. The second, or the Determinans, is also a Genus, or One and Many: including equal, double, triple, and all fixed ratios.23

The third Genus is laid down by Plato as generated by a mixture or combination of these two first — the Infinite and the Determinans. The varieties of this third or compound Genus comprise all that is good and desirable in nature — health, strength, beauty, virtue, fine weather, good temperature:24 all agreeing, each in its respective sphere, in presenting a right measure or proportion as opposed to excess or deficiency.

Fourthly, Plato assumes a distinct element of causal agency which operates such mixture of the Determinans with the Infinite, or banishment and supersession of the latter by the former.

Pleasure and Pain belong to the first of these four Classes — Cognition or Intelligence belongs to the fourth.

We now approach the application of these generalities to the question in hand — the comparative estimate of pleasure and intelligence in reference to Good. It has been granted that neither of them separately is sufficient, and that both must be combined to compose the result Good: but the question remains, which of the two elements is the most important in the compound? To which of the four above-mentioned Genera (says Sokrates) does Pleasure belong? It belongs to the Infinite or Indeterminate: so also does Pain. To which of the four does Intelligence or Cognition belong? It belongs to the fourth, or to the nature of Cause, the productive agency whereby definite combinations are brought about.25

In the combination, essential to Good, of Intelligence with Pleasure, Intelligence is the more important of the two constituents.

Hence we see (Sokrates argues) that pleasure is a less important element than Intelligence, in the compound called Good. For pleasure belongs to the Infinite: but pain belongs to the Infinite also: the Infinite therefore, being common to both, cannot be the circumstance which imparts to pleasures their affinity with Good: they must derive that affinity from some one of the other elements.26 It is Intelligence which imparts to pleasures their affinity with Good: for Intelligence belongs to the more efficacious Genus called Cause. In the combination of Intelligence with Pleasure, indispensable to constitute Good, Intelligence is the primary element, Pleasure only the secondary element. Intelligence or Reason is the ruling cause which pervades and directs both the smaller body called Man, and the greater body called the Kosmos. The body of man consists of a combination of the four elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire: deriving its supply of all these elements from the vast stock of them which constitutes the Kosmos. So too the mind of man, with its limited reason and intelligence, is derived from the vast stock of mind, reason, and intelligence, diffused throughout the Kosmos, and governing its great elemental body. The Kosmos is animated and intelligent, having body and mind like man, but in far higher measure and perfection. It is from this source alone that man can derive his supply of mind and intelligence.27

Intelligence is the regulating principle — Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requiring to be regulated.

Sokrates thus arrives at the conclusion, that in the combination constituting Good, Reason or Intelligence is the regulating principle: and that Pleasure is the Infinite or Indeterminate which requires regulation from without, having no fixed measure or regulating power in itself.28 He now proceeds to investigate pleasure and intelligence as phenomena: to enquire in what each of them resides, and through what affection they are generated.29

Pleasure and Pain must be explained together — Pain arises from the disturbance of the fundamental harmony of the system — Pleasure from the restoration.

We cannot investigate pleasure (Sokrates continues) apart from pain: both must be studied together. Both pleasure and pain reside in the third out of the four above-mentioned Genera:30 that is, in the compound Genus formed out of that union (of the Infinite with the Determinans or Finient) which includes all animated bodies. Health and Harmony reside in these animated bodies: and pleasure as well as pain proceed from modifications of such fundamental harmony. When the fundamental harmony is disturbed or dissolved, pain is the consequence: when the disturbance is rectified and the harmony restored, pleasure ensues.31 Thus hunger, thirst, extreme heat and cold, are painful, because they break up the fundamental harmony of animal nature: while eating, drinking, cooling under extreme heat, or warming under extreme cold, are pleasurable, because they restore the disturbed harmony.

Pleasure presupposes Pain.

Derivative pleasures of memory and expectation belonging to mind alone. Here you may find pleasure without pain.

But there is another class of pleasures, secondary and derivative from these, and belonging to the mind alone without the body. The expectation of future pleasures is itself pleasurable,32 the expectation of future pains is itself painful. In this secondary class we find pleasure without pain, and pain without pleasure: so that we shall be better able to study pleasure by itself, and to decide whether the whole class, in all its varieties, be good, welcome and desirable, — or whether pleasure and pain be not, like heat and cold, desirable or undesirable according to circumstances — i.e. not good in their own nature, but sometimes good and sometimes not.33

A life of Intelligence alone, without pain and without pleasure, is conceivable. Some may prefer it: at any rate it is second-best.

In the definition above given of the conditions of pleasure, as a re-action from antecedent pain, it is implied that if there be no pain, there can be no pleasure: and that a state of life is therefore conceivable which shall be without both — without pain and without pleasure. The man who embraces wisdom may prefer this third mode of life. It would be the most divine and the most akin to the nature of the Gods, who cannot be supposed without indecency to feel either joy or sorrow.34 At any rate, if not the best life of all, it will be the second-best.

Desire belongs to the mind, presupposes both a bodily want, and the memory of satisfaction previously had for it. The mind and body are here opposed. No true or pure pleasure therein.

Those pleasures, which reside in the mind alone without the body, arise through memory and by means of reminiscence. When the body receives a shock which does not go through to the mind, we call the fact insensibility. In sensation, the body and mind are both affected:35 such sensation is treasured up in the memory, and the mental part of it is recalled (without the bodily part) by reminiscence.36 Memory and reminiscence are the foundations of desire or appetite. When the body suffers the pain of hunger or thirst, the mind recollects previous moments of satisfaction, desires a repetition of that satisfaction by means of food or drink. Here the body and the mind are not moved in the same way, but in two opposite ways: the desire belongs to the mind alone, and is turned towards something directly opposed to the affection of the body. That which the body feels is emptiness: that which the mind feels is desire of replenishment, or of the condition opposed to emptiness. But it is only after experience of replenishment that the mind will feel such desire. On the first occasion of emptiness, it will not desire replenishment, because it will have nothing, neither sensation nor memory, through which to touch replenishment: it can only do so after replenishment has been previously enjoyed, and through the memory. Desire therefore is a state of the mind apart from the body, resting upon memory.37 Here then the man is in a double state: the pain of emptiness, which affects the mind through the body, and the memory of past replenishment, or expectation of future replenishment, which resides in the mind. Such expectation, if certain and immediate, will be a state of pleasure: if doubtful and distant, it will be a state of pain. The state of emptiness and consequent appetite must be, at the very best, a state of mixed pain and pleasure: and it may perhaps be a state of pain only, under two distinct forms.38 Life composed of a succession of these states can afford no true or pure pleasure.

Can pleasures be true or false? Sokrates maintains that they are so.

Yes (replies Protarchus), but we then call the opinion true or false — not the pleasure.39

Reasons given by Sokrates. Pleasures attached to true opinions, are true pleasures. The just man is favoured by the Gods, and will have true visions sent to him.

You will not deny (says Sokrates) that there is a difference between the pleasure accompanying a true opinion, and that which accompanies a false opinion. Wherein does the difference consist? Our opinions, and our comparisons of opinion, arise from sensation and memory:40 which write words and impress images upon our mind (as upon a book or canvas), sometimes truly, sometimes falsely,41 not only respecting the past and present, but also respecting the future. To these opinions respecting the future are attached the pleasures and pains of expectation, which we have already recognised as belonging to the mind alone, — anticipations of bodily pleasures or pains to come — hopes and fears. As our opinions respecting the future are sometimes true, sometimes false, so also are our hopes and fears: but throughout our lives we are always full of hopes and fears.42 Now the just and good man, being a favourite of the Gods, will have these visions or anticipations of the future presented to him truly and accurately: the bad man on the contrary will have them presented to him falsely. The pleasures of anticipation will be true to the former, and false to the latter:43 his false pleasures will be a ludicrous parody on the true ones.44 Good or bad opinions are identical with true or false opinions: so also are good or bad pleasures, identical with true or false pleasures: there is no other ground for their being good or bad.

Protarchus disputes this — He thinks that there are some pleasures bad, but none false — Sokrates does not admit this, but reserves the question.

I admit this identity (remarks Protarchus) in regard to opinions, but not in regard to pleasures. I think there are other grounds, and stronger grounds, for pronouncing pleasures to be bad — independently of their being false. We will reserve that question (says Sokrates) for the present — whether there are or are not pleasures bad on other grounds.45 I am now endeavouring to show that there are some pleasures which are false: and I proceed to another way of viewing the subject.

No means of truly estimating pleasures and pains — False estimate habitual — These are the false pleasures.

We agreed before that the state, called Appetite or Desire, was a mixed state comprehending body and mind: the state of body affecting the mind with a pain of emptiness, — the state of mind apart from body being either a pleasure of expected replenishment, or a pain arising from our regarding replenishment as distant or unattainable. Appetite or Desire, therefore, is sometimes mixed pleasure and pain; both, of the genus Infinite, Indeterminate. We desire to compare these pleasures and pains, and to value their magnitude in relation to each other, but we have no means of performing the process. We not only cannot perform it well, but we are sure to perform it wrongly. For future pleasure or pain counts for more or less in our comparison, according to its proximity or distance. Here then is a constant source of false computation: pleasures and pains counted as greater or less than they really are: in other words, false pleasures and pains. We thus see that pleasures may be true or false, no less than opinions.46

Much of what is called pleasure is false. Gentle and gradual changes do not force themselves upon our notice either as pleasure or pain. Absence of pain not the same as pleasure.

We have also other ways of proving the point that much of what is called pleasure is false and unreal47 — either no pleasure at all, or pleasure mingled and alloyed with pain and relief from pain. According to our previous definition of pain and pleasure — that pain arises from derangement of the harmony of our nature, and pleasure from the correction of such derangement, or from the re-establishment of harmony — there may be and are states which are neither painful nor pleasurable. Doubtless the body never remains the same: it is always undergoing change: but the gentle and gradual changes (such as growth, &c.) escape our consciousness, producing neither pain nor pleasure: none but the marked, sudden changes force themselves upon our consciousness, thus producing pain and pleasure.48 A life of gentle changes would be a life without pain as well as without pleasure. There are thus three states of life49 — painful — pleasurable — neither painful nor pleasurable. But no pain (absence of pain) is not identical with pleasure: it is a third and distinct state.50

Opinion of the pleasure-hating philosophers — That pleasure is no reality, but a mere juggle — no reality except pain, and the relief from pain.

Now there are some philosophers who confound this distinction:51 Philosophers respectable, but stern, who hate the very name of pleasure, deny its existence as a separate state per se, and maintain it to be nothing more than relief from pain: implying therefore, perpetually and inevitably, the conjunction or antecedence of pain. They consider the seduction of pleasure in prospect to be a mere juggle — a promise never realised. Often the expected moment brings no pleasure at all: and even when it does, there are constant accompaniments of pain, which always greatly impair, often countervail, sometimes far more than countervail, its effect. Pain is regarded by them as the evil — removal or mitigation of pain as the good — of human life.

Sokrates agrees with them in part, but not wholly.

These philosophers (continues Sokrates) are like prophets who speak truth from the stimulus of internal temperament, without any rational comprehension of it. Their theory is partially true, but not universally.52 It is true of a large portion of what are called pleasures, but it is not true of all pleasures. Most pleasures (indeed all the more vehement and coveted pleasures), correspond to the description given in the theory. The moment when the supposed intense pleasure arrives, is a disappointment of the antecedent hopes, either by not bringing the pleasure promised, or by bringing it along with a preponderant dose of pain. But there are some pleasures of which this cannot be said — which are really true and unmixed with pain. Which these are (continues Sokrates), I will presently explain: but I shall first state the case of the pleasure-hating philosophers, so far as I go along with it.

Theory of the pleasure-haters — We must learn what pleasure is by looking at the intense pleasures — These are connected with distempered body and mind.

When we are studying any property (they say), we ought to examine especially those cases in which it appears most fully and prominently developed: thus, if we are enquiring into hardness, we must take for our first objects of investigation the hardest things, in preference to those which are less hard or scarcely hard at all.53 So in enquiring into pleasure generally, we must investigate first the pleasures of extreme intensity and vehemence. Now the most intense pleasures are enjoyed not in a healthy state of body, but on the contrary under circumstances of distemper and disorder: because they are then preceded by the most violent wants and desires. The sick man under fever suffers greater thirst and cold than when he is in health, but in the satisfaction of those wants, his pleasure is proportionally more intense. Again when he suffers from the itch or an inflamed state of body, the pleasure of rubbing or scratching is more intense than if he had no such disorder.54 The most vehement bodily pleasures can only be enjoyed under condition of being preceded or attended by pains greater or less as the case may be. The condition is not one of pure pleasure, but mixed between pain and pleasure. Sometimes the pain preponderates, sometimes the pleasure: if the latter, then most men, forgetting the accompanying pain, look upon these transient moments as the summit of happiness.55 In like manner the violent and insane man, under the stimulus of furious passions and desires, experiences more intense gratifications than persons of sober disposition: his condition is a mixed one, of great pains and great pleasures. The like is true of all the vehement passions — love, hatred, revenge, anger, jealousy, envy, fear, sorrow, &c.: all of them embody pleasures mixed with pain, and the magnitude of the pleasure is proportioned to that of the accompanying pain.56