Soc.Ask me whether wisdom and science and mind, and those other qualities which I, when asked by you at first what is the nature of the good, affirmed to be good, are not in the same case with the pleasures of which you spoke.
Pro.What do you mean?
Soc.The sciences are a numerous class, and will be found to present great differences.But even admitting that, like the pleasures, they are opposite as well as different, should I be worthy of the name of dialectician if, in order to avoid this difficulty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference between one science and another;-would not the argument founder and disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape drowning by clinging to a fallacy?
Pro.May none of this befall us, except the deliverance! Yet Ilike the even-handed justice which is applied to both our arguments.
Let us assume, then, that there are many and diverse pleasures, and many and different sciences.
Soc.And let us have no concealment, Protarchus, of the differences between my good and yours; but let us bring them to the light in the hope that, in the process of testing them, they may show whether pleasure is to be called the good, or wisdom, or some third quality; for surely we are not now simply contending in order that my view or that yours may prevail, but I presume that we ought both of us to be fighting for the truth.
Pro.Certainly we ought.
Soc.Then let us have a more definite understanding and establish the principle on which the argument rests.
Pro.What principle?
Soc.A principle about which all men are always in a difficulty, and some men sometimes against their will.
Pro.Speak plainer.
Soc.The principle which has just turned up, which is a marvel of nature; for that one should be many or many one, are wonderful propositions; and he who affirms either is very open to attack.
Pro.Do you mean, when a person says that I, Protarchus, am by nature one and also many, dividing the single "me" into many "mens,"and even opposing them as great and small, light and heavy, and in ten thousand other ways?
Soc.Those, Protarchus, are the common and acknowledged paradoxes about the one and many, which I may say that everybody has by this time agreed to dismiss as childish and obvious and detrimental to the true course of thought; and no more favour is shown to that other puzzle, in which a person proves the members and parts of anything to be divided, and then confessing that they are all one, says laughingly in disproof of his own words: Why, here is a miracle, the one is many and infinite, and the many are only one.
Pro.But what, Socrates, are those other marvels connected with this subject which, as you imply, have not yet become common and acknowledged?
Soc.When, my boy, the one does not belong to the class of things that are born and perish, as in the instances which we were giving, for in those cases, and when unity is of this concrete nature, there is, as I was saying, a universal consent that no refutation is needed;but when the assertion is made that man is one, or ox is one, or beauty one, or the good one, then the interest which attaches to these and similar unities and the attempt which is made to divide them gives birth to a controversy.
Pro.Of what nature?
Soc.In the first place, as to whether these unities have a real existence; and then how each individual unity, being always the same, and incapable either of generation of destruction, but retaining a permanent individuality, can be conceived either as dispersed and multiplied in the infinity of the world of generation, or as still entire and yet divided from itself, which latter would seem to be the greatest impossibility of all, for how can one and the same thing be at the same time in one and in many things? These, Protarchus, are the real difficulties, and this is the one and many to which they relate; they are the source of great perplexity if ill decided, and the right determination of them is very helpful.
Pro.Then, Socrates, let us begin by clearing up these questions.
Soc.That is what I should wish.
Pro.And I am sure that all my other friends will be glad to hear them discussed; Philebus, fortunately for us, is not disposed to move, and we had better not stir him up with questions.
Soc.Good; and where shall we begin this great and multifarious battle, in which such various points are at issue? Shall begin thus?
Pro.How?
Soc.We say that the one and many become identified by thought, and that now, as in time past, they run about together, in and out of every word which is uttered, and that this union of them will never cease, and is not now beginning, but is, as I believe, an everlasting quality of thought itself, which never grows old.Any young man, when he first tastes these subtleties, is delighted, and fancies that he has found a treasure of wisdom; in the first enthusiasm of his joy he leaves no stone, or rather no thought unturned, now rolling up the many into the one, and kneading them together, now unfolding and dividing them; he puzzles himself first and above all, and then he proceeds to puzzle his neighbours, whether they are older or younger, or of his own age-that makes no difference; neither father nor mother does he spare; no human being who has ears is safe from him, hardly even his dog, and a barbarian would have no chance of escaping him, if an interpreter could only be found.
Pro.Considering, Socrates, how many we are, and that all of us are young men, is there not a danger that we and Philebus may all set upon you, if you abuse us? We understand what you mean; but is there no charm by which we may dispel all this confusion, no more excellent way of arriving at the truth? If there is, we hope that you will guide us into that way, and we will do our best to follow, for the enquiry in which we are engaged, Socrates, is not unimportant.