2. The second argument, establishing the same conclusion, is as follows:— No pleasures, except those belonging to philosophy or the love of wisdom, are completely true and pure. All the other pleasures are mere shadowy outlines, looking like pleasure at a distance, but not really pleasures when you contemplate them closely.[295] Pleasure and pain are two conditions opposite to each other. Between them both is another state, neither one nor the other, called neutrality or indifference. Now a man who has been sick and is convalescent, will tell you that nothing is more pleasurable than being in health, but that he did not know what the pleasure of it was, until he became sick. So too men in pain affirm that nothing is more pleasurable than relief from pain. When a man is grieving, it is exemption or indifference, not enjoyment, which he extols as the greatest pleasure. Again, when a man has been in a state of enjoyment, and the enjoyment ceases, this cessation is painful. We thus see that the intermediate state — cessation, neutrality, indifference — will be some times pain, sometimes pleasure, according to circumstances. Now that which is neither pleasure nor pain cannot possibly be both.[296] Pleasure is a positive movement or mutation of the mind: so also is pain. Neutrality or indifference is a negative condition, intermediate between the two: no movement, but absence of movement: non-pain, non-pleasure. But non-pain is not really pleasure: non-pleasure is not really pain. When therefore neutrality or non-pain, succeeding immediately after pain, appears to be a pleasure — this is a mere appearance or illusion, not a reality. When neutrality or non-pleasure, succeeding immediately after pleasure, appears to be pain — this also is a mere appearance or illusion, not a reality. There is nothing sound or trustworthy in such appearances. Pleasure is not cessation of pain, but something essentially different: pain is not cessation of pleasure, but something essentially different.
[295] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 583 B. οὐδὲ παναληθής ἐστιν ἑ τῶν ἄλλων ἡδονὴ πλὴν τῆς τοῦ φρονίμου, οὐδὲ καθαρά, ἀλλ’ ἐσκιαγραφημένη τις, ὡς ἐγὼ δοκῶ μοι τῶν σοφῶν τινὸς ἀκηκοέναι.
[296] Plato, Republ. ix. pp. 583 E-584 A. Ὃ μεταξὺ ἄρα νῦν δὴ ἀμφοτέρων ἔφαμεν εἶναι, τὴν ἡσυχίαν, τοῦτό ποτε ἀμφότερα ἔσται, λύπη τε καὶ ἡδονή … Ἦ καὶ δυνατὸν τὸ μηδέτερα ὂν ἀμφότερα γίγνεσθαι; Οὔ μοι δοκεῖ. Καὶ μὴν τό γε ἡδὺ ἐν ψυχῇ γιγνόμενον καὶ τὸ λυπηρὸν κίνησίς τις ἀμφοτέρω ἔστον; ἢ οὔ; Ναί. Τὸ δὲ μήτε ἡδὺ μήτε λυπηρὸν οὐχὶ ἡσυχία μέντοι καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τούτων ἐφάνη ἄρτι; Ἐφάνη γάρ. Πῶς οὖν ὀρθῶς ἔστι τὸ μὴ ἀλγεῖν ἡδὺ ἡγεῖσθαι, ἢ τὸ μὴ χαίρειν ἀνιαρόν; Οὐδαμῶς. Οὐκ ἔστιν ἄρα τοῦτο, ἀλλὰ φαίνεται, παρὰ τὸ ἀλγεινὸν ἡδὺ καὶ παρὰ τὸ ἡδὺ ἀλγεινὸν τότε ἡ ἡσυχία, καὶ οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς τούτων τῶν φαντασμάτων πρὸς ἡδονῆς ἀλήθειαν, ἀλλὰ γοητεία τις.
Most men know nothing of true and pure pleasure. Simile of the Kosmos — Absolute height and depth.
Take, for example, the pleasures of smell, which are true and genuine pleasures, of great intensity: they spring up instantaneously without presupposing any anterior pain — they depart without leaving any subsequent pain.[297] These are true and pure pleasures, radically different from cessation of pain: so also true and pure pains are different from cessation of pleasure. Most of the so-called pleasures, especially the more intense, which reach the mind through the body, are in reality not pleasures at all, but only cessations or reliefs from pain. The same may be said about the pleasures and pains of anticipation belonging to these so-called bodily pleasures.[298] They may be represented by the following simile:— There is in nature a real Absolute Up and uppermost point — a real Absolute Down and lowest point — and a centre between them.[299] A man borne from the lowest point to the centre will think himself moving upwards, and will be moving upwards relatively. If his course be stopped in the centre, he will think himself at the absolute summit — on looking to the point from which he came, and ignorant as he is of any thing higher. If he be forced to return from the centre to the point from whence he came, he will think himself moving downwards, and will be really moving downwards, absolutely as well as relatively. Such misapprehension arises from his not knowing the portion of the Kosmos above the centre — the true and absolute Up or summit. Now the case of pleasure and pain is analogous to this. Pain is the absolute lowest — Pleasure the absolute highest — non-pleasure, non-pain, the centre intermediate between them. But most men know nothing of the region above the centre, or the absolute highest — the region of true and pure pleasure: they know only the centre and what is below it, or the region of pain. When they fall from the centre to the point of pain, they conceive the situation truly, and they really are pained: but when they rise from the lowest point to the centre, they misconceive the change, and imagine themselves to be in a process of replenishment and acquisition of pleasure. They mistake the painless condition for pleasure, not knowing what true pleasure is: just as a man who has seen only black and not white, will fancy, if dun be shown to him, that he is looking on white.[300]
[297] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 584 B.
[298] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 584 C.
[299] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 584 C. Νομίζεις τι ἐν τῇ φύσει εἶναι τὸ μὲν ἄνω, τὸ δὲ κάτω, τὸ δὲ μέσον; Ἔγωγε.
[300] Plato, Republic, pp. 584 E-585 A. Οὐκοῦν ταῦτα πάσχοι ἂν πάντα διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔμπειρος εἶναι τοῦ ἀληθινῶς ἄνω τε ὄντος καὶ ἐν μέσῳ; … ὅταν μὲν ἐπὶ τὸ λυπηρὸν φέρωνται, ἀληθῆ τε οἴονται καὶ τῷ ὄντι λυποῦνται, ὅταν δὲ ἀπὸ λύπης ἐπὶ τὸ μεταξύ, σφόδρα μὲν οἴονται πρὸς πληρώσει τε καὶ ἡδονῇ γίγνεσθαι, ὥσπερ δὲ πρὸς μέλαν φαιὸν ἀποσκοποῦντες ἀπειρίᾳ λευκοῦ, καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἄλυπον οὕτω λύπην ἀφορῶντες ἀπειρίᾳ ἡδονῆς ἀπατῶνται;
Nourishment of the mind partakes more of real essence than nourishment of the body — Replenishment of the mind imparts fuller pleasure than replenishment of the body.