SOCRATES: Unless truth enter into the composition, nothing can truly be created or subsist.
PROTARCHUS: Impossible.
SOCRATES: Quite impossible; and now you and Philebus must tell me whether anything is still wanting in the mixture, for to my way of thinking the argument is now completed, and may be compared to an incorporeal law, which is going to hold fair rule over a living body.
PROTARCHUS: I agree with you, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And may we not say with reason that we are now at the vestibule of the habitation of the good?
PROTARCHUS: I think that we are.
SOCRATES: What, then, is there in the mixture which is most precious, and which is the principal cause why such a state is universally beloved by all? When we have discovered it, we will proceed to ask whether this omnipresent nature is more akin to pleasure or to mind.
PROTARCHUS: Quite right; in that way we shall be better able to judge.
SOCRATES: And there is no difficulty in seeing the cause which renders any mixture either of the highest value or of none at all.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?