SOCRATES: Then he will live without pleasure; and who knows whether this may not be the most divine of all lives?
PROTARCHUS: If so, the gods, at any rate, cannot be supposed to have either joy or sorrow.
SOCRATES: Certainly not—there would be a great impropriety in the assumption of either alternative. But whether the gods are or are not indifferent to pleasure is a point which may be considered hereafter if in any way relevant to the argument, and whatever is the conclusion we will place it to the account of mind in her contest for the second place, should she have to resign the first.
PROTARCHUS: Just so.
SOCRATES: The other class of pleasures, which as we were saying is purely mental, is entirely derived from memory.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I must first of all analyze memory, or rather perception which is prior to memory, if the subject of our discussion is ever to be properly cleared up.
PROTARCHUS: How will you proceed?
SOCRATES: Let us imagine affections of the body which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and leave her unaffected; and again, other affections which vibrate through both soul and body, and impart a shock to both and to each of them.
PROTARCHUS: Granted.