SOCRATES: But if so, the negation of pain will not be the same with pleasure.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Then when you hear a person saying, that always to live without pain is the pleasantest of all things, what would you understand him to mean by that statement?
PROTARCHUS: I think that by pleasure he must mean the negative of pain.
SOCRATES: Let us take any three things; or suppose that we embellish a little and call the first gold, the second silver, and there shall be a third which is neither.
PROTARCHUS: Very good.
SOCRATES: Now, can that which is neither be either gold or silver?
PROTARCHUS: Impossible.
SOCRATES: No more can that neutral or middle life be rightly or reasonably spoken or thought of as pleasant or painful.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.