SOCRATES: And yet, my friend, there are, as we know, persons who say and think so.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And do they think that they have pleasure when they are free from pain?
PROTARCHUS: They say so.
SOCRATES: And they must think or they would not say that they have pleasure.
PROTARCHUS: I suppose not.
SOCRATES: And yet if pleasure and the negation of pain are of distinct natures, they are wrong.
PROTARCHUS: But they are undoubtedly of distinct natures.
SOCRATES: Then shall we take the view that they are three, as we were just now saying, or that they are two only—the one being a state of pain, which is an evil, and the other a cessation of pain, which is of itself a good, and is called pleasant?
PROTARCHUS: But why, Socrates, do we ask the question at all? I do not see the reason.