Note 9 — Chapter XXXII · PHILEBUS.

Plato, Philêbus, p. 21.

Such an hypothesis does indeed depart so totally from the conditions of human life, that it cannot be considered as a fair test of any doctrine. A perpetuity of delicious sensations cannot be enjoyed, consistent with the conditions of animal organization. A man cannot realise to himself that which the hypothesis promises; much less can he realise it without those accompaniments which it assumes him to renounce. The loss stands out far more palpably than the gain. It is no refutation of the theory of Philêbus; who, announcing pleasure as the Summum Bonum, is entitled to call for pleasure in all its varieties, and for exemption from all pains. Sokrates himself had previously insisted on the great variety as well as on the great dissimilarity of the modes of pleasure and pain. To each variety of pleasure there corresponds a desire: to each variety of pain, an aversion.

If the Summum Bonum is to fulfil the conditions postulated — that is, if it be such as to satisfy all human desires, it ought to comprise all these varieties of pleasure. It ought, e.g., to comprise the pleasures of self-esteem, and conscious self-protecting power, affording security for the future; it ought to comprise exemption from the pains of self-reproach, self-contempt, and conscious helplessness. These are among the greatest pleasures and pains of the mature man, though they are aggregates formed by association. Now the alternative tendered by Sokrates neither includes these pleasures nor eliminates these pains. It includes only the pleasures of sense; and it is tendered to one who has rooted in his mind desires for other pleasures, and aversions for other pains, besides those of sense. It does not therefore come up to the requirements fairly implied in the theory of Philêbus.