Timaeus — Plato

Republic /.V. Socrates, Glaucon.

Both kinds of pleasures are attained in the highest degree when the desires which seek them are under the guidance of reason.

p. 300

The pleasures of the king and the tyrant.

Republic IX Socrates, Gl.AUCON.

The measure of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant,

And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally 587 the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable? Exactly. But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own? True.

And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and rjsason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure? Yes. And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order? Clearly. And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest distance? Yes. And the royal and orderly desires are nearest? Yes.

Then the tyrant will hve at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least? Certainly. Put if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly? Inevitably. Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them? Will you tell me?

There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious : now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious ; he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure. How do you mean? I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch ; the democrat was in the middle?

The interval by which they are separated. 301 Yes. Republic IX. And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be Socrates, wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as ^'-'^^'^■°nto truth from the pleasiu'e of the oligarch? He will. And the oligarch is third from the royal ; since we count as one royal and aristocratical? Yes, he is third.

'I'hen the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the expressed space of a number which is three times three ? ""''t'^ I^*: * symbol of Manifestly. a cube cor- The shadow then of tvrannical pleasure determined by the y^^Jf "'^'"s •^ -'to the numnumber of length will be a plane figure. ber 729, Certainly.

And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king. Yes ; the arithmetician will easily do the sum.

Or if some person begins at the other end and measures the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is completed, living 729 times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval. What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the 588 distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain!

Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly which is concerns human life, if human beings are concerned with nu^b^^'of days and nights and months and years ^ days and Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them, ylar.^'"^ Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life and in beauty and virtue? Immeasurably greater.

Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the Refutation argument, we may revert to the words which brought us ° n^^chus hither : Was not some one saying that injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just? Yes, that was said. ' 729 nearly equals the number of days and nights in the year.