Part 26

SOCRATES: When you say, 'Very much,' you mean to imply that all these representations are hopes about the future, and that mankind are filled with hopes in every stage of existence?

PROTARCHUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: Answer me another question.

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: A just and pious and good man is the friend of the gods; is he not?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly he is.

SOCRATES: And the unjust and utterly bad man is the reverse?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And all men, as we were saying just now, are always filled with hopes?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions which exist in the minds of each of us?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the fancies of hope are also pictured in us; a man may often have a vision of a heap of gold, and pleasures ensuing, and in the picture there may be a likeness of himself mightily rejoicing over his good fortune.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And may we not say that the good, being friends of the gods, have generally true pictures presented to them, and the bad false pictures?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: The bad, too, have pleasures painted in their fancy as well as the good; but I presume that they are false pleasures.

PROTARCHUS: They are.

SOCRATES: The bad then commonly delight in false pleasures, and the good in true pleasures?

PROTARCHUS: Doubtless.

SOCRATES: Then upon this view there are false pleasures in the souls of men which are a ludicrous imitation of the true, and there are pains of a similar character?

PROTARCHUS: There are.

SOCRATES: And did we not allow that a man who had an opinion at all had a real opinion, but often about things which had no existence either in the past, present, or future?

PROTARCHUS: Quite true.

SOCRATES: And this was the source of false opinion and opining; am I not right?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And must we not attribute to pleasure and pain a similar real but illusory character?

PROTARCHUS: How do you mean?