159
SOC. And so, in the two cases, that active element and I, who am the passive element, shall each produce a different object?
159
THEAET. Of course.
159
SOC. So, then, when I am in health and drink wine, it seems pleasant and sweet to me?
159
THEAET. Yes.
159
SOC. The reason is, in fact, that according to the principles we accepted a while ago, the active and passive elements produce sweetness and perception, both of which are simultaneously moving from one place to another, and the perception, which comes from the passive element, makes the tongue perceptive, and the sweetness, which comes from the wine and pervades it, passes over and makes the wine both to be and to seem sweet to the tongue that is in health.
159
THEAET. Certainly, such are the principles we accepted a while ago.
159
SOC. But when it gets hold of me in illness, in the first place, it really doesn’t get hold of the same man, does it? For he to whom it comes is certainly unlike.
159
THEAET. True.
159
SOC. Therefore the union of the Socrates who is ill and the draught of wine produces other results: in the tongue the sensation or perception of bitterness, and in the wine—a bitterness which is engendered there and passes over into the other; the wine is made, not bitterness, but bitter, and I am made, not perception, but perceptive.
159
THEAET. Certainly.
160
SOC. Then I shall never have this perception of any other thing; for a perception of another thing is another perception, and makes the percipient different and other: nor can that which acts on me ever by union with another produce the same result or become the same in kind; for by producing another result from another passive element it will become different in kind.
160
THEAET. That is true.
160
SOC. And neither shall I, furthermore, ever again become the same as I am, nor will that ever become the same as it is.
160
THEAET. No.