60
Soc. And if we made any mistake at that time, let any one now take up the question again. Assuming that memory, wisdom, knowledge, and true opinion belong to the same class, let him ask whether anyone would wish to have or acquire anything whatsoever without these not to speak of pleasure, be it never so abundant or intense, if he could have no true opinion that he is pleased, no knowledge whatsoever of what he has felt, and not even the slightest memory of the feeling. And let him ask in the same way about wisdom, whether anyone would wish to have wisdom without any, even the slightest, pleasure rather than with some pleasures, or all pleasures without wisdom rather than with some wisdom.
60
Pro. That is impossible, Socrates; it is useless to ask the same question over and over again.
61
Soc. Then the perfect, that which is to be desired by all and is altogether good, is neither of these?
61
Pro. Certainly not.
61
Soc. We must, then, gain a clear conception of the good, or at least an outline of it, that we may, as we said, know to what the second place is to be assigned.
61
Pro. Quite right.
61
Soc. And have we not found a road which leads to the good?
61
Pro. What road?
61
Soc. If you were looking for a particular man and first found out correctly where he lived, you would have made great progress towards finding him whom you sought.
61
Pro. Yes, certainly.
61
Soc. And just now we received an indication, as we did in the beginning, that we must seek the good, not in the unmixed, but in the mixed life.
61
Pro. Certainly.
61
Soc. Surely there is greater hope that the object of our search will be clearly present in the well mixed life than in the life which is not well mixed?
61
Pro. Far greater.
61
Soc. Let us make the mixture, Protarchus, with a prayer to the gods, to Dionysus or Hephaestus, or whoever he be who presides over the mixing.
61
Pro. By all means.
