SOCRATES: Well, then, shall we not be right in saying, that if a person would wish to see the greatest pleasures he ought to go and look, not at health, but at disease? And here you must distinguish:--do not imagine that I mean to ask whether those who are very ill have more pleasures than those who are well, but understand that I am speaking of the magnitude of pleasure; I want to know where pleasures are found to be most intense. For, as I say, we have to discover what is pleasure, and what they mean by pleasure who deny her very existence. PROTARCHUS: I think I follow you. SOCRATES: You will soon have a better opportunity of showing whether you do or not, Protarchus. Answer now, and tell me whether you see, I will not say more, but more intense and excessive pleasures in wantonness than in temperance? Reflect before you speak. PROTARCHUS: I understand you, and see that there is a great difference between them; the temperate are restrained by the wise man's aphorism of 'Never too much,' which is their rule, but excess of pleasure possessing the minds of fools and wantons becomes madness and makes them shout with delight. SOCRATES: Very good, and if this be true, then the greatest pleasures and pains will clearly be found in some vicious state of soul and body, and not in a virtuous state. PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And ought we not to select some of these for examination, and see what makes them the greatest? PROTARCHUS: To be sure we ought. SOCRATES: Take the case of the pleasures which arise out of certain disorders. PROTARCHUS: What disorders? SOCRATES: The pleasures of unseemly disorders, which our severe friends utterly detest. PROTARCHUS: What pleasures? SOCRATES: Such, for example, as the relief of itching and other ailments by scratching, which is the only remedy required. For what in Heaven's name is the feeling to be called which is thus produced in us?--Pleasure or pain? PROTARCHUS: A villainous mixture of some kind, Socrates, I should say. SOCRATES: I did not introduce the argument, O Protarchus, with any personal reference to Philebus, but because, without the consideration of these and similar pleasures, we shall not be able to determine the point at issue. PROTARCHUS: Then we had better proceed to analyze this family of pleasures. SOCRATES: You mean the pleasures which are mingled with pain? PROTARCHUS: Exactly. SOCRATES: There are some mixtures which are of the body, and only in the body, and others which are of the soul, and only in the soul; while there are other mixtures of pleasures with pains, common both to soul and body, which in their composite state are called sometimes pleasures and sometimes pains. PROTARCHUS: How is that?