CALLICLES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And the beneficial are those which do some good, and the
hurtful are those which do some evil?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Take, for example, the bodily pleasures of eating and
drinking, which we were just now mentioning—you mean to say that those
which promote health, or any other bodily excellence, are good, and
their opposites evil?
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And in the same way there are good pains and there are evil
pains?
CALLICLES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And ought we not to choose and use the good pleasures and
pains?
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But not the evil?
CALLICLES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Because, if you remember, Polus and I have agreed that all
our actions are to be done for the sake of the good;—and will you agree
with us in saying, that the good is the end of all our actions, and
that all our actions are to be done for the sake of the good, and not
the good for the sake of them?—will you add a third vote to our two?
CALLICLES: I will.
SOCRATES: Then pleasure, like everything else, is to be sought for the
sake of that which is good, and not that which is good for the sake of
pleasure?
CALLICLES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: But can every man choose what pleasures are good and what are
evil, or must he have art or knowledge of them in detail?
CALLICLES: He must have art.
SOCRATES: Let me now remind you of what I was saying to Gorgias and
Polus; I was saying, as you will not have forgotten, that there were
some processes which aim only at pleasure, and know nothing of a better
and worse, and there are other processes which know good and evil. And
I considered that cookery, which I do not call an art, but only an
experience, was of the former class, which is concerned with pleasure,
and that the art of medicine was of the class which is concerned with
the good. And now, by the god of friendship, I must beg you, Callicles,
not to jest, or to imagine that I am jesting with you; do not answer at
random and contrary to your real opinion—for you will observe that we
are arguing about the way of human life; and to a man who has any sense
at all, what question can be more serious than this?—whether he should
follow after that way of life to which you exhort me, and act what you
call the manly part of speaking in the assembly, and cultivating
rhetoric, and engaging in public affairs, according to the principles
now in vogue; or whether he should pursue the life of philosophy;—and
in what the latter way differs from the former. But perhaps we had
better first try to distinguish them, as I did before, and when we have
come to an agreement that they are distinct, we may proceed to consider
in what they differ from one another, and which of them we should
choose. Perhaps, however, you do not even now understand what I mean?
CALLICLES: No, I do not.