And then I should take the question from the opposite point of view, and say: "Friends, when you speak of goods being painful, do you not mean remedial goods, such as gymnastic exercises, and military service, and the physician's use of burning, cutting, drugging, and starving? Are these the things which are good but painful?"-they would assent to me?
He agreed.
"And do you call them good because they occasion the greatest immediate suffering and pain; or because, afterwards, they bring health and improvement of the bodily condition and the salvation of states and power over others and wealth?"-they would agree to the latter alternative, if I am not mistaken?
He assented.
"Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?"-they would acknowledge that they were not?
I think so, said Protagoras.
"And do you not pursue after pleasure as a good, and avoid pain as an evil?"He assented.
"Then you think that pain is an evil and pleasure is a good: and even pleasure you deem an evil, when it robs you of greater pleasures than it gives, or causes pains greater than the pleasure.
If, however, you call pleasure an evil in relation to some other end or standard, you will be able to show us that standard. But you have none to show."I do not think that they have, said Protagoras.
"And have you not a similar way of speaking about pain? You call pain a good when it takes away greater pains than those which it has, or gives pleasures greater than the pains: then if you have some standard other than pleasure and pain to which you refer when you call actual pain a good, you can show what that is. But you cannot."True, said Protagoras.