Soc. Would you care, Protarchus, to live your whole life in the enjoyment of the greatest pleasures?
Prot. Certainly.
Soc. Then you wouldn't think you needed anything else, if you had that in the fullest measure?
Prot. I'm sure I shouldn't.
Soc. Now be careful, are you sure you wouldn't need anything in the way of thought, intelligence, calculating what is fitting, and so on?
Prot. Why should I? If I had my enjoyment what more could I want?
Soc. Then if you lived your whole life long like that you would be enjoying the greatest pleasures, would you?
Prot. Of course..
Soc. But if you were without memory, reason, knowledge, and true judgment, you would necessarily, I imagine, in the first place be unaware even whether you were, or were not, enjoying yourself, as you would be destitute of all intelligence.
Prot. Necessarily.
Soc. And surely again, if you had no memory you would necessarily, I imagine, not even remember that you had been enjoying yourself; of the pleasure you encountered at one moment not a vestige of memory would be left at the next. Once more, if you had no true judgment you couldn't judge that you were enjoying yourself when you were; if you were bereft of the power of calculation you couldn't even calculate that you could enjoy yourself later on; you would be living the life not of a human being butof some sort of sea-lung or one of those creatures of the ocean whose bodies are encased in shells. Am I right, or can we imagine the situation to be otherwise?
Prot. We cannot.
Soc. Then is a life like that one we can desire?
Prot. Your argument, Socrates, has reduced me for the moment to complete speechlessness.