[467c]
Socrates
Spare your invective, peerless Polus—if I may address you in your own style:1 but if you have a question to ask me, expose my error otherwise, make answer yourself.Polus
Well, I am ready to answer, in order that I may know what you mean.Socrates
Then is it your view that people wish merely that which they do each time, or that which is the object of their doing what they do? For instance, do those who take medicine by doctor's orders wish, in your opinion, merely what they do,—to take the medicine and suffer the pain of it,—or rather to be healthy, which is the object of their taking it?
Spare your invective, peerless Polus—if I may address you in your own style:1 but if you have a question to ask me, expose my error otherwise, make answer yourself.Polus
Well, I am ready to answer, in order that I may know what you mean.Socrates
Then is it your view that people wish merely that which they do each time, or that which is the object of their doing what they do? For instance, do those who take medicine by doctor's orders wish, in your opinion, merely what they do,—to take the medicine and suffer the pain of it,—or rather to be healthy, which is the object of their taking it?
