Lysis

and the bad went away, out of the way, and touched nothing, neither body nor soul nor the other things that we say are in themselves neither bad nor good, would the good then be in no way useful to us, but have become useless? For if nothing harmed us any longer, we would in no way 220d be in need of any benefit, and so it would then become plain that it was because of the bad that we cherished and loved the good, the good being a remedy for the bad, and the bad an illness; and where there is no illness there is no need of a remedy. Is the good by nature such that it is loved by us, who are in between the bad and the good, because of the bad, while for its own sake it has no use?” — “It seems,” he said, “to be so.” — “Then that which is a friend to us, in which all the other things ended — 220e those, we said, were friends for the sake of another friend — in no way resembles them. For those are called friends for the sake of a friend, but what is really a friend appears to be by nature the very opposite of this; for it has come to light as a friend to us for the sake of an enemy,¹ and if the enemy were to go away, it is no longer, it seems, a friend to us.” — “I think not,” he said, “at least as it is now being put.” — “In the name of Zeus,” I said, “if the bad perishes, will there no longer be any hungering either, or 221a thirsting, or anything else of the sort? Or will there be hunger, if indeed there are men and the other animals, but not harmful hunger? And thirst, and the other desires, but not bad ones, since the bad will have perished? Or is the question laughable, what will be then and what will not? For who knows? But this at least we know: that even now it is possible for one who is hungry to be harmed, and also to be benefited. Isn’t that so?” — “Very much so.” — “Then is it also possible for one who is thirsty, and 221b who desires all the other things of that sort, to desire sometimes beneficially, sometimes harmfully, and sometimes neither?” — “Very much so.” — “Then if the bad things perish, what reason is there for things that are not in fact bad to perish along with the bad?”