[200b]
consider if the desiring subject must have desire for something it lacks, and again, no desire if it has no lack. I at least, Agathon, am perfectly sure it is a necessity. How does it strike you?”“I am sure of it also,” said he.“Very good. Now could a tall man wish to be tall, or a strong man to be strong?”“By what has been admitted, this is impossible.”“Since, I suppose, the man in each case would not be lacking the quality mentioned.”“True.”“For if, being strong, he should wish to be strong,” said Socrates, “or being swift, to be swift, or being healthy, to be healthy,—since we are apt to suppose in these
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
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