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speak of people as being and showing themselves more or less virtuous: some men are
more just and more brave than others, and it is possible to act more or less justly and
temperately.
But if they mean that one pleasure may be more or less of a pleasure than another, I
suspect that they miss the real reason when they say it is because some are pure and
some are mixed. Why should it not be the same with pleasure as with health, which,
though something determinate, yet allows of more and less? For the due proportion of
elements [which constitutes health] is not the same for all, nor always the same for the
same person, but may vary within certain limits without losing its character, being
now more and now less truly health. And it may be the same with pleasure.
Again, assuming that the good is complete, while motion and coming into being are
incomplete, they try to show that pleasure is a motion and a coming into being.
But they do not seem to be right even in saying that it is a motion: for every motion
seems necessarily to be quick or slow, either absolutely, as the motion of the universe,
or relatively; but pleasure is neither quick nor slow. It is, indeed, possible to be
quickly pleased, as to be quickly angered; the feeling, however, cannot be quick, even
relatively, as can walking and growing, etc. The passage to a state of pleasure, then,
may be quick or slow, but the exercise of the power, i.e. the feeling of pleasure,
cannot be quick.
Again, how can pleasure be a coming into being?
It seems that it is not possible for anything to come out of just anything, but what a
thing comes out of, that it is resolved into. Pain, then, must be the dissolution of that
whose coming into being is pleasure. Accordingly, they maintain that pain is falling
short of the normal state, pleasure its replenishment.
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But these are bodily processes. If, then, pleasure be the replenishment of the normal
state, that in which the replenishment takes place, i.e. the body, must be that which is
pleased. But this does not seem to be the case. Pleasure, therefore, is not a
replenishment, but while the process of replenishment is going on we may be pleased,
and while the process of exhaustion is going on we may be pained.*
This view of pleasure seems to have been suggested by the pleasures and pains
connected with nutrition; for there it is true that we come into a state of want, and,
after previous pain, find pleasure in replenishment. But this is not the case with all
pleasures; for there is no previous pain involved in the pleasures of the
mathematician, nor among the sensuous pleasures in those of smell, nor, again, in
many kinds of sights and sounds, nor in memories and hopes. What is there, then, of
which these pleasures are the becoming? Here there is nothing lacking that can be
replenished.
To those, again, who [in order to show that pleasure is not good] adduce the
disgraceful kinds of pleasure we might reply that these things are not pleasant.
Though they be pleasant to ill-conditioned persons, we must not therefore hold them
to be pleasant except to them; just as we do not hold that to be wholesome, or sweet,
or bitter, which is wholesome, sweet, or bitter to the sick man, or that to be white
which appears white to a man with ophthalmia.
Or, again, we might reply that these pleasures are desirable, but not when derived
from these sources, just as it is desirable to be rich, but not at the cost of treachery,
and desirable to be in health, but not at the cost of eating any kind of abominable
food.
Or we might say that the pleasures are specifically different. The pleasures derived
from noble sources are different from those derived from base sources, and it is
impossible to feel the just man s pleasure without being just, or the musical man s
pleasure without being musical, and so on with the rest.
The distinction drawn between the true friend and the flatterer seems to show either
that pleasure is not good, or else that pleasures differ in kind. For the former in his
intercourse is thought to have the good in view, the latter pleasure; and while we
blame the latter, we praise the former as having a different aim in his intercourse.
Again, no one would choose to live on condition of having a child s intellect all his
life, though he were to enjoy in the highest possible degree all the pleasures of a child;
nor choose to gain enjoyment by the performance of some extremely disgraceful act,
though he were never to feel pain.
There are many things, too, which we should care for, even though they brought no
pleasure, as sight, memory, knowledge, moral and intellectual excellence. Even if we
grant that pleasure necessarily accompanies them, this does not affect the question;
for we should choose them even if no pleasure resulted from them.
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It seems to be evident, then, that pleasure is not the good, nor are all pleasures
desirable, but that some are desirable, differing in kind, or in their sources, from those
that are not desirable. Let this be taken then as a sufficient account of the current
opinions about pleasure and pain.
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4.
Pleasure Defined: Its Relation To Activity.
As to the nature or quality of pleasure, we shall more readily discover it if we make a
fresh start as follows:
Vision seems to be perfect or complete at any moment; for it does not lack anything
which can be added afterwards to make its nature complete. Pleasure seems in this
respect to resemble vision; for it is something whole and entire, and it would be
impossible at any moment to find a pleasure which would become complete by lasting
longer.
Therefore pleasure is not a motion; for every motion requires time and implies an end
(e.g. the motion of building), and is complete when the desired result is
produced either in the whole time therefore, or in this final moment of it. But during
the progress of the work all the motions are incomplete, and specifically different
from the whole motion and from each other; the fitting together of the stones is
different from the fluting of the pillar, and both from the building of the temple. The
building of the temple is complete; nothing more is required for the execution of the
plan. But the building of the foundation and of the triglyph are incomplete; for each is
the building of a part only. These motions, then, are specifically different from one
another, and it is impossible to find a motion whose nature is complete at any
moment it is complete, if at all, only in the whole time.
It is the same also with walking and the other kinds of locomotion. For though all
locomotion is a motion from one place to another, yet there are distinct kinds of
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