..
But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the best
for all, neither do all pursue the same pleasure; yet all pursue
pleasure. And perhaps they actually pursue not the pleasure they think
they pursue nor that which they would say they pursue, but the same
pleasure; for all things have by nature something divine in them.
But the bodily pleasures have appropriated the name both because we
oftenest steer our course for them and because all men share in
them; thus because they alone are familiar, men think there are no
others.
It is evident also that if pleasure, i.e. the activity of our
faculties, is not a good, it will not be the case that the happy man
lives a pleasant life; for to what end should he need pleasure, if
it is not a good but the happy man may even live a painful life? For
pain is neither an evil nor a good, if pleasure is not; why then
should he avoid it? Therefore, too, the life of the good man will
not be pleasanter than that of any one else, if his activities are not
more pleasant.
14
(G) With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that some
pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble pleasures, but
not the bodily pleasures, i.e. those with which the self-indulgent man
is concerned, must consider why, then, the contrary pains are bad.
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