But
surely this is not correct. For arguments about matters concerned with
feelings and actions are less reliable than facts: and so when they
clash with the facts of perception they are despised, and discredit
the truth as well; if a man who runs down pleasure is once seen to
be alming at it, his inclining towards it is thought to imply that
it is all worthy of being aimed at; for most people are not good at
drawing distinctions. True arguments seem, then, most useful, not only
with a view to knowledge, but with a view to life also; for since they
harmonize with the facts they are believed, and so they stimulate
those who understand them to live according to them.-Enough of such
questions; let us proceed to review the opinions that have been
expressed about pleasure.
2
Eudoxus thought pleasure was the good because he saw all things,
both rational and irrational, aiming at it, and because in all
things that which is the object of choice is what is excellent, and
that which is most the object of choice the greatest good; thus the
fact that all things moved towards the same object indicated that this
was for all things the chief good (for each thing, he argued, finds
its own good, as it finds its own nourishment); and that which is good
for all things and at which all aim was the good.
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