This opinion seems to be
based on the pains and pleasures connected with nutrition; on the fact
that when people have been short of food and have felt pain beforehand
they are pleased by the replenishment. But this does not happen with
all pleasures; for the pleasures of learning and, among the sensuous
pleasures, those of smell, and also many sounds and sights, and
memories and hopes, do not presuppose pain. Of what then will these be
the coming into being? There has not been lack of anything of which
they could be the supplying anew.
In reply to those who bring forward the disgraceful pleasures one
may say that these are not pleasant; if things are pleasant to
people of vicious constitution, we must not suppose that they are also
pleasant to others than these, just as we do not reason so about the
things that are wholesome or sweet or bitter to sick people, or
ascribe whiteness to the things that seem white to those suffering
from a disease of the eye. Or one might answer thus-that the pleasures
are desirable, but not from these sources, as wealth is desirable, but
not as the reward of betrayal, and health, but not at the cost of
eating anything and everything. Or perhaps pleasures differ in kind;
for those derived from noble sources are different from those
derived from base sources, and one cannot the pleasure of the just man
without being just, nor that of the musical man without being musical,
and so on.
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