) Pleasure completes the activity not
as the corresponding permanent state does, by its immanence, but as an
end which supervenes as the bloom of youth does on those in the flower
of their age. So long, then, as both the intelligible or sensible
object and the discriminating or contemplative faculty are as they
should be, the pleasure will be involved in the activity; for when
both the passive and the active factor are unchanged and are related
to each other in the same way, the same result naturally follows.
How, then, is it that no one is continuously pleased? Is it that
we grow weary? Certainly all human beings are incapable of
continuous activity. Therefore pleasure also is not continuous; for it
accompanies activity. Some things delight us when they are new, but
later do so less, for the same reason; for at first the mind is in a
state of stimulation and intensely active about them, as people are
with respect to their vision when they look hard at a thing, but
afterwards our activity is not of this kind, but has grown relaxed;
for which reason the pleasure also is dulled.
One might think that all men desire pleasure because they all aim at
life; life is an activity, and each man is active about those things
and with those faculties that he loves most; e.
Pages:
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325