The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

Now, in the satisfaction of the animal appetites, that which is active is [not that part which is in want, but] the rest of our faculties or of our nature ; * for there are pleasures which involve no previous pain or appetite, such as the activity of philosophic study, wherein our nature is not conscious of any want.

A further proof of this is the fact that while our natural wants are beint; filled we do not take delight in the same things which delight us when that process has been completed : when the want has been filled we take delight in things that are pleasant in themselves, while it is being filled in their opposites ; for we then take delight in sharp and bitter things, none of which are naturally pleasant or pleasant in them-

* Cf. infra, 14, 7. I have frequently in this chapter rendered Ifis by faculty, in order to expx-ess the opposition to e»'*'f>7€ia, activity or exercise of faculty ; but no single word is satisfactory.

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selves. The pleasures, then, which these things give are not real pleasures ; for pleasures are related to one another as the things that produce them.

Again, it does not necessarily follow, as some maintain, that there is something else better than pleasure, as the end is better than the process or transition to the end : for a pleasure is not a transition, nor does it always even imply a transition ; but it is an activity [or exercise of faculty], and itself an end : further, it is not in becoming something, but in doing something that we feel pleasure : and, lastly, the end is not always something different from the process or transition, but it is only when something is being brought to the completion of its nature that this is the case.

For these reasons it is not proper to say that pleasure is a " felt transition," but rather that it is an " exercise of faculties that are in their natural state," substituting " unimpeded " for " felt."

Some people, indeed, think that pleasure is a transition, just because it is in the full sense good, supposing that the exercise of faculty is a transition ; but it is in fact something different.*

To urge, again, that some pleasures are bad, because some pleasant things are unhealthy, is like arguing that some things that are healthy are bad for money making. Both indeed are bad in this sense, but that

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does not make them bad in themselves : even philo- - hie study is sometimes bad for one's health.

* The argument in full would be thus : pleasure is good ; but good is exercise of faculty (evepyeta), and this is a process or transition (yevecris) ; .'. pleasure is a transition. But according tc Aristotle the highest ivepyeia involves no transition or motion at all (c/. 14, 8), and in every true iufpyeia, even •when a transition is involved, the end is attained at every moment.

As to pleasure being an impediment to thinking, the fact is that neither prudence nor any other faculty is impeded by the pleasure proper to its exercise, but by other pleasures ; the pleasure derived from study and learning will make us study and learn more.

That there should be no art devoted to the production of any kind of pleasure, is but natural ; for art never produces an activity, but only makes it possible : the arts of perfumery and cookery, however, are usually considered to be arts of pleasure.

As to the arguments that the temperate man avoids pleasure, that the prudent man pursues the painless life, and that children and brutes pursue pleasure, they may all be met in the same way, viz. thus : —