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

Again, these pleasures are pursued because of their intensity by those who are unable to take delight in other pleasures ; thus we see people make themselves thirsty on purpose. When the pleasures they pursue are harmless, we do not blame them (though when they are hurtful the pursuit is bad) ; for they have no other sources of enjoyment, and the neutral state is painful to many because of their nature : for an animal is always labouring, as physical science teaches, telling us that seeing and hearing is labour and pain, only we are all used to it, as the saying is. And thus in youth, because they are growing, men are in a state resembling drunkenness ; and youth is pleasant. But people of a melancholic nature are always wanting something to restore their balance ; for their bodies are always vexing them because of their peculiar temperament, and they are always in a state of violent desire. But pain is expelled either by the opposite pleasure or by any pleasure, if it be sufficiently strong; and this is the reason why such men become profligate and worthless. < But pleasures that have no antecedent pain do not admit of excess. These are the pleasures derived from things that are naturally and not merely accidentally pleasant. I call those things accidentally pleasant that have a restorative eflfect ; for as the restoration cannot take place unless that part of the system which remains healthy be in some way active, the restoration itself seems pleasant : but I call those things naturally pleasant that stimulate the activity of a healthy system.*

* Cf. supra, 12, 2.

I am sick and take medicine, hungry and take food (which

14. 5-S,:\ OF PLEASURE. 249

But nothing can continue to give us uninterrupted pleasure, because our nature is not simple, but contains a second element which makes us mortal ' ings ; * so that if the one element be active in any ay, this is contrary to the nature of the other element, but when the two elements are in equilibrium, what we do seems neither painful nor pleasant; for if there were a being whose nature were simple, the same activity would be always most pleasant to him. And on this account God always enjoys one simple pleasure ; for besides the activity of movement, there is also activity without movement, and rest admits of truer pleasure than motion. But change is "the sweetest of all things," as the poet says, because of a certain badness in us : for just as it is the bad man who is especially apt to change, is it the bad nature that needs change; for it - neither simple nor good.

seems to be here inclnded under medicine) ; but neither the drug nor the food can of themselves cure me and restore the balance of my system — they must be assimilated (for the body is not like a jar that can be filled merely by pouring water from another jar), i.e. part of my system must remain in its normal state and operate in its rmal manner. But this operation, this iyfpyeia Tfjs Kara (pvciv e^eus, pleasure (by the definition given above, 12, 3), and in ignorance of the process we transfer the pleasure to the medicine and call it pleasant. The weakness of this account is that it overlooks the fact that, though the medicine cannot itself cure without the operation of t^s koto ipwrw e|e<»y, yet on the other hand this e|«s, this faculty, cannot operate in this manner without this stimulus ; so that there seems to be no reason why the medicine, as setting up an fvfpyfia t^s koto (pixriy e^eas, should not itself be called (pvafi ffiv. But the whole passage rests on the assumption that there can be activity without stimulus, i.e. without want — an assumption ^hich has become inconceivable to us. • Cf. X. 7, 8.

J

p. 250

We have now considered continence and incontinence, and pleasure and pain, and have explained what each is, and how some of them are good and some bad. It remains to consider friendship.

BOOK VIII.

FRIENDSHIP OR LOVE.

1. After the foregoing, a discussion of friendship vus of