have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid;
seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of
something that is lacking, nor to look anything else by which
the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When
we are pained pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the
need of pleasure. For this reason we call pleasure the alpha
and omega of a happy life. Pleasure is our first and kindred
good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every
aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling
the rule by which to judge of every good thing. And since
pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do
not choose every pleasure whatever, but often pass over many
pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And often
we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the
pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater
pleasure. While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally
akin to us is good, not all pleasure is worthy of choice, just
as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned.
It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by
looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, teat all these
matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an
evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good. Again, we
regard. independence of outward things as a great good, not so
as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with
little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they
have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need
of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and
only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as
much pleasure as a costly diet, when one the pain of want has
been removed, while bread an water confer the highest possible
pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate
one's se therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies al
that is needful for health, and enables a person to meet the
necessary requirements of life without shrinking and it places
us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a
costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not
mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of
sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through
ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By
pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of
trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of
drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the
enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious
table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning,
searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and
banishing those beliefs through which the greatest
disturbances take possession of the soul. Of all this the d is
prudence. For this reason prudence is a more precious thing
even than the other virtues, for ad a life of pleasure which
is not also a life of prudence, honor, and justice; nor lead a
life of prudence, honor, and justice, which is not also a life
of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a
pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.
Who, then, is superior in your judgment to such a person? He
holds a holy belief concerning the gods, and is altogether
free from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the
end fixed by nature, and understands how easily the limit of
good things can be reached and attained, and how either the
duration or the intensity of evils is but slight. Destiny
which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he laughs
to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of
necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency.
For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that
chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are
free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally
attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the
gods than to bow beneath destiny which the natural
philosophers have imposed. The one holds out some faint hope
that we may escape if we honor the gods, while the necessity
of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold
chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the
acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though
an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is
dispensed by chance to people so as to make life happy, though
it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil.
He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the
prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is
well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to
the aid of chance.
Exercise yourself in these and kindred precepts day and night,
both by yourself and with him who is like to you; then never,
either in waking or in dream, will you be disturbed, but will
live as a god among people. For people lose all appearance of
mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings.
1 [COPYRIGHT: (c) 1996, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu), all
rights reserved. Unaltered copies of this computer text file
may be freely distribute for personal and classroom use.
Alterations to this file are permitted only for purposes of
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this file cannot be sold without written permission from the
copyright holder. This copyright notice supersedes all
previous notices on earlier versions of this text file. This
is a working draft. Please report errors to James Fieser
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