VII. Some people consider the first desire to be a desire of pleasure, and the first thing which men seek to ward off to be pain: others think that the first thing wished for is freedom from pain, and the first thing shunned, pain; and from these men others proceed, who call the first goods natural ones; among which they reckon the safety and integrity of all one’s parts, good health, the senses unimpaired, freedom from pain, strength, beauty, and other things of the same sort, the images of which are the first things in the mind, like the sparks and seeds of the virtues. And of these three, as there is some one thing by which nature is originally moved to feel desire, or to repel something, and as it is impossible that there should be anything except these three things, it follows unavoidably that every duty, whether of avoiding or of pursuing anything, is referred to some one of these things; so that that prudence, which we have called the art of life, is always conversant about some one of these three things from which it derives the beginning of the whole life: and from that which it has pronounced to be the original cause by which nature is excited, the principle of what is right and honourable arises; which can agree with some one of these three divisions; so that it is honourable to do everything for the sake of pleasure, even if you do not obtain it; or else for the sake of avoiding pain, though you may not be able to compass that; or else of getting some one of those things which are according to nature. And thus it comes about that there is as much difference between the chief good and the chief evil as there is in their natural principles. Others again, starting from the same beginning, refer everything either to pleasure or to freedom from pain, or else to the attainment of those primary goods which are according to nature.