Now then that we have detailed six opinions about the chief good, these are the chief advocates of the three last-mentioned opinions,—Aristippus, the advocate of pleasure; Hieronymus, of freedom from pain; and Carneades, of the enjoyment of those things which we have called the principal things in accordance with nature (though he, indeed, was not the author of this theory, but only its advocate, for the sake of maintaining a debate). Now, the three former were such as might possibly be true, though only one of them was defended, and that was vehemently maintained. For no one says, that to do everything for the sake of pleasure, or that, even though we obtain nothing, still the very design of acting so is of itself desirable, and honourable, and the only good; no one ever even placed the avoidance of pain (not even if it could be avoided) among things intrinsically desirable; but to do everything with a view to obtain the things which are according to nature, even though we do not succeed in obtaining them, the Stoics do affirm to be honourable, and the only thing to be desired for its own sake, and the only good. VIII. These, then, are six plain opinions about the chief good and the chief evil,—two having no advocate, but four being defended. But of united and twofold explanations of the chief good there were in all three; nor could there be more if you examine the nature of things thoroughly. For either pleasure can be added to honourableness, as Callipho and Dinomachus thought; or freedom from pain, as Diodorus asserted; or the first gifts of nature, as the ancients said, whom we call at the same time Academics and Peripatetics. But, since everything cannot be said at once, at present these things ought to be known, that pleasure ought to be excluded; since, as it will presently appear, we have been born for higher purposes; and nearly the same may be said of freedom from pain as of pleasure. Since then we have discussed pleasure with Torquatus, and honourableness (in which alone every good was to consist) with Cato; in the first place, the arguments which were urged against pleasure are nearly equally applicable to freedom from pain. Nor, indeed, need we seek for any others to reply to that opinion of Carneades; for in whatever manner the chief good is explained, so as to be unconnected with honourableness, in that system duty, and virtue, and friendship, can have no place. But the union of either pleasure or freedom from pain with honourableness, makes that very honourableness which it wishes to embrace dishonourable; for to refer what you do to those things, one of which asserts the man who is free from evil to be in the enjoyment of the chief good, while the other is conversant with the most trifling part of our nature, is rather the conduct of a man who would obscure the whole brilliancy of honourableness—I might almost say, who would pollute it.