Next, it does not follow that there must be something else better than
any given pleasure because (as some say) the End must be better than
the process which creates it. For it is not true that all Pleasures are
processes or even attended by any process, but (some are) active
workings or even Ends: in fact they result not from our coming to be
something but from our using our powers. Again, it is not true that the
End is, in every case, distinct from the process: it is true only in
the case of such processes as conduce to the perfecting of the natural
state.
For which reason it is wrong to say that Pleasure is “a sensible
process of production.” For “process etc.” should be substituted
“active working of the natural state,” for “sensible” “unimpeded.” The
reason of its being thought to be a “process etc.” is that it is good
in the highest sense: people confusing “active working” and “process,”
whereas they really are distinct.
Next, as to the argument that there are bad Pleasures because some
things which are pleasant are also hurtful to health, it is the same as
saying that some healthful things are bad for “business.” In this
sense, of course, both may be said to be bad, but then this does not
make them out to be bad _simpliciter_: the exercise of the pure
Intellect sometimes hurts a man’s health: but what hinders Practical
Wisdom or any state whatever is, not the Pleasure peculiar to, but some
Pleasure foreign to it: the Pleasures arising from the exercise of the
pure Intellect or from learning only promote each.
Next. “No Pleasure is the work of any Art.” What else would you expect?
No active working is the work of any Art, only the faculty of so
working. Still the perfumer’s Art or the cook’s are thought to belong
to Pleasure.
Next. “The man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids Pleasures.” “The man of
Practical Wisdom aims at escaping Pain rather than at attaining
Pleasure.”
“Children and brutes pursue Pleasures.”
One answer will do for all.
We have already said in what sense all Pleasures are good _per se_ and
in what sense not all are good: it is the latter class that brutes and
children pursue, such as are accompanied by desire and pain, that is
the bodily Pleasures (which answer to this description) and the
excesses of them: in short, those in respect of which the man utterly
destitute of Self-Control is thus utterly destitute. And it is the
absence of the pain arising from these Pleasures that the man of
Practical Wisdom aims at. It follows that these Pleasures are what the
man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids: for obviously he has Pleasures
peculiarly his own.
Then again, it is allowed that Pain is an evil and a thing to be
avoided partly as bad _per se_, partly as being a hindrance in some
particular way. Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided, _quâ_
it is to be avoided, _i.e._ evil, is good. Pleasure then must be _a_
good.