Nor does that seem to be sound which is urged respecting the argument from the contrary: I mean, some people say “it does not follow that Pleasure must be good because Pain is evil, since evil may be opposed to evil, and both evil and good to what is indifferent:” now what they say is right enough in itself but does not hold in the present instance. If both Pleasure and Pain were bad both would have been objects of avoidance; or if neither then neither would have been, at all events they must have fared alike: but now men do plainly avoid the one as bad and choose the other as good, and so there is a complete opposition. Nor again is Pleasure therefore excluded from being good because it does not belong to the class of qualities:[4] the acts of Virtue are not qualities, neither is Happiness [yet surely both are goods]. Again, they say the Chief Good is limited but Pleasure unlimited, in that it admits of degrees. Now if they judge this from the act of feeling Pleasure then the same thing will apply to justice and all the other virtues,[5] in respect of which clearly it is said that men are more or less of such and such characters (according to the different virtues), they are more just or more brave, or one may practise justice and self-mastery more or less. If, on the other hand, they judge in respect of the Pleasures themselves then it may be they miss the true cause, namely that some are unmixed and others mixed: for just as health being in itself limited, admits of degrees, why should not Pleasure do so and yet be limited? in the former case we account for it by the fact that there is not the same adjustment of parts in all men, nor one and the same always in the same individual: but health, though relaxed, remains up to a certain point, and differs in degrees; and of course the same may be the case with Pleasure. Again, assuming the Chief Good to be perfect and all Movements[6] and Generations imperfect, they try to shew that Pleasure is a Movement and a Generation. Yet they do not seem warranted in saying even that it is a Movement: for to every Movement are thought to belong swiftness and slowness, and if not in itself, as to that of the universe, yet relatively: but to Pleasure neither of these belongs: for though one may have got quickly into the state Pleasure, as into that of anger, one cannot be in the state quickly,[7] nor relatively to the state of any other person; but we can walk or grow, and so on, quickly or slowly. Of course it is possible to change into the state of Pleasure quickly or slowly, but to act in the state (by which, I mean, have the perception of Pleasure) quickly, is not possible. And how can it be a Generation? because, according to notions generally held, not _any_thing is generated from _any_thing, but a thing resolves itself into that out of which it was generated: whereas of that of which Pleasure is a Generation Pain is a Destruction.