Again, they say that Pain is a lack of something suitable to nature and
Pleasure a supply of it.
But these are affections of the body: now if Pleasure really is a
supplying of somewhat suitable to nature, that must feel the Pleasure
in which the supply takes place, therefore the body of course: yet this
is not thought to be so: neither then is Pleasure a supplying, only a
person of course will be pleased when a supply takes place just as he
will be pained when he is cut short.
This notion would seem to have arisen out of the Pains and Pleasures
connected with natural nourishment; because, when people have felt a
lack and so have had Pain first, they, of course, are pleased with the
supply of their lack.
But this is not the case with all Pleasures: those attendant on
mathematical studies, for instance, are unconnected with any Pain; and
of such as attend on the senses those which arise through the sense of
Smell; and again, many sounds, and sights, and memories, and hopes: now
of what can these be Generations? because there has been here no lack
of anything to be afterwards supplied.
And to those who bring forward disgraceful Pleasures we may reply that
these are not really pleasant things; for it does not follow because
they are pleasant to the ill-disposed that we are to admit that they
are pleasant except to them; just as we should not say that those
things are really wholesome, or sweet, or bitter, which are so to the
sick, or those objects really white which give that impression to
people labouring under ophthalmia.[8]
Or we might say thus, that the Pleasures are choice-worthy but not as
derived from these sources: just as wealth is, but not as the price of
treason; or health, but not on the terms of eating anything however
loathsome.
Or again, may we not say that Pleasures differ in kind? those derived
from honourable objects, for instance are different from those arising
from disgraceful ones; and it is not possible to experience the
Pleasure of the just man without being just, or of the musical man
without being musical; and so on of others.
The distinction commonly drawn between the friend and the flatterer
would seem to show clearly either that Pleasure is not a good, or that
there are different kinds of Pleasure: for the former is thought to
have good as the object of his intercourse, the latter Pleasure only;
and this last is reproached, but the former men praise as having
different objects in his intercourse.
Again, no one would choose to live with a child’s intellect all his
life through, though receiving the highest possible Pleasure from such
objects as children receive it from; or to take Pleasure in doing any
of the most disgraceful things, though sure never to be pained.