As then the Workings are different so are their Pleasures; now Sight
differs from Touch in purity, and Hearing and Smelling from Taste;
therefore, in like manner, do their Pleasures; and again, Intellectual
Pleasures from these Sensual, and the different kinds both of
Intellectual and Sensual from one another.
It is thought, moreover, that each animal has a Pleasure proper to
itself, as it has a proper Work; that Pleasure of course which is
attendant on the Working. And the soundness of this will appear upon
particular inspection: for horse, dog, and man have different
Pleasures; as Heraclitus says, an ass would sooner have hay than gold;
in other words, provender is pleasanter to asses than gold. So then the
Pleasures of animals specifically different are also specifically
different, but those of the same, we may reasonably suppose, are
without difference.
Yet in the case of human creatures they differ not a little: for the
very same things please some and pain others: and what are painful and
hateful to some are pleasant to and liked by others. The same is the
case with sweet things: the same will not seem so to the man in a fever
as to him who is in health: nor will the invalid and the person in
robust health have the same notion of warmth. The same is the case with
other things also.
Now in all such cases that is held to _be_ which impresses the good man
with the notion of being such and such; and if this is a second maxim
(as it is usually held to be), and Virtue, that is, the Good man, in
that he is such, is the measure of everything, then those must be real
Pleasures which gave him the impression of being so and those things
pleasant in which he takes Pleasure. Nor is it at all astonishing that
what are to him unpleasant should give another person the impression of
being pleasant, for men are liable to many corruptions and marrings;
and the things in question are not pleasant really, only to these
particular persons, and to them only as being thus disposed.
Well of course, you may say, it is obvious that we must assert those
which are confessedly disgraceful to be real Pleasures, except to
depraved tastes: but of those which are thought to be good what kind,
or which, must we say is _The Pleasure of Man?_ is not the answer plain
from considering the Workings, because the Pleasures follow upon these?
If then there be one or several Workings which belong to the perfect
and blessed man, the Pleasures which perfect these Workings must be
said to be specially and properly _The Pleasures of Man;_ and all the
rest in a secondary sense, and in various degrees according as the
Workings are related to those highest and best ones.
Chapter V.
Now that we have spoken about the Excellences of both kinds, and
Friendship in its varieties, and Pleasures, it remains to sketch out
Happiness, since we assume that to be the one End of all human things:
and we shall save time and trouble by recapitulating what was stated
before.