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[6]
The profligate therefore desires all pleasures, or those that are the most pleasant, and
is led by his desire to pursue these in preference to everything else. He consequently
feels pain not only when he fails to get them, but also from his desire for them, since
desire is accompanied by pain; paradoxical though it seems that pain should be caused by
pleasure.
[7]
Men erring on the side of deficiency as regards pleasures, and taking less than a proper
amount of enjoyment in them, scarcely occur; such insensibility is not human. Indeed, even
the lower animals discriminate in food, and like some kinds and not others; and if there
be a creature that finds nothing pleasant, and sees no difference between one thing and
another, it must be very far removed from humanity. As men of this type scarcely occur, we
have no special name for them.
[8]
The temperate man keeps a middle course in these matters. He takes no pleasure at all in
the things that the profligate enjoys most, on the contrary, he positively dislikes them;
nor in general does he find pleasure in wrong things, nor excessive pleasure in anything
of this sort; nor does he feel pain or desire when they are lacking, or only in a moderate
degree, not more than is right, nor at the wrong time, et
cetera. But such pleasures as conduce to health and fitness he will try to
obtain in a moderate and right degree; as also other pleasures so far as they are not
detrimental to health and fitness, and not ignoble, nor beyond his means. The man who
exceeds these limits cares more for such pleasures than they are worth.