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For what all think to be good,
that, we assert, is good; and he that subverts our belief in the opinion of all mankind,
will hardly persuade us to believe his own either. If only the irrational creatures strove
to obtain what is pleasant, there would have been some sense in this contention; but
inasmuch as beings endowed with intelligence do so too, how can it be right? And perhaps
even the lower animals possess an instinct superior to their own natures, which seeks to
obtain the good appropriate to their kind.
[5]
Again, these thinkers' refutation of the argument from the converse appears equally
unsound. They pain say, if pain is bad, it does not follow therefore that pleasure is
good: for an evil can also be opposed to an evil and to a thing that is neither good nor
evil: a statement which is indeed sound enough, but which does not apply to the things in
question. If both pleasure and pain were in the class of evils, both would be also of
necessity things to be avoided, and if in the class of things neutral, neither ought to be
avoided, or they ought to be avoided alike; but as it is we see men avoid pain as evil and
choose pleasure as good; it is therefore as good and evil that they are opposed.
3.
Nor yet does it follow that if pleasure is not a quality, therefore it is not a good.
Virtuous activities are not qualities either, nor is happiness.
[2]
Again they argue1 that
good is definite, but that pleasure is indefinite, because it admits of degrees. Now
(a) if they base this judgement on the fact that one can be more or less
pleased, the same argument will apply to Justice and the other virtues, the possessors of
which are clearly spoken of as being more or less