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for the
runner does not merely travel along a certain line but travels along a line that is in a
certain place, and this line is in a different place from
that)—however, for a full treatment of the subject of motion I must
refer to another work,1 but it appears that a motion is not perfect at every moment, but the many
movements which make up the whole are imperfect; and different from each other in kind,
inasmuch as the terminal points of a movement constitute a specific quality.
[4]
The specific quality of pleasure on the contrary is perfect at any
moment. It is clear therefore that pleasure is not the same as motion, and that it is a
whole and something perfect.
This may also be inferred from the fact that a movement necessarily occupies a space of
time, whereas a feeling of pleasure does not, for every moment of pleasurable
consciousness is a perfect whole.
These considerations also show that it is a mistake to speak of pleasure as the result of
a motion or of a process of generation. For we cannot so describe everything, but only
such things as are divided into parts and are not wholes. Thus an act of sight, a
geometrical point, an arithmetical unit are not the result of a process of generation
(nor is any of them a motion or process2). Pleasure therefore also is
not the result of a motion or process; for pleasure is a whole.
[5]
Again, inasmuch as each of the senses acts in relation to its object, and acts perfectly
when it is in good condition and directed to the finest of the and objects that belong to
it (for this seems to be the best description of perfect activity, it being
assumed to make no difference whether it be the sense itself that acts or the organ in
which the sense resides), it follows that the activity of any of the senses is at
its best when the sense-organ being in the best condition is directed to the best of its
objects; and this activity will be the most perfect
and the pleasantest. For each sense has a corresponding pleasure, as also have thought and
speculation, and its activity is pleasantest when it is most perfect, and most perfect
when the organ is in good condition and when it is directed to the most excellent of its
objects; and the pleasure perfects the activity.
[6]
The
pleasure does not however perfect the activity in the same way as the object perceived and
the sensory faculty, if good, perfect it; just as health and the physician are not in the
same way the cause of being healthy.
[7]
(It is clear that each of the senses is accompanied by pleasure, since we apply
the term pleasant to sights and sounds3; and it is also
clear that the pleasure is greatest when the sensory faculty is both in the best condition
and acting in relation to the best object; and given excellence in the perceived object
and the percipient organ, there will always be pleasure when an object to cause it and a
subject to feel it are both present.)
[8]
But the pleasure perfects the activity, not as the fixed disposition does, by being
already present in the agent, but as a supervening perfection, like the bloom of health in
the young and vigorous.
So long therefore as both object thought of or perceived, and subject discerning or
judging, are such as they should be,