IX
[9arg] How the same Plutarch, with obvious captiousness, criticized the use of a word by Epicurus.IN the same book, 1 Plutarch also finds fault a second time with Epicurus for using an inappropriate word and giving it an incorrect meaning. Now Epicurus wrote as follows: 2 “The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of everything that pains.” Plutarch declares that he ought not to have said [p. 151] “of everything that pains,” but “of everything that is painful” ; for it is the removal of pain, he explains, that should be indicated, not of that which causes pain. In bringing this charge against Epicurus Plutarch is “word-chasing” with excessive minuteness and almost with frigidity; for far from hunting up such verbal meticulousness and such refinements of diction, Epicurus hunts them down. 3