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276 the true nature of man does not centre in sensation, but in something very different; namely, in the free and self-originated activity of thought. But this part of the Socratic philosophy Aristippus had overlooked or misunderstood.

10. But although Aristippus represented pleasure as the chief end of man, we are not to suppose that he broached his system, or advocated this doctrine of hedonism, for the purpose of exciting man's desires, or of stimulating him to the pursuit of mere sensual indulgences. That, in his opinion, would have been a very unnecessary task, a work of supererogation. He must have held that man required no philosophy to urge him forward in the path along which he was already so vehemently propelled by his nature. But although man requires no stimulus to urge him forward in the pursuit of pleasure, he may require, and he does require, a monitor to direct him in the pursuit, and even at times to hold him back; and this monitor appears in the moral philosophy of Aristippus. It is true that the hedonism which he inculcates chimes in with the ordinary sentiments of mankind, in so far as it holds that sensational enjoyment is the chief end of man: it admits that, by the very law of life, pleasure is to be pursued, that pain is to be shunned; but it differs from the ordinary sentiments of mankind in this respect, that while they would impose no restraint on our pursuit of pleasure, or in our avoidance of pain, the philosophy of