Page:The ethics of Aristotle.djvu/203

 state; but no such process is akin to the end to be attained: e.g. no process of building to the completed house.

2. The man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids Pleasures.

3. The man of Practical Wisdom aims at avoiding Pain, not at attaining Pleasure.

4. Pleasures are an impediment to thought, and the more so the more keenly they are felt. An obvious instance will readily occur.

5. Pleasure cannot be referred to any Art: and yet every good is the result of some Art.

6. Children and brutes pursue Pleasures.

In support of the second (that not all Pleasures are good), That there are some base and matter of reproach, and some even hurtful: because some things that are pleasant produce disease.

In support of the third (that Pleasure is not the Chief Good), That it is not an End but a process towards creating an End.

This is, I think, a fair account of current views on the matter.

XII
But that the reasons alleged do not prove it either to be not-good or the Chief Good is plain from the following considerations.

First. Good being either absolute or relative, of course the natures and states embodying it will be so too; therefore also the movements and the processes of creation. So, of those which are thought to be bad some will be bad absolutely, but relatively not bad, perhaps even choiceworthy; some not even choiceworthy relatively to any particular person, only at certain times or for a short time but not in themselves choiceworthy.

Others again are not even Pleasures at all though they produce that impression on the mind: all such I mean as imply pain and whose purpose is cure; those of sick people, for instance.

Next, since Good may be either an active working or a state, those [ or ] which tend to place us in our natural state are pleasant incidentally because of that