Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​However, the removal of pain, as is stated in Epicurus, does not seem to them to be pleasure, nor absence of pleasure to be pain. For both consist in motion, whereas neither freedom from pain nor absence of pleasure is motion, since freedom from pain is, as it were, the condition of one asleep. They also say that some people, through perversion, may fail to choose pleasure; not all mental pleasures and pains, however, arise upon bodily pleasures and pains. For indeed, upon the mere prosperity of one's fatherland, just as upon one's own, joy arises. Furthermore, they say that pleasure is by no means produced by memory or anticipation of good things—which was acceptable to Epicurus.

​For the motion of the soul is relaxed by time. They also say that pleasures do not arise from mere seeing or hearing. At any rate, we listen with pleasure to those imitating laments, but with displeasure to those who are truly lamenting. They designated absence of pleasure and freedom from pain as intermediate states. Nevertheless, they maintained that bodily pleasures are far better than mental ones, and bodily afflictions worse; whence also offenders are punished rather with these. For they assumed that suffering pain is more grievous, but enjoying pleasure more connatural. For which reason they also exercised greater care about the latter. Wherefore, even though pleasure is desirable for its own sake, the productive causes of some pleasures are troublesome and often conflict with them, so that the aggregation of pleasures producing happiness appears to them most difficult.

​They also hold that the wise man does not live entirely pleasantly, nor the foolish man entirely painfully, but only for the most part; and it is sufficient if someone returns pleasantly to life even according to a single incoming pleasure. They say that prudence is a good, but not desirable for its own sake, but for the sake of what accrues from it; and a friend for the sake of utility, for indeed we cherish a part of the body as long as it is present. Some of the virtues subsist even among the foolish. Bodily training contributes to the acquisition of virtue. The wise man will neither envy nor fall in love nor be superstitious; for these arise from empty opinion. He will, however, feel grief and fear, for these arise naturally.

​And wealth too is productive of pleasure, though not desirable for its own sake. Affections are apprehensible. They used to say, therefore, that the affections themselves are apprehensible, but not the things from which they arise. They also kept away from natural philosophy on account of its apparent inapprehensibility, but touched upon logic on account of its utility. Meleager in his second book On Opinions and Clitomachus in his first book On the Sects say that they regarded both the natural and the dialectical branch as useless; for it is possible both to speak well and to be free from superstition and to escape the fear of death for one who has thoroughly learned the doctrine concerning goods and evils.

​And nothing is just or noble or disgraceful by nature, but by convention and custom. However, the virtuous man will do nothing improper on account of the penalties and opinions that are imposed; and the wise man exists, they say. They admit progress both in philosophy and in other pursuits. And they say that one person grieves more than another, and that the senses do not always speak the truth. Those called Hegesiacs had the same ends, pleasure and pain. But they held that neither gratitude nor friendship nor beneficence exists, because we do not choose these things for their own sakes, but for utilities themselves, in the absence of which those things do not exist either.

​Happiness is entirely impossible. For the body is filled with many affections, and the soul suffers together with the body and is troubled, and fortune prevents many things that are hoped for, so that on account of these reasons happiness is non-existent. Both life and death are eligible. They held that by nature nothing is pleasant or unpleasant; but on account of scarcity, novelty, or satiety some take pleasure and others feel displeasure. Poverty and wealth are nothing with regard to the account of pleasure; for the wealthy do not experience pleasure differently from the poor. Slavery is equally indifferent to freedom with respect to the measure of pleasure, as are noble birth to low birth, and glory to ignominy.