Chapter XXI. Against the Epicureans, Who Define the Good as Pleasure. From the Same

[ARISTOCLES] ‘SINCE knowledge is of two kinds, the one of things external, and the other of what we can choose or avoid, some say that as the principle and criterion of choosing and avoiding we have pleasure and pain: at least the Epicureans now still say something of this kind: it is necessary therefore to consider these points also.

‘For my part then I am so far from saying that feeling is the principle and canon of things good and evil, that I think a criterion is needed for feeling itself. For though it proves its own existence, something else is wanted to judge of its nature. For though the sensation tells whether the feeling is our own or another’s, it is reason that tells whether it is to be chosen or avoided.

‘They say indeed that they do not themselves welcome every pleasure, and shun every pain. And this is a very natural result. For the criteria prove both themselves and the things which they judge: feeling, however, proves itself only. And that this is so, they bear witness themselves. For although they maintain that every pleasure is a good and every pain an evil, nevertheless they do not say that we ought always to choose the former and avoid the latter, for they are measured by quantity and not by quality.

‘It is evident therefore that nothing else than reason, judges the quantity: for it is reason that gives the judgement, “It is better to endure this or that pain that so we may enjoy greater pleasures,” and this, “It is expedient to abstain from this or that pleasure, in order that we may not suffer more grievous pains,” and all cases of this kind.

‘On the whole, sensations and presentations seem to be, as it were, mirrors and images of things: but feelings and pleasures and pains to be changes and alterations in ourselves. And thus in sensation and in forming presentations we look to the external objects, but in experiencing pleasure and pain we turn our attention to ourselves only. For our sensations are caused by the external objects, and as their character may be, such also are the presentations which they produce: but our feelings take this or that character because of ourselves, and according to our state.

‘Wherefore these appear sometimes pleasant and sometimes unpleasant, and sometimes more and sometimes less. And this being so, we shall find, if we should choose to examine, that the best assumptions of the principles of knowledge are made by those who take into consideration both the senses and the mind.

‘While the senses are like the toils and nets and other hunting implements of this kind, the mind and the reason are like the hounds that track and pursue the prey. Better philosophers, however, than even these we must consider those to be who neither make use of their senses at random, nor associate their feelings in the discernment of truth. Else it would be a monstrous thing for beings endowed with man’s nature to forsake the most divine judgement of the mind and entrust themselves to irrational pleasures and pains.’