Kitap 7
4
(1) Now the first reason is that pleasure drives out pain; and excessive pain leads men to seek excessive pleasure, and bodily pleasure generally, as a restorative. And these restorative pleasures are intense, and therefore sought for, because they are seen in contrast with their opposite. (The view that pleasure is not a good at all is also due to these two facts, as has been said,The reference is presumably to 12.1, but the two passages do not correspond very closely. (a) that some pleasures are actions indicative of an evil nature, whether it be depraved from birth, like the nature of an animal,Cf. 6.6, second note. or corrupted by habit, as is the case with evil men, and (b) that others are restoratives of a defective state,Or possibly that the restorative pleasures imply a defective state. and to be in the natural state is better than to be in process of returning to it. But as a matter of fact the latter sort of pleasures accompany a process towards perfection, so that accidentally they are good.)
5
(2) Another reason is that bodily pleasures are sought for, just because of their intensity, by people who are incapable of enjoying others (for instance, some deliberately take steps to make themselves thirsty) : not that there is any objection to this if the pleasures are innocuous, but it is bad if they are productive of harmful results. The fact is that some men have no other sources of enjoyment; and also many are so constituted that a neutral state of feeling is to them positively painful. (This is because a state of strain is the normal condition of an animal organism, as physiology testifies; it tells us that sight and hearing are in fact painful, but we have got used to them in course of time—such is the theory.)
