(ii.) Moreover, that all animals and all human beings pursue pleasure
is some indication that it is in a sense the Supreme Good: “
No rumor noised abroad by many peoples
Comes utterly to naught.1
” [6]
But they do not all pursue the same pleasure, since the natural state and the best state neither is nor seems to be the same for them all; yet still they all pursue pleasure. Indeed it is possible that in reality they do not pursue the pleasure which they think and would say they do, but all the same pleasure; for nature has implanted in all things something divine.2 But as the pleasures of the body are the ones which we most often meet with, and as all men are capable of these, these have usurped the family title; and so men think these are the only pleasures that exist, because they are the only ones which they know.