but you cannot be pleased quickly, nor yet more quickly than
somebody else, as you can walk, grow, etc., more quickly than somebody else. It is
possible to pass into a pleasurable state quickly or slowly, but not to function in that
state—i.e. to feel pleasure—quickly.
[
5]
And (b) in what sense can pleasure
be a process of generation? We do not think that any chance thing can be generated from
any other chance thing, but that a thing at its dissolution is resolved into that from
which it is generated; and if pleasure is the generation of something, pain is the
destruction of that thing.
[
6]
Also (c) they say
1 that pain is a deficiency of
the natural state and pleasure is its replenishment. But these are bodily experiences. Now
if pleasure is a replenishment of the natural state, the pleasure will be felt by the
thing in which the replenishment takes place. Therefore it is the body that feels
pleasure. But this does not seem to be the case. Therefore pleasure is not a process of
replenishment, though while replenishment takes place, a feeling of pleasure may accompany
it, just as a feeling of pain may accompany a surgical operation.
2 The belief that pleasure is a replenishment seems to have arisen from the
pains and pleasures connected with food: here the pleasure does arise from a
replenishment, and is preceded by the pain of a want.
[
7]
But this is not the case with all pleasures: the
pleasures of knowledge, for example, have no antecedent pain; nor have certain of the
pleasures of sense, namely those whose medium is the sense of smell, as well as many
sounds and sights; and also memories and hopes. If these are processes of generation,
generation of what? No lack of anything has
occurred that may be replenished.
[8]
In reply to those who bring forward the disreputable pleasures, one may
(a) deny that these are really pleasant: for granted they are pleasant
to ill-conditioned people, it cannot therefore be assumed that they are actually pleasant,
except to them, any more than things healthy or sweet or bitter to invalids are really so,
or any more than things that seem white to people with a disease of the eyes are really
white.
[9]
Or
(b) one may take the line that, though the pleasures themselves are
desirable, they are not desirable when derived from those sources; just as wealth is
desirable, but not if won by treachery, or health, but not at the cost of eating anything
and everything.
[10]
Or
(c) we may say that pleasures differ in specific quality; since
(a) those derived from noble sources are not the same as those derived
from base sources, and it is impossible to feel the pleasures of a just man without being
just, or the pleasures of a musician without being musical, and so on.
[11]
And also ( β) the distinction between a friend and a flatterer
seems to show that pleasure is not a good, or else that pleasures are specifically
different; since a friend is thought to aim at doing good to his companion, a flatterer at
giving pleasure; to be a flatterer is a reproach, whereas a friend is praised because in
his intercourse he aims at other things.