The Testimony of Cicero 59
there is no hindrance to our doing what will be most pleasing to us, [in
such circumstances] every pleasure is to be accepted and every pain
rejected. But at certain other times, because of the press of responsibilities
or the obligations imposed by circumstances it will often happen that
pleasures are to be turned down and pains are not to be rejected. And
so the wise man sticks with this [principle of] of choosing, that he either
acquires greater pleasures by rejecting some of them, or that he avoids
worse pains by enduring some of them.
On Goals 1.37-38 [I-22]
37 .... Now I will explain what pleasure is and what it is like, to
remove any misunderstandings which inexperienced people may have
and to help them to understand how serious, self-controlled, and stern
our doctrine is, though it is commonly held to be hedonistic, slack and
soft. For we do not just pursue the kind [of pleasure] which stimulates
our nature itself with a kind of smoothness and is perceived by the senses
with a sort of sweetness, but rather we hold that the greatest pleasure is
that which is perceived when all pain is removed. For since when we
are freed from pain we rejoice in this very liberation from and absence
of annoyance, and since everything in which we rejoice is a pleasure (just
as everything which irritates us is a pain), then it is right to call the
absence of all pain pleasure. Just as when hunger and thirst are driven
out by food and drink, the very removal of annoyance brings with it a
resulting pleasure, so in every case too the removal of pain brings with
it a consequent pleasure. 38. So Epicurus did not think that there was
some intermediate state between pleasure and pain; for that state which
some people think is an intermediate state, viz. the absence of all pain,
is not only pleasure but it is even the greatest pleasure. For whoever
perceives the state which he is in must in fact be in pleasure or in pain.
But Epicurus thinks that the limit for the greatest pleasure is set by the
absence of all pain; and though later [i.e., after all pain has been eliminated]
pleasure can be varied and adorned, it cannot be increased or augmented.
On Goals 1.55-57 [I-23]
- I shall give a brief account of what follows from this firm and well
established view. There is no possibility of mistake about the limits of
good and bad themselves, that is about pleasure and pain; but people do
make mistakes in these matters when they are ignorant of the means by
which they are produced. Moreover, we say that the pleasures and pains
of the mind take their origin from the pleasures and pains of the body
(and so I concede the point which you were making recently, that any