The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

bad by virtue
of pursuing the excess, not by virtue of pursuing the necessary
pleasures (for all men enjoy in some way or other both dainty foods
and wines and sexual intercourse, but not all men do so as they
ought). The contrary is the case with pain; for he does not avoid
the excess of it, he avoids it altogether; and this is peculiar to
him, for the alternative to excess of pleasure is not pain, except
to the man who pursues this excess.
    Since we should state not only the truth, but also the cause of
error-for this contributes towards producing conviction, since when
a reasonable explanation is given of why the false view appears
true, this tends to produce belief in the true view-therefore we
must state why the bodily pleasures appear the more worthy of
choice. (a) Firstly, then, it is because they expel pain; owing to
the excesses of pain that men experience, they pursue excessive and
in general bodily pleasure as being a cure for the pain. Now
curative agencies produce intense feeling-which is the reason why
they are pursued-because they show up against the contrary pain.
(Indeed pleasure is thought not to be good for these two reasons,
as has been said, viz. that (a) some of them are activities
belonging to a bad nature-either congenital, as in the case of a
brute, or due to habit, i.e. those of bad men; while (b) others are
meant to cure a defective nature, and it is better to be in a
healthy state than to be getting into it, but these arise during
the process of being made perfect and are therefore only
incidentally good.) (b) Further, they are pursued because of their
violence by those who cannot enjoy other pleasures. (At all events
they go out of their way to manufacture thirsts somehow for
themselves. When these are harmless, the practice is
irreproachable; when they are hurtful, it is bad.) For they have
nothing else to enjoy, and, besides, a neutral state is painful to
many people because of their nature. For the animal nature is
always in travail, as the students of natural science also testify,
saying that sight and hearing are painful; but we have become used
to this, as they maintain. Similarly, while, in youth, people are,
owing to the growth that is going on, in a situation like that of
drunken men, and youth is pleasant, on the other hand people of
excitable nature always need relief; for even their body is ever in
torment owing to its special composition, and they are always under
the influence of violent desire; but pain is driven out both by the
contrary pleasure, and by any chance pleasure if it be strong; and
for these reasons they become self-indulgent and bad. But the
pleasures that do not involve pains do not admit of excess; and
these are among the things pleasant by nature and not incidentally.
By things pleasant incidentally I mean those that act as cures (for
because as a result people are cured, through some action of the
part that remains healthy, for this reason the process is thought
pleasant); by things naturally pleasant I mean those that stimulate
the action of the healthy nature.
    There is no one thing that is always pleasant, because our
nature is not simple but there is another element in us as well,
inasmuch as we are perishable creatures, so that if the one element
does something, this is unnatural to the other nature, and when the
two elements are evenly balanced, what is done seems neither
painful nor pleasant; for if the nature of anything were simple,
the same action would always be most pleasant to it. This is why
God always enjoys a single and simple pleasure; for there is not
only an activity of movement but an activity of immobility, and
pleasure is found more in rest than in movement. But ‘change in all
things is sweet’, as the poet says, because of some vice; for as it
is the vicious man that is changeable, so the nature that needs
change is vicious; for it is not simple nor good.
    We have now discussed continence and incontinence, and pleasure
and pain, both what each is and in what sense some of them are good
and others bad; it remains to speak of friendship.

Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII
    Translated by W. D. Ross
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1
    After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would
naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, and is
besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends
no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even
rich men and those in possession of office and of