The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

is clear that nothing else, any
more than pleasure, can be the good if it is made more desirable by
the addition of any of the things that are good in themselves.
What, then, is there that satisfies this criterion, which at the
same time we can participate in? It is something of this sort that
we are looking for. Those who object that that at which all things
aim is not necessarily good are, we may surmise, talking nonsense.
For we say that that which every one thinks really is so; and the
man who attacks this belief will hardly have anything more credible
to maintain instead. If it is senseless creatures that desire the
things in question, there might be something in what they say; but
if intelligent creatures do so as well, what sense can there be in
this view? But perhaps even in inferior creatures there is some
natural good stronger than themselves which aims at their proper
good.
    Nor does the argument about the contrary of pleasure seem to be
correct. They say that if pain is an evil it does not follow that
pleasure is a good; for evil is opposed to evil and at the same
time both are opposed to the neutral state-which is correct enough
but does not apply to the things in question. For if both pleasure
and pain belonged to the class of evils they ought both to be
objects of aversion, while if they belonged to the class of
neutrals neither should be an object of aversion or they should
both be equally so; but in fact people evidently avoid the one as
evil and choose the other as good; that then must be the nature of
the opposition between them.
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    Nor again, if pleasure is not a quality, does it follow that it
is not a good; for the activities of virtue are not qualities
either, nor is happiness. They say, however, that the good is
determinate, while pleasure is indeterminate, because it admits of
degrees. Now if it is from the feeling of pleasure that they judge
thus, the same will be true of justice and the other virtues, in
respect of which we plainly say that people of a certain character
are so more or less, and act more or less in accordance with these
virtues; for people may be more just or brave, and it is possible
also to act justly or temperately more or less. But if their
judgement is based on the various pleasures, surely they are not
stating the real cause, if in fact some pleasures are unmixed and
others mixed. Again, just as health admits of degrees without being
indeterminate, why should not pleasure? The same proportion is not
found in all things, nor a single proportion always in the same
thing, but it may be relaxed and yet persist up to a point, and it
may differ in degree. The case of pleasure also may therefore be of
this kind.
    Again, they assume that the good is perfect while movements and
comings into being are imperfect, and try to exhibit pleasure as
being a movement and a coming into being. But they do not seem to
be right even in saying that it is a movement. For speed and
slowness are thought to be proper to every movement, and if a
movement, e.g. that of the heavens, has not speed or slowness in
itself, it has it in relation to something else; but of pleasure
neither of these things is true. For while we may become pleased
quickly as we may become angry quickly, we cannot be pleased
quickly, not even in relation to some one else, while we can walk,
or grow, or the like, quickly. While, then, we can change quickly
or slowly into a state of pleasure, we cannot quickly exhibit the
activity of pleasure, i.e. be pleased. Again, how can it be a
coming into being? It is not thought that any chance thing can come
out of any chance thing, but that a thing is dissolved into that
out of which it comes into being; and pain would be the destruction
of that of which pleasure is the coming into being.
    They say, too, that pain is the lack of that which is according
to nature, and pleasure is replenishment. But these experiences are
bodily. If then pleasure is replenishment with that which is
according to nature, that which feels pleasure will be that in
which the replenishment takes place, i.e. the body; but that is not
thought to be the case; therefore the replenishment is not
pleasure, though one would be pleased when replenishment was taking
place, just as one would be pained if one was being operated on.
This opinion seems to be based on the pains and pleasures connected
with nutrition; on the fact that when people have been short of
food and have felt pain