The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

beforehand they are pleased by the
replenishment. But this does not happen with all pleasures; for the
pleasures of learning and, among the sensuous pleasures, those of
smell, and also many sounds and sights, and memories and hopes, do
not presuppose pain. Of what then will these be the coming into
being? There has not been lack of anything of which they could be
the supplying anew.
    In reply to those who bring forward the disgraceful pleasures
one may say that these are not pleasant; if things are pleasant to
people of vicious constitution, we must not suppose that they are
also pleasant to others than these, just as we do not reason so
about the things that are wholesome or sweet or bitter to sick
people, or ascribe whiteness to the things that seem white to those
suffering from a disease of the eye. Or one might answer thus-that
the pleasures are desirable, but not from these sources, as wealth
is desirable, but not as the reward of betrayal, and health, but
not at the cost of eating anything and everything. Or perhaps
pleasures differ in kind; for those derived from noble sources are
different from those derived from base sources, and one cannot the
pleasure of the just man without being just, nor that of the
musical man without being musical, and so on.
    The fact, too, that a friend is different from a flatterer seems
to make it plain that pleasure is not a good or that pleasures are
different in kind; for the one is thought to consort with us with a
view to the good, the other with a view to our pleasure, and the
one is reproached for his conduct while the other is praised on the
ground that he consorts with us for different ends. And no one
would choose to live with the intellect of a child throughout his
life, however much he were to be pleased at the things that
children are pleased at, nor to get enjoyment by doing some most
disgraceful deed, though he were never to feel any pain in
consequence. And there are many things we should be keen about even
if they brought no pleasure, e.g. seeing, remembering, knowing,
possessing the virtues. If pleasures necessarily do accompany
these, that makes no odds; we should choose these even if no
pleasure resulted. It seems to be clear, then, that neither is
pleasure the good nor is all pleasure desirable, and that some
pleasures are desirable in themselves, differing in kind or in
their sources from the others. So much for the things that are said
about pleasure and pain.
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4
    What pleasure is, or what kind of thing it is, will become
plainer if we take up the question aga from the beginning. Seeing
seems to be at any moment complete, for it does not lack anything
which coming into being later will complete its form; and pleasure
also seems to be of this nature. For it is a whole, and at no time
can one find a pleasure whose form will be completed if the
pleasure lasts longer. For this reason, too, it is not a movement.
For every movement (e.g. that of building) takes time and is for
the sake of an end, and is complete when it has made what it aims
at. It is complete, therefore, only in the whole time or at that
final moment. In their parts and during the time they occupy, all
movements are incomplete, and are different in kind from the whole
movement and from each other. For the fitting together of the
stones is different from the fluting of the column, and these are
both different from the making of the temple; and the making of the
temple is complete (for it lacks nothing with a view to the end
proposed), but the making of the base or of the triglyph is
incomplete; for each is the making of only a part. They differ in
kind, then, and it is not possible to find at any and every time a
movement complete in form, but if at all, only in the whole time.
So, too, in the case of walking and all other movements. For if
locomotion is a movement from to there, it, too, has differences in
kind-flying, walking, leaping, and so on. And not only so, but in
walking itself there are such differences; for the whence and
whither are not the same in the whole racecourse and in a part of
it, nor in one part and in another, nor is it the same thing to
traverse this line and that; for one traverses not only a line but
one which is in a place, and this one is in a different place from
that. We have discussed movement with precision in another work,
but it seems that it is not complete at any and every time, but
that the many movements are incomplete and