pleasure in the enjoyment of it. And they reason thus:--'What
is the pleasure of eating, but that a man's health, which had been
weakened, does, with the assistance of food, drive away hunger, and so
recruiting itself, recovers its former vigour? And being thus refreshed
it finds a pleasure in that conflict; and if the conflict is pleasure,
the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we fancy that it
becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued, and so
neither knows nor rejoices in its own welfare.' If it is said that
health cannot be felt, they absolutely deny it; for what man is in
health, that does not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man
that is so dull and stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight
in health? And what is delight but another name for pleasure?

"But, of all pleasures, they esteem those to be most valuable that lie in
the mind, the chief of which arise out of true virtue and the witness of
a good conscience. They account health the chief pleasure that belongs
to the body; for they think that the pleasure of eating and drinking, and
all the other delights of sense, are only so far desirable as they give
or maintain health; but they are not pleasant in themselves otherwise
than as they resist those impressions that our natural infirmities are
still making upon us. For as a wise man desires rather to avoid diseases
than to take physic, and to be freed from pain rather than to find ease
by remedies, so it is more desirable not to need this sort of pleasure
than to be obliged to indulge it. If any man imagines that there is a
real happiness in these enjoyments, he must then confess that he would be
the happiest of all men if he were to lead his life in perpetual hunger,
thirst, and itching, and, by consequence, in perpetual eating, drinking,
and scratching himself; which any one may easily see would be not only a
base, but a miserable, state of a life. These are, indeed, the lowest of
pleasures, and the least pure, for we can never relish them but when they
are mixed with the contrary pains. The pain of hunger must give us the
pleasure of eating, and here the pain out-balances the pleasure. And as
the pain is more vehement, so it lasts much longer; for as it begins
before the pleasure, so it does not cease but with the pleasure that
extinguishes it, and both expire together. They think, therefore, none
of those pleasures are to be valued any furt