ippus, the pupil of Socrates, who
hesitated not to say that pain was the greatest of all evils. And after
him Epicurus easily gave in to this effeminate and enervated doctrine.
After him Hieronymus the Rhodian said, that to be without pain was the
chief good, so great an evil did pain appear to him to be. The rest,
with the exceptions of Zeno, Aristo, Pyrrho, were pretty much of the
same opinion that you were of just now--that it was indeed an evil, but
that there were many worse. When, then, nature herself, and a certain
generous feeling of virtue, at once prevents you from persisting in the
assertion that pain is the chief evil, and when you were driven from
such an opinion when disgrace was contrasted with pain, shall
philosophy, the preceptress of life, cling to this idea for so many
ages? What duty of life, what praise, what reputation, would be of such
consequence that a man should be desirous of gaining it at the expense
of submitting to bodily pain, when he has persuaded himself that pain
is the greatest evil? On the other side, what disgrace, what ignominy,
would he not submit to that he might avoid pain, when persuaded that it
was the greatest of evils? Besides, what person, if it be only true
that pain is the greatest of evils, is not miserable, not only when he
actually feels pain, but also whenever he is aware that it may befall
him. And who is there whom pain may not befall? So that it is clear
that there is absolutely no one who can possibly be happy. Metrodorus,
indeed, thinks that man perfectly happy whose body is free from all
disorders, and who has an assurance that it will always continue so;
but who is there who can be assured of that?

VII. But Epicurus, indeed, says such things that it should seem that
his design was only to make people laugh; for he affirms somewhere that
if a wise man were to be burned or put to the torture--you expect,
perhaps, that he is going to say he would bear it, he would support
himself under it with resolution, he would not yield to it (and that by
Hercules! would be very commendable, and worthy of that very Hercules
whom I have just invoked): but even this will not satisfy Epicurus,
that robust and hardy man! No; his wise man, even if he were in
Phalaris's bull, would say, How sweet it is! how little do I regard it!
What, sweet? Is it not sufficient, if it is not disagreeable? But those
very men who deny pain to be an evil are not in the habit of saying
that it is agre