ongly censures, and contends
for the superior efficacy of truth (I.).

The arguments urged by Eudoxus as proving pleasure to be the chief
good, are, (1) That all beings seek pleasure; (2) and avoid its
opposite, pain; (3) that they seek pleasure as an end-in-itself, and
not as a means to any farther end; (4) that pleasure, added to any
other good, such as justice or temperance, increases the amount of
good; which could not be the case, unless pleasure were itself good.
Yet this last argument (Aristotle urges) proves pleasure to be _a_
good, but not to be _the_ Good; indeed, Plato urged the same argument,
to show that pleasure could _not_ be The Good: since The Good (the
Chief Good) must be something that does not admit of being enhanced or
made more good. The objection of Speusippus,--that irrational creatures
are not to be admitted as witnesses,--Aristotle disallows, seeing that
rational and irrational agree on the point; and the thing that seems to
all, must be true. Another objection, That the opposite of pain is not
pleasure, but a neutral state--is set aside as contradicted by the fact
of human desire and aversion, the two opposite states of feeling (II.).

The arguments of the Platonists, to prove that pleasure is not good,
are next examined. (1) Pleasure, they say, is not a quality; but
neither (replies Aristotle) are the exercises or actual manifestations
of virtue or happiness. (2) Pleasure is not definite, but unlimited, or
admitting of degrees, while The Good is a something definite, and does
not admit of degrees. But if these reasoners speak about the pure
pleasures, they might take objection on similar grounds against virtue
and justice also; for these too admit of degrees, and one man is more
virtuous than another. And if they speak of the mixed pleasures
(alloyed with pain), their reasoning will not apply to the unmixed.
Good health is acknowledged to be a good, and to be a definite
something; yet there are nevertheless some men more healthy, some less.
(3) The Good is perfect or complete; but objectors urge that no motion
or generation is complete, and pleasure is in one of these two
categories. This last assertion Aristotle denies. Pleasure is _not_ a
motion; for the attribute of velocity, greater or less, which is
essential to all motion, does not attach to pleasure. A man may be
quick in becoming pleased, or in becoming angry; but in the act of
being pleased or angry, he can neither be quick nor slow