ou.

Well, then, said I, you are aware of what Hieronymus(25) of Rhodes says is
the chief good, to which he thinks that everything ought to be referred? I
know, said he, that he thinks that the great end is freedom from pain.
Well, what are his sentiments respecting pleasure? He affirms, he replied,
that it is not to be sought for its own sake; for he thinks that rejoicing
is one thing, and being free from pain another. And indeed, continued he,
he is in this point greatly mistaken, for, as I proved a little while ago,
the end of increasing pleasure is the removal of all pain. I will examine,
said I, presently, what the meaning of the expression, freedom from pain,
is; but unless you are very obstinate, you must admit that pleasure is a
perfectly distinct thing from mere freedom from pain. You will, however,
said he, find that I am obstinate in this; for nothing can be more real
than the identity between the two. Is there, now, said I, any pleasure
felt by a thirsty man in drinking? Who can deny it? said he. Is it, asked
I, the same pleasure that he feels after his thirst is extinguished? It
is, replied he, another kind of pleasure; for the state of extinguished
thirst has in it a certain stability of pleasure, but the pleasure of
extinguishing it is pleasure in motion. Why, then, said I, do you call
things so unlike one another by the same name? Do not you recollect, he
rejoined, what I said just now,--that when all pain is banished, pleasure
is varied, not extinguished? I recollect, said I; but you spoke in
admirable Latin, indeed, but yet not very intelligibly; for _varietas_ is
a Latin word, and properly applicable to a difference of colour, but it is
applied metaphorically to many differences: we apply the adjective,
_varias_, to poems, orations, manners, and changes of fortune; it is
occasionally predicated also of pleasure, when it is derived from many
things unlike one another, which cause pleasures which are similarly
unlike. Now, if that is the variety you mean, I should understand you, as,
in fact, I do understand you, without your saying so: but still, I do not
see clearly what that variety is, because you say, that when we are free
from pain we are then in the enjoyment of the greatest pleasure; but when
we are eating those things which cause a pleasing motion to the senses,
then there is a pleasure in the emotion which causes a variety in the
pleasure; but still, that that pleasure which arises from the free