orthy of faith and obedience.
And in order to see how Aristotle is the master and leader of Human
Reason in so far as it aims at its final operation, it is requisite to
know that this our aim of life, which each one naturally desires, in
most ancient times was searched for by the Wise Men; and since those
who desire this end are so numerous, and their desires are as it were
all singularly different, although they exist in us universally, it
was nevertheless very difficult to discern that end whereon rightly
each human appetite or desire might repose.

There were then many ancient philosophers, the first and the chief of
whom was Zeno, who saw and believed this end of human life to be
solely a rigid honesty, that is to say, rigid without regard to any
one in following Truth and Justice, to show no sorrow, to show no joy,
to have no sense of any passion whatever. And they defined thus this
honest uprightness, as that which, without bearing fruit, is to be
praised for reason of itself. And these men and their sect were called
Stoics; and that glorious Cato was one of them, of whom in the
previous chapter I had not courage enough to speak.

Other philosophers there were who saw and believed otherwise; and of
these the first and chief was a philosopher, who was named Epicurus,
who, seeing that each animal as soon as it is born is as it were
directed by Nature to its right end, which shuns pain and seeks for
pleasure, said that this end or aim of ours was enjoyment. I do not
say greedy enjoyment, voluntade, but I write it with a _p_,
voluptate, that is, delight or pleasure free from pain; and therefore
between pleasure and pain no mean was placed. He said that pleasure
was no other than no pain; as Tullius seems to say in the first
chapter De Finibus. And of these, who from Epicurus are named
Epicureans, was Torquatus, a noble Roman, descended from the blood of
the glorious Torquatus mention of whom I made above. There were
others, and they had their rise from Socrates, and then from his
successor, Plato, who, looking more subtly, and seeing that in our
actions it was possible to sin, and that one sinned in too much and in
too little, said that our action, without excess and without defect,
measured to the due mean of our own choice, is virtue, and virtue is
the aim of man; and they called it action with virtue. And these were
called Academicians, as was Plato and Speusippus, his nephew; they
were thus called from the place