ploy a connected discourse than
keep on asking or being asked questions. As you please, said I.

On this he began to speak;--

IX. First of all then, said he, I will proceed in the manner which is
sanctioned by the founder of this school: I will lay down what that is
which is the subject of our inquiry, and what its character is: not that I
imagine that you do not know, but in order that my discourse may proceed
in a systematic and orderly manner. We are inquiring, then, what is the
end,--what is the extreme point of good, which, in the opinion of all
philosophers, ought to be such that everything can be referred to it, but
that it itself can be referred to nothing. This Epicurus places in
pleasure, which he argues is the chief good, and that pain is the chief
evil; and he proceeds to prove his assertion thus. He says that every
animal the moment that it is born seeks for pleasure, and rejoices in it
as the chief good; and rejects pain as the chief evil, and wards it off
from itself as far as it can; and that it acts in this manner, without
having been corrupted by anything, under the promptings of nature herself,
who forms this uncorrupt and upright judgment. Therefore, he affirms that
there is no need of argument or of discussion as to why pleasure is to be
sought for, and pain to be avoided. This he thinks a matter of sense, just
as much as that fire is hot, snow white, honey sweet; none of which
propositions he thinks require to be confirmed by laboriously sought
reasons, but that it is sufficient merely to state them. For that there is
a difference between arguments and conclusions arrived at by
ratiocination, and ordinary observations and statements:--by the first,
secret and obscure principles are explained; by the second, matters which
are plain and easy are brought to decision. For since, if you take away
sense from a man, there is nothing left to him, it follows of necessity
that what is contrary to nature, or what agrees with it, must be left to
nature herself to decide. Now what does she perceive, or what does she
determine on as her guide to seek or to avoid anything, except pleasure
and pain? But there are some of our school who seek to carry out this
doctrine with more acuteness, and who will not allow that it is sufficient
that it should be decided by sense what is good and what is bad, but who
assert that these points can be ascertained by intellect and reason also,
and that pleasure is to be sought for