y
judgment at all. For although they are not depraved, it is still possible
for them to be wrong. Just as one stick may be bent and crooked by having
been made so on purpose, and another may be so naturally; so the nature of
beasts is not indeed depraved by evil education, but is wrong naturally.
Nor is it correct to say that nature excites the infant to desire
pleasure, but only to love itself and to desire to preserve itself safe
and unhurt. For every animal the moment that it is born loves itself, and
every part of itself, and above all does it love its two principal parts,
namely its mind and body, and afterwards it proceeds to love the separate
parts of each. For there are in the mind and also in the body some parts
of especial consequence; and as soon as it has got a slight perception of
this fact, it then begins to make distinctions, so as to desire those
things which are by nature given to it as its principal goods, and to
reject the contrary. Now it is a great question whether among these
primary natural goods, pleasure has any place or not. But to think that
there is nothing beyond pleasure, no limbs, no sensations, no emotions of
the mind, no integrity of the body, no health, appears to me to be a token
of the greatest ignorance. And on this the whole question of good and evil
turns. Now Polemo and also Aristotle thought those things which I
mentioned just now the greatest of goods. And from this originated that
opinion of the Old Academy and of the Peripatetic School, which led them
to say that the greatest good was to live in accordance with nature--that
is to say, to enjoy the chief good things which are given by nature, with
the accompaniment of virtue. Callipho added nothing to virtue except
pleasure; Diodorus nothing except freedom from pain. And all these men
attach the idea of the greatest good to some one of these things which I
have mentioned. Aristippus thought it was simple pleasure. The Stoics
defined it to be agreeing with nature, which they say can only be living
virtuously, living honourably. And they interpret it further thus--to live
with an understanding of those things which happen naturally, selecting
those which are in accordance with nature, and rejecting the contrary. So
there are three definitions, all of which exclude honesty:--one, that of
Aristippus or Epicurus; the second, that of Hieronymus; the third, that of
Carneades: three in which honesty is admitted with some qualifying
addit