not? But if any one relieves a person from any affection of the limbs,
or from the pain of any disease, he will receive great gratitude. And if
that wise man of yours is put on the rack of torture by a tyrant, he will
not display the same countenance as if he had lost his bottle; but, as
entering upon a serious and difficult contest, seeing that he will have to
fight with a capital enemy, namely, pain, he will summon up all his
principles of fortitude and patience, by whose assistance he will proceed
to face that difficult and important battle, as I have called it.

We will not inquire, then, what is obscured, or what is destroyed, because
it is something very small; but what is of such a character as to complete
the whole sum of happiness. One pleasure out of many may be obscured in
that life of pleasure; but still, however small an one it may be, it is a
part of that life which consists wholly of pleasure. One coin is lost of
the riches of Croesus, still it is a part of his riches. Wherefore those
things, too, which we say are according to nature, may be obscured in a
happy life, still they must be parts of the happy life.

XIII. But if, as we ought to agree, there is a certain natural desire
which longs for those things which are according to nature, then, when
taken altogether, they must be considerable in amount. And if this point
is established, then we may be allowed to inquire about those things at
our leisure, and to investigate the greatness of them, and their
excellence, and to examine what influence each has on living happily, and
also to consider the very obscurations themselves, which, on account of
their smallness, are scarcely ever, or I may say never, visible.

What should I say about that as to which there is no dispute? For there is
no one who denies that that which is the standard to which everything is
referred resembles every nature, and that is the chief thing which is to
be desired. For every nature is attached to itself. For what nature is
there which ever deserts itself, or any portion of itself, or any one of
its parts or faculties, or, in short, any one of those things, or motions,
or states which are in accordance with nature? And what nature has ever
been forgetful of its original purpose and establishment? There has never
been one which does not observe this law from first to last. How, then,
does it happen that the nature of man is the only one which ever abandons
man, which forgets the