rd to
encounter, and undergo, and even to court?

_A._ I am entirely of that opinion; but notwithstanding that pain is not
the greatest evil, yet surely it is an evil.

_M._ Do you perceive, then, how much of the terror of pain you have given
up on a small hint?

_A._ I see that plainly; but I should be glad to give up more of it.

_M._ I will endeavour to make you do so, but it is a great undertaking,
and I must have a disposition on your part, which is not inclined to offer
any obstacles.

_A._ You shall have such: for as I behaved yesterday, so now I will follow
reason wherever she leads.

VI. _M._ First, then, I will speak of the weakness of many philosophers,
and those too of various sects; the head of whom, both in authority and
antiquity, was Aristippus, the pupil of Socrates, who hesitated not to
say, that pain was the greatest of all evils. And after him Epicurus
easily gave into this effeminate and enervated doctrine. After him
Hieronymus, the Rhodian, said, that to be without pain was the chief good,
so great an evil did pain appear to him to be. The rest, with the
exceptions of Zeno, Aristo, Pyrrho, were pretty much of the same opinion
that you were of just now, that it was indeed an evil, but that there were
many worse. When then nature herself and a certain generous feeling of
virtue at once prevents you from persisting in the assertion that pain is
the chief evil, and when you were driven from such an opinion when
disgrace was contrasted with pain, shall philosophy, the preceptress of
life, cling to this idea for so many ages? What duty of life, what praise,
what reputation would be of such consequence that a man should be desirous
of gaining it at the expense of submitting to bodily pain, when he has
persuaded himself that pain is the greatest evil? On the other side, what
disgrace, what ignominy, would he not submit to, that he might avoid pain,
when persuaded that it was the greatest of evils? Besides, what person, if
it be only true that pain is the greatest of evils, is not miserable, not
only when he actually feels pain, but also whenever he is aware that it
may befal him? And who is there whom pain may not befal? so that it is
clear that there is absolutely no one who can possibly be happy.
Metrodorus, indeed, thinks that man perfectly happy, whose body is free
from all disorders, and who has an assurance that it will always continue
so; but who is there who can be assured of that?

VII. Bu