صفحة 394 من 1391

Twice has the just man overthrown the unjust-once more, as in an

Olympian contest, first offering up a prayer to the saviour Zeus,

let him try a fall. A wise man whispers to me that the pleasures

of the wise are true and pure; all others are a shadow only. Let

us examine this: Is not pleasure opposed to pain, and is there

not a mean state which is neither? When a man is sick, nothing is

more pleasant to him than health. But this he never found out

while he was well. In pain he desires only to cease from pain; on

the other hand, when he is in an ecstasy of pleasure, rest is

painful to him. Thus rest or cessation is both pleasure and pain.

But can that which is neither become both? Again, pleasure and

pain are motions, and the absence of them is rest; but if so, how

can the absence of either of them be the other? Thus we are led

to infer that the contradiction is an appearance only, and

witchery of the senses.