Pagina 587 di 734

Now Eudoxus thought Pleasure to be the Chief Good because he saw

all, rational and irrational alike, aiming at it: and he argued

that, since in all what was the object of choice must be good and

what most so the best, the fact of all being drawn to the same

thing proved this thing to be the best for all: "For each," he

said, "finds what is good for itself just as it does its proper

nourishment, and so that which is good for all, and the object of

the aim of all, is their Chief Good."

(And his theories were received, not so much for their own sake,

as because of his excellent moral character; for he was thought

to be eminently possessed of perfect self-mastery, and therefore

it was not thought that he said these things because he was a

lover of Pleasure but that he really was so convinced.)