Pagina 395 de 1391

And these are not the only pleasures, for there are others which

have no preceding pains. Pure pleasure then is not the absence of

pain, nor pure pain the absence of pleasure; although most of the

pleasures which reach the mind through the body are reliefs of

pain, and have not only their reactions when they depart, but

their anticipations before they come. They can be best described

in a simile. There is in nature an upper, lower, and middle

region, and he who passes from the lower to the middle imagines

that he is going up and is already in the upper world; and if he

were taken back again would think, and truly think, that he was

descending. All this arises out of his ignorance of the true

upper, middle, and lower regions. And a like confusion happens

with pleasure and pain, and with many other things. The man who

compares grey with black, calls grey white; and the man who

compares absence of pain with pain, calls the absence of pain

pleasure.