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Subjects such as these then, it would seem, we ought by no means

to pass by, and specially since they involve much difference of

opinion. There are those who call Pleasure the Chief Good; there

are others who on the contrary maintain that it is exceedingly

bad;[1] some perhaps from a real conviction that such is the

case, others from a notion that it is better, in reference to our

life and conduct, to show up Pleasure as bad, even if it is not

so really; arguing that, as the mass of men have a bias towards

it and are the slaves of their pleasures, it is right to draw

them to the contrary, for that so they may possibly arrive at the

mean.[2]