Note (return) — Chapter XIII

The proof which Epicurus offers in support of his doctrine, "that pleasure is the chief good," is truly characteristic. "All animals from the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure and offended with pain, by their natural instincts, and without the employment of reason. Therefore we, also, of our own inclination, flee from pain." 771 "All men like pleasure and dislike pain; they naturally shun the latter and pursue the former." "If happiness is present, we have every thing, and when it is absent, we do every thing with a view to possess it." 772 Virtue thus consists in man's doing deliberately what the animals do instinctively--that is, choose pleasure and avoid pain.