Note 7 — PART II.

Democritus, Aristippus, and the Sophists had taught that good consists in pleasure;—and Plato, in his refutation of this vicious doctrine, does not deny that pleasure belongs to the good things of life, but only seeks to determine its relative value. Pleasures, too, are of two kinds,—some simple and pure, dependant on the bodily or intellectual organisation,—others mixed or impure, as being always combined with more or less of pain. The latter are only relatively pleasures, inasmuch as they are incapable of affording pleasure except by the gratification of some want; whereas true enjoyment consists in those pure delights which do not arise after pain, but which the soul experiences, when filled with the contemplation of true being. (Republ. ix. p. 585. d.)—Ritter’s History of Philos. ii. p. 390.