...they accept those who have used them, if indeed they had opinions,
truly to be among the soldiers and masters; in
all for the self-controlled, for them to be established
I heard in the rhetoric [schools]:

On pleasure, that if indeed the good is also simple and stable (2)

A large, stylized red initial Epsilon (Ε) begins the section.

Eudoxus, therefore, thought that pleasure was the good because he saw all things
aiming at it, both rational and irrational, and in all things
the chosen is the decent, and the most excellent;
and that all things are carried toward the same, indicates that this is to all
the best thing; for the thing sought is the good for each,
and for all the most excellent. That which seems so to all, this we say
it is; but he who destroys this belief will not say anything
more believable. For if the mindless reached for them, there would be something
in what is said; but if the prudent also did, how could they say anything?
Perhaps also in the base there is some natural good,
some will ask

better than themselves, which aims at its own good.
It does not seem that it is spoken well even regarding the opposite;
for that all flee pain, and likewise that pleasure is to be chosen;
but the opposite to the avoidable, insofar as it is avoidable and evil,
is the good; but this does not at all happen regarding pleasure;
for pleasure is not the opposite to pain, but rather
the one is avoidable, the other is to be chosen; but that for which it is chosen, it is not
good simply; but the good seems not to exist by being pleasure,
but by being in the beings; for as
I think also of virtue, of virtue, more choiceworthy is that which is with
pleasure, not for the sake of pleasure itself it is to be chosen,
but the good and the pleasant, not for the sake of the choice itself,
and that nothing added makes it more choiceworthy;
but by being added to the good it becomes more choiceworthy,
and by being added to pleasure it is more choiceworthy,
therefore one must not only choose the good, but that which is with
something; for nothing regarding pleasure can be good
by adding itself as more choiceworthy, or is it not also
the good always, the good with happiness, or with pleasure;
and pleasure is the cause of nothing else than the good,
so this would not be the good. For he does not think a mortal
receives [this] as a brave man. But that pleasure is a good
and if indeed happiness, but by being the good it seems as
it would be as happiness, but the good with, I think, death says...