3ad3e.md (1015B)
1 I say transition: for pleasure is not perfection 2 itself. For, if man were born with the perfection to which he 3 passes, he would possess the same, without the emotion of 4 pleasure. This appears more clearly from the consideration of 5 the contrary emotion, pain. No one can deny, that pain consists 6 in the transition to a less perfection, and not in the less 7 perfection itself: for a man cannot be pained, in so far as he 8 partakes of perfection of any degree. Neither can we say, that 9 pain consists in the absence of a greater perfection. For 10 absence is nothing, whereas the emotion of pain is an activity; 11 wherefore this activity can only be the activity of transition 12 from a greater to a less perfection–in other words, it is an 13 activity whereby a man's power of action is lessened or 14 constrained (cf. III. xi. note). I pass over the definitions of 15 merriment, stimulation, melancholy, and grief, because these 16 terms are generally used in reference to the body, and are merely 17 kinds of pleasure or pain. 18 19