صفحة 448 من 734

The reason why no one and the same thing is invariably pleasant

is that our nature is, not simple, but complex, involving

something different from itself (so far as we are corruptible

beings). Suppose then that one part of this nature be doing

something, this something is, to the other part, unnatural: but,

if there be an equilibrium of the two natures, then whatever is

being done is indifferent. It is obvious that if there be any

whose nature is simple and not complex, to such a being the same

course of acting will always be the most pleasurable.

For this reason it is that the Divinity feels Pleasure which is

always one, i.e. simple: not motion merely but also

motionlessness acts, and Pleasure resides rather in the absence

than in the presence of motion.

The reason why the Poet's dictum "change is of all things most

pleasant" is true, is "a baseness in our blood;" for as the bad

man is easily changeable, bad must be also the nature that craves

change, i.e. it is neither simple nor good.