Book 2
1
For (1) pleasure causes us to do base actions and pain cause us to abstain from doing noble actions.
2
Hence the importance, as Plato points out, of having been definitely trained from childhood to like and dislike the proper things; this is what good education means.
3
(2)Again, if the virtues have to do with actions and feelings, and every action is attended with pleasure or pain, this too shows that virtue has to do with pleasure and pain.
4
(3) Another indication is the fact that pain is the medium of punishment; for punishment is a sort of medicine, and the nature of medicine to work by means of opposites.The contrary maxim to similia similibus curantur or homoeopathy. Fever, caused by heat, is cured by cold, hence if the remedy for wickedness is pain, it must have been caused by pleasure.
