You see, I imagine, how Epicurus has divided his kinds of desires, not very acutely perhaps, but yet usefully: saying that they are "partly natural and necessary; partly natural, but not necessary; partly neither.

That those which are necessary may be supplied almost for nothing; for that the things which nature requires are easily obtained." As to the second kind of desires, his opinion is that any one may easily either enjoy or go without them.

And with regard to the third, since they are utterly frivolous, being neither allied to necessity nor nature, he thinks that they should be entirely rooted out.

On this topic a great many arguments are adduced by the Epicureans; and those pleasures which they do not despise in a body, they disparage one by one, and seem rather for lessening the number of them; for as to wanton pleasures, on which subject they say a great deal, these, say they, are easy, common, and within any one's reach; and they think that if nature requires them, they are not to be estimated by birth, condition, or rank, but by shape, age, and person: and that it is by no means difficult to refrain from them, should health, duty, or reputation require it; but that pleasures of this kind may be desirable, where they are attended with no inconvenience, but can never be of any use.

And the assertions which Epicurus makes with respect to the whole of pleasure are such as show his opinion to be that pleasure is always desirable, and to be pursued merely because it is pleasure; and for the same reason pain is to be avoided, because it is pain.