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|Author=Iamblichus
|Title=De Mysteriis
|Latin=DE VOLUPTATE
mindique rationis participerfunt, eas ne diuinās, nec honestāt, nē
denique bonās, sed vituperatione potius dignāc malas esse censet.
olmque non aliud modum excefferint, ut ab hominum moribus
ingenidique abhorrere penitus uideantur, nitidas quidem, humanās
tamen uoluptās nominat, easque in duas distribuit partes, alias enim
appetitionem duntaxat erumpere, ut qui his afficitur, appetat pro
fecto præter rationem, & ducit, ne id tamen consulto efficiat, nec
agendum extra perturbationes instituitus existimet, sed quodam
deinde ardore libidinis excrefcat, contra id, quod recta ante mens
elegerat, inclinetur, atque trahatur, eiusmodi uero incontinentis ani
mi uoluptates esse putat, alias uero non modo appetitionem, verum eti
am mentis iudicium deprauat, ut & contra quam decet concipiat,
& id ipsum agendum bonumq; mens iudicet, consultoq; eli-
gat, pro uiribus uoluptati corporis indulgere, & eas, quæ sic mentem
occaecant intemperantis hominis uoluptates, esse probat. Omnes ta-
men, quas hactenus in sensibus posuimus humanae uidentur. At uē-
ro cum ab hominum consuetudine ingenioq; alienæ uoluptates ho-
mini cuipiam, uel pessime nato, atque educato, uel morbis extra sepo-
sito dominantur, quoniam bestiarum potius, quam humani ingenii
proprie sint, seruiles, atque immanes appellat. Sed hæ omnes, quas sensus
nobis porrigunt uoluptates, in quinque ueluti gradus, pro numero
quoque sensuum ab Aristotelicis digeruntur, atque eas eundem, quem
& ipsi sensus ordinem tenere censentur, uidendi uoluptas, illa, quam au-
res præstant, puriora digniorq; fit, aliæq; quæ similiter aliis eodem ordi-
ne puritate dignitateq; præstant.
Caput.viii. Voluptates auditus, atque uisus, excellentiores sunt cæ-
teris sensuū uoluptatibus. Itē de omnibus sensibus, & instrumentis eo.
St autem ratio quædam optima à Platonicorum principi-
bus adinuenita, qua oculorum atque aurium uoluptates, cæ-
teris, quas corpus offert, omnibus præferunt, soni gppe, & hæc
oculis cernunt figuræ, optima quadam atque aptissima partium coniunctio-
ne conficiuntur. Id autem proportione fieri nequit, nec absque ordine
est ulla proportio. Ordo autem maxime rationis est proprius, quo si ut in
plerisque sonis, figurisq; ab illa compositionis ordo insit, vestigium quod-
dam rationis inesse uidētur, quæ quidem rationis imago in cantuum,
uocumque numeris, harmonia, in partium uero membrorumque
conuenientia, pulchritudo à Platonicis nunc patur, quo efficitur, ut hæc
|English=ON PLEASURE

and share in reason, he considers them neither divine nor honorable, nor even good, but rather deserving of censure, and bad.  And if they exceed any other measure, so that they seem utterly to deviate from human customs and nature, he names them indeed refined, yet human pleasures, and divides them into two parts; for some only burst forth from appetite, so that he who is affected by them desires indeed contrary to reason, and is led by it, yet does not accomplish it deliberately, nor does he think that it is necessary to act outside of established rules, but it rather grows from a certain burning passion of lust, and is inclined and drawn against what the upright mind had previously chosen; he considers pleasures of this sort to belong to an incontinent mind; others, however, corrupt not only appetite, but also the judgment of the mind, so that it conceives contrary to what is fitting, and the mind itself judges that it is necessary and good to act, and deliberately chooses to indulge in bodily pleasure to the utmost of its ability; and these, which thus blind the mind, he approves as pleasures of an intemperate man.  However, all those which we have hitherto placed in the senses seem human. But when pleasures alien to human custom and nature dominate a certain man, whether badly born and brought up, or separated from himself by illness, because they are rather of beasts than properly of human nature, he calls them servile and savage. But all these pleasures which the senses offer us are arranged by the Aristotelians into five grades, as it were, according to the number of the senses also, and they are considered to hold the same order as the senses themselves; the pleasure of sight, that which the ears afford, becomes purer and more worthy, and others which similarly excel others in purity and dignity in the same order.

Chapter VIII. The pleasures of hearing and sight are superior to the pleasures of the other senses. Likewise concerning all the senses and their instruments.  Now there is a certain best reason discovered by the leaders of the Platonists, by which they prefer the pleasures of the eyes and ears to all others which the body offers; for sounds and the forms which the eyes behold are accomplished by a certain best and most fitting conjunction of parts.  But this cannot be done by proportion, nor is there any proportion without order.  But order is most properly of reason; so if, as in most sounds and forms, that order of composition is present, a certain trace of reason seems to be present, which image of reason in the numbers of songs and voices, harmony, and in the agreement of parts and limbs, beauty is now approved by the Platonists, by which it is brought about that these...
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