TO THE READER
Every being, even an irrational one, tends to delighting in pleasant and useful things, and to desiring them. Therefore this is naturally particularly the case as regards man, in whom the innate reasoning power has developed that desire for the good and useful; and, indeed, it not only develops it, but induces a man to find more pleasure in a thing the more good, useful, and pleasant it is, and the more heartily to strive for it. Therefore the question arose long ago among learned men, where and in what that summit of good (summum bonum) is to be found at which the wishes of man could stop; that is to say, that point which a man having attained it in his mind could and should stop, having no longer anything further to wish for.
2. If, then, we notice this fact, we shall find not only that philosophers gave, and give, careful consideration to this question, and to the way in which it can be solved, but also generally that every man's mind endeavours to discover where and by what means he can obtain the greatest delight; and we find that almost all men, fleeing outward from themselves, seek in the world and its things wherewith to calm and quiet their minds; one by estates and riches, another by pleasure and sensuality,
55
