Chapter 8 — That the city should have a pleasant site

When choosing a site for the founding of a city, it should also charm its inhabitants by its beauty. A spot where life is pleasant will not easily be abandoned, nor will men commonly be ready to flock to unpleasant places, since the life of man cannot endure without enjoyment. A beautiful place has a broad expanse of meadows, fruitful trees, mountains to be seen close at hand, pleasant groves, and overflowing waters.

However, if a country is too beautiful, it will draw men to indulge in pleasures, and this is most harmful to a city. In the first place, when men give themselves up to pleasure their senses are dulled, since this sweetness immerses the soul in the senses so that man cannot pass free judgment on the things which cause delight. Hence, according to Aristotle’s sentence, (Eth. Nic. VI, 5: 1140b 11–21.) the judgment of prudence is corrupted by pleasure. Again, indulgence in superfluous pleasure leads from the path of virtue, for nothing conduces more easily to immoderate increase, which upsets the mean of virtue, than pleasure. Pleasure is greedy by its very nature, and thus a slight occasion precipitates a man into the seductions of shameful pleasures, just as a little spark is sufficient to kindle dry wood. Moreover, indulgence does not satisfy the appetite, for the first sip only makes the thirst all the keener. Consequently, it is part of virtue’s task to lead men to refrain from pleasures. By thus avoiding any excess, the mean of virtue will be more easily attained.

Also, they who give themselves up to pleasures grow soft in spirit and become weak-minded when it is a question of tackling some difficult enterprise, enduring toil, and facing dangers. Thus, likewise, indulgence in pleasures is detrimental to warfare, as Vegetius puts it in his On the Art of Knighthood: He fears death less who knows that he has had little pleasure in life. (De re militari I, 3.) Finally, men who have become dissolute through pleasures usually grow lazy, and, neglecting necessary matters and all the pursuits that duty lays upon them, devote themselves wholly to the quest of pleasure, on which they squander all that others had so carefully amassed. Thus, reduced to poverty and yet unable to deprive themselves of their accustomed pleasures, they do not shrink from stealing and robbing in order to have the means to indulge their craving for pleasure. It is therefore harmful to a city to superabound in delightful things, whether it be on account of its situation or from whatever other cause.

However, in human community it is best to have a moderate share of pleasure as a spice of life, so to speak, so that man’s mind may find some recreation.