The completeness of the form of a pleasure.

Aristotle says some interesting stuff about the "completeness" of the forms of various pleasures. I didn't know quite what to make of what he was saying until I thought a bit more about it and, as usual, got a little help from Mr. Sachs. However, I may still be mistaken about the way I am reading both Sachs and Aristotle.

The first sentence of Chapter 3:

"Nor is it the case that, if pleasure is not classed among qualities, it is for that reason not among good things either; for the ways of being-at-work that belong to virtue are not qualities, and neither is happiness."

Here Aristotle seems to be saying that pleasure need not be considered among qualities. But he also doesn't seem to be ruling out the possibility that it may be a quality.

In chapter 4, he says:

"Life is a certain kind of being-at-work, and each person is at-work in connection with those things and by means of those capacities that satisfy him most...The pleasure brings the activities to completion and hence brings living to completion, which is what they all strive for." (1175a 13-19)

Now it appears that pleasure aids one's being-at-work, and vice-versa, whatever kinds they may be.

The completeness of pleasure, then, is in virtue of its being "complete in any time whatever." (1174b 5-6) As Sachs puts it in footnote 285, "The distinction is like that between extensive and intensive magnitudes; cutting a red cube in half bisects its volume and its weight, but not its redness." Thus, as it seems to me, pleasure is complete in that its quality (given in a particular being-at-work) cannot be divided. It seems that it may be diminished, as in the case of one's seeing the sun set all too often and thereby not taking as much pleasure in the sight as one once did, but the pleasure remains whole and complete in itself.

What am I even talking about? I think I know, but I'm not sure.