He held that Aristotle's logic was not a tool that led to knowledge. Valla went on to be more troublesome regarding ideas. Valla was bringing morality down to earth, while he was presenting himself as a Christian and holding faith as a necessary ingredient in well-being. Virtue for the Stoics was not a means to anything virtue was an end in itself, as was one's association with God's plan. The Stoics were close if not identical to Plato regarding virtue. The traditional Christian view was Plato's: that pursuing appetites never produced real satisfaction, that happiness and well-being were achieved by self-denial and contemplating God and the immorality of one's soul. Epicurus believed that people acquired virtue during that pursuit by having to make choices that fit with well-being. With the Epicureans Valla was agreeing that it was okay for people to pursue their natural appetites and, moreover, that pursuing appetites was necessary for their well-being. It was the first time a scholar in modern Europe had sided with Epicurus. His dialogue on pleasure contrasted the views of the Stoics and the Epicureans, Valla siding with the Epicureans, although Stoicism was traditional among Christians. Before he was thirty, Valla acquired a reputation for two works: his dialogue De Voluptate ( On Pleasure) and his treatise De Elegantiis Latinae Linguae. Valla was another man of genius who was not going to be crushed or silenced. At the age of 27 he was in Naples and the king of Naples, Alfonso V, made him his secretary. He became a professor of eloquence at Pavia, and within two years he was a visiting professor at various universities. At the age of twenty-five, Valla entered the priesthood. Lorenzo (or Laurentius) Valla (1406 to August 1, 1457) was the son of a lawyer from Piacenza, near Milan in northern Italy.