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to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind, |
whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can |
only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he |
can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed, |
even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with |
cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so brutal a |
pleasure, must degenerate into it. |
"Thus though the rabble of mankind look upon these, and on innumerable |
other things of the same nature, as pleasures, the Utopians, on the |
contrary, observing that there is nothing in them truly pleasant, |
conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures; for though |
these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a |
true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise from |
the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a |
man's taste that bitter things may pass for sweet, as women with child |
think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey; but as a man's sense, |
when corrupted either by a disease or some ill habit, does not change the |
nature of other things, so neither can it change the nature of pleasure. |
"They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones; |
some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the |
mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of |
truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well- |
spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. They divide the |
pleasures of the body into two sorts--the one is that which gives our |
senses some real delight, and is performed either by recruiting Nature |
and supplying those parts which feed the internal heat of life by eating |
and drinking, or when Nature is eased of any surcharge that oppresses it, |
when we are relieved from sudden pain, or that which arises from |
satisfying the appetite which Nature has wisely given to lead us to the |
propagation of the species. There is another kind of pleasure that |
arises neither from our receiving what the body requires, nor its being |
relieved when overcharged, and yet, by a secret unseen virtue, affects |
the senses, raises the passions, and strikes the mind with generous |
impressions--this is, the pleasure that arises from music. Another kind |
of bodily pleasure is that which results from an undisturbed and vigorous |
constitution of body, when life and active spirits seem to actuate every |
part. This lively health, when entirely free from all mixture of pain, |
of itself gives an inward pleasure, independent of all external objects |
of delight; and though this pleasure does not so powerfully affect us, |
nor act so strongly on the senses as some of the others, yet it may be |
esteemed as the greatest of all pleasures; and almost all the Utopians |
reckon it the foundation and basis of all the other joys of life, since |
this alone makes the state of life easy and desirable, and when this is |
wanting, a man is really capable of no other pleasure. They look upon |
freedom from pain, if it does not rise from perfect health, to be a state |
of stupidity rather than of pleasure. This subject has been very |
narrowly canvassed among them, and it has been debated whether a firm and |
entire health could be called a pleasure or not. Some have thought that |
there was no pleasure but what was 'excited' by some sensible motion in |
the body. But this opinion has been long ago excluded from among them; |
so that now they almost universally agree that health is the greatest of |
all bodily pleasures; and that as there is a pain in sickness which is as |
opposite in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health, so |
they hold that health is accompanied with pleasure. And if any should |
say that sickness is not really pain, but that it only carries pain along |
with it, they look upon that as a fetch of subtlety that does not much |
alter the matter. It is all one, in their opinion, whether it be said |
that health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as |
fire gives heat, so it be granted that all those whose health is entire |
have a true pleasure in the enjoyment of it. And they reason thus:--'What |
is the pleasure of eating, but that a man's health, which had been |
weakened, does, with the assistance of food, drive away hunger, and so |
recruiting itself, recovers its former vigour? And being thus refreshed |
it finds a pleasure in that conflict; and if the conflict is pleasure, |
the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we fancy that it |
becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued, and so |
neither knows nor rejoices in its own welfare.' If it is said that |
health cannot be felt, they absolutely deny it; for what man is in |
health, that does not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man |
that is so dull and stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight |
in health? And what is delight but another name for pleasure? |
"But, of all pleasures, they esteem those to be most valuable that lie in |
the mind, the chief of which arise out of true virtue and the witness of |
a good conscience. They account health the chief pleasure that belongs |
to the body; for they think that the pleasure of eating and drinking, and |
all the other delights of sense, are only so far desirable as they give |
or maintain health; but they are not pleasant in themselves otherwise |
than as they resist those impressions that our natural infirmities are |
still making upon us. For as a wise man desires rather to avoid diseases |
than to take physic, and to be freed from pain rather than to find ease |
by remedies, so it is more desirable not to need this sort of pleasure |
than to be obliged to indulge it. If any man imagines that there is a |
real happiness in these enjoyments, he must then confess that he would be |
the happiest of all men if he were to lead his life in perpetual hunger, |
thirst, and itching, and, by consequence, in perpetual eating, drinking, |
and scratching himself; which any one may easily see would be not only a |
base, but a miserable, state of a life. These are, indeed, the lowest of |
pleasures, and the least pure, for we can never relish them but when they |
are mixed with the contrary pains. The pain of hunger must give us the |
pleasure of eating, and here the pain out-balances the pleasure. And as |
the pain is more vehement, so it lasts much longer; for as it begins |
before the pleasure, so it does not cease but with the pleasure that |
extinguishes it, and both expire together. They think, therefore, none |
of those pleasures are to be valued any further than as they are |
necessary; yet they rejoice in them, and with due gratitude acknowledge |
the tenderness of the great Author of Nature, who has planted in us |
appetites, by which those things that are necessary for our preservation |
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