These pleasures have, however, their value: and as the young are always too eager in the pursuit of them, the old are sometimes too remiss, that is, too studious of their ease, to be at the pains for them which they really deserve. The supposition that Happiness consists in the Pleasures of Sense is from Ignorance. Euphranor. But Socrates, who was no country parson, suspected your men of pleasure were such through ignorance. Lysicles. Ignorance of what? Euph. Of the art of computing: it was his opinion that rakes cannot reckon; and that for want of this skill they make wrong judgements about pleasure, on the right choice of which their happiness depends. Lys. I do not understand you. Euph. Do you grant that sense perceiveth only sensible things? Lys. I do. Euph. Sense perceiveth only things present? Lys. This too I grant. Euph. Future pleasures, therefore, and pleasures of the understanding, are not to be judged of by actual sense. Lys. They are not. Euph. Those, therefore, who judge of pleasure by sense, may find themselves mistaken at the foot of the account. Cum lapidosa chiragra Contudit articulos veteris ramalia fagi, Tum crassos transîsse dies lucemque palustrem, To make a right computation, should you not consider all the faculties and all the kinds of pleasure, taking into your account the future as well as the present, and rating them all according to their true value? Crito. The Epicureans themselves allowed, that pleasure, which procures a greater pain or hinders a greater pleasure, should be regarded as a pain ; and that pain, which procures a greater pleasure or prevents a greater pain, is to be accounted a pleasure. In order, therefore, to make a true estimate of pleasure, the great spring of action, and that from whence the conduct of life takes its bias, we ought to compute intellectual pleasures and future pleasures, as well as present and sensible: we ought to make allowance in the valuation of each particular pleasure, for all the pains and evils, for all the disgust, remorse, and shame that attend it: we ought to regard both kind and quantity, the sincerity, the intenseness, and the duration of plea sures. Euph. And all these points duly considered, will not Socrates seem to have reason on his side, when he thought ignorance made rakes, and particularly their being ignorant of what he calls the science of more and less, greater and smaller, equality and comparison, that is to say, the art of computinga? Aristotle says, that were it possible to put a young eye into an old man's head, he would see as man's a Bishop Berkeley. plainly and clearly as the other; so could we infuse the inclinations and principles of a vertuous person into him that prosecutes his debauches with the greatest keenness of desire, and sense of delight, he would loath and reject them as heartily as he now pursues them. Diogenes being asked at a feast, why he did not continue eating as the rest did, answered him that asked him with another question: Pray why do you eat? Why, says he, for my pleasure. Why so, says Diogenes, do I abstain for my pleasure. I have sat upon the sea shore and waited for its gradual approaches, and have seen its dancing waves and its white surf, and admired that he who measured it in his hand had given to it such life and motion; and I have lingered till its gentle waters grew into mighty billows, and had well nigh swept me from my firmest footing. So have I seen an heedless youth gazing with a too curious spirit upon the sweet motions and gentle a South. approaches of an inviting pleasure, till it has detained his eye and imprisoned his feet, and swelled upon his soul, and swept him to a swift destructiona. There is no doubt, but a man, while he resigns himself up to the brutish guidance of sense and appetite, has no relish at all for the spiritual, refined delights of a soul clarified by grace and vertue. The pleasures of an angel can never be the pleasures of a hog. But this is the thing that we contend for; that a man having once advanced himself to a state of superiority over the control of his inferior appetites, finds an infinitely more solid and sublime pleasure in the delights proper to his reason, than the same person had ever conveyed to him by the bare ministry of his senses. His taste is absolutely changed, and therefore that which pleased him formerly, becomes flat and insipid to his appetite, now grown more masculine and severe. For as age and maturity passes a real and a a A. M. |