proportionable satisfaction succeeding as the uneasiness abates.

1

Memory of a past pleasing sensation inspires hope of a future one, and thereby abates an uneasiness actually present; as the absence of hope doubles a present pain.

Whether truth and falsehood belong to pleasures and pains?

They do as these are founded on our opinions 2 of things preconceived, which may, undoubtedly, be either true or false.

Our opinions are founded on our sensations, and the memory of them. Thus we see a figure at a distance beyond a certain rock, or under a certain tree, and we say to ourselves, it is a man ; but on advancing up to it, we find a rude image of wood carved by the shepherd.

The senses, the memory, and the passions, which

attend on them, write on our souls, or rather delineate, a variety of conceptions and representations of which, when justly drawn, we form true opinions and propositions; but when falsely, we form false ones.

On these our hopes and fears are built, and consequently are capable of truth and falsehood, as well as the opinions on which they are founded.

1 What Plato calls by the name of Μνημη, and Αναμνησις, are by Locke distinguished under the names of contemplation and memory, L. 1. Ch. 10. being the different powers of retention. (See De Legib. L. 5. p. 732.)

2 All this head is finely explained by Locke. (Ch. of Power, § 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, &c.) which is the best comment on this part of Plato.

VOL. IV.

K

1

P. 40. The good abound in just and true hopes, fears, and desires; the bad in false and delusive ones. P. 41. As pleasures and pains are infinite, we can only measure them by comparison, one with the other.

Our hopes and fears are no less liable to be deceived by the prospect of distant objects, than our eyes. As we are always comparing those, which are far off, with others less remote or very near, it is no wonder that we are often mistaken; especially as a pleasure, when set next a pain, does naturally appear greater than its true magnitude, and a pain less.

So much then of our pains and pleasures as exceeds or falls short of its archetype, is false.

A state of indolence, or of apathy, is supposed by the school of Heraclitus to be impossible, on account of the perpetual motion of all things.

Motions and alterations 2 proved to happen continually in our body, of which the soul has no perception.

P. 43. Therefore, (though we should allow the perpetual motion of things,) there are times when the soul feels neither pleasure nor pain; so that this is a possible state.

Pleasure, and its contrary, are not the consequences of any changes in our constituent parts, but of such changes as are considerable and violent.

1 "If we will rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison." (Locke, C. of Power. § 42.)

2 Whatever alterations are made in the body, if they reach not the mind,-whatever impressions are made on the outward parts, if they are not taken notice of within,-there is no perception. Locke, Ch. 9.

The sect of philosophers, who affirm1 that there is no pleasure but the absence of pain, is in the wrong, but from a noble principle.2

To know the nature of pleasure, we should consider such as are strongest: bodily pleasures are such.

3

Pleasure is in proportion to our desires. The desires and longings of sick persons are the most violent : the mad and thoughtless feel the strongest degree of pleasure and of pain; so that both the one and the other increase with the disorder and depravity of our body and mind.

Pleasures of lust have a mixture of pain, as the pain of the itch has a mixture of pleasure, and both subsist at the same instant.

Anger, grief, love, envy, are pains of the soul, but with a 5 mixture of pleasure. Exemplified in the exercise of our compassion and terror at a tragick spectacle, and of our envy at a comick one. The pleasure of ridicule arises from vanity and from the ignorance of ourselves. We laugh at the follies 7 of the weak, and hate those of the powerful.

1 "Pleasure," says Mr. Selden, "is nothing but the intermission of pain, the enjoyment of something I am in great trouble for, till I have it.'

2 Δυσχερεια τινι φύσεως ουκ αγεννοῦς λιαν μεμισηκοτων την της ἡδονης δυναμιν, και νενομικότων ουδεν ύγιες.

3 V. Plat. in Republ. L. 3. p. 403.

4 Vid. Gorgiam. p. 494.

5 V. Aristot. Rhetor. L. 2. c. 2.

Μη τοις δραμασι μονον, αλλα και τη του βιου ξυμπασῃ τραγωδια και κωμωδια, p. 50.

7 Γελοῖα μεν, ὁποσα ασθενη μισητα δε, ὁποσα ή εῤῥωμενα.

Pure and unmixed pleasures 1 proved to exist: those of the senses resulting from regularity of figure, beautiful colours, melodious sounds, odours of fragrance, &c. and all whose absence is not necessarily 2 accompanied with any uneasiness. Again: satisfactions of the mind resulting from knowledge, the absence or loss of which is not naturally attended with any pain.

A small portion of pure and uncorrupted pleasure is preferable to a larger one of that which is mixed and impure.

The opinion of some philosophers, that pleasure is continually generating, but is never produced, i.e. it has no real existence, seems true with regard to mere bodily pleasures.

Enquiry into knowledge. The nature of the arts: such of them, as approach the nearest to real knowledge, are the most considerable, being founded on number, weight, and measure, and capable of demonstration.

4

Secondly, those attainable only by use and frequent trial, being founded on conjecture and experiment, such as musick, medicine, agriculture, natural philosophy, &c. P. 60. Recapitulation.

P. 61. Happiness resides 5 in the just mixture of wisdom and pleasure; particularly when we join the

1 Vid. de Republ. L. 9. p. 584.

• Ουτι φύσειγε, αλλ' εν τισι λογισμοις. p. 52.

3 Vid. de Republ. L. 10. p. 602.

4 And above all, logick, to which we owe all the evidence

and certainty we find in the rest.

ἡ Διαλεκτικη ἡμιν επανω κειται, &c.

Ωσπερ θριγκος, τοις μαθημασιν

De Republ. L. 7. p. 534.

Vid. de Republ. L. 9. p. 582. and de Leg. L. 5. p. 733.

purest pleasures with the clearer and more certain sciences.

P. 63. Prosopopoeia of the pleasures and sciences, consulted on the proposal made for uniting them.

P. 64. No mixture is either useful or durable, without proportion. The supreme good of man consists in beauty, in symmetry, and in truth, which are the causes of all the happiness to be found in the above-mentioned union.