Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1898-05-06
PLEASURE.
A NATURAL INSTINCT OF HU.
MANITV.

BigOtry May Condemn, but Rca.
son Approves, Rational Enjoy.
ment-Sunday as a Day of Rest
and Recreation "A Rational
View of Life.
lContrbuted to the STANDARD by Lady Cooke
| nee Tennessee e. Clatilin.
The pursuit of pleasure is a univer-
sal instinct throughout all animated
nature. The love of pleasure is as
much natural appetite as the love OF
food. We may safely assume, there
fore, that its qualification, when ra-
tionally INDUCED, serves some useful
and important purpose. All enquiry
not only confirms this, but shows that
pleasure is necessity, morally, men,
tally and physically. If this be so,
the asceticism which condemns all
pleasure is as immoral rs it is foolish.
Our desires seek great diversity OF
objects. These may be worthy or un-
worthy, and our methods of attaining
them right or wrong. But the end
purposed is pleasure, and frequently
its mere pursuit brings about modi-
fled qualification. There is wide dis
tinctiOn, however, between pleasure
and happiness, because pleasure may
be virtuous or vicious, whereas happi-
ness necessarily consists in the former.
Socrates beautifully described happi.
ness rs unrepented pleasure" And
it must be self-evident that the pleas
ures which need no repentance are
those alone which are worthy of at
tainment. Prudence is their basis.
The great founder of the philosophy
of pleasure, Epicurus, the best abused
and most misunderstood of the Greek
sagcs, said: "All other virtues grow
from prudence, which teaches that we
cannot live pleasurably without living
justly and virtuously, nor live Justly
and virtuously without living pleas
urably."
Unfortunately, the religious" have
frequently denounced all pleasure,
confounding the evil with the good,
and many poets and philosophers have
followed in their wake. Thus Cowper
writes of it as "That reeling goddess
with zoneless waist" Another saws:
land pain and pleasure e'er shall be.
As Plato says. in company,
Receive the one. and soon the other
will follow to reioin his brother"
Dryden, by n gross simile, opposes
pleasure to industry, and asks:
"will any dog
Refncdy leave his bitches and his bones
To turn wheel"
All these, however, refer to that false
and shnrt-lived qualification which
does not make for happiness, but
rather destroys, in those that in
dulge them, the power to enjoy true
pleasure,
Unknown to them when sensual pleasures
cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer JOY"
What real pleasure is, the celebrated
Tillotson, in one of his sermons, partly
informs us: There is great pleas.
ure in being innocent, because that
prevents guilt and trouble. 1t is
pleasant to be virtuous and good, be-
cause that is to excel many others; it
is pleasant to grow better, because that
is to excel ourselves. Nay, it is pleas.
ant even to mortify and subduc our
lusts, because that is victory; it is
pleasant to command our appetites
and passions, and to keep them. in due
order, within the bounds of reason and
religion, because this is a kind of en-
pire-this is to govern"
Our desires and tastes are so numer-
Gus, that our pleasures should be al
most numberless, yet we obtain few
through want of prudence, or through
senseless prohibitions. That delight
full old egotist, Montague said: "There
is no just and lawful pleasure wherein
the intemperance and excess is not to
be condemned. But, to speak the
truth, is not man q most miserable
creature the while? 1t is scarce, by
his natural condition, in his power to
taste one pleasure pure and entire;
and yet must he be contriving doc
trines and precepts, to curtail that lit
tie he has; he is not yet wretched
enough unless by art and study he
augment his own misery. Human
wisdom makes ill use of her talent,
when she exercises it in resembling
from the number and sweetness of
those pleasures, that are naturally
our due, as she employs it favorably,
and we'll, in artifcially Disgusting and
tricking out the ills OF life, to alleviate
the sense of them. Ma
ture has with motherly tenderness
observed this, that the actions she has
enjoined us for our necessity, should
be also pleasant to us, and invites us
to them, not only by reason, but also
by appetite; and it is injustice to in
fringe her laws"
In these busy days, when men and
women, and too frequently children,
are worked at high pressure, the need
of pleasure becomes the greater. If
suitable and properly enjoyed, it is the
salt of good morals, keeping them
sound and sweet; the medicine of the