The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1907-09-26
DIFFERENT IDEAS OF PLEASURE.

DIFFERENT IDEAS Of FLEASONL.
The world is yet very far from the time
when words shall be given exact and limited
meanings, and when in consequence the
basis of many controversies shall be swept
away. A translation Of Epictetus repre-
sents him as saying that it is the part of a
wise man to resist pleasures, but of fool
ish one to be a slave to them" The word
pleasures is here plainly used in very
restricted sense. Nor is this misuse of the
word matter of small Importance, for built
upon such misuse are codes OF morality
that would make this world vale of tears.
1t is no less pleasure for a good man to
do kind and charitable act than it is for
the sensuous to crafty their vicious tenden-
cies, yet the two kinds of pleasures cannot
properly be grouped in an epigram con-
demning both. Authors, however, have
so persistently limited the world to the de-
scripton of that which is wrong Or hurtful,
or at least frivolous, that in writing on the
subject one is obliged to particularly de-
scribe the kind of pleasures he is condemn
ing or approving. Hannah More writes:
The roses of pleasure seldom last long
enough to adorn the brow of him who
plucks them; for they are the only roses
which do not retain their sweetness after
they have lost their beauty But she is
writing about dissipation. The roses she
is describing are the flowers of vice. There
are other roses of pleasure that retain their
beauty and fragrance through all time.
Such are the pleasures of the pure mind
and the generous heart. Why should vice
be permitted to monopolize the idea of that
which all men instinctly seek? It is true
that the pursuit of pleasure for it's own
sake is very likely to make men selfish and
lead them astray, but it is as true that an
unselfish life directed to promoting the
good of humanity leads them to the highest
happiness-to pleasures more real than the
unsubstantial enjoyments which vice or
frivolity yield. What our conception of
pleasure may be will depend, of course,
largely upon our tastes. Ruskin describes
perfect taste as "the faculty of receiving
the greatest possible pleasure from those
material sources which are attractive to our
moral nature in its purity and perfection"
but this would rule out as pleasures all
those things which moralists are accustom-
ed to describe by that word. Words, how
ever, are nothing in comparison with ideas
which they may be used to illuminate or
hide. In that view pleasures, with the
broad meaning, are not to be avoided, as
the moralists would have it, but those
pleasures which are founded upon purity,
morality, the love of men, are to be sought
and followed. There are, in short, pleas
ures and pleasures. Those which are
selfishly pursued for their own sake are
very likely to turn out to be withered
roses; those which come unsought as the
result of good works are constant un-
changeable. In this view of the word or
its conception, the sacrificing mis-
sionary, the tender nurse, the earnest ex-
plorer, the faithful physician, the earnest
reformer-all who work for the good of
humanity, pursue a life of pleasure, but it
is a very different life from that which is
usually described in these words. Gold
smith was so impressed with the limited
meaning of the word that he put it in a
paradox: "a life of pleasure is the most
unpleasing life in the world, which say
ing, if true, is sufficient evidence that the
word has been misapplied. There would
be little harm in this if men were not in the
habit of building up codes of morality on
words or phrases. This tendency of the
human mind makes it misfortune when
vice is called out Of its name, as for exam
pie, when vice is described as pleasure.
With some writer's this conception is so
clear and strong that vice might be sub
stituted for pleasure throughout their writ
ings without altering the sense, and the
effect of the lessons they teach is to warn
their readers who do net understand this.
change of terms against pleasures of all
kinds. Sects have been founded whose
austere members viewed with suspicion
any manifestation of enjoyment because
they had SO confounded vice with pleasure
that they were unable to separate the two
and realize that vicious pleasure is, after
all, only the counterfeit of the real feeling.
The higher pleasures of the mind are only
simulated by those pleasures derived from
the wine-cup, which dulls the senses, while
1t exhilarates and makes the song or the