PLEASURE is a word so universally understood that it needs no explanation. Lexicoraphers, however, who must attempt to explain every word, call it “the gratification of the mind or senses.” It is directly opposed to pain, and constitutes the whole of positive happiness, as that does of misery.

The Author of Nature has furnished us with many pleasures, as well as made us liable to many pains; and we are susceptible of both in some degree as soon as we have life and are endowed with the faculty of sensation. A French writer, in a work^[1. Encyclopédie Méthodique, articles Logique, Métaphysique, et Morale, tom. iv. ] which once raised high expectations, contends that a child in the womb of its mother feels neither pleasure nor pain. “These sensations,” says he, “are not innate; they have their origin from without; and it is at the moment of our birth that the soul receives the first impressions; impressions slight and superficial at the beginning, but which by time and repeated acts leave deeper traces in the sensorium, and become more extensive and more lasting. It is when the child sends forth its first cries that sensibility or the faculty of sensation is produced, which in a short time gathers strength and stability by the impression of exterior objects. Pleasure and pain not being innate, and being only acquired in the same manner as the qualities which we derive from instruction, education, and society, it follows that we learn to suffer and enjoy as we learn any other science.”

This is strange reasoning and strange language. That sensations are not innate is universally acknowledged; but it does not therefore follow that the soul receives its first impressions and first sensations at the moment of birth. The child has life, the power of locomotion, and the sense of touch, long before it is born; and every mother will tell this philosopher that an infant unborn exhibits symptoms both of pain and of pleasure. That many of our organs of sense are improved by use is incontrovertible; but it is so far from being true that our sensible pleasures become more exquisite by being often repeated, that the contrary is experienced in far the greater part of them; and though external objects, by making repeated impressions on the senses, certainly leave deeper traces on the memory than an object once perceived can do, it by no means follows that these impressions become the more delightful the more familiar that they are to us. That we learn to suffer and enjoy as we learn any other science, is a most extravagant paradox; for it is self-evident that we cannot live without being capable in some degree both of suffering and enjoyment, though a man may certainly live to old age in profound ignorance of all the sciences.

The same writer assures us, indeed, that sensation is not necessary to human life. “Philosophers,” says he, “make mention of a man who had lost every kind of feeling in every member of his body; he was pinched or pricked to no purpose. Meanwhile this man made use of all his members; he walked without pain, he drank, ate, and slept, without perceiving that he did so. Sensible neither to pleasure nor pain, he was a true natural machine.”

To the tale of these anonymous philosophers the author before us gives implicit credit, whilst at the same instant he favours us with the following argumentation, which completely proves its falsehood. “It is true that sensation is a relative quality, susceptible of increase and diminution; that it is not necessary to existence, and that one might live without it; but in this case he would live as an automaton, without feeling pleasure or pain; and he would possess neither idea, nor reflection, nor desire, nor passion, nor will, nor sentiment; his existence would be merely passive, he would live without knowing it, and die without apprehension.”

But if this man of the philosophers, whom our author calls an automaton, and a true natural machine, had neither idea, nor desire, nor passion, nor will, nor sentiment (and without sensation he certainly could have none of them), what induced him to walk, eat, or drink, or to cease from any of these operations after they were accidentally begun? The instances of the automata which played on the flute and at chess are not to the purpose for which they are produced; for there is no parallel between them and this natural machine, unless the philosophers wound up their man to eat, drink, walk, or sit, as Vacanson and Kempeler wound up their automata to play or cease from playing on the German flute and at chess.

The author having for a while sported with these harmless paradoxes, proceeds to put the credulity of his reader to the test in regard to others of a very contrary tendency. He institutes an inquiry concerning the superiority, in number and degree, of the pleasures enjoyed by the different orders of men in society; and labours, not indeed by argument, but by loose declamation, to propagate the belief that happiness is very unequally distributed. The pleasures of the rich, he says, must be more numerous and exquisite than those of the poor; the nobleman must have more enjoyments than the plebeian of equal wealth; and the king, according to him, must be the happiest of all men. He owns, indeed, that although birth, rank, honours, and dignity add to happiness, a man is not to be considered as miserable because he is born in the lower conditions of life. A man may be happy as a mechanic, a merchant, or a labourer, provided he enters into the spirit of his profes- - sion, and has not imbibed, by a misplaced education, those sentiments which make his condition insupportable. Happiness is of easy acquisition in the middling stations of lifo; and though perhaps we are unable to know or to estimate exactly the pleasure which arises from contentment and mediocrity, yet happiness being a kind of aggregate of delights, of riches, and of advantages more or less great, every person must have a share of it; the division is not exactly made, but, all other things being equal, there will be more in the elevated than in the inferior conditions of society; the enjoyment will be more felt, the means of enjoying more multiplied, and the pleasures more varied. Birth, rank, fortune, talents, wit, genius, and virtue, are then die great sources of happiness; those advantages are so considerable, that we see men contented with any one of them; but their union forms supreme felicity. <

“There is so vast a difference, says Voltaire, between a man who has made his fortune and one who has to make it, that they are scarcely to be considered as creatures of the same kind. The same thing may be said of birth, the [7:18:53] greatest of all advantages in a large society; of rank, of honours, and of great abilities. How great a difference is made between a person of high birth and a tradesman; between a Newton or Descartes and a simple mathematician! Ten thousand soldiers are killed on the field of battle, and it is scarcely mentioned; but if the general fall, and especially if he be a man of courage and abilities, the court and city are filled with the news of his death, and the mourning is universal.

“Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, felt in a more lively manner than perhaps any other man the value of great talents. I would willingly renounce, said he to Voltaire, every thing which is an object of desire and ambition to man; but I am certain if I were not a prince I •should be nothing. Your merit alone would gain you the esteem, and envy, and admiration of the world; but to secure respect for me, titles, and armies, and revenues, are absolutely necessary.”

For what purpose this account of human happiness was published, it is not for us to say. Its obvious tendency, however, is to make the lower orders of society discontented with their state, and envious of their superiors; and it is not unreasonable to suppose, that it contributed in some degree to excite the ignorant part of the author’s countrymen to the commission of those atrocities of which they have since been guilty. That such was his intention, the following extract will not permit us to believe; for though in it the author attempts to support the same false theory of human happiness, he mentions virtuous kings with the respect becoming a loyal subject of the unfortunate Louis, whose character he seems to have intentionally drawn, and whose death by the authority of a savage faction he has in effect foretold.

“Happiness, in a state of society, takes the most variable forms; it is a Proteus susceptible of every kind of metamorphosis; it is different in different men, in different ages, and in different conditions. The pleasures of youth are very different from those of old age; what affords enjoyment to a mechanic, would be supreme misery to a nobleman; and the amusements of the country would appear insipid in the capital. Is there, then, nothing fixed with regard to happiness? Is it of all things the most variable and the most arbitrary? Or, in judging of it, is it impossible to find a standard by which we can determine the limits of the greatest good to which man can arrive in the present state? It is evident that men form the same ideas of the beautiful and sublime in nature, and of right and wrong in morality, provided they have arrived at that degree of improvement and civilization of which human nature is susceptible; and that different opinions on these subjects depend on different degrees of culture, of education, and of improvement. The same thing may be advanced with regard to happiness: all men, if equal with respect to their organs, would form the very same ideas on this subject if they reached the degree of improvement of which we are presently speaking; and, in fact, do we not see in the great circles at Rome, at Vienna, at London, and at Paris, that those who are called people of fashion, who have received the same education, have nearly the same taste, the same desires, and the same spirit for enjoyment? There is doubtless a certain degree of happiness to be enjoyed in every condition of life; but as there are some conditions preferable to others, so are there degrees of happiness greater and less; and if we were to form an idea of the greatest possible in the present state, it perhaps would be that of a sovereign, master of a great empire, enjoying good health and a moderate spirit; endowed with piety and virtue; whose whole life was employed in acts of justice and mercÿ, and who governed by fixed and immoveable laws. Such a king is the image of the Divinity on earth, and he must ba the idol of a wise people. His whole life should present a picture of the most august felicity. Although such sovereigns are rare, yet we are not without examples of them. ∙ Ancient history affords us Titus and Marcus Aurelius, and the present age can boast of piety and munificence in the character of some of its kings. This state of the greatest happiness to which man can reach not being ideal, it will serve as a standard of comparison by which happiness and misery can be estimated in all civilized countries. He is as hoppy αs a king, is a proverbial expression, because we believe with justice that royalty is the extreme limit of the greatest enjoyments; and, in fact, happiness being the work of man, that condition which comprehends all the degrees of power and of glory, which is the source of honour and of dignity, and which supposes in the person invested with it all means of enjoyment either for himself or others, leaves nothing on this earth to which any reasonable man would give the preference.

“We can find also in this high rank the extreme of the greatest evils to which the condition of nature is exposed. A king condemned to death and perishing on a scaffold, by the authority of a faction, while at the same time he had endeavoured, by every means in his power, to promote the general happiness of his subjects, is the most terrible and striking example of human misery; for if it be true that a crown is the greatest of all blessings, then the loss of it, and at the same time the loss of life by an ignominious and unjust sentence, are of all calamities the most dreadful.

“It is also in the courts of kings that we find the most amiable and perfect characters; and it is there where true grandeur, true politeness, the best tone of manners, the most amiable graces, and the most eminent virtues, are completely established. It is in courts that men seem to have acquired their greatest improvement. Whosoever has seen a court, says La Bruyère, has seen the world in the most beautiful, the most enchanting, and attractive colours. The prejudices of mankind in behalf of the great are so excessive, that if they inclined to be good they would be almost the objects of adoration.”

In this passage there are doubtless many just observations. But there is at least an equal number of others both false and dangerous. That a crown is the greatest of all earthly blessings, and that it is in the courts of kings that we meet with the most amiable and perfect characters, are positions which a true philosopher will not admit, except with great limitations. The falsehood of the author’s -general theory respecting the unequal distribution of happiness in society, we need not waste time in exposing. It is sufficiently refuted in other articles of this work. (See Moral Philosophy.) He enters upon other speculations respecting the pleasures and pains of savages, which are ingenious, and worthy of attention; but before we proceed to notice them, it will be proper to consider the connection which subsists between pleasure and pain.

“That the cessation of pain is accompanied by pleasure, is a fact, “says Dr Sayers,” which has been repeatedly observed, but perhaps not sufficiently accounted for. Let us suppose a person in a state of indifference as to heat. Upon coming near a fire, he will experience at first an agreeable warmth, that is, pleasure. If the heat be increased, this state of pleasure will, after a time, be converted into one of pain, from the increased action upon the nerves and brain, the undoubted organs of all bodily sensations. Let the heat now be gradually withdrawn; the nervous system must acquire again, during this removal, the state of agreeable warmth or pleasure; and after passing through that state it will arrive at indifference. From this fact then we may conclude that a state of pleasure may be pushed on till it is converted into one of pain; and, on the other hand, that [7:18:54]an action which produces pain will, if it go off gradually, induce at a certain period of its decrease a state of pleasure. The same reasoning which has thus been applied to the body may be extended also to the mind. Total languor of mind is not so pleasant as a certain degree of action or emotion; and emotions pleasant at one period may be increased till they become painful at another; whilst painful emotions, as they gradually expire, will, at a certain period of their decrease, induce a state of pleasure. Hence then we are able to explain why pleasure should arise in all cases from the gradual cessation of any action or emotion which produces pain.”

The same author maintains, that from the mere removal of pain, whether by degrees or instantaneously, we always experience pleasure; and if the pain removed was exquisite, what he maintains is certainly true. To account for this phenomenon he lays down the following law of nature, which experience abundantly confirms, viz. “that the temporary withdrawing of any action from the body or mind invariably renders them more Susceptible of that action when again produced.” Thus, after long fasting, the body is more susceptible of the effects of food than if the stomach had been lately satisfied; the action of strong liquors is found to be greater on those who use them seldom than on such as are in the habit of drinking them. Thus, too, with respect to the mind; if a person be deprived for a time of his friend’s society, or of a favourite amusement, the next visit of his friend, or the next renewal of his amusement, is attended with much more pleasure than if they had never been withheld from him.

“To apply this law to the case of a person suddenly relieved from acute pain. While he labours with such pain, his mind is so totally occupied by it, that he is unable to attend to his customary pursuits or amusements. He becomes therefore so much more susceptible of their action, that when they are again presented to him, he is raised above his usual indifference to positive pleasure. But all pains do not proceed from an excess of action. Many of them arise from reducing the body or the mind to a state below indifference. Thus, if a person have just sufficient warmth in his body to keep him barely at ease or in a state of indifference, by withdrawing this heat, a state of uneasiness or pain is produced; and if in a calm state of mind one be made acquainted with a melancholy event, his quiet is interrupted, and he sinks below indifference, into a painful state of mind. If, now, without communicating any new source of pleasure, we remove in the former case the cold, and in the latter the grief, the persons from whom they are removed will experience real pleasure. Thus, then, whether pain arises from excess or deficiency of action, the gradual or the sudden removal of it must be in all cases attended with pleasure.”^[2. Disquisitions Metaphysical and Literary. ] It is equally true that the gradual or sudden removal of pleasure is attended with pain.

We are now prepared to examine the French author’s account of the pleasures and pains of savages. “Every age,” says he, “has its different pleasures; but if we were to imagine that those of childhood are equal to those of confirmed age, we should be much mistaken in our estimation of happiness. The pleasures of philosophy, either natural or moral, are not unfolded to the infant; the most perfect music is a vain noise; the most exquisite perfumes and dishes highly seasoned offend his young organs instead of affording delight; his touch is imperfect; forty days elapse before the child gives any sign of laughter or of weeping; his cries and groans before that period are not accompanied with tears; his countenance expresses no passion; the parts of his face bear no relation to the sentiments of the soul, and are moreover without consistency. Children are but little affected with cold; whether it be that they feel less, or that the interior heat is greater than in adults. In them all the impressions of pleasure and pain are transitory; their memory has scarcely begun to unfold its powers; they enjoy nothing but the present moment; they weep, laugh, and give tones of satisfaction without consciousness, or at least without reflection; their joy is confined to the indulgence of their little whims, and constraint is the greatest of their misfortunes; few things amuse, and nothing satisfies them. In this happy condition of early infancy nature is at the whole expense of happiness; and the only point is not to contradict her. What desires have children? Give them liberty in all their movements, and they have a plenitude of existence, an abundance of that kind of happiness which is confined in some sort to all the objects which surround them; but if all beings were happy on the same conditions, society would be at no expense in procuring the happiness of the different individuals who compose it. Sensation is the foundation of reflection; it is the principal attribute of the soul; it is by this that man is elevated to sublime speculations, and secures his dominion over nature and himself. This quality is not stationary, but susceptible, like all other relative qualities, of increase and decay, of different degrees of strength and intenseness: it is different in different men; and in the same man it increases from infancy to youth, from youth to confirmed manhood: at this period it stops, and gradually declines as we proceed to old age and to second childishness. Considered physically, it varies according to age, constitution, climate, and food; considered in a moral point of view, it takes its different appearances from individual education, and from the habits of society; for man in a state of nature and society, with regard to sensation and the unfolding of his powers, may be considered as two distinct beings; and if one were to make a calculation of pleasure in the course of human life, a man of fortune and capacity enjoys more than ten thousand savages.

“Pleasure and pain being relative qualities, they may be almost annihilated in the moment of vehement passion. In the heat of battle, for example, ardent and animated spirits have not felt the pain of their wounds; and minds strongly penetrated with sentiments of religion, enthusiasm, and humanity, have supported the most cruel torments with courage and fortitude. The sensibility of some persons is so exquisitely alive, that one can scarcely approach them without throwing them into convulsions. Many diseases show the effect of sensibility pushed to an extreme; such as hysteric affections, certain kinds of madness, and some of those which proceed from poison, and from the bite or sting of certain animals, as the viper and the tarantula. Excessive joy or grief, fear and terror, have been known to destroy all sensation, and occasion death.”^[3. There are instances of persons who have died in consequence of the noise of thunder, without being touched. A man frightened by the fell of a gallery in which he happened to be, was immediately seized with the black jaundice. Μ. le Cat mentions a young person on whom the insolence of another made such an impression, that his countenance became at first yellow, and then changed into black, in such a manner that in less than eight days he appeared to wear a mask of black velvet; and he continued in this state for four months, without any other symptom of bad health, or any pain. A sailor was so terrified in a storm, that his face sweated blood, which, like ordinary sweat, returned as it was wiped off. Stahl, whose testimony cannot be called in question, cites a similar case of a girl who had been frightened by soldiers. The excess of fear, according to many physicians, produces madness and epilepsy. ]

Having made these preliminary observations on pleasure and pain in infancy, and as they are increased Or diminished by education, and the different conditions of body and mind, the same author proceeds to consider the capability of savages to feel pleasure and pain. “By savages he understands all the tribes of men who live by hunting and fishing, [7:18:55]and on those things which the earth yields without cultivation. Those tribes who possess herds of cattle, and who derive their subsistence from such possessions, are not to be considered as savages, as they have some idea of property. Some savages are naturally compassionate and humane, others are cruel and sanguinary. Although the physical constitution of man be everywhere the same, yet the varieties of climate, the abundance or scarcity of natural productions, have a powerful influence to determine the inclinations; even the fierceness of the tiger is softened under a mild sky. Now nature forms the manners of savages just as society and civil institutions form the manners of civilized life. In the one case climate and food produce almost the whole effect; in the other they have scarcely any influence. The habits of society every moment contend with nature, and they are almost always victorious. The savage devotes himself to the dominion of his passions; the civilized man is employed in restraining, in directing, and in modifying them: so much influence have government, laws, society, and the fear of censure and punishment, over his soul.

“It is not to he doubted that savages are susceptible both of pleasure and pain; but arc the impressions made on their organs as sensible, or do they feel pain in the same degree with the inhabitants of a civilized country?

“Their enjoyments are so limited, that if we confine ourselves to truth, a few lines will be sufficient to describe them: our attention must therefore be confined to pain, because the manner in which they support misfortune, and even torture, presents us with a view of character unequalled in the history of civilized nations. It is not uncommon in civilized countries to see men braving death, meeting it with cheerfulness, and even not uttering complaints under the torture; but they do not insult the executioners of public vengeance, and defy pain in order to augment their torments; and those who are condemned by the laws suffer the punishment with different degrees of fortitude. On those mournful occasions, the common ranks of mankind in general die with less firmness: those, on the other hand, who have received education, and who by a train of unfortunate events are brought to the scaffold, whether it be the fear of being reproached with cowardice, or the consideration that the stroke is inevitable, such men discover the expiring sighs of self-love even in their last moments; and those, especially of high rank, from their manners and sentiments, are expected to meet death with magnanimity: but an American savage in the moment of punishment appears to be more than human; he is a hero of the first order, who braves his tormentors, who provokes them to employ all their art, and who considers it his chief glory to bear the greatest degree of pain without shrinking. The recital of their tortures would appear exaggerated, if it were not attested by the best authority, and if the savage nations among whom those customs are established were not sufficiently known; but the excess of the cruelty is not so astonishing as the courage of the victim. The European exposed to sufferings of the same dreadful nature would rend heaven and earth with his piercing cries and horrible groans; the reward of martyrdom, the prospect of eternal life, could alone give him fortitude to endure such torments; but the savage is not animated with this exalted hope. What supports him, then, in scenes of so exquisite suffering? The feeling of shame, the fear of bringing reproach on his tribe, and giving a stain to his fellows never to be wiped away, are the only sentiments which influence the mind of a savage, and which, always present to his imagination, animate him, support him, and lend him spirit and resolution. At the same time, however powerful those motives may be, they would not be alone sufficient, if the savage felt pain in the same degree with the European. Sensibility, as we have already observed, is increased by education; it is influenced by society, manners, laws,' and government; climate and food work it into a hundred different shapes; and all the physical and moral causes contribute to increase and diminish it. The habitual existence of a savage would be a state of suffering to an inhabitant of Europe. You must cut the flesh of the one, and tear it away with your nails, before you can make him feel in an equal degree to a scratch or prick of a needle in the other. The savage, doubtless, suffers under torture, but he suffers much less than an European in the same circumstances: the reason is obvious; the air which the savages breathe is loaded with fog and moist vapours; their rivers not being confined by high banks, are by the winds as well as in floods spread over the level fields, and deposit on them a putrid and pernicious slime; the trees, squeezed one upon another in that rude and uncultivated country, serve rather as a covering to the earth than an ornament. Instead of those fresh and delicious shades, those openings in the woods, and walks crossing each other in all directions, which delight the traveller in the fine forests of France and Germany; those in America serve only to intercept the rays of the sun, and to prevent the benign influence of his beams. The savage participates of this cold humidity; his blood has little heat, his humours are gross, and his constitution phlegmatic. To the powerful influence of climate it is necessary to join the habit of his life. Obliged to traverse vast deserts for subsistence, his body is accustomed to fatigue; food not nourishing, and at the same time in no great plenty, blunts his feelings; and all the hardships of the savage state give a rigidity to his members which makes him almost incapable of suffering. The savage in this state of nature may be compared to our water-women and streetporters, who, though they possess neither great vigour nor strength, are capable of performing daily, and without complaint, that kind of labour which to a man in a different condition of life would be a painful and grievous burden. Feeling, in less perfection with the savage, by the effects of climate and food, and the habits of his life, is still farther restrained by moral considerations. The European is less a man of nature than of society: moral restraints are powerful with him, whilst over the American they have scarcely any influence. This latter, then, is in a double condition of imperfection with regard to us; his senses are blunted, and his moral powers are not disclosed. Now, pleasure and pain depending on the perfection of the senses and the unfolding of the intellectual faculties, it cannot be doubted, that in enjoyments of any kind savages experience less pleasure, and in their suffering less pain, than Europeans in the same circumstances. And, in fact, the savages of America possess a very feeble constitution. They are agile without being strong; and this agility depends more on their habits than on the perfection of their members: they owe it to the necessity of hunting; and they are moreover so weak, that they were unable to bear the toil which their first oppressors imposed on them. Hence a race of men in all respects so imperfect could not endure torment under which the most robust European would sink, if the pain which they feel were really as great as it appears to be. Feeling is, then, and must necessarily be, less in the savage condition; for this faculty disclosing itself by the exercise of all the physical and moral qualities, must be less as they are less exercised. Everything shows the imperfection of this precious quality, this source of all our affections, in the American savages.

“All the improvements in Europe have had a tendency to unfod sensibility; the air is purified that we may breathe more freely; the morasses are drained, the rivers are regulated in their courses, the food is nourishing, and the houses commodiou⅞. With the savages, on the contrary, everything tends to curb it; they take pleasure even in hardening the organs of the body, in accustoming themselves to [7:18:56]bear by degrees the most acute pain without complaining. Boys and girls among the savages amuse themselves with tying their naked arms together, and laying a kindled coal between them, to try which of them can longest suffer the heat; and the warriors who aspire to the honour of being chief, undergo a course of suffering which exceeds the idea of torture inflicted on the greatest criminals in Europe.”

These observations on the pleasures and pains of savages appear to be well founded, and, as the attentive reader will perceive, are perfectly agreeable to the theory of Dr Sayers. If, indeed, that theory be just, as we believe it to be, it will follow, that the few pleasures of sense which the American enjoys, he ought to enjoy more completely than any European, because to him they recur but seldom. This may very possibly be the case, and certainly would be so, were not his fibres, by climate and the habits of his life, rendered more rigid than those of the civilized part of the inhabitants of Europe. But if we agree with this author^[4. Encyclopédie Méthodique, articles Logique, Métaphysique, et Morale, tom. iv. ] in what he says of the pains and pleasures of savages, we cannot admit, without many exceptions, his theory of the enjoyments of children. It is so far from being true that few things amuse, and that nothing satisfies them, that the direct contrary must have been observed by every man attentive to the operations of the infant mind, which is amused with everything new, and often completely satisfied with the merest trifle. The pleasures of philosophy are not indeed unfolded to the infant; but it by no means follows that he does not enjoy his rattle and his drum as much as the philosopher enjoys his telescope and his air-pump; and if there be any truth in the science of physiognomy, the happiness of the former is much more pure and exquisite than that of the latter. That the most perfect music is vain noise to an infant, is far from being self-evident, unless the author confines the state of infancy to a very few months; and we are not disposed to believe, without better evidence than we have yet received, that the relish of exquisite perfumes and highly-seasoned dishes adds much to the sum of human felicity.

But however much we disapprove of many of these reflections, the following we cordially approve and adopt. “If we compare,” says our author, .“the pleasures of sense with those which are purely intellectual, we shall find that the latter are infinitely superior to the former, as they may be enjoyed at all times and in every situation of life. What are the pleasures of the table, says Cicero, of gaming, and of women, compared with the delight of study? This taste increases with age, and no happiness is equal to it. Without knowledge and study, says Cato, life is almost the image of death.^[5. “Savages, barbarians, and peasants, enjoy little happiness except that of sensation. The happiness of a civilized and well-informed man consists of sensations, of ideas, and of a great nunff>er of affinities, altogether unknown to them. He not only enjoys the present, but the past and the future. He recalls the agreeable idea of pleasures which he has tasted. It is great happiness, says an ancient, to have the recollection of good actions, of an upright intention, and of promises which we have kept.” ] The pleasures of the soul are such, that it is frequent enough to see men preserve their gaiety during their whole life, notwithstanding a weak, diseased, and debilitated body. Scaron, who lived in the last century, was an example of this. Balzac, speaking of him, says that Prometheus, Hercules, and Philoctetes, in profane, and Job in sacred history, said many great things while they were afflicted with violent pain; but Scaron alone said pleasant things. I have seen, continues he, in many places of ancient history, constancy, and modesty, and wisdom, and eloquence, accompanying affliction; but he is the only instance wherein I have seen pleasantry.

“There are men whose understandings are constantly on the stretch, and by this very means they are improved; but if the body were as constantly employed in the pursuit of sensual gratification, the constitution would soon be de-stroyéd. The more we employ the mind we are capable of the greater exertion; but the more we employ the body we require the greater repose. There are, besides, but some parts of the body capable of enjoying pleasure; every part of it can experience pain. A toothach occasions more suffering than the most considerable of our pleasures can procure of enjoyment. Great pain may continue for any length of time; excessive pleasures are almost momentary. Pleasure carried to an extreme becomes painful; but pain, either by augmenting or diminishing it, never becomes agreeable. For the moment, the pleasures of the senses are perhaps more satisfactory; but in point of duration, those of the heart and mind are infinitely preferable. All the sentiments of tenderness, of friendship, of gratitude, and of generosity, are sources of enjoyment for man in a state of civilization. The damned are exceedingly unhappy, said St Catherine de Sienna, if they are incapable of loving or being beloved.

“Pleasure, continued for a great length of time, produces languor and fatigue, and excites sleep; the continuation of pain is productive of none of these effects. Many suffer pain for eight days, and even a month, without interruption; an equal duration of excessive pleasure would occasion death.

“Time is a mere relative idea with regard to pleasure and pain; it appears long when we suffer, and short when we enjoy. If there existed no regular and uniform movement in nature, we would not be able from our sensations alone to measure time with any degree of exactness, for pain lengthens and pleasure abridges it. From the languor of unoccupied time has arisen the proverb expressive of our desire to kill it. It is a melancholy reflection, and at the same time true, that there is no enjoyment which can effectually secure us from pain for the remainder of our lives; while there are examples of evils which hold men in constant sorrow and pain during their whole existence. Such, then, is the imperfection of the one and the power of the other.

“Pleasure and pain are the sources of morality; an action is just or unjust, good or otherwise, only as its natural tendency is to produce suffering or enjoyment to mankind. No crime could be committed against a being altogether insensible, nor could any good be bestowed on it. Unless he were endowed with the desire of pleasure and the apprehension of pain, man, like an automaton, would act from necessity, without choice and without determination.

“All our passions are the development of sensibility. If we were not possessed of feeling, we should be destitute of passions; and as sensibility is augmented by civilization, the passions are multiplied; more active and vigorous in an extensive and civilized empire than in a small state; more in the latter than among barbarous nations; and more in these last than among savages. (See Passion.) There are more passions in France and England than in all the nations of Europe; because everything which serves to excite and foster them is always in those countries in the greatest state of fermentation. The mind is active; the ideas great, extensive, and multiplied. And is it not the soul, the mind, and heart, which are the focus of all the passions ?”

But wherever the passions are multiplied, the sources of pleasure and pain are multiplied along with them. This being the case, it is impossible to prescribe a fixed and general rule of happiness suited to every individual. There are objects of pleasure with regard to which all men of a certain education are agreed; but there are perhaps many [7:18:57]more, owing to the variety of tempers and education, about which they differ. Every man forms ideas of enjoyment relative to his character; and what pleases one may be utterly detested by another. In proportion as a nation is civilized and extensive, those differences are remarkable. Savages, who are not acquainted with all the variety of European pleasures, amuse themselves with very few objects. Owing to the want of civilization, they have scarcely any choice in the objects of taste. They have few passions; we have many. But even in the nations of Europe, pleasure is infinitely varied in its modification and forms. Those differences arise from manners, from governments, from political and religions customs, and chiefly from education. Meanwhile, however different and variable the ideas of pleasure may be amongst nations and individuals, it still remains a fact, that a certain number of persons in all civilized states, whether distinguished by birth, or rank, or fortune, or talents, as they have nearly the same education, so they form nearly the same ideas of happiness; but, to possess it, a man must give his chief application to the state of his mind; and, notwithstanding all his efforts, it is of uncertain duration. Happiness is the sunshine of life; we enjoy it frequently at great intervals, and it is therefore necessary to know how to use it. All the productions of art perish; the largest fortunes are dissipated; rank, honour, and dignity, pass away like a shadow; the memory is impaired; all the faculties of the soul are extinguished; the body sinks under the infirmities of old age; and scarcely has one reached the boundaries of happiness marked out by his imagination, when he must give place to another, and renounce all his pleasures, all his hopes, all his illusions, the fugitive images of which had given happiness to the mind.

There are pleasures, however, on which the mind may securely rest, and which elevate man above himself, dignify his nature, fix his attention on spiritual things, and render him worthy of the care of Providence. These are to be found in true religion, which procures for those who practise its duties, inexpressible happiness in a better country, and is in this world the support of the weak and the consolation of the unfortunate.