The Religion of Nature Delineated by William Wollaston (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

exceeds, the excess gives the true quantity of pleasure or pain. For nine degrees of pleasure, less by nine degrees of pain, are equal to nothing; but nine degrees of one, less by three degrees of the other, give six of the former net and true.

VI. As, therefore, there may be true pleasure and pain: so there may be some pleasures which, compared with what attends or follows them, not only may vanish into nothing, but may even degenerate into pain, and ought to be reckoned as pains;109 and, vice versa, some pains that may be annumerated to pleasures. For the true quantity of pleasure differs not from that quantity of true pleasure; or, it is so much of that kind of pleasure which is true (clear of all discounts and future payments); nor can the true quantity of pain not be the same with that quantity of true or mere pain. Then the man who enjoys three degrees of such pleasure as will bring upon him nine degrees of pain, when three degrees of pain are set off to balance and sink the three of pleasure, can have remaining to him only six degrees of pain: and into these therefore is his pleasure finally resolved. And so the three degrees of pain which anyone endures to obtain nine of pleasure, end in six of the latter. By the same manner of computing, some pleasures will be found to be the loss of pleasure, compared with greater; and some pains, the alleviation of pain, because by undergoing them greater are evaded.110 Thus the natures of pleasures and pains are varied, and sometimes transmuted⁠—which ought never to be forgot.

Nor this neither: As, in the sense of most men, I believe, a little pain will weigh against a great deal of pleasure,111 so perhaps there may be some pains which exceed all pleasures; that is, such pains as no man would choose to suffer for any pleasure whatever, or at least any that we know of in this world. So that it is possible the difference, or excess of pain, may rise so high as to become immense, and then the pleasure to be set against that pain will be but a point, or cipher: a quantity of no value.

VII. Happiness differs not from the true quantity of pleasure; unhappiness of pain. Or: any being may be said to be so far happy, as his pleasures are true, etc. That cannot be the happiness of any being, which is bad for him; nor can happiness be disagreeable. It must be something, therefore, that is both agreeable and good for the possessor. Now, present pleasure is for the present indeed agreeable; but if it be not true, and he who enjoys it must pay more for it than it is worth, it cannot be for his good, or good for him. This therefore cannot be his happiness. Nor, again, can that pleasure be reckoned happiness, for which one pays the full price in pain: because these are quantities which mutually destroy each other. But yet since happiness is something which, by the general idea of it, must be desirable, and therefore agreeable, it must be some kind of pleasure:112 and this, from what has been said, can only be such pleasure as is true. That only can be both agreeable and good for him. And thus everyone’s happiness will be as his true quantity of pleasure.

One that loves to make objections may demand here whether there may not be happiness without pleasure: whether a man may not be said to be happy in respect to those evils which he escapes, and yet knows nothing of; and whether there may not be such a thing as negative happiness. I answer: an exemption from misfortunes and pains is a high privilege, though we should not be sensible what those misfortunes or dangers are from which we are delivered, and in the larger use of the word may be styled a happiness. Also, the absence of pain or unhappiness may perhaps be called negative happiness, since the meaning of that phrase is known. But, in proper speaking, happiness always includes something positive. For mere indolence resulting from insensibility, or joined with it, if it be happiness, is a happiness infinitely diminished: that is, it is no more a happiness than it is an unhappiness; upon the confine of both, but neither. At best, it is but the happiness of stocks and stones:113 and to these I think happiness can hardly be, in strictness, allowed. ’Tis the privilege of a stock to be what it is, rather than to be a miserable being: this we are sensible of, and therefore, joining this privilege with our own sense of it, we call it happiness; but this is what it is in our manner of apprehending it, not what it is in the stock itself. A sense, indeed, of being free from pains and troubles is attended with happiness: but then the happiness flows from the sense of the case, and is a positive happiness. While a man reflects upon his negative happiness, as it is called, and enjoys it, he makes it positive: and perhaps a sense of immunity from the afflictions and miseries, everywhere so obvious to our observation, is one of the greatest pleasures in this world.

VIII. That being may be said to be ultimately happy, in some degree or other, the sum total of whose pleasures exceeds the sum of all his pains: or, ultimate happiness is the sum of happiness, or true pleasure, at the foot of the account. And so, on the other side, that being may be said to be ultimately unhappy, the sum of all whose pains exceeds that of all his pleasures.

IX. To make itself happy is a duty, which every being, in proportion to its capacity, owes to