THUS I THINK.
Reading edition
[From Locke’s Miscellaneous Papers,
published in his Life by Lord King.]
It is a man’s proper business to seek happiness and avoid misery. Happiness consists in what delights and contents the mind; misery in what disturbs, discomposes, or torments it.
I will therefore make it my business to seek satisfaction and delight, and avoid uneasiness and disquiet; to have as much of the one and as little of the other as may be.
But here I must have a care I mistake not; for if I prefer a short pleasure to a lasting one, it is plain I cross my own happiness.
Let me then see wherein consists the most lasting pleasure of this life, and that, as far as I can observe, is in these things:—
1st. Health,—without which no sensual[2] pleasure can have any relish.
2nd. Reputation,—for that I find every body is pleased with, and the want of it is a constant torment.
3rd. Knowledge,—for the little knowledge I have, I find I would not sell at any rate, nor part with for any other pleasure.
4th. Doing good,—for I find the well-cooked meat I eat to-day does now no more delight me, nay, I am diseased after a full meal;—the perfumes I smelt yesterday now no more affect me with any pleasure; but the good turn I did yesterday, a year, seven years since, continues still to please and delight me as often as I reflect on it.
5th. The expectation of eternal and incomprehensible happiness in another world is that also which carries a constant pleasure with it.
If, then, I will faithfully pursue that happiness I propose to myself, whatever pleasure offers itself to me, I must carefully look that it cross not any of those five great and constant pleasures above mentioned. For example, the fruit I see tempts me with the taste of it that I love; but if it endanger my health, I part with a constant and lasting for a very short and transient pleasure, and so foolishly make myself unhappy, and am not true to my own interest.
Innocent diversions delight me: if I make use of them to refresh myself after study and business, they preserve my health, restore the vigour of my mind, and increase my pleasure; but if I spend all, or the greater part of my time in them, they hinder my improvement in knowledge and useful arts, they blast my credit, and give me up to the uneasy state of shame, ignorance, and contempt, in which I cannot but be very unhappy. Drinking, gaming, and vicious delights will do me this mischief, not only by wasting my time, but by a positive injury endanger my health, impair my parts, imprint ill habits, lessen my esteem, and leave a constant lasting torment on my conscience; therefore all vicious and unlawful pleasures I will always avoid, because such a mastery of my passions will afford me a constant pleasure greater than any such enjoyments, and also deliver me from the certain evil of several kinds, that by indulging myself in a present temptation I shall certainly afterwards suffer.
20All innocent diversions and delights, as far as they will contribute to my health, and consist with my improvement, condition, and my other more solid pleasures of knowledge and reputation, I will enjoy, but no farther; and this I will carefully watch and examine, that I may not be deceived by the flattery of a present pleasure to lose a greater.
A regulated habit of looking beyond our immediate situations is justly considered the parent of all laudable enterprises. But the habit must be regulated, and strictly regulated, or it will become the source of miseries and crime. The secret for its regulation may be shortly expressed. He who pursues a future happiness, prosperity, or honour, by the right path, does not cast away the good in his possession, nor neglect the duties which lie before him; but he endeavours to shape them by slow degrees to that model of perfection which his feelings or his reason have set up. On the other hand, he who views some distant object of desire, without connecting it with his immediate obligations, neither attains the blessings within his reach, nor approaches a single step to the ideal good; he has cast away the link which connects the present with the future.
Advantages of the Diffusion of Knowledge.—An intelligent class can scarce ever be, as a class, vicious; never, as a class, indolent. The excited mental activity operates as a counterpoise to the stimulus of sense and appetite. The new world of ideas; the new views of the relations of things; the astonishing secrets of the physical properties and mechanical powers, disclosed to the well-informed mind, present attractions, which, unless the character is deeply sunk, are sufficient to counterbalance the taste for frivolous or corrupt pleasures; and thus, in the end, a standard of character is created in the community, which, though it does not invariably save each individual, protects the virtue of the mass.—Everett’s Essay.