about the faculties of the body and of the soul respectively.* SENSUAL COMPARED WITH INTELLECTUAL PLEASURE. THE difference of which two estates consists in this; that in the former the sensitive appetites rule and domineer; in the latter the supreme faculty of the soul, called reason, sways the sceptre and acts the whole man above the irregular demands of appetite and affection. There is no doubt, but a man while he resigns himself up to the brutish guidance of sense and appetite, has no relish at all for the spiritual refined delights of a soul clarified by grace and virtue. The pleasures of an angel can never be the pleasures of a hog. But this is the thing that we contend for, that a man having once advanced himself to a state of superiority over the control of his inferior appetites finds an infinitely more solid and sublime pleasure in the delights proper to his reason, than the same person had ever conveyed to him by the bare ministry of his senses.† * Does not happiness consist in a due exercise of all our faculties? The harp in tune and properly played. Strange that a harp with many strings Should keep in tune so long. + The pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far surpasseth all other in nature: for, shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or under The change and passage from a state of nature, to a state of virtue, is laborious. The ascent up standing exceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which sheweth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasure; and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality: and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious' princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable. The poet that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, WORDSWORTH. Children and fools choose to please their senses rather than their reason, because they still dwell within the regions the hill is hard and tedious, but the serenity and fair prospect at the top, is sufficient to incite the labour of undertaking it, and to reward it being undertook.* PLEASURE OF GREAT PLACE. BUT to look upon those pleasures also, that have a higher object than the body; as those that spring from honour and grandeur of condition; yet we shall find, that even these are not so fresh and constant, but the mind can nauseate them, of sense, and have but little residence among intellectual essences. And because the needs of nature first employ the sensual appetites, these being first in possession would also fain retain it, and therefore for ever continue the title, and perpetually fight for it; but because the inferior faculty fighting against the superior is no better than a rebel, and that it takes reason for its enemy, it shews such actions which please the sense and do not please the reason to be unnatural, monstrous, and unreasonable. And it is a great disreputation to the understanding of a man, to be so cozened and deceived, as to choose money before a moral virtue; to please that which is common to him and beasts, rather than that part which is a communication of the divine nature; to see him run after a bubble which himself hath made, and the sun hath particoloured. Against this folly christian religion opposes contempt of things below, and setting our affections on things above. Taylor's Life of Christ. * I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct you to a hill side, where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.-Milton. and quickly feel the thinness of a popular breath. Those that are so fond of applause while they pursue it, how little do they taste it when they have it like lightning, it only flashes upon the face and is gone, and it is well if it does not hurt the But for greatness of place, though it is fit and necessary that some persons in the world should be in love with a splendid servitude, yet certainly they must be much beholding to their own fancy, that they can be pleased at it.* man, THE PLEASURE OF AMUSEMENT COMPARED WITH THE PLEASURE FROM INDUSTRY IN OUR CALLINGS. NOR is that man less deceived, that thinks to maintain a constant tenure of pleasure, by a * Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. Certainly great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy; for if they judge by their own feeling they cannot find it; but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contrary within; for they are the first that find their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults. Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind: "Illi mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi."-Bacon. continual pursuit of sports and recreations. The most voluptuous and loose person breathing, were he but tied to follow his hawks and his hounds, his dice and his courtships every day, would find it the greatest torment and calamity that could befall him; he would fly to the mines and galleys for his recreation, and to the spade and the mattock for a diversion from the misery of a continual unintermitted pleasure. But, on the contrary, the providence of God has so ordered the course of things, that there is no action, the usefulness of which has made it the matter of duty and of a profession, but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it, without loathing and satiety. The same shop and trade, that employs a man in his youth, employs him also in his age. Every morning he rises fresh to his hammer and anvil;* he passes the day singing; custom has naturalised his labour to him; his shop is his element, and he cannot with any enjoyment of himself live out of it.t * See ante, 141. + With what hard toil, with what uneasy cares, The woodpecker his scanty meal prepares: Tho' small the feast that must reward his pains, Sweet is that meal which honest labour gains. Johnson thought the happiest life was that of a man of business, with some literary pursuits for his amusement: and that in general no one could be virtuous or happy, that was not completely employed. "Be not solitary; be not idle," is the conclusion of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. See Search's Light of Nature, vol. x. where there is a chapter on employment of Time. |