[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.
All 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.
-----
Footnote 2:
[Footnote 2: As opposed to intellectual.
---------------------
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._
---------------------