OF MODES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN.
1. Pleasure and Pain, simple Ideas.
AMONGST the simple ideas which we receive both from sensation and
reflection, PAIN and PLEASURE are two very considerable ones. For as in
the body there is sensation barely in itself, or accompanied with pain
or pleasure, so the thought or perception of the mind is simply so, or
else accompanied also with pleasure or pain, delight or trouble, call
it how you please. These, like other simple ideas, cannot be described,
nor their names defined; the way of knowing them is, as of the simple
ideas of the senses, only by experience. For, to define them by the
presence of good or evil, is no otherwise to make them known to us than
by making us reflect on what we feel in ourselves, upon the several and
various operations of good and evil upon our minds, as they are
differently applied to or considered by us.
2. Good and evil, what.
Things then are good or evil, only in reference to pleasure or pain.
That we call GOOD, which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or
diminish pain in us; or else to procure or preserve us the possession
of any other good or absence of any evil. And, on the contrary, we name
that EVIL which is apt to produce or increase any pain, or diminish any
pleasure in us: or else to procure us any evil, or deprive us of any
good. By pleasure and pain, I must be understood to mean of body or
mind, as they are commonly distinguished; though in truth they be only
different constitutions of the MIND, sometimes occasioned by disorder
in the body, sometimes by thoughts of the mind.
3. Our passions moved by Good and Evil.
Pleasure and pain and that which causes them,—good and evil, are the
hinges on which our passions turn. And if we reflect on ourselves, and
observe how these, under various considerations, operate in us; what
modifications or tempers of mind, what internal sensations (if I may so
call them) they produce in us we may thence form to ourselves the ideas
of our passions.
4. Love.
Thus any one reflecting upon the thought he has of the delight which
any present or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the idea we
call LOVE. For when a man declares in autumn when he is eating them, or
in spring when there are none, that he loves grapes, it is no more but
that the taste of grapes delights him: let an alteration of health or
constitution destroy the delight of their taste, and he then can be
said to love grapes no longer.
5. Hatred.
On the contrary, the thought of the pain which anything present or
absent is apt to produce in us, is what we call HATRED. Were it my
business here to inquire any further than into the bare ideas of our
passions, as they depend on different modifications of pleasure and
pain, I should remark that our love and hatred of inanimate insensible
beings is commonly founded on that pleasure and pain which we receive
from their use and application any way to our senses though with their
destruction. But hatred or love, to beings capable of happiness or
misery, is often the uneasiness of delight which we find in ourselves,
arising from their very being or happiness. Thus the being and welfare
of a man’s children or friends, producing constant delight in him, he
is said constantly to love them. But it suffices to note, that our
ideas of love and hatred are but the dispositions of the mind, in
respect of pleasure and pain in general, however caused in us.
6. Desire.
The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything
whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it, is that we
call DESIRE; which is greater or less as that uneasiness is more or
less vehement. Where, by the by, it may perhaps be of some use to
remark, that the chief, if not only spur to human industry and action
is UNEASINESS. For whatsoever good is proposed, if its absence carries
no displeasure or pain with it, if a man be easy and content without
it, there is no desire of it, nor endeavour after it; there is no more
but a bare velleity, the term used to signify the lowest degree of
desire, and that which is next to none at all, when there is so little
uneasiness in the absence of anything, that it carries a man no further
than some faint wishes for it, without any more effectual or vigorous
use of the means to attain it. Desire also is stopped or abated by the
opinion of the impossibility or unattainableness of the good proposed,
as far as the uneasiness is cured or allayed by that consideration.
This might carry our thoughts further, were it seasonable in this
place.
7. Joy.
JOY is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the present or
assured approaching possession of a good; and we are then possessed of
any good, when we have it so in our power that we can use it when we
please. Thus a man almost starved has joy at the arrival of relief,
even before he has the pleasure of using it: and a father, in whom the
very well-being of his children causes delight, is always, as long as
his children are in such a state, in the possession of that good; for
he needs but to reflect on it, to have that pleasure.
8. Sorrow.
SORROW is uneasiness in the mind, upon the thought of a good lost,
which might have been enjoyed longer; or the sense of a present evil.
9. Hope.
HOPE is that pleasure in the mind, which every one finds in himself,
upon the thought of a probable future enjoyment of a thing which is apt
to delight him.
10. Fear.
FEAR is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of future evil
likely to befall us.
11. Despair.
DESPAIR is the thought of the unattainableness of any good, which works
differently in men’s minds, sometimes producing uneasiness or pain,
sometimes rest and indolency.
12. Anger.
ANGER is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind, upon the receipt of
any injury, with a present purpose of revenge.
13. Envy.
ENVY is an uneasiness of the mind, caused by the consideration of a
good we desire obtained by one we think should not have had it before
us.
14. What Passions all Men have.
These two last, ENVY and ANGER, not being caused by pain and pleasure
simply in themselves, but having in them some mixed considerations of
ourselves and others, are not therefore to be found in all men, because
those other parts, of valuing their merits, or intending revenge, is
wanting in them. But all the rest, terminating purely in pain and
pleasure, are, I think, to be found in all men. For we love, desire,
rejoice, and hope, only in respect of pleasure; we hate, fear, and
grieve, only in respect of pain ultimately. In fine, all these passions
are moved by things, only as they appear to be the causes of pleasure
and pain, or to have pleasure or pain some way or other annexed to
them. Thus we extend our hatred usually to the subject (at least, if a
sensible or voluntary agent) which has produced pain in us; because the
fear it leaves is a constant pain: but we do not so constantly love
what has done us good; because pleasure operates not so strongly on us
as pain, and because we are not so ready to have hope it will do so
again. But this by the by.
15. Pleasure and Pain, what.
By pleasure and pain, delight and uneasiness, I must all along be
understood (as I have above intimated) to mean not only bodily pain and
pleasure, but whatsoever delight or uneasiness is felt by us, whether
arising from any grateful or unacceptable sensation or reflection.
16. Removal or lessening of either.
It is further to be considered, that, in reference to the passions, the
removal or lessening of a pain is considered, and operates, as a
pleasure: and the loss or diminishing of a pleasure, as a pain.
17. Shame.
The passions too have most of them, in most persons, operations on the
body, and cause various changes in it; which not being always sensible,
do not make a necessary part of the idea of each passion. For SHAME,
which is an uneasiness of the mind upon the thought of having done
something which is indecent, or will lessen the valued esteem which
others have for us, has not always blushing accompanying it.
18. These Instances to show how our Ideas of the Passions are got from
Sensation and Reflection.
I would not be mistaken here, as if I meant this as a Discourse of the
Passions; they are many more than those I have here named: and those I
have taken notice of would each of them require a much larger and more
accurate discourse. I have only mentioned these here, as so many
instances of modes of pleasure and pain resulting in our minds from
various considerations of good and evil. I might perhaps have instanced
in other modes of pleasure and pain, more simple than these; as the
pain of hunger and thirst, and the pleasure of eating and drinking to
remove them: the pain of teeth set on edge; the pleasure of music; pain
from captious uninstructive wrangling, and the pleasure of rational
conversation with a friend, or of well-directed study in the search and
discovery of truth. But the passions being of much more concernment to
us, I rather made choice to instance in them, and show how the ideas we
have of them are derived from sensation or reflection.