1 can be no full contentment without the expectation of it, is evident from this, that the fame reafon which makes a man wish to be happy at one time, makes him with to be happy at another time, and confequently at all times; and a wifh or defire, without hope, is uneafinefs, and inconfiftent with contentment. A man cannot be fully content at one time, if he fear not to be fo afterwards; yea, the more present pleasure or joy a man has, the greater is his vexation at the thoughts of lofing it: which perhaps may contribute to folve that odd phenomenon, of fome rational creatures being eafy, at leaft pretending to be eafy, and even to be gay, and rejoice, at the hopes of lofing all joy when they lofe their bodies; because, abftracting from bodily pleafures, they have no relifh of any other worth the defiring, and find even thefe fo naufeous and clogging, that they would not think it perhaps very defirable to have them for ever: yet to renounce all hopes of perpetual joy, or heaven, may be called an acquiefcence in the half of Mifery's hell; and it would be easy to demonftrate, that to rejoice in fuch a forry profpect, argues the fecret fear of a worfe; and that, if duly confidered, might make an argument to prove the reality both of what they fear, and of what they renounce. It is useful to compare the different kinds of pleafures, in order to find out the higheft; and the longeft enjoyment of that is happiness. SECT. I. Of the pleasures of fenfe, or mere fenfations. It is not needful to infift long in fhewing, that happiness cannot confift in thefe. Some measure of them is neceffary for prefent eafe; but there is a difference between their being neceffary, and their being fufficient. They are neceffary to remove antecedent cedent uneafinefs, which is inconfiftent with complete happiness, excluding all une finefs. They are neceffary only fometimes; but thought is at all times neceffary, and conftant joyful thought neceffary to conftant contentment. As they may and must be wanted fometimes, and the mind joyful without them, it might be joyful always without them, were it not for something in our present state that is not effential to us. It is but a few moments of this life they can make pleasant; but the mind defires to have joy always. The mind must be still feeding itself with thought, either pleasant or unpleafant. It is joyful thought it hungers and thirsts after, and the ufe of reafon is in making the best choice for that end; for the variety of matter is indefinite. Of all enjoyments, fenfations are the most clogging. It would be a poor happiness that would neceffarily require great intervals of mifery to give it a relish. Now, there must be long intervals of fenfation; but there can be none of thought. Senfation needs the addition of pleafant thought to give any durable joy. Solitary contemplation is both delightful, and (which infers a particular noble delight, justly deferving a peculiar diftinguishing name) it is becoming a man. To delight in mere folitary fenfations, is fottish and brutal; and common luxury feeks always fociety and converfe; neither of which is senfation, but a kind of contemplation. The most pleasant fenfations cannot fo fill the mind, even in the mean time, as that unpleasant thoughts cannot make them taftelefs; nor can painful fenfations, commonly at leaft, exclude the joy of contemplations, but rather increase the relish of it oftentimes. Bad news, an affront, revenge, envy, make the fot's darling pleasures naufeous to him. Joyful meditations elevate the fick and difeafed faint. The Roman, if I remember the ftory, who ran to Rome with the news of victory, was fo filled with joyful thoughts, Part I. thoughts, that it excluded all attention and feeling of the thorn in his foot, till his joy was affuaged. The man whom Dionyfius fet down to a feast, with the point of a fword over his head, found the pain in his thoughts fufficient to spoil all the pleasure of the feaft. SECT. II. Of mental pleasures strictly fo called, or the pleasures of thought, knowledge, or contemplation. Contemplation may reasonably be taken in a larger fenfe than what it is fometimes confined to; when it is diftinguished from the pleasure of affection, action, or fociety; fince it is certain, that our own actions, or the fociety of others, give us pleafure only by contemplating them, and the pleasure of affection to any object refults from a particular view or contemplation of it. The chief defign of this inquiry being to confider, which must be the moft pleafant contemplation, or the highest kind of mental enjoyment, it is ufeful to compare the different kinds of pleafant contemplations, and to confider the caufes of that pleasure that is in them. Every contemplation relates to fome object really exifting, or fuppofed to be fo; and fince there is no object in being, but a being of infinite perfections, and the various manifeftations of them, that is, God and his works, no wonder that every object is capable of giving joy in the contemplation of it, lefs or more. Beauty is the name we commonly give to that quality (or whatfoever we call it) in any object, which is the fource or caufe of joy in the contem plation of it. But fince many objects are not the proper caufes of the beautiful qualities they are ens dued with, or of our view of them, or joy in that view, therefore it is ufeful to diftinguish between the objective fource, and the efficient fource, of beauty, contemplation, or joy. Beautiful is the name we are used from our infancy to give to regular material figures, motions, &c.; and is an abftract idea fo familiar even to children, and to the moft ignorant vulgar, that they apply it to objects otherwise the most unlike in the world; temper, fentiments, inclinations, actions, harmonious founds, proportions of matter, and, in general, to every thing that has marks of contrivance in it, which is the impreffion of thought and defign, unlefs the defign itself be evil, and appear contrary to a rule which we conceive is the ftandard of all beauty in action and thought. Beauty is in effect the name the Greeks and Latins gave to the universe, (xoμos, mundus), and juftly, fince the whole and parts are to pleasant to contemplate. But there is nothing more evident, than that all beautiful objects are not equal; and even in material objects, which are the lowest order, there is a vaft diversity, according as there is more or lefs contrivance or thought in them: not that there is any thought or defign intrinfic in matter itfelf, but that its form, proportions, and motions, have the manifeft marks and figns of thought in them; and what appears void of thefe, appears deformed and confufed. But living beauties (by which name we may exprefs rational beings) are a quite different and higher kind of pleasant objects of contemplation, having not merely figns of external thought, (which is all the beauty we fee in matter), but being, as it were, conftantly full of internal thought themfelves. SECT. SECT. III. The pre-eminence of living fources of pleafant contemplation above thofe that are lifeless. This may appear by confidering what condition a man would be in who had all the lifeless universe to contemplate all alone, without any thought of the living cause of it, or any knowledge of any living being in it, but himself. Suppofing there fhould be never fo many living intelligent beings exifting in the world; yet if he had no knowledge or contemplation of them, it would be to him abfolute folitude; and furely, if we reflect on the frame of our natures, we may justly fuppofe it would, through time at leaft, turn to infupportable melancholy. The chief contemplation of living or intelligent objects of thought, is but another name for fociety. The enjoyment of lovely fociety (or of that which is thought to be fuch) is what gives the greatest chearfulness; and the lofs of it, (as in the death of friends), the moft exquifite, and the most becoming forrow. Society heightens and multiplies the pleafures of other contemplations, or even fenfations, to fuch a degree, that it can raise joy out of objects, whofe pleasure in folitude would perhaps fcarce be difcernible; and can even make trifles, that otherwife would appear infipid, ftrangely delightful, however unjustly oftentimes, by excluding thoughts of a better fort. Nor can this be imputed merely to the poisonous pleasure of pride and affectation to be fource of joy to others; fince, befides any pleafure a man has in communicating thoughts to o thers, he finds pleafure in receiving the like from them; and in receiving delightful contemplations from one perfon, it heightens our own particular delight, to have many others fharing with us, in an enjoyment which, in this refpect, is the reverfe of outward |