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with a concert of musick; or suppose some object of a fine shape, and bright lively colours, to be presented before you; or imagine your smell is gratified with the fragrance of a rose; or if without any previous thirst you were to drink of fome pleafant kind of wine, or to taste of some sweetmeat without being hungry; in all the several senses, of hearing, smelling, and tasting, you undoubtedly find a pleasure; yet if I inquire into the state of your mind previous to these gratifications, you will hardly tell me that they found you in any kind of pain; or, having fatisfied these several fenfes with their several pleasures, will you fay that any pain has fucceeded, though the plea, fure is absolutely over? Suppose, on the other hand, a man in the same state of indifference, to receive a violent blow, or to drink of fome bitter potion, or to have his ears wounded with fome harsh and grating sound; here is no removal of pleasure; and yet here is felt, in every sense which is affected, a pain very diftinguishable. It may be faid, perhaps, that the pain in these cases had its rife from the removal of the pleasure which the man enjoyed before, though that pleasure was of folow a degree as to be perceived only by the removal. But this feems to me a fubtilty, that is not difcoverable in nature. For if, previous to the pain, I do not feel any actual pleasure, I have no reason to judge that any such thing exists; fince pleasure is only pleasure as it is felt. The fame may be faid of pain, and with equal reafon. I can never perfuade myself that pleasure and pain are mere relations, which can only exist as they are contrasted; but I think I can difcern clearly that there are positive pains, and pleasures, whicit do not at all depend upon each other. Nothing is more certain to my own feelings than this. There is nothing which I can diftinguish in my mind with more clearness than the three states, of indifference, of pleasure, and of pain. Every one of these I can perceive without any fort of idea of its relation to any thing else. Caius is afflicted with a fit of the cholick; this man is actually in pain; ftretch Caius upon the rack, he will feel a much greater pain: but does this pain of the rack arife from the removal of any pleasure ? or is the fit of the cholick a pleasure or a pain just as we are pleased to confider it?

SECT. III.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE REMOVAL OF PAIN AND POSITIVE PLEASURE.

WE shall carry this propofition yet a step farther. We shall venture to propose, that pain and pleasure are not only not neceffarily dependent for their existence on their mutual diminution or re

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moval, but that, in reality, the diminution or ceafing of pleasure does not operate like positive pain; and that the removal or diminution of pain, in its effect, has very little resemblance to positive pleasure.* The former of these propofitions will, I believe, be much more readily allowed than the latter; because it is very evident that pleasure, when it has run its career, fets us down very nearly where it found us. Pleasure of every kind quickly fatisfies; and when it is over, we relapse into indifference, or rather we fall into a foft tranquillity, which is tinged with the agreeable colour of the former sensation. I own it is not at first view so apparent, that the removal of a great pain does not resemble positive pleasure; but let us recollect in what state we have found our minds upon escaping some imminent danger, or on being released from the severity of some cruel pain. We have on fuch occafions found, if I am not much mistaken, the temper of our minds in a tenour very remote from that which attends the prefence of positive pleasure; we have found them in a state of much fobriety, impressed with a sense of awe, in a fort of tranquillity shadowed with horrour.

* Mr. Locke [Effay on Human Understanding, 1. ii. c. 20. fect. 16.] thinks that the removal or lessening of a pain is confidered and operates as a pleasure, and the loss or diminishing of pleasure as a pain. It is this opinion which we confider here.

The

The fashion of the countenance and the gesture of the body on such occasions is so correspondent to this state of mind, that any person, a stranger to the cause of the appearance, would rather judge us under fome consternation, than in the enjoyment of any thing like positive pleasure.

Ως δ' ολαν ανδρ αλη πυκινη λαξη, ος' ενι πατρη
Φωζα καλακλεινας, αλλον εξίκετο δημον,
Ανδρος ες αφνεικ, θάμβος δ' εχει εισοροώντας.

Iliad. 24.

As when a wretch, who, confcious of his crime,
Pursued for murder from his native clime,
Just gains fome frontier, breathless, pale, amaz'd';
All gaze, all wonder!

This striking appearance of the man whom Homer fupposes to have just escaped an imminent danger, the fort of mixed passion of terrour and surprise with which he affects the spectators, paints very strongly the manner in which we find ourselves affected upon occafions any way fimilar. For when we have fuffered from any violent emotion, the mind naturally continues in something like the fame condition, after the cause which first produced it has ceased to operate. The toffing of the fea remains after the storm; and when this remain of horrour has entirely subsided, all the paffion, which the accident raised, subsides along with it; and the mind returns to its usual state of indifference. In short, pleasure, (I mean any thing either in the inward sensation, or in the outward appearance, like pleasure from a positive cause) has never, I imagine, its origin from the removal of pain or danger.

SECT. IV.

OF DELIGHT AND PLEASURE AS OPPOSED TO EACH

OTHER.

BUT shall we therefore say, that the removal of pain or its diminution is always fimply painful? or affirm that the cefsation or the leffening of pleafure is always attended itself with a pleasure? By What I advance is no more than this; first, that there are pleasures and pains of a pofitive and independent nature; and fecondly, that the feeling which results from the ceasing or diminution of pain does not bear a sufficient resemblance to positive pleasure, to have it considered as of the fame nature, or to entitle it to be known by the same name; and thirdly, that upon the fame principle the removal or qualification of pleafure has no resemblance to positive pain. It is certain that the former feeling (the removal or moderation of pain) has fomething in it far from diftreffing or difagreeable in its nature. This feeling, in many cases so agreeable, but in all so different

no means.

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