That which demands to be next considered, is happiness: as being in itself most considerable; as abetting the cause of truth; and as being indeed so nearly allied to it, that they cannot well be parted. We cannot pay the respects due to one, unless we regard the other. Happiness must not be denied to be what it is, and it is by the practice of truth that we aim at that happiness which is true.

In the few following propositions I shall not only give you my idea of it, but also subjoin some observations which, though perhaps not necessary here, we may sometime hereafter think no loss of time or labor to have made en passant: such as men of science would call some of them porismata, or corollaries, and some scholia, I shall take them as they fall in my way promiscuously.

I. Pleasure is a consciousness of something agreeable; pain of the contrary: and vice versa, the consciousness of anything agreeable is pleasure; of the contrary pain. For as nothing that is agreeable to us can be painful at the same time, and as such; nor anything disagreeable pleasant, by the terms; so neither can anything agreeable be for that reason (because it is agreeable) not pleasant, nor anything disagreeable not painful, in some measure or other.

Observation 1: Pleasures and pains are proportionable to the perceptions and sense of their subjects, or the persons affected with them. For consciousness and perception cannot be separated: because as I do not perceive what I am not conscious to myself I do perceive, so neither can I be conscious of what I do not perceive, or of more or less than what I do perceive. And therefore, since the degrees of pleasure or pain must be answerable to the consciousness which the party affected has of them, they must likewise be as the degrees of perception are.

Observation 2: Whatever increases the power of perceiving, renders the percipient more susceptive of pleasure or pain. This is an immediate consequence, and to add more is needless, unless, that among the means by which perceptions and the inward sense of things may in many cases be heightend and increased, the principal are reflection and the practice of thinking. As I cannot be conscious of what I do not perceive, so I do not perceive that which I do not advert upon. That which makes me feel, makes me advert. Every instance therefore of consciousness and perception is attended with an act of advertence, and as the more the perceptions are, the more are the advertences or reflections; so, vice versa, the more frequent or intense the acts of advertence and reflection are, the more consciousness there is, and the stronger is the perception. Further, all perceptions are produced in time; time passes by moments; there can be but one moment present at once; and therefore all present perception, considered without any relation to what is past, or future, may be looked upon as momentaneous only. In this kind of perception, the percipient perceives as if he had not perceived anything before, nor had anything perceptible to follow. But in reflection there is a repetition of what is past, and an anticipation of that which is apprehended as yet to come: there is a connection of past and future, which by this are brought into the sum, and superadded to the present or momentaneous perceptions. Again, by reflecting we practice our capacity of apprehending; and this practicing will increase and, as it were, extend that capacity to a certain degree. Lastly, reflection does not only accumulate moments past and future to those that are present, but even in their passage it seems to multiply them. For time, as well as space, is capable of indeterminate division, and the finer or nicer the advertence or reflection is, into the more parts is the time divided, which, while the mind considers those parts as so many several moments, is in effect rendered by this so much the longer. And to this experience agrees.

Observation 3: The causes of pleasure and pain are relative things, and, in order to estimate truly their effect upon any particular subject, they ought to be drawn into the degrees of perception in that subject. When the cause is of the same kind, and acts with an equal force, if the perception of one person be equal to that of another, what they perceive must needs be equal. And so it will be likewise, when the forces in the producing causes and the degrees of perception in the sentients are reciprocal. For (which does not seem to be considered by the world, and therefore ought the more particularly to be noted) if the cause of pleasure or pain should act but half as much upon A as it does upon B, yet if the perceptivity of A be double to that of B, the sum of their pleasures or pains will be equal. In other cases they will be unequal. As, if the causa dolorifica should act with the same impetus on C with which it acts upon D, yet if C had only two degrees of perception and D had three, the pain sustained by D would be half as much more as that of C, because he would perceive, or feel, the acts and impressions of the cause more by so much. If it should act with twice the force upon D which it acts with upon C, then the pain of C would be to that of D as 2 to 6: i.e. as one degree of force multiplied by two degrees of perception to two degrees of force multiplied by three of perception. And so on.

Observation 4: Men’s respective happinesses or pleasures ought to be valued as they are to the persons themselves whose they are, or according to the thoughts and sense which they have of them: not according to the estimate put upon them by other people, who have no authority to judge of them nor can know what they are, may compute by different rules, have less sense, be in different circumstances,102 or such as guilt has rendered partial to themselves. If that prince who, having plenty and flocks many, yet ravished the poor man’s single ewe-lamb out of his bosom, reckoned the poor man’s loss to be not greater than the loss of one of his lambs would have been to him, he must be very defective in moral arithmetic, and little understood the doctrine of proportion. Every man’s happiness is his happiness, what it is to him; and the loss of it is answerable to the degrees of his perception, to his manner of taking things, to his wants and circumstances.103

Observation 5: How judicious and wary ought princes, lawgivers, judges, juries, and even masters to be! They ought not to consider so much what a stout, resolute, obstinate, hardened criminal may bear, as what the weaker sort, or at least (if that can be known) the persons immediately concerned can bear: that is, what any punishment would be to them. For it is certain: all criminals are not of the former kind, and therefore should not be used as if they were. Some are drawn into crimes which may render them obnoxious to public justice, they scarce know how themselves; some fall into them through necessity, strength of temptation, despair, elasticity of spirits and a sudden eruption of passion, ignorance of laws, want of good education, or some natural infirmity or propension; and some who are really innocent are oppressed by the iniquity or mistakes of judges, witnesses, juries, or perhaps by the power and zeal of a faction with which their sense or their honesty has not permitted them to join. What a difference must there be between the sufferings of a poor wretch⁠—sensible of his crime or misfortune, who would give a world for his deliverance if he had it⁠—and those of a sturdy veteran in roguery; between the apprehensions, tears, faintings of the one, and the brandy and oaths of the other; in short, between a tender nature and a brickbat!

Observation 6: In general, all persons ought to be very careful and tender where any other is concerned. Otherwise they may do they know not what. For no man can tell, by himself, or any other way, how another may be affected.

Observation 7: There cannot be an equal distribution of rewards and punishments by any stated human laws.104 Because (among other reasons) the same thing is rarely either the same gratification or the same punishment to different persons.

Observation 8: The sufferings of brutes are not like the sufferings of men.105 They perceive by moments, without reflection upon past or future, upon causes, circumstances, etc.

Time and life without thinking are next neighbors to nothing: to no-time and no-life.106 And therefore, to kill a brute is to deprive him of a life, or a remainder of time, that is equal to little more than nothing: though this may perhaps be more applicable to some animals than to others. That which is chiefly to be taken care of, in this matter, is that the brute may not be killed unnecessarily; when it is killed, that it may have as few moments of pain as may be;107 and that no young be left to languish. So much by the way here.

II. Pain considered in itself is a real evil, pleasure a real good. I take this as a postulatum that will, without difficulty, be granted. Therefore,

III. By the general idea of good and evil the one (pleasure) is in itself desirable, the other (pain) to be avoided. What is here said, respects mere pleasure and pain, abstracted from all circumstances, consequences, etc. But, because there are some of these generally adhering to them, and such as enter so deep into their nature that, unless these be taken in, the full and true character of the other cannot be had, nor can it therefore be known what happiness is, I must proceed to some other propositions relating to this subject.

IV. Pleasure compared with pain may either be equal, or more, or less: also pleasures may be compared with other pleasures,108 and pains with pains. Because all the moments of the pleasure must bear some respect, or be in some ratio, to all the moments of pain⁠—as also all the degrees of one to all the degrees of the other⁠—and so must those of one pleasure, or one pain, be to those of another. And if the degrees of intenseness be multiplied by the moments of duration, there must still be some ratio of the one product to the other.

That this proposition is true, appears from the general conduct of mankind; though in some particulars they may err and wrong themselves, some more, some less. For what does all this hurry of business, what do all the labors and travels of men tend to, but to gain such advantages as they think do exceed all their trouble? What are all their abstinences and self-denials for, if they do not think some pleasures less than the pain that would succeed them? Do not the various methods of life show that men prefer one sort of pleasure to another, and submit to one sort of pain rather than to have another? And within ourselves we cannot but find an indifference as to many things, not caring whether we have the pain with the pleasure obtained by it, or miss the pleasure, being excused from the pain.

V. When pleasures and pains are equal, they mutually destroy each other; when the one exceeds, the excess gives the true quantity of pleasure or pain. For nine degrees of pleasure, less by nine degrees of pain, are equal to nothing; but nine degrees of one, less by three degrees of the other, give six of the former net and true.

VI. As, therefore, there may be true pleasure and pain: so there may be some pleasures which, compared with what attends or follows them, not only may vanish into nothing, but may even degenerate into pain, and ought to be reckoned as pains;109 and, vice versa, some pains that may be annumerated to pleasures. For the true quantity of pleasure differs not from that quantity of true pleasure; or, it is so much of that kind of pleasure which is true (clear of all discounts and future payments); nor can the true quantity of pain not be the same with that quantity of true or mere pain. Then the man who enjoys three degrees of such pleasure as will bring upon him nine degrees of pain, when three degrees of pain are set off to balance and sink the three of pleasure, can have remaining to him only six degrees of pain: and into these therefore is his pleasure finally resolved. And so the three degrees of pain which anyone endures to obtain nine of pleasure, end in six of the latter. By the same manner of computing, some pleasures will be found to be the loss of pleasure, compared with greater; and some pains, the alleviation of pain, because by undergoing them greater are evaded.110 Thus the natures of pleasures and pains are varied, and sometimes transmuted⁠—which ought never to be forgot.

Nor this neither: As, in the sense of most men, I believe, a little pain will weigh against a great deal of pleasure,111 so perhaps there may be some pains which exceed all pleasures; that is, such pains as no man would choose to suffer for any pleasure whatever, or at least any that we know of in this world. So that it is possible the difference, or excess of pain, may rise so high as to become immense, and then the pleasure to be set against that pain will be but a point, or cipher: a quantity of no value.

VII. Happiness differs not from the true quantity of pleasure; unhappiness of pain. Or: any being may be said to be so far happy, as his pleasures are true, etc. That cannot be the happiness of any being, which is bad for him; nor can happiness be disagreeable. It must be something, therefore, that is both agreeable and good for the possessor. Now, present pleasure is for the present indeed agreeable; but if it be not true, and he who enjoys it must pay more for it than it is worth, it cannot be for his good, or good for him. This therefore cannot be his happiness. Nor, again, can that pleasure be reckoned happiness, for which one pays the full price in pain: because these are quantities which mutually destroy each other. But yet since happiness is something which, by the general idea of it, must be desirable, and therefore agreeable, it must be some kind of pleasure:112 and this, from what has been said, can only be such pleasure as is true. That only can be both agreeable and good for him. And thus everyone’s happiness will be as his true quantity of pleasure.

One that loves to make objections may demand here whether there may not be happiness without pleasure: whether a man may not be said to be happy in respect to those evils which he escapes, and yet knows nothing of; and whether there may not be such a thing as negative happiness. I answer: an exemption from misfortunes and pains is a high privilege, though we should not be sensible what those misfortunes or dangers are from which we are delivered, and in the larger use of the word may be styled a happiness. Also, the absence of pain or unhappiness may perhaps be called negative happiness, since the meaning of that phrase is known. But, in proper speaking, happiness always includes something positive. For mere indolence resulting from insensibility, or joined with it, if it be happiness, is a happiness infinitely diminished: that is, it is no more a happiness than it is an unhappiness; upon the confine of both, but neither. At best, it is but the happiness of stocks and stones:113 and to these I think happiness can hardly be, in strictness, allowed. ’Tis the privilege of a stock to be what it is, rather than to be a miserable being: this we are sensible of, and therefore, joining this privilege with our own sense of it, we call it happiness; but this is what it is in our manner of apprehending it, not what it is in the stock itself. A sense, indeed, of being free from pains and troubles is attended with happiness: but then the happiness flows from the sense of the case, and is a positive happiness. While a man reflects upon his negative happiness, as it is called, and enjoys it, he makes it positive: and perhaps a sense of immunity from the afflictions and miseries, everywhere so obvious to our observation, is one of the greatest pleasures in this world.

VIII. That being may be said to be ultimately happy, in some degree or other, the sum total of whose pleasures exceeds the sum of all his pains: or, ultimate happiness is the sum of happiness, or true pleasure, at the foot of the account. And so, on the other side, that being may be said to be ultimately unhappy, the sum of all whose pains exceeds that of all his pleasures.

IX. To make itself happy is a duty, which every being, in proportion to its capacity, owes to itself; and that which every intelligent being may be supposed to aim at, in general.114 For happiness is some quantity of true pleasure: and that pleasure which I call “true,” may be considered by itself, and so will be justly desirable (according to propositions II, and III). On the contrary, unhappiness is certainly to be avoided, because being a quantity of mere pain, it may be considered by itself as a real, mere evil, etc., and because if I am obliged to pursue happiness, I am at the same time obliged to recede, as far as I can, from its contrary. All this is self-evident. And hence it follows, that,

X. We cannot act, with respect to either ourselves or other men, as being what we and they are, unless both are considered as beings susceptive of happiness and unhappiness, and naturally desirous of the one and averse to the other. Other animals may be considered after the same manner in proportion to their several degrees of apprehension.

But, that the nature of happiness and the road to it, which is so very apt to be mistaken, may be better understood⁠—and true pleasures more certainly distinguished from false⁠—the following propositions must still be added:

XI. As the true and ultimate happiness of no being can be produced by anything that interferes with truth and denies the natures of things, so neither can the practice of truth make any being ultimately unhappy. For that which contradicts nature and truth, opposes the will of the Author of nature (whose existence, etc., I shall prove afterwards); and to suppose that an inferior being may, in opposition to His will, break through the constitution of things, and by so doing make himself happy, is to suppose that being more potent than the Author of nature, and consequently more potent than the author of the nature and power of that very being himself, which is absurd. And as to the other part of the proposition, it is also absurd to think that, by the constitution of nature and will of its author, any being should be finally miserable only for conforming himself to truth, and owning things and the relations lying between them to be what they are. It is much the same as to say God has made it natural to contradict nature, or unnatural, and therefore punishable, to act according to nature and reality. If such a blunder (excuse the boldness of the word) could be, it must come either through a defect of power in Him to cause a better and more equitable scheme, or from some delight which he finds in the misery of his dependents. The former cannot be ascribed to the First cause, who is the fountain of power; nor the latter to Him who gives so many proofs of his goodness and beneficence. Many beings may be said to be happy, and there are none of us all who have not many enjoyments;115 whereas, did he delight in the infelicity of those beings which depend upon Him, it must be natural to Him to make them unhappy, and then not one of them would be otherwise in any respect. The world in that case, instead of being such a beautiful, admirable system, in which there is only a mixture of evils, could have been only a scene of mere misery, horror, and torment.

That either the enemies of truth (wicked men) should be ultimately happy, or the religious observers of it (good men) ultimately unhappy, is such injustice, and an evil so great, that sure no Manichean will allow such a superiority of his evil principle over the good, as is requisite to produce and maintain it.

XII. The genuine happiness of every being must be something that is not incompatible with, or destructive of, its nature,116 or the superior or better part of it, if it be mixed. For instance, nothing can be the true happiness of a rational being, that is inconsistent with reason. For all pleasure, and therefore be sure all clear pleasure and true happiness, must be something agreeable (proposition I): and nothing can be agreeable to a reasoning nature, or (which is the same) to the reason of that nature, which is repugnant and disagreeable to reason. If anything becomes agreeable, to a rational being, which is not agreeable to reason, it is plain his reason is lost, his nature depressed, and that he now lists himself among irrationals, at least as to that particular. If a being finds pleasure in anything unreasonable, he has an unreasonable pleasure; but a rational nature can like nothing of that kind without a contradiction to itself. For to do this would be to act as if it was the contrary to what it is. Lastly, if we find hereafter that whatever interferes with reason, interferes with truth, and to contradict either of them is the same thing, then what has been said under the former proposition does also confirm this: as what has been said in proof of this, does also confirm the former.

XIII. Those pleasures are true, and to be reckoned into our happiness, against which there lies no reason. For when there is no reason against any pleasure, there is always one for it,117 included in the term. So when there is no reason for undergoing pain (or venturing it), there is one against it.

Observation: There is therefore no necessity for men to torture their inventions in finding out arguments to justify themselves in the pursuits after worldly advantages and enjoyments, provided that neither these enjoyments, nor the means by which they are attained, contain the violation of any truth, by being unjust, immoderate, or the like.118 For in this case there is no reason why we should not desire them, and a direct one why we should, viz. because they are enjoyments.

XIV. To conclude this section: The way to happiness and the practice of truth incur the one into the other.119 For no being can be styled happy, that is not ultimately so: because if all his pains exceed all his pleasures, he is so far from being happy that he is a being unhappy or miserable, in proportion to that excess. Now, by proposition XI, nothing can produce the ultimate happiness of any being, which interferes with truth; and therefore, whatever does produce that, must be something which is consistent and coincident with this.

Two things then (but such as are met together, and embrace each other), which are to be religiously regarded in all our conduct, are truth (of which in the preceding section) and happiness (that is, such pleasures as accompany or follow the practice of truth, or are not inconsistent with it, of which I have been treating in this). And as that religion, which arises from the distinction between moral good and evil, was called natural, because grounded upon truth and the natures of things; so perhaps may that too, which proposes happiness for its end, inasmuch as it proceeds upon that difference which there is between true pleasure and pain, which are physical (or natural) good and evil. And since both these unite so amicably, and are at last the same, here is one religion which may be called natural upon two accounts.