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2. From wrong Defires arifing from wrong Judgment. Other uneafineffes arife from our defires of abfent good; which defires always bear proportion to and depend on the judgment we make, and the relifh we have of any abfent good; in both which we are apt to be varioufly mifled, and that by our own fault.

§ 58. Our Judgment of prefent Good or Evil always

right.

IN the first place, I fhall confider the wrong judgments men make of future good and evil, whereby their defires are mifled; for as to prefent happiness and mifery, when that alone comes in confideration, and the confequences are quite removed, a man never choofes amifs; he knows what beft pleases him, and that he -actually prefers. Things in their prefent enjoyment are what they feem; the apparent and real good are in this cafe always the fame; for the pain or pleasure being juft fo great, and no greater than it is felt, the prefent good or evil is really fo much as it appears; and therefore, were every action of ours concluded within itself, and drew no confequences after it, we should undoubtedly never err in our choice of good, we fhould always infallibly prefer the best. Were the pains of honeft industry, and of ftarving with hunger and cold, fet together before us, nobody would be in doubt which to choose. Were the fatisfaction of a luft, and the joys of heaven, offered at once to any one's prefent poffeffion, he would not balance, or err in the determination of his choice.

§ 59.

BUT fince our voluntary actions carry not all the happinefs and mifery that depend on them along with them in their prefent performance, but are the precedent causes of good and evil, which they draw after them, and bring upon us, when they themselves are paffed and ceafe to be, our defires look beyond our prefent enjoyments, and carry the mind out to abfent good, according to the neceffity which we think there is of it to the making or increase of our happiness. It is our opinion of fuch a neceflity that gives it its attrac

tion; without that, we are not moved by abfent good ; for in this narrow fcantling of capacity which we are accustomed to and fenfible of here, wherein we enjoy but one pleasure at once, which, when all uneafinels is away, is, whilft it lafts, fufficient to make us think ourselves happy, it is not all remote, and even apparent good that affects us; because the indolency and enjoyment we have fuflicing for our prefent happiness, we defire not to venture the change, fince we judge that we are happy already, being content, and that is enough; for who is content is happy; but as foon as any new uneafinefs comes, this happiness is difturbed, and we are fet afresh on work in the pursuit of happinefs.

§ 60. From a wrong Judgment of what makes a neceflary Part of their Happiness.

THEIR aptnets, therefore, to conclude that they can be happy without it, is one great occafion that men often are not raised to the defire of the greateft abfent good; for whilft fuch thoughts poffefs them, the joys of a future ftate move them not; they have little concern or uneafinefs about them; and the will, free from the determination of fuch defires, is left to the pursuit of nearer fatisfactions, and to the removal of thofe uneafineffes which it then feels in its want of and longings after them. Change but a man's view of these things; let him fee that virtue and religion are neceffary to his happiness; let him look into the future ftate of blifs or mifery, and fee there God, the righteous Judge, ready to render to every man according to his deeds; to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, feck for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life; but unto every foul that doth evil, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguifb: To him, I lay, who hath a profpect of the different state of perfect happiness or mifery that attends all men after this life, depending on their behaviour here, the meafures of good and evil that govern his choice are mightily changed; for fince nothing of pleasure and pain in this life can bear any proportion to endless happiness or exquifite mifery of an immortal

foul hereafter, actions in his power will have their preference, not according to the tranfient pleasure or pain that accompanies or follows them here, but as they ferve to fecure that perfect durable happinefs hereafter.

$61. A more particular Account of wrong Judgments. BUT to account more particularly for the mifery that men often bring on themfelves, notwithstanding that they do all in earnest, purfue happiness, we must confider how things come to be represented to our delires under deceitful appearances; and that is by the judgment pronouncing wrongly concerning them. To fee how far this reaches, and what are the caufes of wrong judgment, we must remember that things are judged good or bad in a double fenfe.

Firft, That which is properly good or bad, is nothing but barely pleasure or pain.

Secondly, But becaufe not only present pleasure and pain, but that alfo which is apt by its efficacy or confe quences to bring it upon us at a distance, is a proper object of our defires, and apt to move a creature that has forefight; therefore things also that draw after them pleafure and pain are confidered as good and evil.

6.2.

THE wrong judgment that misleads us, and makes the will often fatten on the worie fide, lies in mifreporting upon the various comparifons of thefe. The wrong judgment I am here fpeaking of, is not what one man may think of the determination of another, but what every man himself must confefs to be wrong; for fince I lay it for a certain ground that every intelligent being really feeks happiness, which confifts in the enjoyment of pleafure, without any confiderable mixture of uneafinefs, it is impoffible any one thould willingly put into his own draught any bitter ingredient, or leave out any thing in his power that would tend to his fatisfaction and the completing of his happiness, but only by wrong judgment. Ithall not here fpeak of that mistake which is the confequence of invincible error, which carce deferves the name of wrong judgment, but of that

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wrong judgment which every man himself must confefs to be fo.

§63. In comparing prefent and future.

I. THEREFORE, as to prefent pleafure and pain, the mind, as has been faid, never mistakes that which is really good or evil; that which is the greater pleasure or the greater pain is really just as it appears. But though prefent pleasure and pain how their difference and degrees fo plainly as not to leave room for mistake, yet when we compare prefent pleasure or pain with future (which is ufually the cafe in the most important determinations of the will), we often make wrong judgments of them, taking our measures of them in different pofitions of diftance. Objects near our view are apt to be thought greater than thofe of a larger fize that are more remote and fo it is with pleafures and pains; the prefent is apt to carry it, and thofe at a diftance have the difadvantage in the comparifon. Thus moft men, like fpendthrift heirs, are apt to judge a little in hand better than a great deal to come, and fo for small matters in poffeffion part with great ones in reverfion. But that this is a wrong judgment, every one muft allow, let his pleasure confift in whatever it will, fince that which is future will certainly come to be prefent, and then having the fame advantage of nearnefs, will fhow itfelf in its full dimenfions, and difcover his wilful mif take, who judged of it by unequal measures. Were the pleasure of drinking accompanied, the very moment a man takes off his glafs, with that fick ftomach and aching head which in fome men are fure to follow not many hours after, I think nobody, whatever pleasure he had in his cups, would, on thefe conditions, ever let wine touch his lips, which yet he daily fwallows, and the evil fide comes to be chofen only by the fallacy of a little difference in time. But if pleafure or pain can be fo leffened only by a few hours removal, how much more will it be fo by a farther diftance, to a man that will not by a right judgment do what time will, i. e. bring it home upon himfelf, and confider it as prefent, and there take its true dimenfions? This is the way w's.

ufually impofe on ourselves in refpect of bare pleasure and pain, or the true degrees of happiness or misery; the future lofes its juft proportion, and what is prefent obtains the preference as the greater. I mention not here the wrong judgment whereby the abfent are not only leilened, but reduced to perfect nothing; when men enjoy what they can in prefent, and make fure of that, concluding amifs that no evil will thence follow; for that lies not in comparing the greatness of future good and evil, which is that we are here fpeaking of, but in another fort of wrong judgment, which is concerning good or evil, as it is confidered to be the cause and procurement of pleasure or pain that will follow

from it.

$64. Caufes of this.

THE caufe of our judging amifs, when we compare our prefent pleasure or pain with future, feems to me to be the weak and narrow conflitution of our minds. We cannot well enjoy two pleafures at once, much less any pleafure almoft whilst pain poffeffes us. The prefent pleafure, if it be not very languid, and almost none at all, fills our narrow fouls, and fo takes up the whole mind, that it scarce leaves any thought of things abfent; or if among our pleasures there are fome which are not ftrong enough to exclude the confideration of things at a distance, yet we have fo great an abhorrence of pain, that a little of it extinguishes all our pleafures; a little bitter mingled in our cup leaves no relish of the fweet. Hence it comes, that at any rate we defire to be rid of the prefent evil, which we are apt to think -nothing abfent can equal, becaufe under the prefent pain we find not ourselves capable of any the leaft degree of happiness. Mens daily complaints are a loud proof of this. The pain that any one actually feels is till of all others the worl; and it is with anguish they cry out, Any rather than this; nothing can be fo intolerable as what I now fuffer; and therefore our whole endeavours and thoughts are intent to get rid of the prefent evil before all things, as the firft neceffary con dition to our happineís, let what will follow. Nothing,

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