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can be no full contentment without the expectation of it, is evident from this, that the fame reason which makes a man wish to be happy at one time, makes him wish to be happy at another time, and consequently at all times; and a wish or defire, without hope, is uneasiness, and inconsistent with contentment. A man cannot be fully content at one time, if he fear not to be so 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 solve that odd phenomenon, of some rational creatures being easy, at least pretending to be easy, and even to be gay, and rejoice, at the hopes of lofing all joy when they lose their bodies; because, abstracting from bodily pleafures, they have no relish of any other worth the defiring, and find even these so nauseous 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 prospect, argues the fecret fear of a worse; 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 highest; and the longest enjoyment of that is happiness.

SECT. I. Of the pleasures of sense, or mere fenSations.

It is not needful to insist long in shewing, that happiness cannot confift in these. Some meafure of them is necessary for prefent ease; but there is a difference between their being necessary, and their being fufficient. They are necessary to remove antecedent uneasiness, which is inconsistent with com:plete happiness, excluding all une siness. They are necessary only sometimes; but thought is at all times neceffary, and conftant joyful thought necefsary to constant contentment. As they may and must be wanted sometimes, and the mind joyful without them, it might be joyful always without them, were it not for fomething in our present state that is not essential 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 unpleasant. It is joyful thought it hungers and thirsts after, and the use of reason is in making the best choice for that end; for the variety of matter is indefinite.

cedent

Of all enjoyments, sensations are the most clogging. It would be a poor happiness that would neceffarily require great intervals of misery to give it a relish. Now, there must be long intervals of sensation; but there can be none of thought. Sensation needs the addition of pleasant 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 sensations, is fottish and brutal; and common luxury seeks always society and converse; neither of which is fensation, but a kind of contemplation. The most pleasant sensations cannot fo fill the mind, even in the mean time, as that unpleasant thoughts cannot make them tasteless; nor can painful sensations, commonly at least, 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 nauseous to him. Joyful meditations elevate the fick and diseased saint. The Roman, if I remember the story, who ran to Rome with the news of victory, was so filled with joyful thoughts,

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thoughts, that it excluded all attention and feeling of the thorn in his foot, till his joy was assuaged. The man whom Dionyfius set down to a feaft, with the point of a fword over his head, found the pain in his thoughts sufficient to spoil all the pleasure of the feaft.

SECT. II. Of mental pleasures strictly fo called, or the pleasures of thought, knowledge, or con templation.

Contemplation may reasonably be taken in a larger sense than what it is sometimes confined to; when it is diftinguished from the pleasure of affection, action, or society; since 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 results from a particular view or contemplation of it.

The chief design of this inquiry being to confider, which must be the most pleasant contemplation, or the highest kind of mental enjoyment, it is useful to compare the different kinds of pleasant contemplations, and to confider the causes of that pleasure that is in them.

Every contemplation relates to some object really exifting, or supposed 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, less or

more.

Beauty is the name we commonly give to that quality (or whatsoever we call it) in any object, which is the fource or cause of joy in the contem plation of it. But since many objects are not the proper caufes of the beautiful qualities they are en dued with, or of our view of them, or joy in that

view, therefore it is useful to diftinguish between the objective source, and the efficient source, 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 abstract idea so familiar even to children, and to the most ignorant vulgar, that they apply it to objects otherwise the most unlike in the world; temper, sentiments, 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 design, unlefs the design itself be evil, and appear contrary to a rule which we conceive is the standard of all beauty in action and thought. Beauty is in effect the name the Greeks and Latins gave to the universe, (κοσμος, mundus), and justly, since 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 vast diversity, according as there is more or less contrivance or thought in them: not that there is any thought or design intrinfic in matter itself, but that its form, proportions, and motions, have the manifest marks and figns of thought in them; and what appears void of these, appears deformed and confused.

But living beauties (by which name we may express rational beings) are a quite different and higher kind of pleasant objects of contemplation, having not merely signs of external thought, (which is all the beauty we fee in matter), but being, as it were, constantly full of internal thought themfelves.

SECT.

SECT. III. The pre-eminence of living Sources of pleasant contemplation above those that are lifeless.

This may appear by considering 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 an it, but himself. Supposing there should 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 absolute folitude; and furely, if we reflect on the frame of our natures, we may justly suppose it would, through time at least, turn to insupportable melancholy.

The chief contemplation of living or intelligent objects of thought, is but another name for fociety. The enjoyment of lovely society (or of that which is thought to be fuch) is what gives the greatest chearfulness; and the loss of it, (as in the death of friends), the most exquisite, and the most becoming forrow. Society heightens and multiplies the pleafures of other contemplations, or even sensations, to fuch a degree, that it can raise joy out of objects, whose pleasure in folitude would perhaps scarce 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 pleasure in receiving the like from them; and in receiving delightful contemplations from one person, it heightens our own particular delight, to have many others sharing with us, in an enjoyment which, in this refpect, is the reverfe of outward

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