alike with different persons, nor with the same person at different times; how they fluctuate and vary, their colors change to and fro, their weight diminishes, vanishes, and returns again, their form and parts continuing all along the same. Hence it appears that motives are compound ideas, containing something whereon the force of the whole and its title to be deemed a final cause depends, which when wanting it loses its essence: for a motive having lost its force is no motive at all, nor the cause of anything. It remains then that we turn our thoughts to seek for that ingredient which gives efficacy to the compound, and denominates it a motive.

CHAP. VI.

SATISFACTION.

PLEASURE seems at first sight to bid the fairest for being that ingredient which gives weight to our motives, and we find by experience in multitudes of instances that it proves a sufficient inducement with us to act, for we perform many of our actions because we like them. And perhaps this may be the thing according to some notions of pleasure, for the word is not always taken precisely in the same sense. But it is the safest way to settle the meaning of our words by the standard of custom, and if we understand the term as it is commonly understood, we shall find pleasure often insufficient to perform the office of a motive, for we do many things against our liking. Pleasure in vulgar estimation stands opposed to business, duty, works of use and necessity: yet in all these we feel some engagement, self-approbation or complacence of mind, that carries us through with them. Pleasures, usually so called, often lose their gust, they satiate and cloy upon repetition, and nauseate instead of inviting. Therefore Mr. Locke has fixed upon the term Satisfaction, as being more extensive, comprehending all that complacence we feel as well in business as diversion, as well in the works of prudence as in the starts of fancy. I cannot follow a better authority, especially as I find nothing within my own experience or observation to contradict it: therefore shall adopt his term Satisfaction to express that vivifying ingredient which gives life and vigor to our motives. But to prevent misapprehension, I think it necessary to subjoin a few remarks, in order to ascertain what I conceive we both understand by Satisfaction.

2. In the first place, I scarce need to take notice of what is obvious to every one, that we are not always in so happy a situation as to choose between enjoyments which we will prefer; we are sometimes reduced to the hard necessity of choosing between evils, which of them we judge the lightest. The pleuretic lying on his left side does not expect pleasure by turning to the other; he has no more in view than a diminution of pain. Mischief and displeasure seize upon us unawares, and we think of nothing but how to deliver ourselves from them: dangers threaten, and our care tends solely to escape them. Now in all these cases we are prompted to what we do by uneasiness, therefore uneasiness has an efficacy to set at work as well as satisfaction; and accordingMr. Locke has given them both for distinct principles of action, though I have blended them together into one. But this I do not from any variance in opinion, but for convenience and shortness sake and I think the junction may be made without any violence, for as a penny saved is a penny gotten, and the miser looks upon it as an actual gain if he can procure the abatement of a payment, so every diminution or avoidance of uneasiness is an approach towards satisfaction. Therefore, though I may speak of them apart whenever necessity shall so require, yet for the generality I shall consider satisfaction only, and hope what I say of this will, with very little variation, be found applicable to the other.

3. In the second place, if any man desires to know what satisfaction is, he must not expect to learn it by definition from me; I can help him no further than by pointing out where he may find it himself. Let him reflect on what he feels when anything happens that pleases him, when he sits down to a well furnished table with a good appetite, when he reads a diverting book, when he receives news of some desirable event, when he looks back upon some performance for which he can applaud himself. Nor let him stop here, but carry on his contemplation to the common occurrences of life: when he applies to the business of his profession, or gives orders to his servant, or hears a newspaper, or takes his hat off the pin to go abroad, he will find that complacence in his most ordinary actions which renders life valuable. For bare existence has no other worth than as it serves for a basis to happiness, for we cannot be happy without being at all; but we all value our lives at a high rate, which we could not do, considering how thinly pleasures are scattered in the world, unless we found something satisfactory in almost everything we do upon the most trifling occasions. Some men live contentedly without pleasure, as that stands in the vulgar sense for an intense

degree of enjoyment; but your melancholic persons, after having lost that glee which others feel in every common exercise of their powers, quickly grow weary of life. Therefore we must look upon satisfaction as the general term, containing under it joy, delight, pleasure, amusement, complacence, engagement, content, as the several stages. The lowest degree of satisfaction suffices to put us in motion when no higher intervenes; in our idle hours or vacant spaces of time we turn our eyes to look at a butterfly, or put down our hands to remove the flap of our waistcoat that had gotten between us and the chair. For the mind uses a nicer balance than the master of the mint: a cobweb will draw down the scale when nothing offers to counterpoise. Her understanding indeed is liable to mistake, being ill served by its ideas, which exhibit things frequently under wrong appearances, but her volition follows exactly according to her apprehension of things.

4. When the mind has no grand purpose in view, she can fully content herself with any little trifle that presents; if she finds herself easy, and pleasure does not solicit, nor business urge, nor danger threaten, she rests perfectly satisfied with her condition, desiring nothing further. Which induced Hieronymus to place happiness in vacuity or absence of pain, that is, in mere ease; supposing the sweetest pleasures engage us no otherwise than by creating a want of themselves, which fills us with an uneasiness we cannot remove without attaining them. But I may venture to refer it to the first man you meet in the street, whether there is not a real and sensible difference between actual pleasure and the bare absence of pain: for if this were sufficient to constitute happiness, we must be happy during every sound nap or fainting fit; because while the senses are gone so that we feel nothing, we certainly do not feel pain.

The same consideration I suppose led Epicurus to maintain that all pleasures were equal in degree, and differed only in kind, for the lowest of them satisfies the mind, and the highest can do no more therefore a man finds as complete satisfaction in pulling up the heel of his slipper in the morning, as he does in recovering his only child that had been stolen away last week by a gipsey. But this contradicts daily experience, which testifies that we find a much greater relish in some pleasures than we do in others. A man may sit picking his fingers after dinner with perfect tranquillity of mind, but this is nothing to compare with the joy he feels on hearing the voice of an intimate friend at the door. Nor is it true that the mind can satisfy herself with little pleasures, unless when greater are not to be had or not apprehended in the imagination; who would not leave his trifling

amusements upon being invited to a diversion he is extremely fond of, if no prudential or other motive withhold him? Why need the mind ever suspend her choice between two pleasures proposed until she has determined which is the greater, if either of them would answer her purpose alike? Therefore when several satisfactions offer together, that apprehended the greatest always prevails and carries away volition from the rest: nor can it be said to do so by the uneasiness of wanting it; for though we sometimes would forego an opportunity but that we fear we shall blame ourselves for having slipped it, yet this is not always the case; we frequently quit a lesser pleasure for a greater instantly upon summons, without the least thought of what we might suffer by a self-denial. There is the like difference of degree in uneasiness; when several accost us at once, we fly that which presses the hardest. So if satisfaction pulls one way and uneasiness drives another, whichever is the strongest overpowers the other and gives the turn to our motion.

Happy is it for us that we can content ourselves with a small pittance of satisfaction, for else our lives would pass most uncomfortably poignant pleasures and high delights rarely come in our way, and we should have nothing but uneasiness to fill up the large intervals between them. How miserably would the shopkeeper and the artisan spend their days, if they could work no longer than while the dread of starving hung over them! This perhaps might drive them into their several occupations at first, but their work furnishes them with an amusement that wholly engages their thoughts, and while they content themselves with finishing their tasks, they remove the evil without having it perpetually stare them in the face. What enterprize of moment could we perform; what business requiring a length of time could we complete, if we might never stir without some very powerful incitement to spur us? How many useful acquirements should we. miss, if the apprehension of their being useful were not enough to move us, without having some particular signal service they will do us under contemplation? our dearest pleasures seldom drop into our mouths, but we must do many things to prepare for their reception, and what we do preparatory thereto partakes ⚫of the nature of business. For how lively expectations soever we may entertain at our entrance upon an undertaking, they cannot keep up their vigor during the course of a long work, which we pursue with that quiet complacency accompanying our ordinary motions. It has been commonly observed that a man can never succeed in any science, art, or profession, unless he takes a liking to it, but the liking here requisite need not arise to that

his profession an uninterHence we find that our

high pitch as to render the fatigues of rupted scene of transport or delight. gentle satisfactions, taken together in their whole amount, are much more valuable than our higher enjoyments; as exceeding them greatly in number, as furnishing us principally with employment for our time, and as serving us in our most useful and important occasions.

5. In the third place I shall remark, that although I have assigned satisfaction for the active ingredient of our motive, yet, if we examine the matter strictly, it is not very satisfaction but the prospect or idea of it; for these are different: one may have the full idea of a toothache one does not feel, and of a diversion one does not partake of. Now we do not use to enter upon action but for some end, which end is some satisfactory perception attainable thereby. Even when we walk for walking sake, it is not the bare motion, but the pleasant feel of our limbs or of the air, that excites us. But this perception follows upon the action, and had no existence at the instant when the motive operated.Therefore it is not the substance, but the prospect or expectance of satisfaction, which makes that part of the compound rendering it a motive. And this expectance, though sometimes fallacious, suffices to put us in motion: the child, that went to play with the candle, expected pleasure but found only smart; and the coward, who runs away from his own shadow, expected a mischief that would not have attacked him.

Since then expectation is not the same with the thing expected, it follows that we may pursue satisfaction without being in a state of enjoyment, and fly uneasiness without being in a state of suffering. The former does not often happen, because, being founded upon delusion, we soon discover our expectations to be delusive upon trial, which then changes our prospect, and we change our measures accordingly. Yet it does happen sometimes; for those who have made pleasures their constant employment, quickly cloy themselves with the frequent repetition of them, yet still pursue them with delusive hopes of the same relish they used to find heretofore, and run from diversion to diversion, in restless expectation of an enjoyment they cannot attain. But uneasiness exciting us to avoid it, may continue to operate without delusion: for if we find our endeavors upon trial effectual to ward off a mischief, this will encourage us to repeat them as often as the danger presents, and so long as we can keep evil aloof, we shall not fall into a state of suffering. If two old acquaintance, who had not met for some years before, were to espy one another on the opposite sides of the Haymarket, probably