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... Nothing but Pain & Pleasure, under so many
different disguises aspects, most surely subsisting
in the same manner under the dimensions above
described, in the same manner susceptible in the same manner of
valuation in their causes, entering in the same
manner as elements into a sum of Happiness
or Unhappiness.
There were 2 ways by which this homogeneity
might have been kept in view. The one was,
that I have put and practised here, of noting it once
for all, by a sort of definition given of the several
terms, reforming marking them oft as their relation to the
more simple ideas of pain & or of pleasure was recognized,
in order to get the liberty of naming
any of them of pain or pleasure as the convenience of the passage
may require:
The other was, that of confining myself to this discarding all those looser expressions
throughout - this would have been more accurate,
& might perhaps have been a more certain preservative against misunderstanding.
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We know A man may have reason to believe that Pain or Pleasure is attendant
upon an action - 1st By his own failings
if upon doing that the act in question he has felt that pleasure
2d By report of others. if they who have done the acts say that pleasure is attendant upon it. 3dly By observing
the same like countenance voice and gesture
in others upon doing the act in question
which he has found to be observable
in himself upon doing an act from in which he has
felt pleasure. 4. By their doing the act
in question, when no other motive, (that is no pleasure)
can be discover'd to determine them than
supposed to result directly from the act.
Drinking is a pleasure. How do I know it?
I have a palate. I have felt it. Hearing Music
is a pleasure- I have am deaf and have never
felt it- how do am I then to know it? because you
say you have felt it, and you tell me it is
one- But you may be little scrupulous about
your word+ +veracity, and you may have an interest
in making me believe that it is a pleasure to
you- Your vanity may be interested in making
INTRODUCTION CH. II Dimensions of Happiness.
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But it would have had this great inconvenience
it would have given to the language in many places a certain
of [metaphysical] stiffness that could not have
failed to have render'd it to the generality of
readers insuperably disgusting.
Now for a Society to gain Happiness at all there it is
but one way: if it gain Happiness it must
necessarily be by some one or more of it's members
gaining Happiness: and if some one or
more of the members of a Society gain Happiness, at most without another
or others being as much, it must as necessarily
be that the Society [itself] has gained Happiness:
just so much as any member has gained by any means, so much, if any
thing, as any other member or members
have lost by the same means, just so much
has been gained by the Society.
it believed that you have a source of pleasure
that I have not - How am I then to come
at the truth? By examining your deportment
at the time of hearing music, by observing
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whether it exhibit any of those appearances
which I know from my own
experience as well as from unsuspected testimony
to accompany the perceptions of
pleasure - But your countenance is phlegmatic & unexpressive
and betrays no marks of pleasure when it is felt: or it is supple
and....... and counterfeits pleasure
where none it is not felt - Still unsatisfied I have nothing left but
to observe whether you frequently put yourself
in the way of enjoying the pretended
pleasure. If I see you do this when at times when you
think you are un- have no reason so suppose yourself observed, when no other motive
but the pleasure to be reapt directly from
it can be assigned; from all these considerations
put together I may conclude
that you reap a pleasure from it, that
is a cause of pleasure.
Diagnostics of a cause of Pleasure
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