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I call Pleasure, every sensation perception that a
man had rather feel at that instant than
feel none.
I call Pain every sensation that a man
had rather feel none than feel.
"I call Pleasure," says Maupertuis a celebrated French Philosopher,
Maupertuis de Philosophic Moral C.D.E Oeuvres Tome I. Lyon 1756 p.194
"every sensation The word is "Perception" — it makes no difference. that a man had rather feel than not feel .
I call Pain, continues he, every sensation that a man had rather not feel than feel.
"Every sensation", he says again, .... "during which a man would neither wish to sleep, nor to pass on to any other sensation every such A sensation is a pleasure. The time which such A sensation lasts is what I call the happy moment.
I hope thus much is enough to make an end of this Philosophical Roman[?] of which the Moral is Go hang yourself. "Abi cito susende tu."
A moment He might call it: nor tho[?] this need we be surprized at reading /at the/ the head of his next chapter - "That in common life is the sum of evil surpasses that of good." A melancholy conclusion this: it must be confessed: and happily as ill-founded as it is melancholy. According to his definitions, especially the last of them, no man should be deemed to have a fortune, but Crassus - No man to have highth, but Goliah, or the tallest of the Patagonians - No woman beauty, but Venus - No pleasure in short is a pleasure, but the highest a man knows of. He goes on, as one might imagine, (for tho' unfortunate in this and some other instances Maupertuis was a mathematician, and if he cured it was with method and precision) - he goes on, and says, Every sensation .... during which a man would wish to sleep, or to pass on to any other, every such sensation is a Pain.
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NOTE
I thought I had made a sort of discovery, when it had occurred to me that the quantity of Happiness or Unhappiness in any given subject was to be calculated upon these dimensions; and had drawn up a few propositions upon that principle. I had hit upon this method of analyzing /analysis for/ our perceptions. The idea of these two dimensions, when it first occurred, seemed new to me: I thought I had made a sort of discovery when I thought of [...?] it up as a model to analyze all our sensations by. I was much surprized upon turning [...?] the works of that ingenious Philosopher to find the idea anticipated. Beyond these two dimensions indeed he does not go The tract in which it occurrs, for all the useful and original hints it contains is but little known in this country: it has not I believe been translated into our language. The truth is the positions in it are for the most part as false as they are uncomfortable: which may serve to account for the little notice that has been taken of it. The fundamental errors seem to be - this I have been taking notice of: and another which I shall have occasion to mention presently. /had occasion to mention /take notice of/ before./
Yes, says Maupertuis, "the pleasures that a man finds in increasing his riches and his powers (pleasures of possession and expectation as I call them, are pleasures, but they are pleasures of the body - How so? because they originate in the body - they suppose the existence of the pleasures of the body which a man proposes, by means of his riches or his power, to procure, without which they would be themselves as pleasures.c They are nothing else than pleasures of the body seen at a distance. Then you make no pleasures of the mind? - Oh, Yes says he, but I do. There are just two [sorts] of them; I will tell you what they are. One is, the practice of Justice. The other is, the view
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