be more choice-worthy than any others.
The first obvious reason is, that bodily Pleasure drives out Pain; and because Pain is felt in excess men pursue Pleasure in excess, i.e. generally bodily Pleasure, under the notion of its being a remedy for that Pain. These remedies, moreover, come to be violent ones; which is the very reason they are pursued, since the impression they produce on the mind is owing to their being looked at side by side with their contrary.
And, as has been said before, there are the two following reasons why bodily Pleasure is thought to be not-good.
- Some Pleasures of this class are actings of a low nature, whether congenital as in brutes, or acquired by custom as in low bad men.
- Others are in the nature of cures, cures that is of some deficiency; now of course it is better to have [the healthy state] originally than that it should accrue afterwards.
(But some Pleasures result when natural states are being perfected: these