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But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was
born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of
the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder
of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure,
but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that
are extremely painful. Nor again is
there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but
because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great
pleasure. To take a trivial example, which
of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But
who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying
consequences, or one who avoids a pain
that produces no resultant pleasure?
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and
demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot
foresee the pain and trouble that are bound
to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will,
which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly
simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour,
when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we
like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances
and owing to the claims of duty or
the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and
annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of
selection: he rejects pleasures to secure
other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.
