65. Men may err in comparing present and future.
(1) Therefore, as to present pleasure and pain, the mind, as has
been said, never mistakes that which is really good or evil; that which is the greater pleasure, or the greater pain,
is really just as it appears. But, though present pleasure and pain show their difference and degrees so plainly as
not to leave room to mistake; yet, when we compare present pleasure or pain with future, (which is usually the
case in most important determinations of the will,) we often make wrong judgments of them; taking our measures
of them in different positions of distance. Objects near our view are apt to be thought greater than those of a larger
size that are more remote. And so it is with pleasures and pains: the present is apt to carry it; and those at a
distance have the disadvantage in the comparison. Thus most men, like spendthrift heirs, are apt to judge a little in
hand better than a great deal to come; and so, for small matters in possession, part with greater ones in reversion.
But that this is a wrong judgment every one must allow, let his pleasure consist in whatever it will: since that
which is future will certainly come to be present; and then, having the same advantage of nearness, will show
itself in its full dimensions, and discover his wilful mistake who judged of it by unequal measures. Were the
pleasure of drinking accompanied, the very moment a man takes off his glass, with that sick stomach and aching
head which, in some men, are sure to follow not many hours after, I think nobody, whatever pleasure he had in his
cups, would, on these conditions, ever let wine touch his lips; which yet he daily swallows, and the evil side
comes to be chosen only by the fallacy of a little difference in time. But, if pleasure or pain can be so lessened
only by a few hours' removal, how much more will it be so by a further distance, to a man that will not, by a right
judgment, do what time will, i.e., bring it home upon himself, and consider it as present, and there take its true
dimensions? This is the way we usually impose on ourselves, in respect of bare pleasure and pain, or the true
degrees of happiness or misery: the future loses its just proportion, and what is present obtains the preference as
the greater. I mention not here the wrong judgment, whereby the absent are not only lessened, but reduced to
perfect nothing; when men enjoy what they can in present, and make sure of that, concluding amiss that no evil
will thence follow. For that lies not in comparing the greatness of future good and evil, which is that we are here
speaking of; but in another sort of wrong judgment, which is concerning good or evil, as it is considered to be the
cause and procurement of pleasure or pain that will follow from it.
