66. Causes of our judging amiss when we compare present pleasure and pain with future.
The cause of our
judging amiss, when we compare our present pleasure or pain with future, seems to me to be the weak and narrow
constitution of our minds. We cannot well enjoy two pleasures at once; much less any pleasure almost, whilst pain
possesses us. The present pleasure, if it be not very languid, and almost none at all, fills our narrow souls, and so
takes up the whole mind that it scarce leaves any thought of things absent: or if among our pleasures there are
some which are not strong enough to exclude the consideration of things at a distance, yet we have so great an
abhorrence of pain, that a little of it extinguishes all our pleasures. A little bitter mingled in our cup, leaves no
relish of the sweet. Hence it comes that, at any rate, we desire to be rid of the present evil, which we are apt to
think nothing absent can equal; because, under the present pain, we find not ourselves capable of any the least
degree of happiness. Men's daily complaints are a loud proof of this: the pain that any one actually feels is still of
all other the worst; and it is with anguish they cry out,--"Any rather than this: nothing can be so intolerable as
what I now suffer." And therefore our whole endeavours and thoughts are intent to get rid of the present evil,
before all things, as the first necessary condition to our happiness; let what will follow. Nothing, as we
passionately think, can exceed, or almost equal, the uneasiness that sits so heavy upon us. And because the
abstinence from a present pleasure that offers itself is a pain, nay, oftentimes a very great one, the desire being
inflamed by a near and tempting object, it is no wonder that that operates after the same manner pain does, and
lessens in our thoughts what is future; and so forces us, as it were blindfold, into its embraces.
