70. Wrong judgment of what is necessary to our happiness.
All men desire happiness, that is past doubt: but, as
has been already observed, when they are rid of pain, they are apt to take up with any pleasure at hand, or that
custom has endeared to them; to rest satisfied in that; and so being happy, till some new desire, by making them
uneasy, disturbs that happiness, and shows them that they are not so, they look no further; nor is the will
determined to any action in pursuit of any other known or apparent good. For since we find that we cannot enjoy
all sorts of good, but one excludes another; we do not fix our desires on every apparent greater good, unless it be
judged to be necessary to our happiness: if we think we can be happy without it, it moves us not. This is another
occasion to men of judging wrong; when they take not that to be necessary to their happiness which really is so.
This mistake misleads us, both in the choice of the good we aim at, and very often in the means to it, when it is a
remote good. But, which way ever it be, either by placing it where really it is not, or by neglecting the means as
not necessary to it;--when a man misses his great end, happiness, he will acknowledge he judged not right. That
which contributes to this mistake is the real or supposed unpleasantness of the actions which are the way to this
end; it seeming so preposterous a thing to men, to make themselves unhappy in order to happiness, that they do
not easily bring themselves to it.
