rpetual eating, drinking, and scratching himself; which any one may
easily see would be not only a base, but a miserable state of a life.
These are indeed the lowest of pleasures, and the least pure; for we can
never relish them, but when they are mixed with the contrary pains. The
pain of hunger must give us the pleasure of eating; and here the pain
out-balances the pleasure; and as the pain is more vehement, so it lasts
much longer; for as it begins before the pleasure, so it does not cease
but with the pleasure that extinguishes it, and both expire together.
They think, therefore, none of those pleasures are to be valued any
further than as they are necessary; yet they rejoice in them, and with
due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness of the great Author of Nature,
who has planted in us appetites, by which those things that are
necessary for our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us. For how
miserable a thing would life be, if those daily diseases of hunger and
thirst were to be carried off by such bitter drugs as we must use for
those diseases that return seldomer upon us? And thus these pleasant as
well as proper gifts of Nature maintain the strength and the
sprightliness of our bodies.

They also entertain themselves with the other delights let in at their
eyes, their ears, and their nostrils, as the pleasant relishes and
seasonings of life, which Nature seems to have marked out peculiarly for
man; since no other sort of animals contemplates the figure and beauty
of the universe; nor is delighted with smells, any farther than as they
distinguish meats by them; not do they apprehend the concords or
discords of sound; yet in all pleasures whatsoever they take care that a
lesser joy does not hinder a greater, and that pleasure may never breed
pain, which they think always follows dishonest pleasures. But they
think it madness for a man to wear out the beauty of his face, or the
force of his natural strength; to corrupt the sprightliness of his body
by sloth and laziness, or to waste it by fasting; that it is madness to
weaken the strength of his constitution, and reject the other delights
of life; unless by renouncing his own satisfaction, he can either serve
the public or promote the happiness of others, for which he expects a
greater recompense from God. So that they look on such a course of life
as the mark of a mind that is both cruel to itself, and ungrateful to
the Author of Nature, as if we would not be