1. A happy and eternal being has no trouble himself
and brings no trouble upon any other being; hence he
is exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for
every such movement implies weakness.
2. Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has
been resolved into its elements, has no feeling, and that
which has no feeling is nothing to us.
3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the
removal of all pain. When pleasure is present, so long
as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or
of mind or of both together.
4. Continuous pain does not last long in the body; on
the contrary, pain, if extreme, is present a short time,
and even that degree of pain which barely outweighs
pleasure in the body does not last for many days
together. Illnesses of long duration even permit of an
excess of pleasure over pain in the body.
5. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living
wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live
Wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly.
Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for lives well and justly, it is impossible for him to ligh
pleasant life.
6. In order to obtain security from other people any
means whatever of procuring this was a natural good
7. Some people have sought to become famous and
renowned, thinking that thus they would make
themselves secure against their fellow-humans. If, then,
the life of such persons really was secure, they attained
natural good; if, however, it was insecure, they have
not attained the end which by nature’s own prompting
they originally sought.
8. No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which
produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many
times greater than the pleasures themselves.
9. If all pleasure had been capable of accumulation, – if
this had gone on not only be recurrences in time, but
all over the frame or, at any rate, over the principal
parts of human nature, there would never have been
any difference between one pleasure and another, as in
fact there is.
10. If the objects which are productive of pleasures to
profligate persons really freed them from fears of the
mind, – the fears, I mean, inspired by celestial and
atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, the fear of
pain; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires,
we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they, would then be Fled with pleasures to
prerflowing on all sides and would be exempt from 59
pain, whether of body or mind, that is, from alf en
11. If we had never been molested by alarms at
celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by the
misgiving that death somehow affects us, nor by
neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, we
should have had no need to study natural science.
12. It would be impossible to banish fear on matters of
the highest importance, if a person did not know the
nature of the whole universe, but lived in dread of
what the legends tell us. Hence without the study of
nature there was no enjoyment of unmixed pleasures.
13. There would be no advantage in providing security
against our fellow humans, so long as we were alarmed
by occurrences over our heads or beneath the earth or
in general by whatever happens in the boundless
universe.
14. When tolerable security against our fellow humans
is attained, then on a basis of power sufficient to afford
supports and of material prosperity arises in most
genuine form the security of a quiet private life
withdrawn from the multitude.
15. Nature’s wealth at once has its bounds and is easy
to procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an
infinite distance.
16. Fortune but seldom interferes with the wise
person; his greatest and highest interests have been,
are, and will be, directed by reason throughout thé
course of his life.
17. The just person enjoys the greatest peace of mind
while the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude.
18. Pleasure in the body admits no increase when onge
the pain of want has been removed; after that it only
admits of variation. The limit of pleasure in the mind.
however, is reached when we reflect on the things
themselves and their congeners which cause the mind
the greatest alarms.
19. Unlimited time and limited time afford an equal
amount of pleasure, if we measure the limits of that
pleasure by reason.
20. The body receives as unlimited the limits of
pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But
the mind, grasping in thought what the end and limit of
the body is, and banishing the terrors of futurity,
procures a complete and perfect life, and has no longer
any need of unlimited time. Nevertheless it does not
shun pleasure, and even in the hour of death, when
ushered out of existence by circumstances, the mind
does not lack enjoyment of the best life.
21. He who understands the limits of life knows how
easy it is to procure enough to remove the pain of want
and make the whole of life complete and perfect. hience hie has maVens any need of things which are
Horto be won save by labour and conflict.
42. We must take into account as the end all that really
Pwists and all clear evidence of sense to which we retar
our opinions; for otherwise everything will be fulldre
uncertainty and confusion.
23. If you fight against all your sensations, you will
have no standard to which to refer, and thus no means
of judging even those judgments which you pronounce
false.
24. If you reject absolutely any single sensation
without stopping to discriminate with respect to that
which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion
and that which is already present, whether in sensation
or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the
mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of
your sensations by your groundless belief and so you
will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If in
your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as
true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which
does not, you will not escape error, as you will be
maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case
of judging between right and wrong opinion.
25. If you do not on every separate occasion refer each
of your actions to the end prescribed by nature, but
instead of this in the act of choice or avoidance swerve
aside to some other end, your acts will not be
consistent with your theories.
26. All such desires as lead to no pain when they
remain ungratined are unnecessary, and the longingi,
easily got rid of, when the thine desired is difficultip
procure or when the desires seem likely to produce
harm.
27. Of all the means which are procured by wisdom tp
ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far
the most important is the acquisition of friends,
28. The same conviction which inspires confidence
that nothing we have to fear is eternal or even of long
duration, also enables us to see that even in our limited
conditions of life nothing enhances our security so
much as friendship.
29. Of our desires some are natural and necessary
others are natural, but not necessary; others, again, are
neither natural nor necessary, but are due to illusory
opinion.
30. Those natural desires which entail no pain when
not gratified, though their objects are vehemently
pursued, are also due to illusory opinion; and when
they are not got rid of, it is not because of their own
nature, but because of the person’s illusory opinion.
31. Natural justice is a symbol or expression of
usefulness, to prevent one person from harming or
being harmed by another.
42. Those animals “histh are incapable of making.
goronants with or sutter thef, to the end thar they fay
neither inflict nor suffer harm, are without either
justice or in justice: And those tribes which either could
jot of would not form mutual covenants to the same
end are in like case.
33. There never was an absolute justice, but only an
agreement made in reciprocal association in whatever
localities now and again from time to time, providing
against the infliction or suffering of harm.
34. Injustice is not in itself an evil, but only in its
consequence, viz. the terror which is excited by
apprehension that those appointed to punish such
offences will discover the injustice.
35. It is impossible for the person who secretly violates
any article of the social compact to feel confident that
he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already
escaped ten thousand times; for right on to the end of
his life he is never sure he will not be detected.
36. Taken generally, justice is the same for all, to wit,
something found useful in mutual association; but in its
application to particular cases of locality or conditions
of whatever kind, it varies under different
circumstances.
37. Among the things accounted just by conventional
law, whatever in the needs of mutual association is
attested to be useful, is thereby stamped as just,
whether or not it be the same for all; and in case any law is made and does not prove suitable to the
law’twiness 07 murual association, thich this is To hora,
JuSt. And Should che usefulness which is expresal”»)
the law vary and only for a time correspond with fl
prior conception, nevertheless for the fire being it ina
just, so long as we do not trouble ourselves about
empty words, but look simply at the facts.
38. Where without any change in circumstances the
conventional laws, when judged by their consequences,
were seen not to correspond with the notion of justice,
such laws were not really just; but wherever the laws
have ceased to be useful in consequence of a change in
circumstances, in that case the laws were for the time
being just when they were useful for the mutual
association of the citizens, and subsequently ceased to
be just when they ceased to be useful.
39. He who best knew how to meet fear of external
foes made into one family all the creatures he could;
and those he could not, he at any rate did not treat as
aliens; and where he found even this impossible, he
avoided all association, and, so far as was useful, kept
them at a distance.
40. Those who were best able to provide themselves
with the means of security against their neighbours,
being thus in possession of the surest guarantee, passed
the most agreeable life in each other’s society; and their
enjoyment of the fullest intimacy was such that, if one
of them died before his time, the survivors did not
mourn his death as if it called for sympathy.
