The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)Hobbes, Thomas
Philosophy
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)
Hobbes, Thomas
Philosophy, English -- 17th century
[Sidenote: Of delight, pain, love, hatred.]
1. In the eighth section of the second chapter is shewed, _that
conceptions_ and _apparitions_ are nothing _really_, but _motion_ in
some internal substance of the _head_; which motion _not stopping_
there, but proceeding to the _heart_, of necessity must there either
_help_ or _hinder_ the motion which is called _vital_; when it
_helpeth_, it is called _delight_, _contentment_, or _pleasure_,
which is nothing really but motion about the heart, as conception is
nothing but motion in the head: and the _objects_ that cause it are
called _pleasant_ or _delightful_, or by some name equivalent; the
Latins have _jucundum_, _a juvando_, from helping; and the same
delight, with reference to the object, is called _love_: but when
such motion _weakeneth_ or hindereth the vital motion, then it is
called _pain_; and in relation to that which causeth it, hatred,
which the Latins express sometimes by _odium_, and sometimes by
_tædium_.
[Sidenote: Appetite, aversion, fear.]
2. This motion, in which consisteth _pleasure_ or _pain_, is also a
_solicitation_ or provocation either to draw _near_ to the thing
that pleaseth, or to _retire_ from the thing that displeaseth; and
this solicitation is the _endeavour_ or internal beginning of
_animal_ motion, which when the object _delighteth_, is called
_appetite_; when it _displeaseth_, it is called _aversion_, in
respect of the displeasure _present_; but in respect of the
displeasure _expected_, _fear_. So that _pleasure_, _love_, and
_appetite_, which is also called desire, are _divers names_ for
divers considerations of the _same thing_.
[Sidenote: Good, evil, pulchritude, turpitude.]
3. Every man, for his own part, calleth that which _pleaseth_, and
is delightful to himself, _good_; and that _evil_ which
_displeaseth_ him: insomuch that while every man _differeth_ from
another in _constitution_, they differ also from one another
concerning the common distinction of good and evil. Nor is there any
such thing as absolute goodness, considered without relation: for
even the goodness which we apprehend in God Almighty, is _his
goodness to us_. And as we call _good_ and _evil_ the _things_ that
please and displease; so call we _goodness_ and _badness_, the
_qualities_ or powers whereby they do it: and the signs of that
goodness are called by the Latins in one word _pulchritudo_, and the
signs of evil, _turpitudo_; to which we have no words precisely
answerable.
As all conceptions we have immediately by the _sense_, are,
_delight_, or _pain_, or _appetite_, or _fear_; so are all the
_imaginations_ after sense. But as they are weaker imaginations, so
are they also weaker pleasures, or weaker pain.
[Sidenote: End, fruition.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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