The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
this appropriated signification; but I thought it better to take up a
word already known, and to limit its signification, than to introduce a
new one, which would not perhaps incorporate so well with the language.
I should never have presumed the least alteration in our words, if the
nature of the language, framed for the purposes of business rather than
those of philosophy, and the nature of my subject, that leads me out of
the common track of discourse, did not in a manner necessitate me to it.
I shall make use of this liberty with all possible caution. As I make
use of the word _delight_ to express the sensation which accompanies the
removal of pain or danger, so, when I speak of positive pleasure, I
shall for the most part call it simply _pleasure_.
SECTION V.
JOY AND GRIEF.
It must be observed, that the cessation of pleasure affects the mind
three ways. If it simply ceases after having continued a proper time,
the effect is _indifference_; if it be abruptly broken off, there ensues
an uneasy sense called _disappointment_; if the object be so totally
lost that there is no chance of enjoying it again, a passion arises in
the mind which is called _grief_. Now there is none of these, not even
grief, which is the most violent, that I think has any resemblance to
positive pain. The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon
him; he indulges it, he loves it: but this never happens in the case of
actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable
time. That grief should be willingly endured, though far from a simply
pleasing sensation, is not so difficult to be understood. It is the
nature of grief to keep its object perpetually in its eye, to present it
in its most pleasurable views, to repeat all the circumstances that
attend it, even to the last minuteness; to go back to every particular
enjoyment, to dwell upon each, and to find a thousand new perfections in
all, that were not sufficiently understood before; in grief, the
_pleasure_ is still uppermost; and the affliction we suffer has no
resemblance to absolute pain, which is always odious, and which we
endeavor to shake off as soon as possible. The Odyssey of Homer, which
abounds with so many natural and affecting images, has none more
striking than those which Menelaus raises of the calamitous fate of his
friends, and his own manner of feeling it. He owns, indeed, that he
often gives himself some intermission from such melancholy reflections;
but he observes, too, that, melancholy as they are, they give him
pleasure.
[Greek:
All empes pantas men odyromenos kai acheuon,
Pollakis en megaroisi kathemenos hemeteroisin,
Allote men te goo phrena terpomai, allote d' aute
Pauomai; aipseros de koros kryeroio gooio]
Hom. Od. [Greek: D]. 100
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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