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Today, it is an honor to share selections from Chapter 3 of “Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty – Collected from the Works of the Learn’d Gassendi by Monsieur Bernier.” Chapter 3 Wherein a Happy Life does consist. “What we have already discoursed of tends to little else than to make a plain discovery of Epicurus’s opinion. But now we must come closer to the matter, and strictly examine whether he had sufficient ground to say that pleasure is the main end. Here we must weigh two of his chief maxims. First, that all pleasure is of itself and of its own nature a real good; and on the contrary, that all grief and pain is an evil. The second is that, notwithstanding, sometimes we must prefer some sort of pains before some sort of pleasures.” Whether all Pleasure be good of itself? “In respect of the first Maxim; it is not without ground, that Epicurus asserts, that all pleasure is of itself good, though by accident it happens sometimes otherwise, for all creatures are of themselves so inclinable to pleasure and delight, that it is the first and chief thing that they naturally covet; nor do they willingly reject any pleasure that is offered them, unless it chance to be accompanied by some evil that may after procure a pain, and so cause us to repent of its first acceptance. And truly, as description it is the nature of good to invite and persuade the appetite to love and embrace it, so we can give no reason why all pleasure should not be of itself lovely, and to be desired, seeing there is none but in itself is pleasing and desirable, and which does of itself incline our appetites. So that if we refuse any, we refuse them not as pleasures, but because of some inconveniences that are annexed, and will infallibly attend them. Now, to illustrate this more plainly by an example […]”
