Now, because
pleasure and pain are produced in us by the operation of certain
objects, either on our minds or our bodies, and in different
degrees; therefore, what has an aptness to produce pleasure in us is
that we call good, and what is apt to produce pain in us we call evil;
for no other reason but for its aptness to produce pleasure and pain
in us, wherein consists our happiness and misery. Further, though what
is apt to produce any degree of pleasure be in itself good; and what
is apt to produce any degree of pain be evil; yet it often happens
that we do not call it so when it comes in competition with a
greater of its sort; because, when they come in competition, the
degrees also of pleasure and pain have justly a preference. So that if
we will rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find
it lies much in comparison: for the cause of every less degree of
pain, as well as every greater degree of pleasure, has the nature of
good, and vice versa.
44. What good is desired, what not. Though this be that which is
called good and evil, and all good be the proper object of desire in
general; yet all good, even seen and confessed to be so, does not
necessarily move every particular man's desire; but only that part, or
so much of it as is considered and taken to make a necessary part of
his happiness.
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