I shall only add one other false judgment,
which I think necessary to mention, because perhaps it is little taken
notice of, though of great influence.
70. Wrong judgment of what is necessary to our happiness. All men
desire happiness, that is past doubt: but, as has been already
observed, when they are rid of pain, they are apt to take up with
any pleasure at hand, or that custom has endeared to them; to rest
satisfied in that; and so being happy, till some new desire, by making
them uneasy, disturbs that happiness, and shows them that they are not
so, they look no further; nor is the will determined to any action
in pursuit of any other known or apparent good. For since we find that
we cannot enjoy all sorts of good, but one excludes another; we do not
fix our desires on every apparent greater good, unless it be judged to
be necessary to our happiness: if we think we can be happy without it,
it moves us not. This is another occasion to men of judging wrong;
when they take not that to be necessary to their happiness which
really is so. This mistake misleads us, both in the choice of the good
we aim at, and very often in the means to it, when it is a remote
good. But, which way ever it be, either by placing it where really
it is not, or by neglecting the means as not necessary to it;- when
a man misses his great end, happiness, he will acknowledge he judged
not right.
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