ars after the theft, of which
he knew nothing, would find no difference between his having or losing
it; for both ways it was equally useless to him.

Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure, they reckon all that delight
in hunting, in fowling, or gaming: of whose madness they have only
heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us,
what sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice? For
if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing of it so often
should give one a surfeit of it: and what pleasure can one find in
hearing the barking and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than
pleasant sounds? Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run
after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if the
seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same
entertainment to the eye on both these occasions; since that is the same
in both cases: but if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and
torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak, harmless
and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs.
Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians, turned
over to their butchers; and those, as has been already said, are all
slaves; and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a
butcher's work: for they account it both more profitable and more decent
to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind;
whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can
only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he
can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed,
even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with
cruelty, or that at least by the frequent returns of so brutal a
pleasure must degenerate into it.

Thus, though the rabble of mankind look upon these, and on innumerable
other things of the same nature, as pleasures; the Utopians, on the
contrary, observing that there is nothing in them truly pleasant,
conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures: for though
these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a
true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise
from the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate
a man's taste, that bitter things may pass for sweet; as women with
child think pitch or tallow taste sweet