hat now they
almost universally agree that health is the greatest of all bodily
pleasures; and that as there is a pain in sickness, which is as opposite
in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health; so they hold,
that health is accompanied with pleasure: and if any should say that
sickness is not really pain, but that it only carries pain along with
it, they look upon that as a fetch of subtilty, that does not much alter
the matter. It is all one, in their opinion, whether it be said that
health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire
gives heat; so it be granted, that all those whose health is entire have
a true pleasure in the enjoyment of it: and they reason thus--what is
the pleasure of eating, but that a man's health which had been weakened,
does, with the assistance of food, drive away hunger, and so recruiting
itself recovers its former vigour? And being thus refreshed, it finds a
pleasure in that conflict; and if the conflict is pleasure, the victory
must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we fancy that it becomes
stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued, and so neither
knows nor rejoices in its own welfare. If it is said that health cannot
be felt, they absolutely deny it; for what man is in health that does
not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man that is so dull and
stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight in health? And what
is delight but another name for pleasure?

But of all pleasures, they esteem those to be most valuable that lie in
the mind; the chief of which arises out of true virtue, and the witness
of a good conscience. They account health the chief pleasure that
belongs to the body; for they think that the pleasure of eating and
drinking, and all the other delights of sense, are only so far desirable
as they give or maintain health. But they are not pleasant in
themselves, otherwise than as they resist those impressions that our
natural infirmities are still making upon us: for as a wise man desires
rather to avoid diseases than to take physic; and to be freed from pain,
rather than to find ease by remedies; so it is more desirable not to
need this sort of pleasure, than to be obliged to indulge it. If any man
imagines that there is a real happiness in these enjoyments, he must
then confess that he would be the happiest of all men if he were to lead
his life in perpetual hunger, thirst, and itching, and by consequence in
pe