r a similar reason, many sensations which are at first pleasing,
cease to delight by frequent repetition; though the impression
remains the same. This is so well known that illustrations are
unnecessary. Those who are economical of their pleasures, or who wish
them to be permanent, must not repeat them too frequently. In music,
a constant repetition of the sweetest and fullest chords, cloys the
ear; while a judicious mixture of them with tones less harmonious
will be long relished. Those who are best acquainted with the human
heart need not be told, that this observation is not confined to
music.

On the same principle likewise we can account for the pleasure
afforded by objects that are new; and why variety is the source of so
many pleasures; why we gradually wish for an increase in the force of
the impression in proportion to its continuance.

The pleasures of the senses are confined within narrow limits, and
can neither be much increased nor too often repeated, without being
destructive of themselves; thus we are admonished by nature, that our
constitutions were not formed to bear the continual pleasures of
sense; for the too free use of any of them, is not only destructive
of itself, but induces those painful and languid sensations so often
complained of by the voluptuary, and which not unfrequently produce a
state of mind that prompts to suicide.

As the transition from pleasure to pain is natural, so the remission
of pain, particularly if it is great, becomes a source of pleasure.
There is much truth, therefore, in the beautiful allegory of
Socrates, who tells us, that Pleasure and Pain were sisters, who,
however, met with a very different reception by mankind on their visit
to the earth; the former being universally courted, while the latter
was carefully avoided: on this account, Pain petitioned Jupiter, who
decreed that they should not be parted; and that whoever embraced the
one, obtained also the other.

There is a great diversity with respect to the duration of the
pleasures of the different senses: some of the senses become soon
fatigued, and lose the power of distinguishing accurately their
different objects: others, on the contrary, remain perfect a long
time. Thus smell and taste are soon satiated; hearing more slowly;
while, of all the external senses, the objects of sight please us the
longest. We may, however, prolong the pleasures of sense by varying
them properly, and by a proper mixture of obj