Chap. 9-] Intellectual Pleasures 'very numerous. 457 



cular medicines will fometimes excite vomiting in very 

 delicate and irritable habits. Some medicines,, palat- 

 able in themfdves, from the idea of their painful effects, 

 \ve naufeate. 



The fenfible pleafures are greater in number than 

 the fenfible pains. Of this, waving any abftract rea- 

 foning, fuch as the love of life, and the pleafures of 

 habit, any man may be convinced, who will be at the 

 trouble of enumerating them. Now our intellectual 

 pleafures and pains are combinations of the fenfible, 

 and of courfe our pleafures will be more numerous 

 than our pains. Ideas feem to have an effect on the 

 mind fimiiar to what fbme applications are faid to have 

 on the body, which are fedatives when applied in large 

 quantities, and ftimulants in fmall. " The fight of 

 tortures chills the whole foul, and produces almoft a 

 total ftagnation of thought * ;" but relations of tortures 

 have never any fuch effect, and men feem to find them 

 agreeable, by the avidity with which they liften to 

 them. The .truth is, a very violent mental agitation 

 is required to produce pain, and every moderate agi- 

 tation will produce pleafure : a proof that the intel- 

 lectual pieafures muft be very numerous, and the in- 

 tellectual pains very few. A defcription of a ftorm or 

 battle, which is really compofed of painful or difagree- 

 able ideas, will excite in very few a degree of agitation 

 which arifes to pain, and moil people experience an 

 actual pleafure from thefe defcriptions. The very 

 deformities of nature, a rugged and frightful hill, or a 

 ftorm of lightning, give us pleafure, when exactly 

 copied ; and we read with pleaiure even of ill actions: 

 and fee the cruelties of tyrants reprefented on the the- 



Gerard on Geniu, part ii. f. 4. 



atre, 



