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 too 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 sweeter than honey; but as a man's sense,