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 perpetual eating, drinking,
and scratching himself; which any one may easily see would be not only a
base, but a miserable, state of a life. These are, indeed, the lowest of
pleasures, and the least pure, for we can never relish them but when they
are mixed with the contrary pains. The pain of hunger must give us the
pleasure of eating, and here the pain out-balances the pleasure. And as
the pain is more vehement, so it lasts much longer; for as it begins
before the pleasure, so it does not cease but with the pleasure that
extinguishes it, and both expire together. They think, therefore, none
of those pleasures are to be valued any further than as they are
necessary; yet they rejoice in them, and with due gratitude acknowledge
the tenderness of the great Author of Nature, who has planted in us
appetites, by which those things that are necessary for our preservation
are likewise made pleasant to us. For how miserable a thing would life
be if those daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried off by
such bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldomer
upon us! And thus these pleasant, as well as proper, gifts of Nature
maintain the strength and the sprightliness of our bodies.

"They also entertain themselves with the other delights let in at their