Page 586 sur 734

I confess I suspect the soundness of this policy; in matters

respecting men's feelings and actions theories are less

convincing than facts: whenever, therefore, they are found

conflicting with actual experience, they not only are despised

but involve the truth in their fall: he, for instance, who

deprecates Pleasure, if once seen to aim at it, gets the credit

of backsliding to it as being universally such as he said it was,

the mass of men being incapable of nice distinctions.

Real accounts, therefore, of such matters seem to be most

expedient, not with a view to knowledge merely but to life and

conduct: for they are believed as being in harm with facts, and

so they prevail with the wise to live in accordance with them.

But of such considerations enough: let us now proceed to the

current maxims respecting Pleasure.

Chapter II.