On the other hand, “[2]If you take away from man every thing that is chimerical, what pleasure will you leave him? Pleasures are not things so solid, as to permit us to search them to the bottom; one must only just touch them and away. They resemble boggy and moorish ground, we must run lightly over them, without ever letting our feet make the least impression.”
No, wheresoe’er we turn our wishing eye,
True pleasures never can our souls enjoy.
Let us add, “[3]That if we did not help to deceive ourselves, we should never enjoy any pleasure at all. The most agreeable things in this world are, in the bottom, so trivial, that they would not much affect us, if we made but never so little serious reflection upon them. Pleasures are not made to be strictly examined into, and we are obliged every day to pass over a great many things in them, about which it would not be proper to make one-self uneasy.”
Besides, “[4]Is not the illusion we enjoy as valuable as the good we possess? M. Fontenelle makes a very excellent observation hereupon in these verses[5]:—
“Souvent en s’attachant a des fantômes vains
Notre raison seduite avec plaisir s’egare.
Elle-même joüit des objets qu’elle a feints.
Et cette illusion pour quelque tems repare
Le defaut des vrais biens que la Nature avare