totally incapable of acting in the manner we behold. It is the actual
essence of man to tend to his well-being; to be desirous to conserve his
existence; if all the motion of his machine springs as a necessary
consequence from this primitive impulse; if pain warns him of that which
he ought to avoid; if pleasure announces to him that which he should
desire; if it is in his essence to love that which either excites
delight, or, that from which he expects agreeable sensations; to hate
that which makes him either fear contrary impressions; or, that which
afflicts him with uneasiness; it must necessarily be, that he will be
attracted by that which he deems advantageous; that his will shall he
determined by those objects which he judges useful; that he will he
repelled by those beings which he believes prejudicial, either to his
habitual, or to his transitory mode of existence; by that which he
considers disadvantageous. It is only by the aid of experience, that man
acquires the faculty of understanding what he ought to love; of knowing
what he ought to fear. Are his organs sound? his experience will he
true: are they unsound? it will be false: in the first instance he will
have reason, prudence, foresight; he will frequently foresee very remote
effects; he will know, that what he sometimes contemplates as a good,
may possibly become an evil, by its necessary or probable consequences:
that what must be to him a transient evil, may by its result procure him
a solid and durable good. It is thus experience enables him to foresee
that the amputation of a limb will cause him painful sensation, he
consequently is obliged to fear this operation, and he endeavours to
avoid the pain; but if experience has also shewn him, that the
transitory pain this amputation will cause him may be the means of
saving his life; the preservation, of his existence being of necessity
dear to him, he is obliged to submit himself to the momentary pain with
a view to procuring a permanent good, by which it will be overbalanced.