第13章 Chapter 8 Of the Pleasures of the Senses; Of Honou

1. Having in the first section of the precedent chapter presupposed that motion and agitation of the brain which we call conception, to be continued to the heart, and there to be called passion; I have thereby obliged myself, as far forth as I can, to search out and declare, from what conception proceedeth every one of those passions which we commonly take notice of. For the things that please and displease, are innumerable, and work innumerable ways; but men have taken notice of the passions they have from them in a very few, which also are many of them without name.

2. And first, we are to consider that of conceptions there are three sorts, whereof one is of that which is present, which is sense; another, of that which is past, which is remembrance; and the third, of that which is future, which we call expectation: all which have been manifestly declared in the second and the third chapter. And every of these conceptions is pleasure present. And first for the pleasures of the body which affect the sense of touch and taste, as far forth as they be organical, their conception is sense; so also is the pleasure of all exonerations of nature; all which passions I have before named sensual pleasures; and their contraries, sensual pains; to which also may be added the pleasures and displeasures of odours, if any of them shall be found organical, which for the most part they are not, as appeareth by this experience which every man hath, that the same smells, when they seem to proceed from others, displease, though they proceed from ourselves; but when we think they proceed from ourselves, they displease not, though they come from others: the displeasure therefore, in these is a conception of hurt thereby as being unwholesome, and is therefore a conception of evil to come, and not present. Concerning the delight of hearing, it is diverse, and the organ itself not affected thereby. Simple sounds please by continuance and equality, as the sound of a bell or lute: insomuch that it seemeth an equality continued by the percussion of the object upon the ear, is pleasure; the contrary is called harshness: such as is grating, and some other sounds, which do not always affect the body, but only sometimes, and that with a kind of horror beginning at the teeth. Harmony, or many sounds together agreeing, please by the same reason as unison, which is the sound of equal strings equally stretched. Sounds that differ in any height, please by inequality and equality alternate, that is to say, the higher note striketh twice, for one stroke of the other, whereby they strike together every second time; as is well proved by Galileo, in the first dialogue concerning local motions, where he also sheweth, that two sounds differing a fifth, delight the ear by an equality of striking after two inequalities; for the higher note striketh the ear thrice, while the other striketh but twice. In the like manner he sheweth, wherein consisteth the pleasure of concord, and the displeasure of discord, in other differences of notes. There is yet another pleasure and displeasure of sounds, which consisteth in consequence of one note after another, diversified both by accent and measure: whereof that which pleaseth is called air. But for what reason succession in one tone and measure is more air than another, I confess I know not; but I conjecture the reason to be, for that some of them may imitate and revive some passion which otherwise we take no notice of, and the other not; for no air pleaseth but for a time, no more doth imitation. Also the pleasures of the eye consist in a certain equality of colour: for light, the most glorious of all colours, is made by equal operation of the object; whereas colour is (perturbed, that is to say) unequal light, as hath been said chap. II, sect. 8. And therefore colours, the more equality is in them, the more resplendent they are. And as harmony is a pleasure to the ear, which consisteth of divers sounds; so perhaps may some mixture of divers colours be harmony to the eye, more than another mixture. There is yet another delight by the ear, which happeneth only to men of skill in music, which is of another nature, and not (as these) conception of the present, but rejoicing in their own skill; of which nature are the passions of which I am to speak next.