63.  A more particular Account of wrong Judgments.

But, to account more particularly for the misery that men often bring on themselves, notwithstanding that they do all in earnest pursue happiness, we must consider how things come to be represented to our desires under deceitful appearances:  and that is by the judgment pronouncing wrongly concerning them.  To see how far this reaches, and what are the causes of wrong judgment, we must remember that things are judged good or bad in a double sense:—­

First, that which is properly good or bad, is nothing but barely pleasure or pain.

Secondly, But because not only present pleasure and pain, but that also which is apt by its efficacy or consequences to bring it upon us at a distance, is a proper object of our desires, and apt to move a creature that has foresight; therefore things also that draw after them pleasure and pain, are considered as good and evil.

64.  No one chooses misery willingly, but only by wrong judgment.

The wrong judgment that misleads us, and makes the will often fasten on the worse side, lies in misreporting upon the various comparisons of these.  The wrong judgment I am here speaking of is not what one man may think of the determination of another, but what every man himself must confess to be wrong.  For, since I lay it for a certain ground, that every intelligent being really seeks happiness, which consists in the enjoyment of pleasure, without any considerable mixture of uneasiness; it is impossible any one should willingly put into his own draught any bitter ingredient, or leave out anything in his power that would tend to his satisfaction, and the completing of his happiness, but only by a wrong judgment.  I shall not here speak of that mistake which is the consequence of invincible error, which scarce deserves the name of wrong judgment; but of that wrong judgment which every man himself must confess to be so.

65.  Men may err on comparing Present and Future.

(I) Therefore, as to present pleasure and pain, the mind, as has been said, never mistakes that which is really good or evil; that which is the greater pleasure, or the greater pain, is really just as it appears.  But, though present pleasure and pain show their difference and degrees so plainly as not to leave room to mistake; yet, when we compare present pleasure or pain with future, (which is usually the case in most important determinations of the will,) we often make wrong judgments of them; taking our measures of them in different positions of distance.  Objects near our view are apt to be thought greater than those of a larger size that are more remote.  And so it is with pleasures