common to the beasts as well as men. 2. Though they may be competent to make up the happiness of the sensible nature, yet they are not such to the reasonable nature; because they are still accompanied with a present concurring sense of mortality, which embitters their very enjoyments, and renders them insipid, if not bitter. 3. The wiser the man is, the less he values them, and consequently, are at best a happiness to fools, and such as degenerate from the nobleness of the human nature into the degree of beasts, by setting an over-value upon them. Again, 4. They are transient, and the happiness of them is only before their enjoyment; when they are enjoyed to satiety, they lose their use and value. 5. These placenta sensus,* especially of the sensual appetite are not for their own sakes, but in order to something else, viz. To invite and excite the appetite, in order to the preservation of the individual, or the species; and therefore cannot be in themselves in relation to a reasonable nature any Happiness, since they termi. nate in something else.

4. Those bona fortune,t as wealth, honor, power, cannot at all pretend to make up a happiness for the reasonable nature, for though in truth we do not find so eminently, in the animal nature, any such thing as wealth or honor, but only somewhat analogical to it, as in ants and bees; yet these are of a far inferior nature to the bona corporis, whether health or pleas.

* Pleasures of sense. + Goods of fortune.

ure for they are in their true use only in order to them. The primary corporeal good is health, and conservation of the individual in his being; next to that, and indeed in order to it, are the refreshments and supports by eating and drinking. Wealth again is subservient, and in order to that, viz. to have a convenient store and provision for the supply of the exigencies of nature, and preserving the individual: What is more than necessary for that, is superfluous, vain, and unnecessary. Power again is only desira. ble to secure those provisions from rapine and inva. sion. So that, in truth, these are so far from making up a happiness, that they are only provisional, and in order to those goods of the body, which are before shewn incompetent to that end; and without that respect they are vain and impertinent things. But be. sides this, there are certain specifical defects that accompany these goods, that render them utterly incapable of making up a happiness to mankind. 1. It is impossible they can be as large as the human nature; because unless there were some poor, none could be rich; unless some were under, there could be none in power; if all were equal in wealth and power, there could be no such thing as wealth or power :And consequently, the supposition of happiness in those who are rich or powerful, would exclude the greatest part of mankind from any share in that which must make up their common happiness. 2. In the fruition of all wealth, honor and power, besides the common fate of mortality, which embitters their very

enjoyment, there is annexed a certain peculiar infelicity that renders them incapable of making up a hap. piness: For, 1. They are the common mark of covetousness, envy, ambition and necessity, which most ordinarily render rich and powerful, and great men less safe than others, and ordinarily they stand tottering dangerously, and subject to fall. 2. There is always care and anxiety attending the possessors of great honor, wealth, or power, which embitters the very enjoyment, and puts it out of the capacity of being a happiness; for it is impossible that great cares and great fears can consist with true happiness. And thus far of sensible goods.

8. Besides these sensible goods, there seem to be two sorts of goods that mankind is peculiarly capable of, which are not common to the beasts; viz. First, the good of esteem, glory, and reputation, wherewith perchance the beasts are not affected, though some seem to have something analogical to it: But this cannot at all make up a happiness to the human nature; 1. Because it is not accommodate to all uses and exigents: laudatur et alget.* 2. Because it resides not in the party, but in those who give it; a man may have a great esteem with others, and a low esteem of himself. 3. It is, of all others, the most brittle and unstable possession: Those that perchance deservedly give it, may undeservedly resume it: A word or action mistaken by others, a false re

*It is commended but void of warmth.

port, envy, emulation, want of success in any one ac. tion: The misinterpretation of the superior or the vulgar, may quite overturn the greatest, and per. chance most deserved reputation, and render a man more despised and contemptible than he was before eminent or esteemed: He that bottoms his happiness upon such an unstable blast inherits the wind.

9. But yet there (are) certain bona anime,* which are compatible to man, but not to beasts; which are of two kinds, according to the two great faculties in man, his understanding and will; viz. knowledge and moral virtues; and although these are excellent goods, yet (exclusively of true and sound religion) they cannot make up that happiness, which we may reasonably judge to be proper and specifical to the human nature: First, therefore for knowledge, there are these incompetences in it, in reference to our happiness: 1. Our knowledge is very little and narrow in respect of the object of it: What we know is the least part of what we know not: Though we dai. ly converse with things natural, even with the frame of our own bodies, we scarce know the nature, or cause, or motion of any one nerve or muscle. 2. Even in those things we think we know, our knowl edge is very dark and uncertain; and from these ariseth 3. That our increase in knowledge is our increase in sorrow and trouble; trouble to attain that little knowledge we have, and sorrow in that we ac

* Goods of the soul

/quire no more: 4. The whole scheme of knowledge we attain for the most part, serves only the meridian of our short, unstable, uncertain life: And what kind of happiness can that be, which, while we are attaining, we cannot secure to be of any long or certain continuance, and vanisheth, or proves utterly unuseful when we die? Of what use will then the know. ledge of municipal laws, of history, of natural philosophy, of politics, of mathematics, be in the next world, although our souls survive us?

As to the 2. Namely, moral virtues; it is true, Aristotle, 1. Ethicor. cap. 7. tells us, That happiness, or blessedness is the exercise or operation of the reasonable soul, according to the best and most perfect virtue, in vita perfecta in perfect life:' But he tells not what that vita perfecta is, nor where to be found; and yet without it there is no happiness.

But even this exercise of virtue (though much more noble than the bare habit of virtue, which is but in order to action or exercise) if considered singly and apart, and abstractively from the reward of it, is not enough to constitute a happiness suitable to the hu. man nature. 1. The actions of virtue, for the most part, respect the good and benefit of others more than of the party that exercises them, as justice, righteousness, charity, liberality, fortitude; and principally (if not only) religion, temperance, patience and contentation, are those virtues that advantage the party himself; the rest most respect the good of oth ers. 2. We find it too often true, that most good men