it is a trifle, not worth the regarding. Yet this is all which the body can ever be said to suffer. For the same manner, when we en|joy the greatest pleasure, we shall always find that the bodily sensation, the sensation of the present instant makes but a small part of our happiness, that our enjoyment chiefly arises either from the chearful recollection of the past or the still more joyous anticipation of the future, and that the mind always contri|butes by much the largest share of the enter|tainment.
Since our happiness and misery, therefore, depended chiefly upon the mind, if this part of our nature was well disposed, if our thoughts and opinions were as they should be, it was of little importance in what man|ner our body was affected. Tho' under great bodily pain, we might still enjoy a consider|able share of happiness, if our reason and judg|ment maintained their superiority. We might entertain ourselves with the remembrance of past, and with the hopes of future pleasure; we might soften the rigour of our pains, by recollecting what it was which, even in this situation, we were under any necessity of suf|fering. That this was meerly the bodily sen|sation, the pain of the present instant, which
