“ a person's good fortune has often given more pleasure to others than it gave to the person himself. ”
John Stuart Mill, A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive (1843). copy citation
| Author | John Stuart Mill |
|---|---|
| Source | A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive |
| Topic | pleasure fortune |
| Date | 1843 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27942/27942-h/27942-h.html |
Context
“A similar fallacy is committed by Cicero, in his second book De Finibus, where, speaking in his own person against the Epicureans, he charges them with inconsistency in saying that the pleasures of the mind had their origin from those of the body, and yet that the former were more valuable, as if the effect could surpass the cause. “Animi voluptas oritur propter voluptatem corporis, et major est animi voluptas quam corporis? ita fit ut gratulator, lætior sit quam is cui gratulatur.” Even that, surely, is not an impossibility; a person's good fortune has often given more pleasure to others than it gave to the person himself.
Descartes, with no less readiness, applies the same principle the converse way, and infers the nature of the effects from the assumption that they must, in this or that property or in all their properties, resemble their”
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