tend most to his happiness. If he makes a choice which proves disagreeable, he gets thereby an experience, which may qualify him to chuse the next time with more satisfaction to himself. And thus wrong choices may turn to his advantage for the future. So that, at all times and under all circumstances, he is pursuing and enjoying the greatest happiness, which his condition will allow.
It may not be improper to observe, that some of the pleasures he receives from objects, are so far from being the effect of choice, that they are not the effect of the least premeditation or any act of his own, as in finding a treasure on the road, or in receiving a legacy from a person unknown to him.
2. Secondly, this arbitrary[1] faculty would subject a man to more wrong choices, than if he was determin’d in his choice.
A man, determin’d in his choice by the appearing nature of things, and the usage of his intellectual powers, never makes a wrong choice, but by mistaking the true relation of things to him. But a being, indifferent to[2] all objects, andsway'd
