"With such goodness is our nature constituted, so gentle is the reign of virtue, that it restrains not its subjects from that enjoyment of bodily pleasures, which upon a right estimate will be found the sweetest: altho’ this she demands, that we should still preserve so lively a sense of the superior pleasures, as may be sufficient to controul the lower appetites, when they make any opposition."

— Hutcheson, Francis (1694-1746)


Place of Publication
Glasgow
Date
1747
Metaphor
"With such goodness is our nature constituted, so gentle is the reign of virtue, that it restrains not its subjects from that enjoyment of bodily pleasures, which upon a right estimate will be found the sweetest: altho’ this she demands, that we should still preserve so lively a sense of the superior pleasures, as may be sufficient to controul the lower appetites, when they make any opposition."
Metaphor in Context
A little reflection too will shew us, what is of high importance in this matter, that in a temperate and restrained course of life, filled up with the most virtuous pursuits, till the natural appetites recurr, there is generally that enjoyment of the lower pleasures which is both safest and most delightful; since moderation and abstinence heightens the enjoyment. With such goodness is our nature constituted, so gentle is the reign of virtue, that it restrains not its subjects from that enjoyment of bodily pleasures, which upon a right estimate will be found the sweetest: altho’ this she demands, that we should still preserve so lively a sense of the superior pleasures, as may be sufficient to controul the lower appetites, when they make any opposition. But on the other hand under the empire of sensuality there’s no admittance for the virtues; all the nobler joys from a conscious goodness, a sense of virtue, and deserving well of others, must be banished; and generally along with them even the rational manly pleasures of the ingenious arts.
(I.ii)
Provenance
Seaching in Liberty Fund Online Library of Liberty (OLL)
Citation
At least 6 entries in ESTC (1747, 1753, 1764, 1772, 1787, 1788). Entries for Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria: 1742, 1745, 1755, and 1787.

See A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, in Three Books; Containing the Elements of Ethicks and the Law of Nature. By Francis Hutcheson, LLD. Late Professor of Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. Translated from the Latin. (Glasgow: Printed and sold by Robert Foulis. Printer to the University, 1747). <Link to ESTC>

Text from Francis Hutcheson, Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria: With a Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, ed. Luigi Turco (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007). <Link to OLL>
Date of Entry
06/03/2010

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.