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Rh constitution of human nature. At first sight the Epicurean opinion seems more consonant with our customary convictions. It seems more agreeable to truth and to common-sense to say that our happiness arises out of the gratification of our desires themselves, and depends on our sensations themselves, than to say that it is caused, not by desire or passion itself, but by the limitation of passion and desire. It seems somewhat paradoxical to affirm that it is because both passion and pleasure are bounded, and not because they are either passion or pleasure, that they conduce to happiness. Nevertheless, paradoxical as this position may seem, and however much it may be at variance with our ordinary habits of thought, it is, I believe, profoundly and philosophically true, and it receives ample confirmation from the facts of our constitution, when these are properly examined and understood. This in particular must be borne in mind, that our very existence as self-conscious and rational beings is brought about by that act of free activity which limits our natural passions and prevents them from monopolising us completely, and to the exclusion, we may say, of our proper selves. Therefore our happiness depends on this limitation, inasmuch as our very rational existence depends upon it.

30. This Stoical doctrine, that it is not passion which is essentially good, or its indulgence which is essentially conducive to our wellbeing, but that it is