The use of life / by the Right Hon. Lord Avebury.

  • John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The use of life / by the Right Hon. Lord Avebury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    they are called pleasure, which we should hate if they went by any other name. Many people think they are enjoying themselves, merely because they are doing nothing useful. Others seem to use the word as if it applied only to the senses, while, on the contrary, the pleasures of the mind are both more exquisite and more lasting. Try to create in- terests for yourself, rather than to secure pleasures. We neglect, or recklessly injure, the only body we have, and on the health of which that of the mind so greatly depends. We do not derive half the enjoyment we might from works of Art; I wonder what proportion of our people in London have ever been to the National Gallery ? we do not train ourselves to appreciate the interest of Science; how many have been to the British Museum ? or have prepared themselves to appre- ciate it; we do not enjoy the beauties of the Earth on which we live, or of the Sky over our heads; we make perhaps more use of music, though much less than we might; we boast that, while Animals liave instinct only, Man is a reasoning Being, and yet how little our boasted intellect has added to the happiness of IMankiud. It might even be