The mystery of pain : a book for the sorrowful / by James Hinton.

  • Hinton, James, 1822-1875.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mystery of pain : a book for the sorrowful / by James Hinton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    making what is ordinarily painful a source of joy, and this a joy of the highest and most exquisite kind. We all know this. We not only are willing, we rejoice, to bear an ordin- arily painful thing for the benefit or pleasure of one whom we intensely love. Within cer- tain limits, indeed, but still most truly, the bearing pain for such an end is a privilege to be sought, not a sorrow to be shunned. Uni- versal experience proves this: it is one of the broad familiar features of human life. But when we consider this, do we not see that our natural feelings mislead us when they pronounce pleasant things to be the good ones, and the painful ones evil ? So far from this being the case, things that we call painful, that are painful in our ordinary state, are essential conditions of our highest good. To us, there could not be love without them. We could never have felt the joy, never have had even the idea, of love, if sacrifice had been impossible to us. In our truest and intensest happiness, that which is otherwise felt as pain is present. Pain, we may say, is latent, in our highest state. It lies hidden and unfelt in the .