[LX]

perfectly happy, in which he can think at leisure without
finding therein a cause of distress. This is to misunderstand nature.

As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid nothing so much as
rest, so there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil. Not that
they have an instinctive knowledge of true happiness...

So we are wrong in blaming them. Their error does not lie in seeking
excitement, if they seek it only as a diversion; the evil is that they seek
it as if the possession of the objects of their quest would make them really
happy. In this respect it is right to call their quest a vain one. Hence in
all this both the censurers and the censured do not understand man's true
nature.

And thus, when we take the exception against them, that what they seek with
such fervour cannot satisfy them, if they replied--as they should do if they
considered the matter thoroughly--that they sought in it only a violent and
impetuous occupation which turned their thoughts from self, and that they
therefore chose an attractive object to charm