[What follows is another (see the first HERE) of Mr Flosky’s speeches, from Ch. 7 of NIGHTMARE ABBEY by Thomas Love Peacock.]
There is a secret in all this, which I will elucidate with a dusky remark. According to Berkeley, the esse of things is percipi. They exist as they are perceived. But, leaving for the present, as far as relates to the material world, the materialists, hyloists, and antihyloists, to settle this point among them, which is indeed
A subtle question, raised among
Those out o’ their wits, and those i’ the wrong;
for only we transcendentalists are in the right: we may very safely assert that the esse of happiness is percipi. It exists as it is perceived. “It is the mind that maketh well or ill.” The elements of pleasure and pain are every where. The degree of happiness that any circumstances or objects can confer on us depends on the mental disposition with which we approach them. If you consider what is meant by the common phrases, a happy disposition and a discontented temper, you will perceive that the truth for which I am contending is universally admitted.
(Mr Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally trespassing within the limits of common sense.)