Thus the activity of the king will be here described by a series of statements, and the truth will be obtained by the whole of the statements and the corrections which they successively bring in.
When the king wished to start a being on the train of activity he divided its apathy into pleasure and pain. The pleasure he connected with one act which we will call A. The pain he associated with another act which we will call B.
These two “acts,” A and B, which together form what we call an “action,” were of such a nature that the doing of A first and then of B was a process used in the organization of the life in the valley.
Thus the act A may be represented by moving the right foot, B by moving the left foot, then AB will be the action of taking a step. This however is but a superficial illustration, for the acts which we represent by A and B were fundamental acts, of which great numbers were combined together in any single outward act which could be observed or described.
Suppose for the present that there is only one creature in the valley. The king separates his apathy with regard to the action AB. Let us say he separates his apathy into 1000 pleasure and 1000 pain. Of the pleasure he lets the being experience the whole, of the pain he bears an amount which we will represent by 2. Thus the being has 1000 pleasure and 998 of pain, and the action is completed. His sensation is measured by the number 1000 in the first act, and by 998 in the second act.
But the king did not choose to make the fundamental actions of this limited and finishing kind. As the type of the fundamental activity, he chose an action, and made the being go through it again and again. Thus the being would go through the act A, then the act B. When the action AB was complete it would go through an act of the kind A again, then through an act of the kind B. Thus the creature would be engaged in a routine of this kind, AB, AB, AB, and so on.
And if the creature had been alone, and this had been the sole activity in which it was concerned, the king would have gone on bearing 2 of pain in each of these actions. The king would have kept the routine going on steadily, the creature bearing 1000 of pleasure in each A, and 998 of pain in each B.