development. Philosophical work As early as 1763, Verri's early study Meditiazioni sulla felicita—usually classified as a philosophical pamphlet—is written. Verri spells out the foundational pieces of his approach to civil life. Afterward, as resistance against his reforming work in administration stiffened, Verri devoted himself increasingly to philosophy. In 1773 he wrote Dell'indole del piacere e del dolore ("Discourse on Pleasure and Pain"), followed in 1777 by Osservazioni sulla tortura ("Observations on Torture"), in which he stressed the uselessness and cruelty of torture. He argues that the excess of desires over and above possibilities or "power" is a measure of unhappiness. The search for happiness in the form of the removal of unhappiness is a core issue in Pietro Verri's political philosophy. He appears from the start as one of the leading representatives eighteenth-century eudomistic views. Happiness, Verri argues, can be pursued in two ways. Happiness, in fact, consists in the reduction of the difference between the two elements of desires and power: that reduction can be achieved by acting upon either one or the other of the two elements. It can be said therefore that the object of happiness being reduced to a difference, it can be conquered either by "addition"(of power) or by "subtraction" (of desires). Verri declares addition to be superior. An addition in the form of the enlargement of power provides the main route to happiness as compared with a check on desires. Verri, however, lays a special emphasis upon creativity rather than mere enjoyment of what is already in our possession as a condition for happiness. His two most important productions (Discourse on the Nature of Pleasure and Pain, 1773; Meditations on Happiness, 1781) contain new and ingenious ideas on the function of pain and the law of contrasts, which were afterward adopted by Kant, Schopenhauer, and Wundt and discussed by Dumont, Bouillier, and Regalia. Influence A comprehensive reading of Verri's economic and philosophical writings suggests a new perspective in the analysis of the interplay between moral sense theory, legislation and the competitive framework of a market economy which is not irrelevant to the understanding of the same relationship in other eighteenth-century writers, including Adam Smith. For Verri's Meditazioni are explicitly rooted in a 'historical' investigation of moral sentiments, and of the way in which these may influence the pursuit of private or public interest, and the characteristics of legislation. Verri's influence can be seen first,