this confession, both in his Utilitarianism and in his Autobiography. He admits that the direct pursuit of pleasure is suicidal, that we must lose sight of the end in the means, and, adopting a kind of miser's consciousness,' affect a disinterested or objective interest, forget ourselves, and pursue objects as if for their own sake, and not for the sake of the pleasure which we expect them to yield. 'Something accomplished, something done,' yields pleasure; but if it is to yield the pleasure, at least the maximum of pleasure, we must not do it for the sake of the pleasure. The life of pleasure-seeking is, in other words, by the very nature of the case, a life of illusion and make-believe. But, replies the anti-hedonist, such an interpretation of human life is in the highest degree artificial and unpsychological. "The real order of things is just the reverse of the hedonistic interpretation of it. Instead of beginning with the pursuit of pleasure, and ending by pursuing what was earlier the means to pleasure, we begin by pursuing an object, and end by degrading this primary object to an artificial means to pleasure, or as a competitor with pleasure for the dignity of being pursued." 1 The passage is "from simple desire for an object which satisfies to desire for the satisfaction itself." Here, once more, the Hedonist seems forced to concede the point to his antagonist. Even such an extreme Hedonist as Hume admits that "it has been proved beyond all controversy that even the passions commonly esteemed selfish may carry the mind beyond self directly to the object; that though the satisfaction gives us enjoyment, yet the prospect of this enjoyment is not the cause of the passion, but, on the contrary, the passion is antecedent to the enjoyment, and without the former the latter could never possibly exist.”2 The case now seems to be decided against the Hedonist. 1 Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, vol. ii. p. 327. use. The latter's interpretation of life seems to have been proved unnatural and forced. The voluptuary may, on reflection, adopt his scheme of life as the only logically defensible scheme; but his practice will always contradict the logic of his scheme. The hedonistic calculus' must be abandoned, and another measure found for practical But the Hedonist is not yet silenced. There is a previous question, he still insists, which his opponent has not answered-namely, What is the object of desire, if it is not pleasure? Are we not brought back to Hedonism whenever we investigate the constitution of the object? Does not that pleasure, which we had just put out at the door, come back through the window? For what is the object apart from you? It exists through its relation to you-nay, it is yourself. What you desire is not a mere object, but an object as satisfying yourself, and what moves you to act is the idea of yourself as satisfied in the attainment of the object. Not the object, but the attainment of the object by you-or, more strictly still, your self-satisfaction in its attainment, is the end that moves you to strive after it. And in what can the satisfaction of the self consist but in a feeling of pleasure? Moreover, the paradox of Hedonism' turns out to be more seeming than real. The distinction between the end and the means towards its attainment is not a real but an artificial distinction. The end and the means are really the same, you can analyse the one into the other; the end is the whole, of which the means are the parts or elements, and you can no more lose the end in the means than the whole in the parts. The means to pleasure are just the details of the pleasant life, and in pursuing them you are in truth pursuing, in the only rational manner, step by step, or bit by bit, that totality of satisfaction which can be constituted in no other way. The life of pleasure is not an abstract universal; it is a concrete whole, and consists of real particulars. Pleasure, further, is derived from pleasant things; to divorce it from these is to destroy it. But such a divorce is entirely gratuitous; no matter how it is reached, the pleasure itself is our real end. We have not forgotten the pleasure after all. In the words of J. S. Mill: "In these cases the means have become a part of the end, and a more important part of it than any of the things which they are means to. What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of happiness, has come to be desired for its own sake. In being desired for its own sake it is, however, desired as part of happiness. The person is made, or thinks he would be made, happy by its mere possession; and is made unhappy by failure to obtain it. The desire of it is not a different thing from the desire of happiness, any more than the love of music, or the desire of health. They are included in happiness; they are some of the elements of which the desire of happiness is made up. Happiness is not an abstract idea, but a concrete whole; and these are some . Life would be a poor thing, very ill of its parts. provided with sources of happiness, if there were not this provision of nature, by which things originally indifferent, but conducive to, or otherwise associated with, the satisfaction of our primitive desires, become in themselves sources of pleasure more valuable than the primitive pleasures, both in permanency, in the space of human existence that they are capable of covering, and even in intensity." 1 The question finally resolves itself, therefore, into the following form: Choice being the realisation of an idea, is the idea which we choose to realise, or the moving idea, in all cases the idea of pleasure, i.e., the anticipation of the pleased feeling which will result from the proposed course of action? Is this the only possible content of the idea selected for realisation? Is this, in the last analysis, the only possible object of thought, and, there1 Utilitarianism, ch. iv. fore, of choice? The obvious answer is that, so far from this being the case, the ideal object may be anything, objective or subjective. The mind may, in Butler's phrase, 'rest in the external things themselves,' and not return to the consideration of its own pleasure in their attainment. And, even if the content of the idea be subjective, that content need not be merely the represented state of feeling. I may choose to do something, or to be something, as well as to feel somehow. As Mr Bradley says, "there never was any one who did not desire many things for their own sake; there never was a typical voluptuary.' " 1 Whence, then, the illusion of 'psychological' Hedonism? It arises, I am convinced, from a confusion between the content or constitution of the moving idea, on the one hand, and the emotional strength by virtue of which the idea moves me to its own realisation, on the other hand; from the confusion between a pleasant idea and an idea of pleasure. The idea must please or attract me; else it will remain unrealised. To move me, it must please me. Pleasure is the mechanism or dynamic of choice. The energy or moving power of an idea lies in the feeling which it arouses. The law of its operation is the law of attraction or fascination: it moves, as one that is loved moves,' by drawing us to itself. There is pleasure in every act of choice. Without this pleasure, the choice would be impossible; and the pleasure must, therefore, be accepted as part of the explanation of the choice. is what Aristotle calls the 'efficient cause,' the moving power or agency. It is more than the concomitant of 1 Ethical Studies, p. 237. It 2 Cf. Bradley (op. cit., p. 235): "A pleasant thought" is "not the same thing with the thought of pleasure"; and C. M. Williams (A Review of Evolutional Ethics, p. 399): "In the imagination of action and its results, or the thought of it, reflection may linger especially on any one of its elements,-on any part of the action and its results as inferred from the analogy of past experience. The pleasure to self is not necessarily the element on which the mind lays stress." the act of choice, which Aristotle acknowledged it to be; it is the dynamic of choice. Even when the choice is a choice of pain (in preference to pleasure) or of something quite different from either pleasure or pain (as in the choice of the scholar or of the man of science), the choice itself is pleasant, or it would be impossible. The idea thrills us, fascinates us, claims us as its own; and it is in this appeal to our feeling that its power to move us lies. Otherwise, the idea (whatever it is an idea of) were impotent; so, it is omnipotent. And, to leave no doubt as to the importance of the function of pleasure in the process of choice, let us add that the law of that process is that the idea which is most attractive, or gives most pleasure, is always the victorious and moving idea. In this sense Mill's words are true, that "desiring a thing and finding it pleasant . . . are . . . in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact.' Mr Sidgwick's statement is also true, that "if by 'pleasant' we mean that which influences choice, exercises a certain attractive force on the will, it is an assertion incontrovertible because tautological, to say that we desire what is pleasant, or even that we desire a thing in proportion as it appears pleasant." " 2 But there is another, and no less essential, element in the process of choice; and therefore another, and no less essential, factor in its explanation. In Mr Bradley's words, "to choose what pleases me most. . . merely means that I choose, and says nothing whatever about what I choose." 3 Pleasure is that which enables me to choose; but it is not therefore also that which I choose the content or object of my choice. A pleasant choice is not necessarily a choice of pleasure. The idea which moves me to its realisation does so because its content (that which it is an idea of) appeals to me more strongly, attracts, interests, or pleases me more than the 1 Utilitarianism, ch. iv. 2 Methods of Ethics, book i. ch. iv. § 2. 3 Ethical Studies, p. 234. |