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-though it will shortly appear that its nature unfits it to be the end on the theory of evolution.

The difficulty arises when we attempt to interpret, by means of pleasure, the increase and development of life to which the course of evolution tends, and which is sometimes put forward as the end which the evolution-theory prescribes for conduct. And the difficulty also meets us when we seek to explain the conception of a maximum of pleasures as the end, by means of the conception of evolution.

As long as we are content to look upon human nature as consisting of constant sources of activity and enjoyment, and having fixed susceptibilities for pleasure and pain, it is easy to adopt the increase of pleasure and diminution of pain as our aim. But the case is altered when we take into consideration the fact that man's actions and sensibilities are subject to indefinite modification. Pleasure, as we have seen, is a feeling of the subject dependent upon the objects, sensory and motor, present at any time to consciousness. These objects alone can be our end; but we may aim at certain of them rather than others, simply on account of their pleasurable accompaniment. It may happen, however, that an object or action at one time pleasurable becomes painful at another time, and that what is now painful ceases to be so and becomes pleasurable. In this case our course of action, if motived by pleasure,

(b) The conditions of

pain:

would have to be entirely changed, our practical ethics revised and reversed. And, although no sudden alteration such as this ever takes place, the theory of evolution shows that a gradual modification of the kind is going on.

The conditions of pleasure and pain, physiolopleasure and gical and psychological, are matter of dispute; and the dispute is complicated by the confusion of the physiological with the psychological problem. It will be evident, however, if only we keep different things clear of each other, that both kinds of explanation are possible, and that they are distinct from one another. The question of the nervous antecedents and concomitants of feeling is one thing, and quite distinct from the question which now arises of the mental antecedents or concomitants of feeling. And here the theories which have attempted a generalisation of the phenomena are, in the light of recent inquiry, mainly two: the theory that pleasure follows, or is the sense of, increase of life, and that which holds it to be the concomitant of unimpeded conscious functioning or of medium activities.

(a) Pleasure not defin

The former theory 1 might be put forward as inable as the dicating how it is possible to institute a connection

1 Cf. Spinoza, Ethica, iii. 11, schol.; Hobbes, Leviathan, i. 6, p. 25; Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, p. 283. Professor Bain's statement is carefully guarded: "A very considerable number of the facts may be brought under the following principle-namely, that states of pleasure are connected with an in

increased

between pleasure and evolution. But it has been sense of already shown that neither the actual facts of life, vitality: nor the tendencies to action, can be so interpreted as to make their nature and development correspond, with any degree of exactness, with pleasure and its increase.1 Nor is it possible to make out that every pain corresponds to a loss of vitality, every pleasure heightens it. On the contrary, the assertion that pleasure-giving actions and life-preserving actions coincide, is due to a hasty generalisation which cannot include all the facts. That it holds throughout a considerable extent is true. Pleasure is, at any rate, a usual accompaniment of the normal processes of the development of life; and pain reaches its climax in death. But yet there is a broad margin of experience for which the generalisation is incorrect. There are numerous cases of painful and pleasurable sensations which cannot be shown to be, respectively, destructive of, and beneficial to, vitality. As Mr Bain, who always keeps the facts in view, admits, with regard to the feelings connected with the five senses, "we cannot contend that the de

crease, and states of pain with an abatement, of some, or all, of the vital functions."

1 As Mr Spencer allows, Psychology, § 126, i. 284: “In the case of mankind, then, there has arisen, and must long continue, a deep and involved derangement of the natural connections between pleasures and beneficial actions, and between pains and detrimental actions."

(B) may be held to depend on medium or

tioning.

gree of augmented vital energy corresponds always with the degree of the pleasure." 1 The same discrepancy may be observed in more complex experiences. The effort after a fuller life, whether physical or mental, even when its ultimate success is not doubtful, may bring more pain than pleasure; while the life which never strains its powers towards the limits of endurance, may experience almost uninterrupted pleasure: but such pleasure is the sure herald of the process of degeneration.

The theory that pleasure follows increased vitality, and pain decreased vitality, is supplemented or normal func- opposed in modern psychology by the theory that feeling depends on function: that pleasure is the concomitant of medium activities,2 or of conscious functioning, which is unimpeded and not overstrained - pain accompanying the opposite condition. The objection urged against this view,

3

1 The Senses and the Intellect, p. 286. The Law of Conservation is incomplete, Mr Bain holds, and must be supplemented by the Law of Stimulation (p. 294).

2 Spencer, Psychology, § 123, i. 277: “ Generally speaking, then, pleasures are the concomitants of medium activities, where the activities are of kinds liable to be in excess or in defect; and where they are of kinds not liable to be excessive, pleasure increases as the activity increases, except where the activity is either constant or involuntary."

3 Hamilton, Lectures, ii. 440:"Pleasure is the reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power of whose energies we are conscious. Pain, a reflex of the overstrained or repressed exertion of such a power." Cf. Aristotle, Eth. N., vii. 12, p. 1153 a 14, x. 4, p. 1174 b 20.

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that it leaves the so-called "passive pleasures out of account, seems to be made without sufficient consideration of what is meant by attributing passivity to pleasure. All that such an expression can denote, would appear to be that, in the pleasurable experience referred to, no exercise of the muscles is implied, not that such an experience can take place without any conscious activity on the part of the subject. At the same time, the theory that pleasure in all cases depends upon function, must be admitted to be obliged to call in the aid of hypothesis in order to explain all the facts. If the generalisation required by the theory can be made out, it must be by emphasising the fact that feeling is never properly regarded as purely passive, but implies subjective reaction; and by supposing that the variation of feeling between pleasure and pain depends on a difference in the character of this subjective reaction. At the same time, the complete accuracy of this generalisation is not of vital importance here, as it is mainly with the feeling which manifestly results from activity or functioning that we are concerned.

of pleasur

objects

Whether pleasure depends upon increase of vital Modification energy, or upon unimpeded or medium function- able characing, it must be subject to modification along with teristics of the conditions under which life may continue and increase, or the modes of activity which may be carried on without opposition and in moderation.

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