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function, as, for instance, visual sensation, and that of its attendant pain, and yet be incapable of comparing this result with that reached in the case of another and heterogeneous mental activity.

manner.

It is evident, first of all, that the method of subjective comparison is, at best, exceedingly rough, and wholly unfit to give a correct judgment when two pleasures are bound up and involved in unlike mental states, such as sensuous impression and intellectual contemplation. The method of objective comparison must clearly be resorted to, but, as yet, this is only possible in a very rough and tentative In inquiring, for example, into the relative value of the pleasures of a particular sense, say hearing, and those of a particular emotion, say that of laughter, we have, as yet, no physiological data for determining the point. If we knew exactly how much and what kind of nervous energy is distributed to the seat of each of these activities, and what is the exact relation of the quantity of the nervous energy of a mental function to that of the pleasure which depends on it, we might to some extent, perhaps, determine the point. At present, however, we have no other means of comparing these unlike orders of pleasure than by roughly measuring the intensity of single feelings, their susceptibility of protraction, and of frequent renewal, together with their liability to partial frustration through the presence of painful concomitants, such as after-fatigue. Now the estimate of relative duration may be fairly exact, but the measurement of intensity being, at best, loose and inexact, the final result can only be very vague and unsatisfactory.

At the same time, while we are far, as yet, from an exact scientific treatment of pleasure and pain, either as a whole, or as an aggregate of different groups, I by no means wish

to say

and healthy organ.

that even now we are unable to determine roughly a good many points in the estimation of the relative quantities of these feelings. Let the question be, for example, whether the various susceptibilities of the eye are fitted to bring more pleasure than pain. We suppose, in the first place, a normal Further, we make abstraction of the relative frequency of the exciting causes, both external and internal, of the eye's pleasures and pains, simply assuming that one is liable to recur as frequently as another. I think that by reasoning in this way one could reach the conclusion that the pleasure which accompanies the various impressions of light and colour, vastly exceeds all the pain which may arise through unfavourable or excessive stimulation, &c. It is doubtful, indeed, whether any single retinal impression of moderate intensity is disagreeable merely as a sensation, and the pains of discordant combinations are not to be compared with those of musical dissonances. There remain, then, the pains of rapid flickering light, of excessive light, and of over protracted retinal activity. Nobody, I imagine, would say that these would overbalance all the varied pleasures of light and colour of which the eye is susceptible. And if we include the pleasures and pains of ocular movement and of visual form, the superiority of the former class of feelings becomes still more apparent. Let the reader compare the number of pleasures derived from all the varieties of graceful, pretty, and beautiful forms, with that of the pains of too rapid and jerking ocular movement, and of the forms-if such there are-which can be said to be intrinsically ugly.

As in the case of visual sensations, so in that of certain emotional susceptibilities, a balance might, one conceives, be struck with tolerable accuracy in favour of pleasure. Take the group of social affections, including not only love,

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sympathy, and pity, but their opposites--dislike, hate, antipathy, anger, and revenge. Supposing we know nothing about the comparative frequency of the exciting causes in actual life, a consideration of the nature of the feelings themselves would appear to lead us to decide in favour of their pleasurable character. If we reflect on the sources of pure enjoyment opened up in all forms of love and sympathy with others' happiness, the positive gratification attending the reception of all modes of affection and sympathy from others, the extent to which this sympathy expands, both in intensity and in duration, our individual pleasures, while it softens the pains; if, again, we remember that our sympathy with others' pains, tends to contribute a distinct element of pleasure, namely, the gratification of tender emotion or pity; if, finally, we reflect that even in the supposedly painful states of antipathy, anger, and retaliation, there is a distinct ingredient of pleasure which often serves to give the dominant character to the emotion, we shall see that there is much to be said for a favourable estimate of the group of social feelings.1 One may, at least, urge that these considerations have as much weight as those put forward by Hartmann in support of the conclusion that sociability brings a surplus of suffering.

Yet, while in these cases, and probably in others also, the consideration of the susceptibilities themselves, apart from their exciting objects, would appear to lead to a conclusion favourable to pleasure, it must be admitted that in

1 The reader will see that I have here confined myself to the phenomena of emotional impulses in actual exercise. If we included the facts of ungratified social impulse and of desire, our conclusion would, no doubt, have to be modified. So, again, I have not included envy, which, so far as it is more than a mode of dislike, is a form of personal ambition and desire.

other cases the balance would seem to fall no less distinctly on the other side. Nobody, for example, would say that there is any pleasure attending the function of the dental nerve which is worth being considered in view of the torments which arise through a disorder in this function. So, too, with respect to the organic sensations generally, it is indisputable that, supposing the exciting causes to be equally frequent, the vague pleasures which accompany the proper fulfilment of the function (as the feelings of unimpeded circulation, respiration, and digestion) are wholly unworthy to be compared with the deep and intense pains which arise from disarrangements in these functions, as indigestion, hindrance to respiration, local inflammation, &c. Only it is to be remembered that here we are supposing the conditions of health and of disease to be equally frequent.

Let us now turn to the other part of our inquiry, namely, the relative quantities of pleasure which attend different orders of mental activity. It might, I think, be shown in certain cases, that the whole pleasure accompanying a given kind of function is greater or less than that which accompanies another function. For example, one might conclude with sufficient certainty that, given a fair amount of capacity both for the lower sensuous enjoyments and for the higher intellectual gratifications of science and art, the latter greatly exceed the former. Even though it be questioned whether a single moment of supreme intellectual delight, equals in intensity a moment of wild sensuous indulgence-and this may well be doubted-the range and variety of the higher pleasures, the possibility of protracting them indefinitely through a constant variation of elements, their freedom from the after-feeling of satiety and exhaustion (not to speak of other forms of misery) which accompanies intense sensual

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gratification, their susceptibility of indefinite expansion and enrichment through the grateful sympathy of others, these and other aspects appear to my mind to give to the pleasures of culture a clear superiority in point of quantity above the lower gratifications.1

Yet such a result as this would have but little bearing on our main question. It would be more to the point if we could show that the balance of pleasure, which seems to fall to a particular region of mental activity, as, for example, the aesthetic emotions, outweighs the balance of pain, which is apparently the net result of another order of activity, say the organic sensations. How far this is practicable I do not venture to say. Yet it may safely be said that such a process of calculation would, at the best, be a very rough one.

This leads us to the reflection that our present method, rough and conjectural at the best, though not, perhaps, absolutely worthless, is anything but satisfactory to a scientific mind. In addition to its being so rough and tentative, it is an exceedingly abstract method, and leaves out of sight the actual distribution of the causes and occasions of pleasure and pain in life. It could only tell us, were it a practicable method, how pleasure and pain would be related if circumstances were just as favourable to the production of the one as to that of the other. Since, however, our object is to find out what the actual order of things, or the average condition of the human mind, really is, this line of inquiry is plainly of little practical use.

It might at first be supposed that the defects of this method would be obviated by starting with a biological conception of pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain, says the

1 For a fuller demonstration of the quantitative superiority of the refined over the sensual pleasures, see the note at the close of this chapter.