/view that pleasure is the sole motive to action.

We

are not prompted to action solely by feelings of pleasure and pain, or ideas of pleasure and pain. It is a psychological fallacy to claim that we are. Generally speaking, this fallacy is based upon the following misconceptions :

(1) Hedonistic psychologists hold that all feelings must be either pleasurable or painful, and that pleasure-pain constitutes the only class of feeling. This hypothesis, however, has not been proved to the satisfaction of a large number of psychologists.

(2) Hedonistic psychologists confuse impulses and desires with pleasurable and painful feelings. There is frequently present in consciousness, as we have pointed out, a more or less distinct idea of movement, together with a tendency toward it, a feeling of impulsion toward it, "a pressure from within, outward." This impulsion is felt as pleasurable until it reaches a certain point, when it may become painful. According as we unduly emphasize either the pleasurable or painful aspects of such states of consciousness as these, we shall assert either that pleasure or that pain is the invariable antecedent of action. But we must guard against wholly identifying the feeling of impulsion with pleasure or pain; the impulse contains more than these elements, as we have pointed out above. Whether the physiological cause of the feeling-impulse is a nervous current running from the brain, or whether it is the excita

tion produced in the brain by the resulting movements in the muscles, joints, and skin, or whether it is both, does not concern us here. One thing seems certain: the impulse on its mental side is more than pleasure and pain.

(3) Hedonistic psychologists also identify the affirmation or fiat of the will with pleasure, and the negation or veto with pain. They find that when the mind decides a case, there is a "tone of feeling present, which, since pleasure-pains are the only feelings possible, must be a form of pleasure or pain. But though pleasures and pains are frequently fused with the state of consciousness which characterizes an act of will (in our sense), they are not the only elements contained in it, nor are they the all-important ones.

(4) Hedonistic psychologists also notice that the cognitive elements preceding an act are always changing, while the feeling-element remains the same. Hence they come to regard the feelings as the invariable antecedents of acts, and set them up as the motives of action. They make two mistakes here They regard all feelings as tones or shades of pleasure-pain; and they conclude that because a certain aspect of consciousness precedes action, it must be the motive or cause of action.

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(5) Hedonistic psychologists also believe that all acts are accompanied or followed by pleasure-pains, and therefore conclude that these must be the motives. But, as we have shown, it does not necessarily follow

that because pleasure-pains are the effects or results of acts they are therefore also the causes.

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12. The Pleasure of the Race as the Motive.But perhaps our opponents will say, We do not mean that the pleasure of self is the end or motive, but the pleasure of the race, the greatest happiness of the greatest number.1

We may urge the same objections against this view as against the other. It cannot be proved that all human beings strive after the pleasure of the race, that the idea of racial pleasure is the motive of human action. And to say that they unconsciously strive after the happiness of the race is as objectionable, in a certain sense, as to say that they unconsciously strive after their own pleasure.

13. Pleasure as the End realized by All Action. Our conclusion, then, is this: If by the assertion, Pleasure, or happiness, is the end of life or the highest good, we mean that feelings of pleasure-pain, in some form or other, are the motives of human action, the theory cannot stand. Let us now interpret hedonism in a different sense.2 Let us take it to mean that pleasure is the end or purpose of all action in the sense that all living beings realize pleasure, and that the realization of pleasure is the object of their existence.

But the first question which forces itself upon us here is this, Is pleasure really the result of all action? It will have to be proved not only that

1 Mill, Utilitarianism, pp. 22–23. 2 See chap. viii, § 1 (2).

pleasure is a result of action, but the result, i.e., that all animals get more pleasure out of life than pain. We have already seen that Aristotle regards pleasure as the consequence or concomitant of normal or natural activity, while pain is linked with abnormal or injurious action. Spencer declares that "pains are the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism, while pleasures are the correlatives of acts conducive to its welfare." By conducive and injurious he means "tending to continuance or increase of life," and the reverse.1 Bain teaches that "states of pleasure are connected with an increase, and states of pain with an abatement, of some or all, of the vital functions."2 Although there are differences in expression, all these statements evidently mean the same, namely, that "pleasure is significant of activities which are beneficial, and pain is significant of what is harmful, either to the total organism of the individual or of the species, or to the particular organ primarily involved." 8

Although this theory is not free from objections, let us accept it for the sake of argument. Let us assume that pleasure accompanies beneficial activity, and that pain is the concomitant of all action that is harmful and dangerous. Functions, then, which are

1 Psychology, § 124; Data of Ethics, § 33.

2 The Senses and the Intellect, 4th edition, chap. iv, § 18, p. 303. 3 Ladd, Psychology, p. 191. See also Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, pp. 177 ff.; Külpe, Psychology, English translation, pp. 267 ff.; Marshall, Pleasure, Pain, and Esthetics, especially pp. 169 ff. 4 See Ladd, Külpe, Sidgwick, Marshall.

useful are followed by pleasure, while those which are injurious have pain as their consequence. But would this prove that pleasure is the end of all animal existence, either in the sense in which we speak of vision being the end or purpose of the eye, or in the sense that God or some intelligent principle in nature has set up as the goal the pleasure of living beings?

When we speak of ends we may merely mean that a certain result is obtained, that life, for example, is tending in a certain direction. Thus, we say that an organ realizes a purpose. The eye is a purposive or teleological mechanism; it has a function to perform which is useful to the animal, it serves a purpose, realizes an end.

Now, is pleasure the end of life in this sense? Pleasure or happiness is a result of human existence, one of the results, a result among others. But how can we say that it is the highest end, that all other factors and functions are means to this? We can say that perception, imagination, reasoning, willing, etc., are means to pleasure, but can we not say with equal right that pleasure is a means to these? How can we prove that pleasure is the final goal of life? Why pick out one element of psychic life and say that the realization of this element is the goal toward which everything is making, the end-all and be-all of animal existence? Would it not be like claiming that seeing is the highest goal because normal beings possess an organ of sight? Would it not be more

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