Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/649

Rh as to the historian it underlies both optimism and pessimism and points the way to meliorism.

In the mind of the economist these terms of course naturally suggested themselves as a consequence of prolonged reflection upon the fundamental conception and significance of utility, and in fact they embody in a conveniently homogenous and undifferentiated form the entire philosophy of utilitarianism. The modern tendency on the part of the economist to recognize consumption as an important factor in economic discussion is a product of the unconscious and unnamed movement above referred to, which is nothing less than a movement that has been slowly progressing for ages for a pain economy towards a pleasure economy.

The first chapter in this essay describes a "Social Commonwealth" and begins with "the transition from a pain economy to a pleasant economy," which last constitutes the condition to a social commonwealth. The old political economy is based upon and only applicable to a pain economy. This is a condition in which the pains of life exceed its pleasures, in which the chief purpose is to escape pain. The principal motive in such a state is fear; the highest aim is to preserve life. The author correctly says that this is the condition under which animals in the wild state exist, and this is why political economy has been found so well adapted to the study of animal life. Man is, in a pain economy, to all intents and purposes, an animal, living under the biologic law of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. There is no thought of "struggling" for anything but self-preservation. This absorbs all energy, and there is not time even to balance the gains and losses of life in order to see whether the play is worth the candle.

The whole attention of society is concentrated on the effort to escape destruction. All motives to action are negative. The least attempt to pursue positive ends is fatal. An army in front of an enemy cannot afford to indulge in festivities. Every man must sleep on his guns with his eyes open, must watch and pry, and listen, and skulk, and feign, and fly, or he is lost. The overthrow of nations and the fall of empires have been the result of temporarily abandoning the defensive attitude before the world had emerged from a pain economy. The pursuit of pleasure is dangerous, and hence the austerity of the traditional moral code. The ethics under which we live is a negative ethics. The decalogue of nature and history like that of Scripture is: "Thou Shalt not."