Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/273

 PLEASURE AS ETHICAL STANDARD 259

conscious experience is felt experience, is either pleasant or pain- ful, why may he not state all experience from the side of pleasure or pain ? Mill declares that he can. The competent, those who can recognize the subtle variations of pleasantness, shall do so. And this is the weakness of the doctrine. One does not tell a carpenter to so pursue his trade as to effect the greatest amount of pleasantness for the world, and so for himself. One is not taught in logic to so manipulate propositions as to bring the maximum of pleasure to men through his researches. Even the musician is not instructed to play so as to please, nor the judge to measure out the law upon the basis of the greatest pleasure he can effect through his decision. Later in his life we find Mill writing : " I never indeed wavered in the convic- tion that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed upon some object other than their own happiness : on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some act or pursuit followed, not as a means, but as itself an ideal ; and aiming thus at some- thing else, they find happiness by the way the enjoyments of life (such was my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing exami- nation. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it as the purpose of life." Happiness is to be had, but happiness cannot be the standard, and so cannot be the end. So with the carpenter : he must so pursue his trade as to bring the maximum of happiness to men, and if he cannot point to benefits of this kind, he is socially condemned. He may not serve his generation ; he may spend his efforts in inventing tools and making designs which will not be used for generations ; but somewhere a pleasure lurks upon all good work. So with the logician : surely, it is a pleasure for him to see things in their relations, and to set the world right. So with the musician ; so.